Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Dr. Matt Panozzo says teachers are life-long learners
60 Plays21 days ago
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-panozzo/
Website: https://www.drpreads.com/
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Recommended
Transcript
Matt's Journey into Education
00:00:33
Speaker
education at large.
00:01:17
Speaker
Hey Matt, it's so awesome to have you on. um As we get started, we always like to ask our guests to tell us a little bit about what got you on your journey, um a defining moment that put you on your path.
00:01:34
Speaker
Well, so that's quite a loaded question. um I feel like I've accidentally fallen into education for a number of reasons and each stepping stone I've taken has helped me embrace education more fully. So it all started with a high school advisory day where these two upperclassmen came into my sophomore advisory and they were like hey join Ready Set Teach and you'll get a parking space next year.
Experiences and Enthusiasm in Education
00:02:08
Speaker
I was like I want a parking space so I can drive to campus and
00:02:12
Speaker
I entered the Ready Set Teach program where I learned a little bit about education, was paired at the time with a seventh grade social studies teacher as a mentor. And I got to visit the school roughly six hours every week in order to get a sense of what teachers were doing. And I just kind of continued that enthusiasm for education into my undergraduate career and then entered high school, middle school, and now higher education.
00:02:43
Speaker
Wow, that's amazing. So um' I'm actually really curious, what were some of the things you remember from that first time in that program that made you want to go into teaching?
00:02:57
Speaker
I mean, it's just the study of learning is quite fascinating, especially now as a researcher looking at kind of like the neuroscience behind learning.
00:03:09
Speaker
But I view education as this process of making memories with our students.
Storytelling and Memory in Learning
00:03:15
Speaker
That's pretty much been the focus of how I lesson plan or when I engage students in a particular classroom text. It's how can I make this memorable? And I feel like I just had that throughout my own schooling experience. But it's also what I loved during Ready, Set, Teach and what I loved in the different ah non-classroom-based spaces that I engaged in during my undergraduate, because I worked at youth centers, a camp for children with special needs and disabilities, and I worked in creative writing settings. So all of those different aspects created new memories, and with those memories, it reinforced different learning outcomes.
00:04:03
Speaker
I love that. Honestly, I was a high school English and journalism teacher and it's all about storytelling. I feel like that's how we get kids to be super engaged in all the things that might not be as engaging. So to that end, can you share with us how your storytelling and memory making helps to create a learner-centered space. What does it look like, feel like, smell like? like what What are the feels when kids walk into this space that make it different than maybe a traditional space? but The best way I can describe this is just it's a hot mess.
00:04:44
Speaker
like
00:04:49
Speaker
And Crystal, you might be able to speak to some of this. ah But yeah, like when a space is student-centered, there is the messiness of them shouting out because there's an epiphany moment. Now I loved, one of the memories I have is working through Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham City Jail. We were watching a video on the Birmingham riots and I was at the front of the classroom next to the projector. The video's thumbnail was showing.
00:05:23
Speaker
And the student just goes, are you a time traveler? And I was like, no. But in any other classroom, that student would have been asked to like, oh, you know don't shout out. Raise your hand. Why are you asking such a ridiculous question? But I followed up with like, what bring what made you say that? like Well, in the thumbnail video, like that person looks exactly like you.
00:05:49
Speaker
And I paused and I looked at it and I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. To the point that I took a photo of it, messaged it to my, you know, family's group chat. And I was like, Ooh, was I born in the wrong generation or like, am I in a double life? It's like those
Success Stories and Innovative Teaching
00:06:05
Speaker
types of memories stay with the students. And in fact, like I've taught the letter from Birmingham city jail pretty much every year I've been a teacher and Prior to moving into higher education, I had my first batch of seniors, or my first batch of seventh graders come back as seniors. And one of the first things a handful of them said to me was, we just aced our AP exam because of what you taught us in seventh grade. And it was all these questions about letter from Birmingham City Jail and what was going on, how they should
00:06:42
Speaker
dissect it for ethos, pathos, and logos. And that felt so good that it's like, okay, what is that? Five, six years later, they're like, oh yeah, Dr. Panazzo created this learning environment. Whereas seventh graders, they were engaging in a text that was probably more appropriate for you know juniors and seniors in high school, but they engaged with it, remembered it, and were able to process it five years later.
00:07:13
Speaker
I love that story and I do know firsthand for working with you just going into your classroom and and seeing what was on the walls and hearing the conversations that you were having. And also you're one of those humanities teachers who just has this amazing ability to adopt new technology and I don't always see that in humanities teachers.
Creative Student Assessments
00:07:38
Speaker
I'm not saying that, you know, that they don't, but you were just one of those humanities teachers that I just found quite remarkable because you're always open to, let's do something new with video. Let's do something new with audio. And I just found that to you're just so open-minded and you embrace the hot mess. And I think your kids benefited from that because you were just so easy going and open to just, well, let's see what happens. We'll see. And I know your kids loves your class.
00:08:06
Speaker
um But I would love to hear from you just some more of your ideas about assessment, because um I could tell just by the evidence that we're all on the bulletin boards in your classroom, your kids weren't just doing essay writing and taking pencil paper tests. I mean, those things are okay, but I know they were doing more creative type of output of their knowledge. And could you share some of those ideas with us?
00:08:32
Speaker
of this, this becomes a lot to unpack slowly. So I, I just have like past, I use this word jokingly trauma of the high school English teachers asking multiple choice questions about like, what color was her dress in chapter two? You know, what was on the table in the dining room with this scene? And it's like, I don't know, like, that's not the stuff that sticks in my brain, and it's also not the thing that tells me whether or not I'm a good reader. So as I've grown as a teacher, I've moved further and further away from multiple choice tests or formulaic essays, and I try to create unique spins. So I've done a ton of different projects. So in place of doing a traditional reading log, one of my favorite activities was doing reading battleship.
00:09:26
Speaker
um where the students were all partnered up and they created battleship boards. And every, I think it was 25 or 50 pages that they read, they could take a shot at their partner's board, just like the traditional game battleship. And then we also tried to incentivize them more. So the seventh graders, every time they finished a book, we could take a shot against the sixth graders battleship.
00:09:56
Speaker
And so I had a bulletin board of you know the battleship guesses, and then the sixth grade English teacher had hers as well. And we ended up reading a ton of books just from that gamified learning experience. So that was really fun. Another project, and this will be published in a journal of integrated technology lessons and teaching.
00:10:23
Speaker
where we used Makey Makey boards to create interactive posters after reading Edgar Allan Poe short stories. And that was a fun way to really look at how a singular text can be represented in multiple ways, because we looked at the original source work. you know We looked at the Simpsons. What is that? A haunted house of horror or treehouse of terror or something like that, whatever that episode is where they do all the Edgar Allan Poe.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was true. Yes. think yeah yeah yeah um And so we looked at that. And then it was like, okay, how can you create your own immersive moment with, you know, block coding? And how does that help you understand the story more? So we've done stuff like that. We've also done instead of traditional essays, you know, for book reports, I've done several projects where students have written letters. So one of them was a choice reading project where they had to read the book and then we did a service learning component with it where if they liked the book they could actually buy a new copy and donate it to a local children's hospital with the letter and so you know they had an authentic audience like hey you know I hear you're going through treatment I wanted to share this book with you
00:11:49
Speaker
you know, because of X, Y, and Z. And so they were trying to talk about like why they love the book, why they thought it was meaningful. And it was a way to, you know, give back to the community as, you know, kids their age are going through, you know, the challenging experience of cancer treatment. Another thing we did was trying to find ah more recent fiction and nonfiction texts surrounding the Holocaust and recommending them to the Holocaust Museum Houston's collection. They have these different book bins that can be checked out to local school districts or local schools and classrooms.
00:12:33
Speaker
And so it was this idea of like, okay, I see what you're doing at the Holocaust Museum. This is what I learned in Ellie Wiesel's Night, but I found this book that I think would appeal to, you know, students because it's in a graphic novel format. Or there was this one book that looked at, and I can't think of his name, but it was the religious figure who was a part of the plot to assassinate Hitler. And so like they brought up Like, ooh, it's a very interesting moral dilemma,
Preparing Future Educators
00:13:04
Speaker
you know, and things of that nature. So it was a lot of fun ways for the students to engage and see themselves as a part of sort of this relay race of intelligence where, you know, there's so much that's happened in the past and they want to learn from it, but what are they going to carry over for the future generations?
00:13:25
Speaker
So now that you're helping helping to educate, future teachers and teacher preparation program. What do you do to help them to embrace this mindset of a learner centered space or um alternative types of assessment? And do you ever have any students who kind of dig their heels in and want to stay more traditional? And how do you address that? Well, I feel like teacher preparation programs, we do have to maintain this
00:13:57
Speaker
balance of the tradition, but like a teacher centered approach, but then also a student centered approach. So I just try to bring in the creativity beyond that. So like, you know, tweaking a discussion board from, you know, regurgitate these facts or, you know, talk about this article.
00:14:21
Speaker
to I actually like want students to take ownership of it. So like right now I have two assignments out. One is that I wrote up a little scenario that I'm a disgruntled first year teacher in, you know, the work room of their school. And I'm just really upset because my students aren't understanding. There's something about vowels. And I was like,
00:14:47
Speaker
You shared that you had a great vowel lesson, you created an anchor chart, you know, create that anchor chart and share it with me on how I could do it with my own students. And so that gets them thinking about like, okay, they're imagining themselves in their future classroom space.
00:15:05
Speaker
What does that look like? Not only am I assessing them on their vowel knowledge, I'm also assessing them on you know how clearly can you create an anchor chart. I'm assessing them on their collaboration and professional communication as they're having to email me as a peer. And so it's just getting them to see those skills in a new light.
00:15:27
Speaker
Another task I have them doing is exploring interactive activities and they're having to record themselves doing a video with one of those activities.
00:15:39
Speaker
um
00:15:42
Speaker
But yeah, I think I think you just work with what you have.
00:15:48
Speaker
First of all, that sounds awesome. What I wonder, as somebody who went through a teacher preparation program a very long time ago, and it it wasn't it wasn't what I actually needed to do my job well. um So what I'm wondering is, what are some of the things that you really try to do so that your students feel well prepared for the classroom?
00:16:13
Speaker
for these you know new learner-centered spaces with the way technology changes, how how have you adjusted to make sure that they get what they need to be successful? I mean, I think there is no easy answer to that because there is no telling where our students will end up. um like
00:16:41
Speaker
I mean, Every classroom and every school has a different level of resources available. And I think for our pre-service teachers, the more classrooms we can get them into, the more they realize that they have to think create creatively about what's at stake. And the other aspect to that question is,
00:17:11
Speaker
You know, i I don't know this is personal opinion, but I don't know that a single bachelor's degree is enough to prepare our teachers adequately for the school spaces. I mean, that's why I ended up going back for a master's degree. You know, I had the years of working in youth camps and youth centers and two years of student teaching as a high school student.
00:17:38
Speaker
I studied English, you know, I knew how to teach Shakespeare, but when I got into my first teaching placement, I didn't know how to raise students, you know, who were two, three, two or three years behind grade level in terms of reading. So I went back for a master's and a reading specialist certification. And then You know, I changed schools to a middle school and it's like, okay, I was still unprepared, but I was going through my doctoral studies. So I was able to pull relevant research from that. I mean, to best prepare our teachers, we have to help them see that their career is going to mean being a lifelong learner.
Experiential Learning and Teaching Advice
00:18:23
Speaker
I think that's so well said. And I think that that is the answer. um A lot of what you just described is basically how my early career was too. And I think I had a pretty traditional, and like my undergraduate was only, I have a BA in British and American literature with a minor in writing. So I didn't think I was going to be a teacher when I went for my undergraduate. And then I went back for my master's in education. And I just think that,
00:18:52
Speaker
I wish that there was like what you've described like the work that you have them thinking about how they would teach to somebody else was just so much more practical than a lot of the theory I had to sit through. And I think what was frustrating was the theory didn't align with my experience in I taught in New York City in like the the inner city on a very um low socioeconomic um minority title one situation um early in my career and so it definitely made me the teacher I became, but I cried a lot my first year. I was so ill prepared and
00:19:36
Speaker
i just I wish that there was advice we could give new teachers that legitimately makes them feel confident the first day they walk into school. I just i just don't know if there is really a way to do that like perfectly without actually being in schools, doing the learning.
00:19:56
Speaker
doing the learning you know like There's something to be said for experiential learning and just getting the learning while you're actually teaching. yeah and i mean So the other thing that I try to do with my current undergraduates, and I've done this for the past two years, is every time we bring some sort of instructional video into our lesson, I preface it with, this is your mentor teacher. I want you to look at, you know how is she doing this? you know How can you support her? If you're in this classroom with her,
00:20:34
Speaker
you know which students are you going to go to that need help? And we try to identify like the body language of the students who are disconnecting or not engaged. And that really helps them start feeling involved in the space, because when they go off to their mentor teachers, you know I don't get to see all 76 classrooms. I maybe get to see one or two per semester.
00:20:59
Speaker
ah So yeah, just trying to imagine them in this space but also have that singular moment that we can process together.
00:21:12
Speaker
All right. Well, I so appreciate your thoughtfulness with these answers, Matt. If you could shout out thinking about all the folks who have impacted um impacted you in your career and your journey along the way, are there folks that stand out that we should be following, that we should be aware of,
00:21:31
Speaker
who helped you get to where you are?
Community and Online Presence
00:21:34
Speaker
ah This list is, I could go on and on about all these people. I've always been surrounded by great colleagues who expand the practice, who, you know, engage in the discussion. So I would love to shout out Jennifer, Kim, Natalie, Lori, Karen, Pete and Rachel. um I'm sure there's more crystal, you know,
00:22:01
Speaker
There's so many people that I have been surrounded by. Oh, Robbie. um Just people who who feel that passion. And I've said this in other platforms, but it's when we find our people and surround ourselves by those people, that is what keeps us going, especially when we feel drained and depleted. It's our little group of people reminding us of our why.
00:22:29
Speaker
Well, thank you for sharing that. And I know some of those people and I agree with you. Um, where can our listeners find you online if they would like to learn more about you? Uh, I'm currently only active on LinkedIn. So you can check me out there and my website, www.drpreads.com.
00:22:52
Speaker
Well, thank you. We will put that in the show notes. And if you're listening, Please check out Dr. P as the kids call him Dr. P. So check out Matt Panazzo online and we appreciate your time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you.
00:23:09
Speaker
We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio dot.com. You can follow us on X at MasteryForAll and LinkedIn in our Mastery Portfolio page.
00:23:31
Speaker
We'd love for you to engage with us. If you'd like to be a guest in the show or know someone who would be an inspiring guest, please fill out the survey found in the show notes. And we'd love your feedback. Please write a review on your favorite podcasting app.