131. Season 4 Premiere: New Ideas + More of the Good Stuff

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Wow, we’re entering the 4th season of this podcast! Each year, it has evolved to better your listening experience. I’m so excited to tell you what’s coming in the new season! 

More Unit Dreaming 

What started as a series has generated a lot of enthusiasm from listeners and unit dreaming guests alike. Additionally, the department teams I work with for my Curriculum Boot Camp events always crave more examples of unit outlines. So, unit dreaming episodes will be a regular feature of the show. I plan to start with one per month, and we can always expand from there.

For more “What does this look like in action?” support around unit planning and building, my YouTube channel has a “Unit Planning in Action” playlist dedicated to designing sample units. If 5-minute walkthrough videos of examples is your thing, check it out! 

If you like a good challenge, follow or connect with me on LinkedIn, where I share a #UnitDreaming spark at the start of each week. Add a comment to tell me how you would build the spark into a unit or coach a teacher to build a unit around the spark. Or use it as a private journal prompt and develop what Dr. Gholnecsar Muhammad calls “curriculum fluency.” (Here’s our episode with Dr. Muhammad.) Don’t worry about missing previously posted #UnitDreaming sparks, you can check out all of the past sparks here.   


More Guests

Now that I have a walkthrough/mini tutorial-style YouTube channel, I would love to make more space for the brilliance of guests on the show. Many guests record 4-6 months (or more) in advance of the episode air date because there’s so many awesome people to interview. 

Furthermore, I have declined to interview prospective guests because of my narrow focus on curriculum design during season 3. While I will continue to focus on things that will really move the needle for you within the topics I specialize in, I also want to bring back a focus on student voice and co-creation in the realms of unit design, yes, but also on “voice” in classroom discussions as an instructional practice as well as “voice” in co-creating school policies and participating in school governance alongside adults (which is my research background).      


More Flexibility 

I also want to be less rigid in my scheduling. I used to alternate solo shows and guest episodes in an every other week cadence. This season, I want to create solo shows as I have something important to share, and not feel like I need to record a solo show just to fit the schedule I made. This may mean some months have 3 solo shows and others have none. We’ll see how it goes! 


I want to hear from you! 

What do you think of this plan? Nothing is set in stone. (See “More Flexibility.”) And ultimately, I want this podcast to be as helpful as possible to you! I know there are podcasts I listen to that I think “I want more solo shows from the host!” and others where I want more guests. So, tell me what your ideal ratio of solo:guest shows are, share the topics or questions you want to be addressed. Feel free to reply in the comments or send me an email at [email protected]. 


Just so you never miss an episode…make sure you click or tap “Follow” on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for continuing on this beautiful ride with me. Here’s to Season 4!  

If you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 131 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT
0:00:02 - Lindsay Lyons
I'm educational justice coach Lindsay Lyons, and here on the time for teachership podcast, we learn how to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice and build capacity for shared leadership. I'm a former teacher leader turned instructional coach. I'm striving to live a life full of learning, running, baking, traveling and parenting, because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings If you're a principal assistant, baking, traveling and parenting because we can be rockstar educators and be full human beings If you're a principal assistant, superintendent, curriculum director, instructional coach or teacher who enjoys nerding out about co-creating curriculum with students. I made this show for you. Here we go. 

In this episode, we are talking about what to expect in season four. I cannot believe it's season four already and I am so excited to talk to you about what will stay the same, what we'll do a little bit more of and what might shift a little bit. Welcome to the season four premiere. We are talking about new ideas, talking about how to do more of the good stuff, and I am just going to get right to it. I say this will be a short episode, but I sometimes ramble after I've said that and that makes that untrue, so let's see how it goes. So more things. I really just want a lot of more. So first, I want to do more unit dreaming episodes. 

This started as a series for the summer and it generated a ton of energy, excitement, enthusiasm, both from the guests themselves who were like, wow, this was such an incredible experience and now I have this really cool thing but also from people who have been listening, people who have had early previews of the episode before they've gone live. Additionally, the department teams that I work with in my curriculum bootcamp events. They always crave more examples of people going through this process. So we go through it as a department, but they're like I want to see either sample copies of unit outlines or I want to see people kind of grapple with these important questions that we're grappling with. I want to be able to trust the process, but I'm not sure that I can come in and do that like right away, same day. So maybe give us some pre-work and share an episode with us, share a variety to choose from that kind of thing. So I think this really will both support you as listeners, will support I say both three ways. Here we go. Both of them were you as listeners. Support the guests who come on and actually get to develop a unit with me and the, the paying clients just get like an extra boost and extra bonus. So I think this is like a three-way win here. And so unit dreaming episodes, I think, will now be a regular feature of the show. I plan to start with about one per month and we can always expand them from there. But I think having at least one per month gives us that consistent example or case study of what this could look like. If you are a fan of what this could look like in action kind of things, you can definitely look at my YouTube channel, which has a new playlist that I'm calling unit planning in action. 

This is really dedicated to me going through the process of designing sample units and parts of units. So, let's say, part of the backwards planning approach is like rubric development from standard. So how do I take a standard and develop a really cool rubric? Okay, then from there, maybe I get to a unit arc, and so I'm like, okay, well, I talk about the phrase build the base. What does a build the base, part of a unit arc? And so I'm like, okay, well, I talk about the phrase build the base. What does a build the base part of a unit arc even mean and how is it different from the hook or the social studies one I need? You know, I need a math one. 

I try to span a lot of different departments to just kind of scroll through and look at the different subjects. I also do think that the process is content agnostic. So even if you see an example of one that is not your subject area or a subject area of someone you coach, totally still relevant in terms of the process. So if you are a person who are like yeah, I listen to this podcast sometimes, or I like the podcast but I just don't have time for it all the time, I am more of like a five minute video tutorial person Definitely check out the YouTube channel. If five minute walkthrough videos are your thing like, absolutely go ahead and check it out. Another thing that I think you might like that is related to this. This is kind of like podcast plus. If you like a good challenge or want some interactivity where we can kind of get into the weeds with like what might this look like? Let's do a little mini practice. 

I have been sharing on LinkedIn under the hashtag unit, dreaming, all one word. Little sparks of inspiration. Maybe it's a podcast. I listened to an article. I read an image, a quote, something like that, and I'm like, hey, I think this would be a great unit. Someone go for it. Like, tell me what it is. And a lot of people have told me they're a little shy, they just want to like it. Or maybe do a private journaling with themselves. Like what would I, might I do? The spark is helpful for me in thinking about it, but I know that I want to comment so far and that is totally okay. So if you are a person who wants to comment, please tell me how you would build the spark into a unit, or how you might coach a teacher to build the unit around the spark that I've shared. Or you can totally use it as like a private journal prompt and kind of think to yourself what could this look like in my dimension or my role? And really what you're doing there is you're developing what Dr Goldie-Mohamed calls curriculum fluency, and I'll link in the blog post to this episode to the episode we did with her, which is just, she's so brilliant and fantastic. If you are a person who has a little bit of fear of missing out and you're like what this has been going on. I need to go scroll through all of the previous posts. You can absolutely do that. I will link to that as well in the blog post, or you can go to LinkedIn and search for the hashtag unit dreaming. 

Now, another thing that I want to do in season four is have more guests. Now that I do have the space on YouTube for the walkthrough mini tutorial style stuff for the unit development, I think I want to use the podcast space to just interview more brilliant guests, because people bring their brilliance to this. I mean, I learned so much selfishly from all my guests, and many guests honestly record like four to six months, sometimes even more, in advance of when the episode airs, and sometimes that's really inconvenient for them, and the reason is because there's so many awesome people to interview, but I've been using this kind of every other cadence and so we can only record so many, this kind of every other cadence, and so we can only record so many. Furthermore, I have had to decline, or have chosen to I should say, decline to interview prospective guests or people who get pitched to me as guests, because I want to preserve my focus on what's going to be most helpful for you. I will continue to focus on what I really think is going to move the needle for you and within the topics that I've historically covered right and the topics that are kind of in my wheelhouse and that I specialize in. For season three it has been really curriculum design and that focus will continue. 

But I do want to expand a bit back to my research background, which is in student voice and co-creation. So, specifically, we've talked about this a little bit in terms of the realm of unit design and unit planning protocols and how do we plan to really co-create the ultimate unit with the students. But how do we plan in advance so that we can have that space for co-creation? We've kind of done that. But what I've done in earlier seasons of the podcast like one, two early on, and I want to bring back and I also want to bring back honestly in my professional practice as well I'm really looking forward to working with some districts on amplifying voice in class discussions, for example, as an instructional practice Like what does it look like to do, you know, have a pedagogy of student voice, as Shane Zafira and Jamila Dugan talk about in their book Street Data, where 75% of the class time is students talking in a very deep, meaningful way. Right, the learning is deep, the sense of belonging is present, where everyone feels like they can participate all that kind of good stuff. As well as what my research background in terms of my dissertation research was co-creating school policies and participating in school governance alongside adults. So how do we get that for youth? And I would love to kind of expand that back out a little bit. 

And finally, I just really want to be more flexible, I think in all parts of my life, but in terms of the scheduling of the podcast, I used to do that alternating solo show, guest episode every other week, cadence. This season I want to create solo shows when up with something just to kind of fit the schedule that I myself made. I think sometimes, you know, this might mean that I have a lot to say or a lot of questions have come up with the people that I've coached and I want to share that with you. And and I think that is honestly where the best episode ideas come from is when it's like, okay, this is generated by people who are doing this work and it has been authentic and I want to just kind of bring the learning and extend the learning outward and bring it to the show. So some months may have like three solo shows and others might have none, right and we'll. We'll just kind of see how it goes and and I just want to let go of that like rigidity, and so I'm hoping that, listeners, you will be okay with the fact that it might not alternate every other. I'm sure very few people other than me even care about that. But I also, I think, as a last point, want to really I want to hear from you because I want to know what you think of the plan. So nothing is set in stone, right, as we just talked about, and ultimately, I want this podcast to be as helpful as possible to you. 

I listened to a lot of different podcasts and some of them I have been like man, I just want to hear more from the host. Like I love their solo shows and I get so much from them and I think they're trying to balance the you know, the solo with the guests and they just they. I sometimes think they're brilliant. It's just more in the solo shows and others it's like no, you have great guests and you have great conversations with the guests and that generative conversation where you build off of each other is the thing I want. And so, like it just depends, right, it depends, I think, on the listener, and so everyone might be different, but it also depends on the host and the type of show and the content and all of that. So I want you to tell me. You can email me hello at lindsaybethlyonscom. You can drop a note in the comments section of this blog post at lindsaybethlyonscom, slash 131. And, as a final note, as you're listening in your little podcast platform right now, if you could just hit that follow button on your podcast platform, that will make sure that you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for continuing on this beautiful ride with me. 

Here is to season four. Let's do this. If you like this episode, I bet you'll be just as jazzed as I am about my coaching program for increasing student-led discussions in your school. Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan talk about a pedagogy of student voice. In their book Street Data they say students should be talking for 75% of class time. Do students in your school talk for 75% of each class period? I would love for you to walk into any classroom in your community and see this in action. 

If you're smiling to yourself as you listen right now, grab 20 minutes on my calendar to brainstorm how I can help you make this big dream a reality. I'll help you build a comprehensive plan, from full day trainings and discussion protocols like Circle and Socratic Seminar to follow up classroom visits where I can plan, witness and debrief discussion-based lessons with your teachers. Sign up for a nerdy, no-strings-attached brainstorm. Call at lindsaybethlyonscom. Slash contact. Until next time, leaders, think big, act brave and be your best self. This podcast is a proud member of the Teach Better Podcast Network Better today, better tomorrow and the podcast to get you there. Explore more podcasts at teachbettercom. Slash podcasts and we'll see you at the next episode. 

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See how you can unit plan using math and justice connections in this video: