In this episode of The Wired Educator Podcast, I interview Traci Browder. Traci is an amazing educator that can help all of us make the greatest impact on students’ lives through the challenges of teaching in a pandemic. She is an expert in remote instruction, creating and curating incredibly helpful content for teachers in this time of need. She was named teacher of the year her first year teaching, and once again in another district. She hosts the amazing Intelligogy Podcast. She leads important chats and discussions ranging from leadership, instruction, curriculum, and race. She produces content for educators six days a week. In short, Traci is amazing, and I am so proud to share her with you in this episode. She has helped me so much personally and professionally. This is a powerful episode. You will leave feeling awesome about yourself, your impact, and you will have a guide of where you need to go. I love this episode and you will too.
Click here to listen to our interview.
Traci Browder is a trailblazer in education inspiring and mentoring teachers and changing the lives of children for more than 16 years. She was Teacher of the Year her very first year of teaching and was chosen as Teacher of the Year a few years later in her current district.
Mentoring new teachers, helps them understand the importance of building and sustaining relationships critical for student success. Veteran teachers who are perpetual learners also find Browder to be a vital asset while in pursuit of refining their craft.
Browder is known best for her innovative, out of the box teaching style with a mixture of Montessori, gifted/talented, and special services all rolled into one classroom environment.
Establishing a family in her classroom is the pillar of her classroom success and has been well-received by parents. She finds focusing on social and emotional needs in the beginning and throughout the school year creates a safe and trusting environment. Students feel comfortable and soon become eager to take risks. She teaches children not just academics, she teaches them how to be successful and contributing members of society.
Her classroom is a live learning lab in which teachers in her school district have come to observe her unique style of teaching as well as teachers on her campus. She has created a professional learning community in which all teachers on her grade level now go in and out of each other’s classrooms – with their students in tow. Teachers teach side by side or are observing and dialoguing in real-time. This powerful method of sharing students and best practices is transforming the classroom experience for the students and teachers at her school.
Technology has been a central point of connecting her classroom to parents. She initiated working closely with district tech support to use Twitter, a private YouTube channel, and a blog before they were commonplace in her district. Through this partnership, parent consent forms were designed with approval from the district’s technology department.
The initiatives were so successful that she was invited to design a course to present at her school district’s curriculum conference under Alan November’s technology strand. Mr. November invited her on stage after she initiated a conversation with him on a break during his speaking engagement to share what she had done during the school year and he told everyone this would be the session not to miss!
Browder possesses a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Dallas Baptist University and is a former reading specialist and instructional coach. She has served as part of curriculum writing teams in each of the three districts in which she has worked. She’s written ELA, Social Studies, and Math curriculum and has served on multiple textbook adoption committees. Browder has a long list of trainings and professional development in each school district in which she’s worked.
Traci Browder is many things to many people. Wife to her best friend, Quinton. Mom to her amazing sons, Donovan & Quinton. She enjoys reading, writing, painting, and spending time with her family.
Traci Browder’s Blog & Website: https://tracibrowder.com/Traci Browder’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intelligogy/id1493409417
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In this episode of the Wired Educator Podcast, I have an amazing conversation with Apple Distinguished Educator and STEM/Art teacher, Jon Jarc about teaching in a remote environment. How can you teach an essential class with so many hands-on tools and supplies like STEM and Art while completely remote? Well, Jon did, and he did it amazingly well. He is an amazing educator. We go in many directions in this interview. You are going to love this episode. 
Allyson Apsey is passionate about students and staff and leads others through their strengths. In her role as an elementary principal, she tries to be transparent, vulnerable, and supportive. She is an author, national speaker, and mom to two boys.
Trevor MacKenzie is an award-winning English teacher at Oak Bay High School in Victoria, BC, Canada, who believes that it is a magical time to be an educator. By increasing student agency over learning, weaving in strong pedagogy, transformative tech use, and sharing learning to a public audience, Trevor’s learners are ready to take on important roles in the 21st century.
In short, I have been feeling the need to step back from publishing episodes of The Wired Educator Podcast in order to reflect on all that is going on in the world around me and to adjust and become more intentional in providing solutions.
Jeff Gargas is the COO and Co-founder of the Teach Better Team and co-author of Teach Better. He works with educators to increase student engagement and improve student success. He also offers 1-on-1 coaching for teachers who have a product or idea they want to share with others to better education.
Dr. William Rankin is a learning-experience and learning-frameworks designer and educational theorist who served as worldwide Director of Learning at Apple from 2013 through 2016. An academic with more than 25 years of classroom experience, Rankin helped design the world’s first smartphone-based one-to-one learning program for higher education, for which he was named Campus Technology magazine’s Innovator of the Year for mobile learning in 2008. In 2009, he was named an Apple Distinguished Educator, and in 2010, he began a three-year tenure on the US Board of Apple’s Distinguished Educators program.
Dr. Kris Felicello has been in the field of education for over 25 years as a Teacher, Coach, Athletic Director, Assistant Principal, Principal, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources, and he is currently the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services in the North Rockland Central School District in Rockland County, New York.