Welcome to the teachers on fire podcast where I profile agents of growth and transformation in education today. Each gas shares their hives their lows their passions their goals and the resources that are shaping their thinking and inspiring their practice for show notes and links from each episode visit teachers on fire dotnet. You can also follow the show at teachers on fire on Twitter Instagram Facebook and more and of course, please subscribe to this show wherever you are listening right now. I'm your host Tim KV. Let's meet today's guests. Today I'm speaking with Marissa Thompson. Marissa is a mom a wife a high school English teacher professional development instructor presenter instructor at the University of San Diego a traveler and a liver of life. Love that follow Marissa on Twitter at Marissa e Thompson on Instagram at Marissa dot e dot Thompson and on her blog at unlimited teacher.com, and we're going to come back to that blog shortly. Sir, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Are you ready to talk education? Always? All right. Well, I like that. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit more about your current context? What does that look like for you on a daily basis? So it's just changed recently in the last year. I decided to go for a dream that I've been playing with and right now I am a part-time teacher a part-time I guess instructional coach, but I call myself teacher support. Okay, and then also do some work with the University of San Diego at the Jacobs Institute and I do professional development courses for them. So a little bit of everything. Yeah that is a little bit of everything and so a really nice mix and I hope you're not finding that it's sort of a case of 40% at each that actually becomes 80 percent at each and then you're completely overtaxed and running around but I like the different venues and exposures you've obviously got right now. Well, yeah and it is it was that especially in the beginning but now that now They're gonna have gotten my feet into it's been a good six months or so of doing all of these different things. I now just feel like I'm in education, you know and people like, oh, what do you do and I used to say oh and a classroom teacher and now I'm in education because I'm in all these different roles and it's so much fun the variety. It's awesome fantastic. And you know, I keep thinking that the longer I spend an edu Twitter San Diego really is the education hotbed. So I just want to I think I eventually I'm going to have to move down there. That's all there is to it but Well Marissa, it's story time. So one thing we love to hear on the program is a little bit about one of your low moments or an experience of adversity that you face somewhere in your teaching or education career and then describe of course as well. How you overcame it? Yeah, because we all have those moments right? So I had a very clear vision of the kind of teacher that I wanted to be and so much of that came from Hollywood, right all those movies that we always Watch especially before the beginning of the school year to get inspired and I realized a few years in that. I was not the teacher that I had intended to be and I kind of fell into a Groove. I fell into a rut and I decided really after about seven years that I needed to leave the classroom. And so I was going I was going of all things inspirational to become a corporate trainer and I ended up not doing that and for personal reasons, like I knew that soon I will be starting a family and it was more Logistics than anything but I realized that I needed to change some things in order to just like my job on a daily basis. I love my students, but I didn't like my job. And so I just I ended up having this idea and it was just it wasn't anything big. I saw it on Pinterest. It was flexible seating and I went into a I didn't know super well, and I pitched this idea to him and he said great. Go do it and I just had never I never anticipated that that anyone would say yes to an idea that I had because I had always heard, you know from Educators everywhere like oh they don't let you try anything. They don't you do anything. They don't say, yes, they don't and that was definitely not the experience. And then as soon as I heard my first yes, that was it and I knew that I could go in with an idea and I could get support if I had thought it through and if I had energy behind it, and if I had already considered some of the obstacles And some of the solutions I knew I would get a yes. So that was really it that started like a seven-year free-for-all for me. It was so much fun. Yeah, that's such a powerful story because you got that green light and like you said it took you by surprise and then that in turn sort of gave you momentum right to try other things and a gave you that encouragement. I mean that's really a case of inertia and momentum I think is the point I'm trying to make so So administrators listening out there when you think about that teacher that educator who comes to you with a brilliant plan or some kind of it might not be brilliant. It might be low level whatever it is. Think about the further implications down the road of how you may set that teacher on fire with a yes. Yes. Well Marissa's got great pictures of her classroom and videos on her Twitter and Instagram feed. So make sure you drop by there. I do want to go to tqe and I'll set this up a little bit and Marissa, I as it just As it so happens. I am just now getting into an eighth grade literature Circle Unit. Let's Circle Unit with my students and I love what you've developed by way of the tqe method something that you wrote about at length in a 20-18 blog post called work killing the love of reading but here's an easy way to fix it. And of course, I've heard so many great reviews. So this is the year. I have to give it a try as a teacher looking for Less packaged QA and interested in more organic and Gage. Judgment and Analysis with text in my English class room. What do I need to know about tqe? I think the best thing to know is that they're going to be growing pains for you and for the students but they're gonna go away and the more that you practice it and the more that you train with it. It'll take a few weeks and then it'll take off it'll take off and it is such a joy. It's less work for you and for the students, so the stress level comes down everyone starts to feel really safe. In the space and you start having those authentic conversations about literature like you have in college that I mean, it's really that in-depth and so a lot of teachers have taken it ran with it tweaked it, you know applying different practices that they've you know used in other classes or other content areas or whatever and it's being used from elementary school through grad school in all sorts of subjects. Not just English and that really Prized me, but I think it's clear that everybody has a thought about whatever it is that they're taking in everyone has something to offer back and so giving people that space and that time and that language and that culture really to go ahead and start sharing ideas. They'll find the joy in that and it'll start to build on itself. So it started with tqe and then it has now I don't want to say infected because how negative is that but it's it's Affected every other part of teaching for me and every other part of the aspects of my classroom my students. It's everything it connects. So well with other great pedagogical principles like inquiry and we're trying to move into that higher level thinking right away from the low-level formulaic literature approaches that we grew up with and I was just thinking listening to you and and all of that was music to my ears. I realized we probably left some Educators in the day. Dust so I should back up and just say TQ E stand for thoughts question epiphanies and if you can picture now you correct me here, but if you can picture students and reading and analyzing texts on their own in advance and then during dedicated class time sharing these thoughts questions and epiphanies at white boards typically and then engaging organically from there. Do I have that right here? Darn close? Yeah, so they interact with the text on their own. I don't have You know make these particular symbols. I don't have lists of questions. I start with some questions to kind of get them to the kind of thinking that I want but they take their annotations on their own they come in with their own thoughts their own lingering questions our own epiphanies about life or Humanity whatever and then they get into a small group for 15 minutes discuss those things and then they curate that discussion and the top two thoughts or whatever comes out of that discussion that goes on the board and becomes our class Focus. That's the part I was Is missing so thank you for that. So Marissa a follow-up is this whole business of assessment because we know that assessment drives learning and so many ways. So I'm sure you've had this question many times as a teacher. How are you offering feedback? Are you looking for quantity of contributions quality or other factors that I'm not thinking of so quantity is really important, right? Because I need the students to participate but I'm not assessing them on that participation. I'm assessing them on two things. Which is what I would assess them for for, you know list of questions or quizzes or novel test, you're looking for reading comprehension first and foremost, right? When one of our major standards, but then also author's purpose right? Can you analyze a choice that an author made and tell me how that affects the message that they're trying to convey? Because if you can do those two things my reading standards are hit right? So I'm looking for those two things constantly. But I give myself and I give my students multiple days to prove to me their skills. So when I look at you know, standards-based grading or skills based grading. I'm looking for those two skills, but I need it to be consistency. If I'm going to call you a master, then you can do that on a regular basis. So as soon as I feel that I've got that for this particular book and this particular students, you know, this particular student reading comprehension and analytical thought I'm done. New I can move on to somebody else. Thank you so much. I this might end up getting played in my class this week. So I thank you so much. What a privilege. And again, I'm so grateful for this podcast to be able to connect with you. Well Marissa as you look across your pln and your own practice today, what else is setting you on fire about education, you know, just last week my students did a TED Talk style speeches, right? So not a perfected formal speech, but what do You think communicate it to your intended audience? That's us and we explored the concepts of happiness and success and the first student that got up and we had practice two weeks, you know, we've written it studied things. This kid gets up and he goes, I'm really nervous because I haven't practiced this I had a thought last night and I don't want to tell you my plan speech. I want to tell you about what I realized last night and so he just speaks from his heart and you could see the nerves on the kid. The class erupts in clapping all clapping and just freaking out all of a sudden kid after kid after kid every student came up and said, okay. I liked what he said. I'm gonna it made me think about this and so I'm getting rid of my speech to everyone just all of a sudden start speaking from their heart in the moment one kid one student even raised her hand and goes can I go again? Because I wanted to see this other thing. It's like I've all the times that we you know prepare kids for how much You know anxiety they feel for getting up in public speaking, right? It's getting up and speaking in front of each other. They it was so fun because they were like we're vibing right now and I'm like, yeah, I don't actually use that term but you're right you are and yeah, if you want to get up again, go ahead so really allowing students to be vulnerable and speak from their soul to each other is always going to get authenticity from the listeners as well. And so there's great respect there. But I've been working right now in some other venues solving those really massive education problems teacher burnout or teacher shortage a lack of creativity and just really or even like support for veterans. We support our new teachers, but once you get past what five years how much support is there really, you know, you even have to fight to go and search out some PD opportunities. Unity's so really finding a way to channel that energy identify those issues and then find a way to kind of hack away at it. All of that is sounding amazing Marissa. I think you might be my new best friend in edgy Twitter because we've got TED Talks coming up here shortly again in my eighth grade practice and spoken word poetry slams in April. So I love the sound of everything you're dropping over there. Yeah. Well Marissa, how are you looking to grow professionally and improve your practice this year? For 2020 or maybe in a coming school year. Can you share with us about a specific professional goal or maybe a project that you're currently working on? Yeah, so that's tough. Right because I'm in different Realms. So I'm in three places. So one of the things that I'm trying to do in my classroom, I work in a traditional space and so my school year is divvied up by five class novels and I want to break away from that you sometimes I'll get into like a lit Circle, but I would love to be able to I'd literary Freedom. You know, we know it works. We know it's good for kids we but I also want to make sure that we're still having that shared that connected experience and providing that space to have those discussions because I think that's everything and right now that's centered around my literature. So I'm trying to figure out a way to do that. What else? Oh my teacher support. I'm trying to do a bunch of two-minute mini tutorials, right? You just need that little bit of a taste of an idea. So that you can run with something else just that little spark. And so I'm making those in my teacher support role and now I'm working I'm designing some courses right now for the Jacobs Institute at USD and I'm trying to use inspiration from everyday experiences or big experiences. Like my family just got back from three days at Disneyland and I'm going to be designing courses at Disneyland. So we would all go together have this shared experience and then come back and do a workshop. Shop and and work through it and people would get certified and educational Innovation educational imaginary so lots of little things going on, but it's fun. You know, it's exciting. That is super cool. Well Marissa, we also on the show. I like to pull back the curtains and find out a little bit more about what ignites your passions when you leave the classroom or you leave the campus. So tell us about another area of learned for you what brings you alive as a human being and really attracts more learning. Outside of Education man, I love that question my ultimate passion in life besides my family and I'm a mom of two young kids. I've got a six-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. So that's always an adventure and inspiring and really transfers to education for me, especially my interactions with my students and with their parents, but my ultimate passion is travel. I love to travel I grew up traveling and my family was not well off at all, but my mom worked for the Airlines and so starting at nine years old. I was traveling internationally. So I met somewhere over 20 countries and I'm going through withdrawals right now because I can't travel with my little ones yet. I don't want the funds to be able to make that happen. But that's me. I've taken students internationally as well to Thailand Cambodia Vietnam Peru Greece turkey, and that's where my heart is. So if anybody just has like Billions of dollars or if you know if I ever win a lottery all I want to do I want to set up a scholarship program to send kids out of their bubble. Right go see other cultures go see other lands go see other things because there's only good that can come from that. That's my world amazing. I'm with you and I hear you on the funds to that's the curse of reading a lot but living on a teacher's salary. So we do have to be well versed it's time for your quick picks here. We want to know the education voice. Aces and resources that are shaping your practice and inspiring you're thinking today. So starting at Twitter tell us about someone we should follow their and sure why they've been inspiring you lately Julia fliss. Yes. Julia place is amazing out of Colorado and I got connected to her through Tiki we through Twitter and just the work that she does with her students is Soulful and it's big picture and everything is possible and just the enthusiasm and the optimism That's coming out of there. She just radiates it and I've never even met her like I just she's someone that you need to follow everyone needs to follow her, but she makes me feel good about being a teacher and being a person and working with people. She is she is what I need. She's strengthens me and I love that about her. Hmm. I'm working on a day and time for a chat with her as well. So that's a great preview. Okay point us to an ed Tech Tool that you currently love using in your Your classroom or somewhere else perhaps in your professional practice Yeah, so I actually do presentations on this. There's something called Pro keys and I know that Google has kind of done something with this where you can tailor your own short Keys, you know, you use control C to copy Ctrl V to paste. You can create your own and it will populate a comment or information. So especially as an English teacher I've cut down on my grading exponentially. So last year, I went from a hundred and sixty hours of grading essays at home to four hours. Everything's in class A hundred percent. I haven't taken any grading home this year and my students are better for it because everything is done together, authentically self-assessment peer assessment. I assess with them we talk about it. It's changed a lot for me and it's just a really simple tool to use and that's on the blog as well if anybody needs help, but be happy to help but That has changed my teacher life. Well, well, well, you just got the attention of every English teacher out there Marissa. So thank you for that. And we're going to cut this short a little bit from my usual but tell us about book that's been deeply impactful. So especially as an English teacher, right? That's a hard question, right? Oh, yeah. I love to teach East of Eden East of Eden is a big deal Tim Shaw course, but Fahrenheit 451, I think it's something that we all kind of know and remember. Just all those those themes of creativity and thought and connectedness and emotion and personal drive and collaboration and free thinking and even education's in there, which is really fun to read about the way that he's in that world. And I just I love the idea that he's breaking out despite all possible repercussions that it's possible and it's good and there's a better world. Even if it's a little bit harder I Think that that effort is worth it and I think Fahrenheit really embodies that and communicates that so well during I was one of those classic reads that was on my list forever. I finally got to a last year and wow absolutely loved it. So I'm with you on that one. I have to ask you just because I was tweeting about this this morning. Are you analog only when it comes to the book reading or are you have you got a little bit of the Kindle Kobo going as well? I like to turn the pages. I like the smell of a book. You know, I but as long as the same thing for my students if you want to read my Kindle great if you want to listen to an audiobook great. It's at Fahrenheit says this, you know, you need quality information and time to think about it, but it doesn't say you need a page. It doesn't say you need to screen. It doesn't say any of that. It's it's about the people the time you get and the depth of your conversation with each other. That's what it's about. That's a perfect note to end on Marissa. What are the best ways for the listeners to? Follow you and find out more about what it is that you're about. Well, yeah you listed at the beginning. So I am on Twitter Marissa e Thompson and then Instagram Marissa dot e dot Thompson and my blog is unlimited teacher.com, but I also use the hashtags tqe course because that gets a lot of play and we discuss a lot of things that I also use the hashtag unlimited teacher. So even if you just search unlimited teacher, you'll find me. No problem. Sounds good. Again, I want to thank you so much for sharing your time with a podcast today. This has been fun. It's been enlightening. It's been super helpful for me personally and professionally and I so appreciate your time today. So take care and let's talk again soon. Thanks, Tim. Take care. Before we sign off today. I'd like to share some highlights from around the teachers on fire Community this week. Our first stop is on Twitter. And first, I need to set up a little bit of a thread their former guest of teachers on. On fire and friend Scott Nunes at mr. Nunes teach kicked it off with a tweet that red principles are the formula for success and Scott attributed the quote to at Ray. Dalio learning from at Gary Vee. And of course, he included a picture or a screenshot from the Gary Vee podcast. It's actually called the garyvee audio experience. If you don't know who Gary Vee is just stay with me. I replied to that tweet for a kid who failed at the game of school. Gary Vee has done more to teach and Inspire others than most teachers will ever do courage creativity content patience persistence. I like what he's about and then other friends jumped into the thread at Jeff gargas at Jake Miller Tech and others and Gary Vee responded. He tweeted this is humbling to read. Thank you for your kindness Gary's content comes with a language warning and his style isn't For everyone but as I wrote in my tweet his vision for the ability, we all have to share ideas and content resonates with our professional practice. The old Gatekeepers of media networks. And Publishers are dying this podcast is evidence of that as Gary would say we are living in the absolute greatest time in history to share art and creative ideas. And that is a message I seek to bring to my learner's each and every week and so yeah, Gary Vee is not an educator, but He makes my Twitter highlight of the week. He does have two point 1 million followers. So to get a reply in that thread was pretty awesome. Thanks again to Scott Nunes at mr. Nunes teach for starting those great comments next over on Instagram. Lisa Johnson at note Chef for you commented. This looks fantastic. Can't wait to listen in response to my post about episode 116 with guest Caitlin Krause Thank you Lisa. Shh for that and to all of you who have read viewed light retweeted commented or replied in any way to my content on any of these platforms. Thank you. You are the fuel to my fire and I so appreciate your support over on YouTube. I've started vlogging this year. It's still scary new territory for me, but it is happening this week. I published 12 Google Classroom strategies that you should start using today. Make sure you drop by my channel by searching teachers on fire on YouTube and Find me I also want to shout out the lovely teachers on fire Magazine on medium where I think we broke a record with nine published posts. They included two by dr. Deborah. Ambereen who wrote the Contemporary face of family engagement in the digital age and a glimpse at Family engagement and education Brad Davis wrote three posts how to manage everything and still love teaching kids a realistic conversation of the ways. We balance all of life's. Ponce abilities while maintaining our passion and fire. He also wrote a place for everything and everything in its place where he talked about the necessity of teaching those organization skills to our digital Natives and he published how to teach a middle schooler to ignore a bully Caitlin Giordano published turned off the scoreboard where she asks what exactly is the purpose of grading with points and percentages. I wrote as I mentioned on the Vlog. I also blogged a piece. Old 12 Google Classroom strategies to start using today. Those are not research those come directly from my own practice. So check out what I am doing on classroom Debbie Tannenbaum wrote two new pieces one titled start right now promoting Vision where she talks about how being a connected educator has truly changed her life and challenge 21 days later where she talks about her progress with her one word 2020, which was of course challenge. The teachers on fire magazine is a medium. Publication and you'll find it on medium.com or through the medium app. If you're already an education blogger, you should consider joining our growing writing team. You can continue to publish content on your own blog and you keep full credit and ownership of your content on medium and the medium platform compensates you based on the engagement and read time your articles earned their message me at teachers on fire on any social media platform for more details. I want to leave you with this quote from my reading Teachers on fire comes from a book called lunch using design thinking to boost creativity and bring out the maker in every student. It's written by AJ Giuliani at AJ Giuliani and John Spencer at Spencer ideas and the quote reads this way in our experience when students are thinking creatively they are fully engaged in their learning. I think the point there is to think about the difference in learning actual learning when students are creating something versus when they they are listening and absorbing that Act of Creation demands more requires more and I think that's what the authors are pointing to again the quote in our experience when students are thinking creatively they are fully engaged in their learning again. I'm your host Tim KV, and I'm so grateful that you decided to spend some of your day listening to this podcast. I hope that in some way the content you heard from Marissa Thompson ignited you're thinking and inspired your practice and I'll meet you next. Week right here on the teachers on fire podcast. Take care and have a great week.
MARISA THOMPSON is a mom, wife, HS English teacher, professional development facilitator, instructor at the University of San Diego, traveler, and a liver of life! Marisa has done a lot of work on something called the TQE Method, a process that leads students through the generation of Thoughts, Questions, and Epiphanies gleaned from their reading of texts and is followed by organic engagement and further exploration of those ideas. It’s a marked departure from traditional comprehension exercises and allows for deeper level thinking and higher engagement. If the TQE Method is new to you or if you’d like to learn more, make sure to visit her blog at https://www.unlimitedteacher.com/single-post/2018/07/10/were-killing-the-love-of-reading. Follow Marisa … On Twitter @MarisaEThompson (https://twitter.com/MarisaEThompson) On Instagram @marisa.e.thompson (https://www.instagram.com/marisa.e.thompson/) On her blog at http://unlimitedteacher.com. Connect with the Teachers on Fire podcast on social media: On Twitter: https://twitter.com/TeachersOnFire On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teachersonfire/ On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeachersOnFire/ On LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/TimWCavey On The Teachers on Fire Magazine: https://medium.com/teachers-on-fire On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/teachersonfire Song Track Credits Sunrise Drive by South London Hifi* Anthem by The Grand Affair* *courtesy of the YouTube Audio Library at https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/music) Bluntedsesh4 (by Tha Silent Partner, courtesy of FreeMusicArchive.org)  ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/teachersonfire/support 