New Teacher Talk

About New Teacher Talk

Are you a new teacher in an urban, suburban, or rural school? Or, are you an aspiring new teacher? We’re here to support YOU! This podcast channel is designed to help those new to teaching. We talk about the most common challenges educators face and how to find answers. On this channel, you will find a community of support as well as on our associated social media platforms: Instagram and BlueSky - @NewTeacherTalk.

Publisher

Elizabeth Wilkins and Anna Quinzio-Zafran

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

14 Jul 2021

Latest episode

21 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

232 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   21 Oct 2026

   Ep 232: Effective Student Feedback

   New Teacher Talk tackles something every teacher pours hours into and often watches go to waste: feedback. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Dr. Aletha Williams, a program manager and educator development coach, to help you design feedback students will actually pick up and use, instead of the kind that gets skipped on the way to the grade. Aletha names the problem plainly. When students flip straight to the grade and file the assignment away, the comments you wrote never change their thinking, and feedback that does not change thinking or work is not really feedback, it is commentary. She points to three familiar failure modes, feedback that is too vague, too late, or too overwhelming, and offers a simple diagnostic: if a student cannot answer what do I do next after reading your comments, the feedback is not usable yet. From there she lays out five concrete strategies, each with examples across elementary, middle, and high school. The five strategies: Focus on one move at a time instead of correcting everything at once End every piece of feedback with a next-step sentence frame, Next, you will Make feedback conversational, since 20 to 30 seconds of targeted talk can beat a written paragraph Use glow and grow with precision, tying the glow to the learning target and the grow to one clear step Build a revision culture, not a completion culture, so feedback has somewhere to go She closes with a ready-to-use toolkit: a feedback sentence bank, voice notes, single-target rubrics, and revision checklists drawn straight from your feedback. Her advice for getting started is refreshingly doable. Pick one strategy, one assignment, one clear step. If this episode gave you something to try, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a five-star rating and a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes. #NewTeacherTalk #NewTeachers #TeacherPodcast #FirstYearTeacher #StudentFeedback #FormativeAssessment #Feedback #TeachingStrategies #StudentGrowth #Revision #TeacherTips #ProfessionalDevelopment #EdChat #AssessmentForLearning

2. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Ep 231: Mathematical Language Routines

   New Teacher Talk turns a professional development session into something you can put to work right away. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Helene Alalouf, an instructional math and literacy coach, who shares two Mathematical Language Routines designed to deepen student thinking, strengthen mathematical communication, and turn your classroom into a place where students make sense of math together. Helene opens with two questions worth sitting with. Are your word problems reaching students at every proficiency level? And are students learning from one another, not just from you? From there she walks through two routines you can start using this week. The Information Gap gives students an incomplete problem and asks them to identify what is missing, then justify why they need each piece before you hand it over, which forces their reasoning into the open. Stronger and Clearer Each Time, her personal favorite, has students draft independently, then trade structured feedback with a series of partners, no copying allowed, before revising their work and reflecting on what made it better. The payoff is not just theoretical: Helene reports that four months of the second routine with grades 3 through 5 lifted state math and English scores from 48 to 61 percent, and she is now using both routines in AP history and science, too. What you will take away: Two routines you can implement immediately at any grade level and in any math content area How the Information Gap turns missing information into an engine for student reasoning How Stronger and Clearer Each Time builds revision and communication through structured partner talk Why norms, warm-ups, and explicit modeling set these routines up to succeed Evidence that consistent language routines transfer across subjects and raise performance If this episode gave you something to try, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes. #NewTeacherTalk #NewTeachers #TeacherPodcast #FirstYearTeacher #MathRoutines #MathTalk #MLR #MathEducation #StudentEngagement #ElementaryMath #TeacherTips #ProfessionalDevelopment #EdChat #MathCoach

3. 

   14 Oct 2026

   Ep 230: Post Observation Conversations

   New Teacher Talk takes on a part of the job that makes many early-career teachers anxious: the post-observation conference. Hosts Dr. Beth Wilkins and Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran welcome Dr. Amy Howerton, an English teacher and department chair at Oswego High School, and Dr. Ed Howerton, associate professor and director of graduate education at Aurora University, who together own Two Paths Educational Consulting. With decades of experience as evaluators between them, they reframe the post-observation meeting as an engine of professional growth rather than a source of dread. Ed explains why this conversation matters so much: it is where you establish yourself as a serious professional committed to growth. Observers collect evidence during a visit and map it to Domains 2 and 3 of the Danielson Framework, and the strongest conferences stay grounded in that specific evidence rather than general impressions. A recurring theme is that you deserve to know the rubric as well as your evaluator does. Just as you share success criteria with your students, you should understand what distinguished looks like and be able to self-assess against it. Amy and Ed walk through what observers actually watch for, how to prepare, and how to turn feedback, even critical feedback, into a concrete roadmap. What you will take away: Why the post-observation conference is a dialogue, not a monologue What observers look for, including student ownership as the distinguished north star How to prepare by reflecting first and naming what did and did not go as planned Why knowing the framework language strengthens your side of the conversation How one observation is just one pixel in a much larger summative picture Treating the whole evaluation cycle as a partnership built on trust As Amy puts it, no teacher navigates this process alone, and the common denominator for both teacher and evaluator is always student achievement. If this episode gave you a new way to walk into your next evaluation, or there is a topic you want us to cover next, leave us a review. We read every one, and your feedback shapes future episodes. #NewTeacherTalk #NewTeachers #TeacherPodcast #FirstYearTeacher #TeacherEvaluation #PostObservation #DanielsonFramework #InstructionalCoaching #ProfessionalGrowth #TeacherTips #ProfessionalDevelopment #TeacherLife #EdChat #ClassroomPractice

Who has been a guest on New Teacher Talk

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Christy Schweitzer
• Maya Moneze
• Carson Mizell

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 55 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

83

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

68

Contact New Teacher Talk

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about New Teacher Talk