Episode 34: Building Curriculum That Challenges Critical Thinking with Angela Hardin

• Hallie

So, on this episode, I’m talking with Angela Hardin. And the reason that we are doing this episode is because Angela was awarded KySTE Impact Teacher of the year this year at KySTE, and she works as a secondary teacher at the Model Laboratory Schools through Eastern Kentucky University. So I wanted to kind of share with everybody what it is that you do there, how you even started teaching there, and then a bit of like the award as well.

• Angela

Good morning. Thank you for having me. So first of all, Model Laboratory School, like you said, is a school on Eastern Kentucky University’s campus. It is a public school. The school serves students from preschool through 12th grade. We have roughly somewhere between 8 and 900 students that come into our building. And because we’re a laboratory school, what that means is that we work with the local university, Eastern Kentucky University, to help service, pre-service teachers. So those teachers take classes on our campus.

They come into our classrooms to learn from us. As a laboratory school, we’re required to constantly do innovative research and educational lessons and practices, and to really prepare the next generation of teachers to go out into the workplace. What’s really cool about our specific school is that we’re the only recognized laboratory school from the Department of Education in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,

• Hallie

That’s so cool.

• Angela

It is so cool. And there’s even a law that protects us because of that, because of what we bring to the community and to the Commonwealth, and not… we’ve kind of moved beyond… Yes, we service, you know, pre-service teachers, but we’re also now partnering with other departments on the university’s campus. So, for example, the speech pathologist majors come over and they get to work with our students, and they’re learning in a real-world application.

• Hallie

And you said therapists, too.

• Angela

Yes, therapists! And, you know, people in nursing get to come in and shadow our school nurse to see what that’s about. And there’s just… the psychology majors work with our counselors. So we’re kind of really embracing a huge group of leaders. And we get to do that while still, you know, teaching best practices with our students. So it’s just really cool. It’s uniquely designed especially for a public school.

• Hallie

That’s… that’s incredible. And you have been working in secondary education for this is your third year?

• Angela

Yes! So it’s going to be my 18th year teaching. But I actually started out in elementary, so I taught for 15 years in elementary. And I taught different school districts in Indiana and Kentucky because we moved a little bit for my husband’s job, and I have taught every grade from fifth through down to first, never taught kindergarten.

• Hallie

Wow. And you got to, like, have a little piece of everything, a lot of experience.

• Angela

And I loved it. But after 15 years, I just needed a change. I needed something different. It was just physically getting harder as I aged. It was getting really hard to sit on the floor. If I’m being completely honest.

• Hallie

They don’t really talk about the bending needed in elementary.

• Angela

When you start hearing bones pop, you know it’s time to move on. Oh, so I still wanted to stay in education, though, because I love it. And so when I had the opportunity to move over to what’s considered secondary, which is middle and high school grades, I took that opportunity. And for the past three years, I’ve been teaching mostly seventh-grade English, ninth-grade English, and for a couple of years, I actually taught 11th grade AP language and composition, so.

• Hallie

And so the classes that you teach have a spin on them a bit because of where you’re at and the research, which is what contributed to the award as well. So I would love to understand what it is that you teach, because I find the subjects just really fascinating in general.

• Angela

So with the 11th grade class that I taught, you know, it’s standard College Board AP class, and the seventh grade was kind of a standard, what you would think of with English seventh-grade class. What… the class that you’re mentioning is really cool is the ninth-grade class that I teach.

So at our school, ninth-grade English is actually a media and information literacy class. So it’s a class completely around rhetoric. And the students actually learn that word. I start the second week of school… They learn how to use ethos, pathos, and logos to analyze anything that they read, that they see, that they hear, that they encounter. And it’s all about critical thinking. So it’s a…

• Hallie

I didn’t like learn that until I was like in college. And you and I both have a media background. And so that was something that I didn’t even, yeah, understand yet.

• Angela

Yeah. Well and that’s… and I, I kind of tell them that because not only does this class set them up for success with our school for the rest of their, you know, 10th, 11th, 12th grade career – high school career. But they’re already getting a leg up on college and career tech. Because if you think about it, we all and I teach them this, I teach the students that we all kind of know our audience to a degree, whether we’re going straight to the workforce or to college. Like, you wouldn’t talk to me to get a grade change the same way you would talk to your dad to get a higher allowance.

• Hallie

Yeah.

• Angela

So when I put it into real-world application for them, they get excited because they’re like Mrs. Hardin, and it’s like legal manipulation.

• Hallie

Yes. I’m like, if that’s their buy, absolutely, you know. Not that I’m teaching students to manipulate. But if that’s what gets them interested, then great. And I feel like it’s really important, especially with, well, you see what media has done, especially to our children. And so the students do a lot of research, and they learn to unilaterally read. They learn to… I tell them to follow the money trail because you know who is sponsoring it. And it’s not so much political, like sometimes when my families hear this when I’m introducing the course.

They’re like, oh gosh, politics. And I… actually, we hardly ever mention politics. And when we do analyze political speeches, we lean into the historic. So, like Reagan’s tear down this wall speech, we talk about the exigence and the importance of that time in history, and we relate it to something current.

So, you know, it’s not like, oh, I support this candidate or I don’t, we kind of keep politics out of it. And it’s more about just being smart with what you’re believing. And so that’s kind of what sparked this… where the bulk of the award came from was because of what I’m doing with those students. And is it because of the curriculum you’re building around the bit as well?

• Angela

Yes. So the students do, infographics and a lot of their infographics will even tie in, like, concepts they’ve learned from health and P.E. class here at the school, concepts from biology. Our, all of our ninth graders actually get certified by the American Heart Association through their PE class.

So yeah, I’m feeling really good with our ninth graders knowing that if something happens to me, I have, you know, 30 students who are going to jump up and know how to do CPR. It’s wonderful. But, they actually bring those content pieces in. And so it’s not just like, oh, go create an infographic because you’re, you know, you’re smart or you’re creative. It’s like, hey, who’s our audience? How do we create this meaningfully? What are we doing with it? With visual or rhetoric? They create podcasts, and the podcasts are a research base, and they have multiple perspectives, and they have to represent multiple perspectives.

They learn to write a thesis that they have to defend through research with accredited, you know, sources. They learn what that means. And it’s just really cool to see the skills build on each other and see the students doing these, like public service announcements and podcasts and things like that, because it’s a different way of approaching English and approaching what English means.

We still tie in the novel, so the students read a dystopian novel. The novels vary based on the students, you know, ability, reading ability. We still read Shakespeare and tie it in. We still read Animal Farm. Some Orwell… got to love Orwell.

• Hallie

Oh always. They’re still getting it, but they’re just getting it at a deeper level. But what I find fascinating about it is that your… Yeah. You’re teaching them to go a step below, and go deeper into it. And in these real-life scenarios, not just reading and writing, because you’re right, English and literacy are so much bigger than that. And there’s layers to it. And so I find that really fascinating.

I’m jealous of that. I wish I had that, and I find that I went into a marketing degree, and I felt like that was some of the most fun of going to that degree is understanding that side of it. And it made me laugh a bit because I think about how now our generation jokes about how, oh, I wish we’d understand investing or taxes, but we just remember line dancing like we were taught line dancing in school, you know? And with your curriculum, and like, what you’re teaching them, it’s real-life scenarios.

• Angela

It is, and I can line dance.

• Hallie

It was both.

• Angela

Because in Kentucky, they had to add traditional Appalachian dances as well. So you know.

• Hallie

They just learned everything.

• Angela

Meanwhile, my kids can… My students can save lives. And what can I do? I can do so with the best of them.

• Hallie

Oh man, that’s… It’s really inspiring to hear what they’re learning. And then they all… And you also said something about how kind of this is a gap year for the ninth-grade class, where they don’t have testing. And so it’s not like you’re building a curriculum with the purpose of how it’s going to test.

• Angela

Yes. So, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, ninth grade, like, we still give our ninth graders the PSAT just to see where they’re at, bridging the gap from eighth grade to 10th grade. As Kentucky makes a shift from the ACT to the SAT. So we still want to make sure they’re still learning and progressing for those who are wanting to go to college. But as far as, say, testing ninth grade doesn’t get the, you know, KSA, the state test, like the other grades. So that ninth-grade year is this golden opportunity.

Not that it’s bad if you do get state testing, but it’s this golden opportunity to be able to have more flexibility with the actual content. And so that’s why it was just the perfect place too, this class was… my superintendent, Doctor John Williamson, it was his vision. And I took a few years to mold. But the ninth-grade class was the perfect place to plug it in because of that factor. And because it sets them up for the rest of high school and whichever career they take, once they leave, they leave our school, so.

• Hallie

Oh that’s so cool. And, with that too I, testing comes up a lot in conversations at EdTech conferences because of now AI emerging. And it is a well, we have… it’s a conversation because like, oh, we need to adapt our testing or our students tested too much. And to hear that you have a gap year is nice. Where you have that freedom. And I know that AI is also a part of the curriculum and comes up probably as well with English is… one of the probably the most feared, you know, impacts of it. And then also with testing. So I was curious, how are you incorporating AI, and how does that come up?

• Angela

So that’s a really great question because, you know, it’s constantly evolving. And sometimes I’m in the middle of a curriculum as something new comes out. And so I either… thought to myself, I have two choices. I can either completely run from it and get scared, or I can dive into it and help the students, you know, navigate it. So I picked the second one because I don’t want them ever leaving, not just my class, but our school, not learning to think for themselves. And while AI is a great tool, it does have to be, you know, used wisely. And so what I do for my class and I do this too, with even down to my seventh grade, is I teach ethical use of AI. As a school, we’re still, you know, we’re defining that right now.

Our AI policy as a school is each teacher gets to decide AI and how much to use or not use. Like for instance, in my AP 11th grade class last year, I didn’t allow it because with the College Board, there’s no way they’re going to get to use it on the exam and in writing in general. But like in class with this ninth-grade class, I actually walk the students through. We compare different types of generative AI platforms and what they do when to use what when not to use what, what’s considered plagiarism, what isn’t. And a lot of times I have the students actually look like, you know, together as a class, look at the prompts, see what the AI said, and then they have to summarize and tell me what was generated.

If they can do that, we go back to the very basics –  of this is summarizing. This is paraphrasing; this is what it’s saying. But really a cool turn of events. Last year, one of my students, actually a couple of them, noticed that with the algorithms of AI, certain things kept popping up. No matter what their search, what they were searching. And, you know, they weren’t even searching the same topics and they’re like, why am I getting an ad for said store?

• Hallie

Wow.

• Angela

I was like, let’s talk about that. So I turned it into a learning opportunity. And then they do what I tell them to do – follow the money trail where who has money and where is it going in society? They know how to laterally read, which is something I’ve taught them. So they start using all these skills and find out that now a lot of companies are competing bids and paying a lot of money to certain AI platforms to generate, like, you know, when people are searching like, oh, where do I buy the best Christmas tree?

Their store will come up first, and the students are like, I don’t think that’s a coincidence, Mrs. Hardin. And so, you know, it’s not me leading. It’s not me saying, well, this is the way it is. And, you know, kind of conspiracy theory-like, but instead it’s them thinking, oh, something’s not adding up. Or I’ve noticed these patterns. There’s more to it. So.

• Hallie

And not even in now with sponsoring, but also in the information that’s being pulled there’s biases and maybe examples being shown. And unfortunately, we see bias and race happening with AI and how it’s communicated. And it’s really fascinating that something that’s supposed to be unbiased…

• Angela

It’s extremely biased. And you know the students, and when I also tell them that a lot of times with bias, you know, we see bias, of course, as having a negative connotation. And in a lot of ways it does. But at the same time, if you think of bias as a subject that you instead of thinking, oh my gosh, everything’s biased. I tell them, I say, just be mindful that it’s something you have to navigate and you have to figure out. So… and the biases aren’t, you know, going back, they are not always political.

Sometimes it’s more subtle. And so the students are really learning to think about that and to look for that. And I teach the students too, that any time you go to do research or take a stance, they have to think through who their critics are. So I teach them not only to think about who their actual audiences are, because, I mean, yes, I give the grades, but I don’t want them writing just for me. But we say, who’s the actual audience? Of course our classmates…  it’s the intended audience. So they learn to think through the intended audience and then think through their critics. And then for the gifted students, I have them go further and think through.

Okay, now that you’ve identified your critics, which, you know, rhetorical appeals will your critics use against you, and how are you going to navigate that ahead of time? And so it’s really all about how you present yourself, why you believe what you believe. Can you critically think, you know, instead of just zooming on or going through TikTok? Can you really think about what you’re taking in, how your mind’s digesting it, and what it does for you?

• Hallie

It’s a skill that we all need every day, because you work with humans and you work with different people, and everyone’s going to have an opinion or criticism, and how, yeah, how do you stay grounded in that? And wow, what a valuable lesson to have at such an early age.

• Angela

Well, I hope it is.

• Hallie

No, I’m like, will you teach me? Can I join your class? That’s how I feel.

• Angela

Well the curriculum. You know, those are the kind of the ground basics, like it does change and evolve a little bit, but that’s what’s really cool about this course is it’s the type, of course, that can truly stay current, because as society changes, we’re like, okay, this news story just broke. What do we think about this or this picture blowing up on the internet? What are we going to do with it? And so the students really relate it to their own life and what they’re consuming. And I think for the most part, you know, they really enjoy this course.

• Hallie

I was wondering if they get discouraged at all once they realize the bias. Does that happen?

• Angela

I haven’t seen discouragement, but I’ve seen… I’ve seen anger. I’ve seen some students get really frustrated and really angry, and a couple of them are like, well, if this is our generation, and what are our children going to encounter? And so, you know, we have that conversation. And of course, there’s no said answers because we don’t know.

But my classroom is a safe space for them to get their frustration out. And so I see some of them just kind of take it and like, okay, well, yeah, this is kind of where we’re at now, you know, kind of go with the flow. And then others are kind of angry about it. And I really blame them, as you know, remembering my childhood, and like you said, like happy years, line dancing or whatever. Like it’s just so much more simple. And the fact that these students are, you know, 15 years old, and they’re already learning to do this and almost needing to know how to do this at 15, that’s like a lot.

• Hallie

And once you have the glass shatter. You’re like, oh no, I can’t go back now. I see the world this way.

• Angela

Yeah. Well, one of them was like Mrs. Hardin, you know, this class made me hate TikTok for a while, and I was secretly like, well, great. But I was like. I was like, oh, I’m so sorry. You know, she’s like, I just don’t know what’s real anymore, Mrs.Hardin, but a lot of them too. They… I had one class last year, especially that they there’s a group of students that found healing in it. They said because they realized that a couple of them chose they had to… they got to pick any topic they wanted.

But I also teach public speaking and how to do it, so they could do a speech on I mean, it could be anything like I think one person picked that Michael Jackson is still alive. Like it could be anything. And so a couple of students. So I had a group of students in one of my classes who took that opportunity to do that, to reflect and to say, I’ve learned that, you know, I’ve been comparing myself against these unrealistic standards and it’s affecting my mental health. Oh my gosh, that made my whole year worth it. And another person said, I realized that I need to get counseling And I talked to my mom and she signed me up for a counselor because I realized that I’m more stressed out and I’m stressed out is because I can’t sleep and I can’t sleep because… and they had done the research themselves like, this isn’t something that I just came in and was like, okay, you know, this is what I noticed.

Another student said that he realized he had a problem with energy drinks, and he didn’t realize they were so powerful with what they do to your body. And he actually learned that, like, as a collaboration with our P.E. and health teacher, who’s, you know, amazing. And so he wants to get on a better diet, so things like that. And that’s what makes this class and even my job really worthwhile, because those are like life-changing ah-hah moments.

• Hallie

Yeah. Oh, there’s such a beautiful purpose to that. And, I don’t know what to say after this now. I’m like, that’s so nice. I just, I… with so on this topic too, of teaching critical thinking and the development of AI. And now using computers in school.

Digital literacy is a big topic as well in the EdTech world. And I didn’t know if your curriculum or if you’ve started to dive into that at all or if you help because from what I’ve heard, it’s tough to… teachers have enough on their plate of what they’re already teaching on a day to day basis. And to put digital literacy on there as well is another element. And I didn’t know if you’ve noticed that or if you incorporate that at all.

• Angela

So, you know, if I think about the traditional English classroom and how it’s set up, like with my seventh grade, we touch on digital literacy a little. Through research, but not as much as I would love to because of time and how the curriculum’s designed, but because this class is how it is like we have we do have a book.

We, you know, have a resource book that we use, I can’t think of the book’s name right now, but, we it’s, it’s really good at like kind of giving you an overview of the concept, but because I pull in so many different sources and so many different things to build this curriculum, I’m the one who’s building the curriculum from the ground up.

• Hallie

Yes.

• Angela

Make time for it. I make time for digital literacy because I don’t there’s there’s no way these students can survive without knowing some of it.

• Hallie

Well, the comparison that you had brought up, and then AI and social media and TikTok, I felt like it came naturally in your curriculum, but I didn’t know if you were intentional about trying to mention it too.

• Angela

Very much so, and that’s kind of where we start. Like, you know, the podcast comes kind of at the end of the year because it’s a culmination of everything. And I because I don’t want them to think, oh, I can just record something and call it a podcast. Like, you know, there’s elements to it. And so digital literacy… the rhetoric, and the digital literacy is where I start with them in the first term. And very intentional. Lots of practice, lots of group discussions. And like I’m constantly, I don’t sit at my desk at all when I teach.

I mean, I’m constantly ping ponging from child to child, working with them, talking through critical thinking with them. And I think that that’s one reason too, they’re so successful with the examples I gave, because I do lay the groundwork. So in this class, I do have time for that, and I can do that. But I can see how teachers in a more traditional classroom, it is a time constraint. It’s very hard to know how to fit it in. And right now there’s really not… we have such good, high-quality curriculum books for everything else, but not really for digital literacy.

• Hallie

Exactly. I think that they’re forming and I’ve seen someone in Tennessee that’s building out some and I know that it’s coming, but it is a conversation from schools of not only building their AI policy – that’s a big unknown and then also resources for digital literacy.

• Angela

Well, and because it’s ever changing, what I found is sometimes it might work for one year, but because of what develops, you might be in the middle of the year teaching something, and you know you can’t turn it around fast enough to keep up.

• Hallie

Yeah. It’s funny, we talked about this briefly last time, but going to, I graduated from Evangeline University, and in that I remember the core of what we learned even in marketing, I thought, oh, this is already outdated. What I’m learning, and so much of it is you have to continue to grow that education. But I mean, the books that we were reading, I’m like, how? This it’s already old and it’s just published and…

• Angela

Same with my media degree. I’m like, wow, the things that I could do at like when I worked in television, robots have replaced me, you know, and so, yeah, it’s ever changing. And that’s the thing is, a set curriculum for something like digital literacy is great, but at the same time, you know, well, and my 11th graders… A couple years ago, my 11th graders, it was right when ChatGPT first came out, like a couple of years back, they were like, Mrs. Hardin, we have had a completely different high school experience than the current ninth graders.

• Hallie

Wow.

• Angela

There was a senior with her research because we require all of our seniors to do these really in-depth research projects and present as part of their graduation requirement. And I was mentoring one who wanted to do the effects of AI on creative writing for high schoolers was her topic.

• Hallie

Wow. Yeah.

• Angela

Yes. And so she would come in and watch me teach that ninth-grade class, and we would meet quite often. And she’s the one who noticed. And she’s like, you know, these students have had a completely different, even middle school… like encounters then I have and we’re still both high schoolers at the same school. One of us is in ninth grade, you know, one of us is in 12th. And anymore you can’t even compare… well you can’t even compare those because of the role that ChatGPT played and AI played and she realized that and that stuck with me because it’s like, I guess as an educator, you would think that I would.

Oh, that makes sense. I mean, it does make sense. But like, I didn’t realize that on my own. She’s the one who helped me realize that. And I’m like, oh, you’re right. And then even thinking back of how I taught the ninth grade class the first year I did this versus what’s coming up, I’m like, oh, these what seemed like subtle changes are happening because of what’s being developed.

• Hallie

Yeah, sometimes I do stuff even with my job or in my life, and I use ChatGPT, and I think, oh, what did I do before this? And I, there’s a joke of what did we do before going to bed without our phones and, and I and I don’t you know.

• Angela

You set that blaring alarm clock that wouldn’t shut off unless you hit that button, right?

• Hallie

Yes! Yeah. And it’s sad that. Yeah, we can’t see past that. But also, it’s great to see that you’re acknowledging it and like, embracing it every step of the way.

• Angela

I try, I really try, and it’s not… I love the class. It’s so much fun. It’s just I want to make sure I’m doing it justice. You know, I never I’m very careful to make sure that I never want the students to think that, oh, Mrs Hardin said this, this and that. Like, you know, like or I don’t want to come across ever, like, leading them in the wrong direction.

I don’t want to showcase my own biases, whether they’re good or bad, one way or the other. Like, you know, I have opinions about TikTok, but I’m not going to come in and start preaching at them about TikTok like… I want them to really come to these conclusions on their own. And so I’m really cognizant on, making sure that I don’t screw them up and like… It’s a huge responsibility.

• Hallie

It’s scary… because you’re in that critical thinking class. That is a scary thing. But even – you had said that even if they do come up with their own conclusions, you start to try to stay neutral, even in those. Because I’m sure that it there’s so many people. I’m a people pleaser. I want validation and to learn on my own, to not crave. That is a very healthy thing. And I think your class helps with that.

• Angela

I hope. And I found too, that I can give them the type of validation that’s like instead of saying, oh, you know, I’m proud of you, that you arrived at this conclusion. Instead, it’s all about how you word it. So I say things like, I’ve noticed that this time when you researched, you opened up your tabs and laterally read.

How did that help you? And, you know, so it’s all about. So I’m very careful with kind of how I praise them and to make sure it’s very neutral. And I’m like, wow, you know, you should feel so proud of yourself. That’s really cool. Oh, thank you know, so that’s kind of the approach I take. And the most, you know, you’re talking about using ChatGPT sometimes and AI, besides like doing it as a lesson, the one way I use ChatGPT the most of my life is when I’m teaching my middle schoolers, and occasionally I want to throw in their terminology and I don’t know what I’m doing.

• Hallie

Yeah.

• Angela

I wanted to print some fun signs or memes for them. You know, I’m like, okay, this is what.. And of course it sounds like the most beautiful, like English journalist, like, this is what I’m trying to say, but put it in like…

• Hallie

Use Ohio and rizz.

• Angela

Yes and it’s like TBH bro. No cap, you know, and I’m like, I don’t know what this means, but I’m hoping it translates or don’t get in trouble. And of course the kids are like, oh my gosh, you’re so funny. And I’m like, yeah. They’re like, your cooler than we thought Mrs. Hardin! And I’m like, it’s totally AI, I have no clue. It’s so funny.

• Hallie

Oh, that’s… I know it looks like a foreign language.

• Angela

Yes. And I found if you put it in a meme with an animal, they get even happier. So like a smiling donkey or a llama. And it’s like, yo, bro, you know, have a good day. However, they say it.

• Hallie

Like whatever you can do to make it weird, you know, it’s good.

• Angela

Or fire desire or whatever it is. But that’s what I was. When I do use AI, that’s there, and if AI… I’m sure it’s tracking me, they’re probably thinking I’m like the dumbest person out there trying to…

• Hallie

Meanwhile you’re like writing advanced curriculum and you’re like, how do I…

• Angela

How do I? You know, speak whatever this is called.

• Hallie

Generate a photo of a unicorn for me. Yes. Oh, man. It’s that’s, Oh, that’s really neat. But you’ve incorporated all these different ways and different learning styles, and you’ve met them where they’re at, too. It’s I don’t know, in every, in every way. every, in every way.

• Angela

Besides all the wonderful stuff with the ninth-grade curriculum, I do want to give a huge shout-out to my colleague. Her name is Dr. Melanie Smith. She teaches for health and PE class here. And the fact that we’ve been able to combine a lot of like… when the students do a PSA, they do a PSA on something like health related that they’ve learned in her class. So, you know, these skills aren’t being taught in isolation.

Maybe the public speaking where they can choose any topic like, yeah, so that’s public, but like the actual meaningful projects. And she’s amazing to work with. We’ve both presented… We started presenting together to show other schools how to do this. We’ve done a couple of, like, state conferences. A few national blogs have picked up both of us, different types of blogs. Hers are mostly health related and things and mine are like it more of, kind of the core four like math, science, you know, social studies, English. And so it’s really cool to be able to share that. And I look forward to keep doing that with her.

This year, I’m hoping to add in more of the community aspect to get more people in the community, like maybe some nursing majors, to come in and talk about the health components and…

• Hallie

Oh wow, like real life.

• Angela

Yes.

• Hallie

Even from a career standpoint, I think that’s fascinating.

• Angela

Well, and you want you know, we go back to I want them to realize that what they’re doing isn’t just to check a list off in four walls of our school. It’s building on. I also plan to, Doctor Smith and I have plans to work with two local health departments to see if, I would love to do a student showcase of learning to where they showcase some of these projects and these infographics and things like that, like, and, you know, the big posters and actually on the walls of these local health departments and have kind of a gallery walk, but where…

• Hallie

Yes.

• Angela

Real audiences are seeing them, that’s what’s next in my planning as I continue to build this program and this curriculum. So I’m excited about that. I’m just always looking for ways to, to take it up a notch.

• Hallie

And I think, oh all the work that they’ve done is there a way to have them published or to have them featured somewhere? Because to have their perspective on real life scenarios, I think is really important as well.

• Angela

Absolutely, and that’s what’s cool too, going back to being a lab school, because in order to come here, laboratory, you know, like, I hate to say lab rat, but they’re basically even I have my kid, you know, goes here. But as parents, we sign a waiver saying, hey, yes, you can do these innovative practices you like. That’s what we want. We want research-based. We want innovative teaching. We want more than just kind of a checklist of getting through whatever curriculum we’ve been given.

And so every student that comes into my classroom, their parents and their guardians have signed this, consent to be able to do these things. So why not take advantage of that in a positive way and celebrate these students and showcase that? So, I’m trying to think of ways to add in more of the community aspect next.

• Hallie

That’s, yeah. I’m looking forward to seeing that too. And now I get to feel like I’m a little part of your journey and, and learning about it, which I love.

• Angela

And also, you know, you can feel free. I can send you my contact… But if there’s any teacher out there, it doesn’t necessarily have to be ninth grade, but that wants to do something similar. Start small. Like I know not everyone’s going to have the luxury of what I have, where it’s like the perfect year and a class designed just for this, but start small. I also, I’m great about… I love well, I don’t love public speaking. I do it.

• Hallie

Yeah, I think you would be great at it.

• Angela

I love helping other educators. So, you know, I’ll send you my info. Feel free to share it. If anyone really wants to.

• Hallie

I would, have you… Have you ever spoken at EdTech conferences, or have you ever spoken at, like CoSN or anything? I’m just surprised.

• Angela

Yeah. So I presented at KySTE a couple years ago. Not at KySTE recently. Yeah. I was there for the award and to attend some of the things and to accept the award. I do present a lot – the types of presentations I do. I feel like they’re really vast right now. Not all of them are technology. I do a lot on writing, a lot on writing and rich curriculums, things like that. I would love to do technology too.

Not that I’m like a guru, but I mean, the kids can, you know, edit faster than I can and things, but it’s… I know how to prepare the students for that. And I always… I love helping other teachers. I presented internationally. My school sent me to… Sorry, the bell. My school sent me to Toronto, Canada, for an international conference a couple of years ago.

• Hallie

Okay. Yeah.

• Angela

And at that conference, it was more about how to get students… how to have student agency in the classroom with students creating their own set of classroom norms. So, like I do present the topics though, are kind of…

• Hallie

Yeah, but they’re very unique, which sometimes we can get repetitive and I like that your perspective is very different. And yeah.

• Angela

Oh, thank you. I feel sometimes like I’m going in three different directions, and people are like, you can’t really be passionate about all of this. I am. I just love what I do, and I love how I love helping other people. It’s in my nature. And I don’t know for those teachers who want to do something like this or maybe want to incorporate digital literacy, start small, like start really small, even if it’s kind of what I do with my seventh graders, where it might be one lesson, you know, every so often or one practice. I know, a lot of them, though, are kind of confined to what they’ve been given, so. Yeah, unfortunately,

• Hallie

But this is a stepping stone. This is you’re breaking the norm. And being an example, which is the hardest thing in any career and any, you know, anywhere in life. And I think that, what’s inspirational… like, what’s very inspirational about this is how authentic you are in yourself. And that is that that’s a lot. You know, that’s hard to do.

• Angela

Thank you. Yeah. Well, it’s a lot of trusting the process and knowing it. I didn’t, you know, mess up. When my superintendent had asked me to take over this class, I had told him no. I was like, no, no, like what? I’m like, no, no, no.

• Hallie

No, thank you. Bye.

• Angela

You have a media background, I’m like, this doesn’t mean anything like, no, are you crazy? You know, I didn’t say, are you crazy? Of course, because I really value him. But you know, and the joke now is you just wanted me to beg, and I’m like, no, I really didn’t think I could do it. And sometimes I still have imposter syndrome. Like, I’ll be speaking and I’ll be looking out and I’m like, oh my gosh, people are so much, they know so much more than me, or they know all these programs that I don’t know.

But I think where I really add value is that I know how to build a curriculum, and I know what has worked for me and what hasn’t. And I’m very open about sharing that, so.

• Hallie

And you have students that are probably very open to share that.

• Angela

They’re extremely open to all kinds of things. Yes. They’re very unfiltered.

• Hallie

Yeah.

• Angela

So I might as well lean into that right. A lot of students have that touch of you know, that age, that touch of rebellion, of wanting independence, and instead of fighting it, I just lean into it and I’m like, okay, what can we do with it? Let me see what you can create, so.

• Hallie

Oh, this is so great. It’s very inspiring just to have this conversation. So, I appreciate you.

• Angela

Well, thank you so much, and thank you for talking with me. I’ve enjoyed it.