Celebrating Teacher Leadership with Edthena's 2025 Impact Award Winners

In this special episode, we speak with the founder of Edthena and five outstanding educators who were honored as 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Award winners. Each guest shares how they’re shaping the future of professional learning, using technology in smart and supportive ways, and leading from the classroom and beyond.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. Why teacher leadership goes beyond classroom walls.
2. How video coaching and AI are transforming PD.
3. What real educators want from edtech tools.
4. Creative ways teachers are building community and sharing practice.
5. How teachers use tech to boost resilience, reading, and student engagement.

✨ Episode Highlights:

[00:01:22] Adam Geller, Founder of Edthena, on designing teacher-first technology
[00:10:06] Why Edthena launched the Teacher Leader Impact Awards

Teacher Interviews:

[00:17:54] Betsy Springer, Instructional Coach at Gull Lake Virtual Partnership, on virtual instructional coaching, teacher visibility, and learning walks
[00:29:08] Wavell Blades, Deputy Head of British International School of New York, on how his school builds belonging and tracks student citizenship through tech
[00:38:49] LeeAnn Caradine, Teacher at Scandia Elementary in Travis Unified School District, on introducing coding, typing, and 3D printing to young learners
[00:50:44] Davina Lyons, Educator & Founder of Rising Resilience, on supporting student and teacher resilience post-pandemic
[01:06:22] Qingyan Kang, 3rd Grade Mandarin Teacher at Broadway Elementary in Venice, on leading in a bilingual immersion program with cross-cultural collaboration

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Chapters

• 1:53 Adam Geller, Founder of Edthena, on designing teacher-first technology
• 10:37 Why Edthena launched the Teacher Leader Impact Awards
• 18:25 Betsy Springer, Instructional Coach at Gull Lake Virtual Partnership, on virtual instructional coaching, teacher visibility, and learning walks
• 30:12 Wavell Blades, Deputy Head of British International School of New York, on how his school builds belonging and tracks student citizenship through tech
• 39:53 LeeAnn Caradine, Teacher at Scandia Elementary on introducing coding, typing, and 3D printing to young learners
• 51:48 Davina Lyons, Educator & Founder of Rising Resilience, on supporting student and teacher resilience post-pandemic
• 1:07:26 Qingyan Kang, 3rd Grade Mandarin Teacher of Broadway Elementary on leading in a bilingual immersion program with cross-cultural collaboration

Transcript

[00:00:00] Adam Geller: It's so important to really zero in on the kind of ways that you have meaningful impact on students, on the whole, rather than in one classroom. And that's through the community of practice that teachers represent within a building. And so we really wanted to create an opportunity for those types of moments to come forward to celebrate those teachers with recognition.

You know? Sure, there's some other aspects of it, but it's really about saying, Hey, I. Yes, you applied and yes, like your work bubbled up to the top and yes, good job, because they don't hear that enough.

[00:00:42] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here 

[00:00:56] Ben Kornell: at EdTech Insiders. Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar, and to go deeper, check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben.

Hope you enjoyed today's pod.

[00:01:22] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders. We have a really awesome guest today. We are talking to Adam Geller, who is the founder of Ed. Which is one of the only really AI focused professional development platforms for teachers out in the market. They do really amazing work, and not only are we talking to him, we are talking to five winners of Athena's recent 2025 Teacher Leader Impact awards, these teachers who are using AI and other tools in the classroom to make major impacts.

So I'm really excited about this conversation. Adam Geller, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. First off, you started your career as a science educator in St. Louis. You have taken Athena from what was a paper-based prototype to a research inspired platform to really being innovative video platform for professional development.

Tell us about how you came up with Athena and how you've evolved it to incorporate all of these technologies. First video, and now ai. I think the 

[00:02:19] Adam Geller: story of Athena goes back to my first year of teaching in the classroom, wanting to be the best science teacher I could be, and not being able to access the support that I needed.

I always make sure to mention this is not a subversive story about my principal. She and I had an awesome relationship. She just didn't have science background or science expertise, so it also turns out I did end up meeting the right person. It was the lead educator at the science museum, and he could help me plan, he could help me with materials.

But he could never watch me teach. He could never help me understand if my implementation was aligned with the goals that I had set out for myself. So fast forward a couple of years, I was working on the national strategy team of a nonprofit, focused on questions of helping teachers access high quality assessments at the time, and really thinking about how to scale support for teachers, and realizing that even if you had unlimited coaches, like how would you get 'em to all the places?

And that this wasn't a challenge of my classroom or my school district in St. Louis, Missouri. This was fundamentally a constraint in education. So kind of saw the music player SoundCloud for the first time, and this is a long time ago now, but if you've ever seen that music player, there are comments at specific moments.

And I remember it was actually a Justin Bieber song had been sent in in an article that said, listen to this Justin Bieber song Slowed Down 800 x. And there's this one comment that just kind of was the light bulb moment. The comment was something like, it sounds like violins coming in in harmony here.

Even as I say that you and your listeners probably have this mental image forming, right? And so it was that moment where I realized, wait a second. If you could put comments on videos in specific moments in time, maybe then if your coach isn't available to come in person, they could be connected to your classroom through video.

And so that's where it all began. We had our first version of what was then just the Athena video coaching platform back in fall of 2011 and enabling for the first time. Remember that's also before our cell phones had cameras you to take a flip video camera or other video camera and get those videos online in an easy way and leave those comments.

And as you said, we've evolved. So we've continued to build on those video coaching technologies over the years. But back in 2020, we had a little bit of extra time on our hands. I don't know about you. And we tried to start thinking about like, okay, well what are some of the tools we could build with some emerging technologies that would make it even easier to help teachers access feedback?

And so it's hard to remember how different the world is now compared to 2020 when we talk about AI tools. But we really zeroed in on was the idea that you could use the technical term, a conversational assistance, so a chat bot style interaction to facilitate and support. Teacher learning in analyzing their own videos and essentially learning how to coach themselves.

And so that's really the core idea of the AI coach platform that we have now. We're enabling teachers to do the continuous improvement in between the visits from their coaches or their colleagues or their school leaders, and have the tools and more importantly, have the support to be able to kind of figure out what is really happening in their classroom.

Build an action plan for change and feel supported to follow that through to see if it has an impact on student learning. Hmm. 

[00:06:01] Alex Sarlin: It's really powerful. I, I think education is such an unusual profession in many ways, and one of the ways it's unusual is exactly what you're saying, that people sometimes find their own mentors or coaches or they have them within the school setting, or they have them within from the administration.

But I. Even when they have somebody who knows them really well, like this head of the science museum that worked with you when you were a classroom teacher, they can almost never be in the classroom. The teacher is almost always the only adult in the classroom, maybe with exception of a visiting observer or assistant.

And it can be isolating. And I think there's something very powerful about leveraging video and now using AI to break that wall and sort of allow what's happening in the classroom to be able to be used for training purposes outside of the classroom through technology. So you've been at it since 20, you say 2011.

Mm-hmm. So that's, I'm sure that you've seen a lot of evolution since then, but I'm sure you've also seen incredible impact since then. Before we talk about the Teacher Leader Impact Awards, which I'd love to ask about, tell us about. Working in education throughout that whole time. That is such a transformative time.

That's sort of the entire ed tech growth decade is happening really in that time. I'm curious what your experience was working with teachers so closely during that entire decade. 

[00:07:16] Adam Geller: Yeah. I mean, it's funny, 2011 is so long ago in the land of ed tech that when we named it Athena, there was not Ed. Everything type name products, and so just for the record, our name does not have a capital T in it for anyone listening, even though sometimes people like to write that down, we were inspired by Athena, the goddess of courage and wisdom because it takes courage and wisdom for a teacher to be willing to look at themselves.

In terms of what's changed, it's been a lot. I think what's really interesting to consider is. Yes, we talk a lot more about the idea of ed tech or there's folks like you that are focusing time and energy and attention on ed tech and there's resources to support teachers and all these things. But I think the through line, for me, at least for the types of tools that seem to have staying power and as you said, have impact, is technology.

That it doesn't exist for technology's sake, but it exists to solve a real challenge or a real problem, and that in doing so. We can ultimately have greater impact with students. And so there have been a lot of things that come and go. Some things, I'm thankful they're gone, right? Because they exemplified some of the worst versions of building technology for education.

But I think for me, that's really the piece of the puzzle. That feels most important. And I think when we talk with the district about what we do and why we do it, it is what challenges do you have and how can we help? Because we are not interested, nor should we be put into place if this is just in the category of good ideas.

Hmm. Because I think especially now, we can all agree if we didn't agree a decade ago, there is not extra time in the teacher landscape of things they need to do. To add another nice to have onto their list. So yeah, I think that's maybe my reflections over time. Yeah, 

[00:09:21] Alex Sarlin: I think you're making a really great point, and it feels like one of the paradoxes of EdTech is that EdTech founders go into it to support teachers and students universally, but they sometimes end up putting yet another tool, another set of logins and dashboards onto teachers' plates, which makes their life even harder.

It's exactly the opposite of what they really wanna do. We're at a moment now where teachers use almost 150 ed tech tools on average in a given year in their classroom. So that is a lot of training, a lot of learning. With that in mind, Athena's been there in the trenches with all of these different EdTech tools as they've come and gone.

What is the role of the Teacher Leader Impact Awards? Why did you want to draw attention to some of the teachers who are doing particularly interesting things in this space? 

[00:10:06] Adam Geller: Before I answer that question, let me also comment on this idea of lots of professional learning on how to use technology, which absolutely teachers deserve and they should demand support.

So what I'm talking about next is not about teachers, it's about product developers. If your technology requires six PD sessions or PL sessions, to help a teacher know how to access the core ideas of your technology, you need to go back to the drawing board. None of us get PD on how to use an app on our phone.

The technology we develop for teachers should be at the same level of usability. As consumer technology. Alright, stepping off my soapbox. The Teacher Leader Impact award from our perspective was really about trying to see and acknowledge that there's a, you know, a little bit of a gap talking about the ways that teachers have impact, right.

So we, I think the idea actually came about related to a teacher appreciation week one year, and there's so much. Deservedly so, so much attention on teachers and classrooms and the way they're having impact in their classrooms. But there's so many other ways that teachers can lead and lead beyond just their set of students in their classrooms.

That could be among their peers, that could be across buildings, that could be in teams of teachers creating or leading initiatives. And it's so important to really zero in on the kind of ways that you have meaningful impact on students on the whole, rather than in one classroom. And that's through the community of practice that teachers represent within a building.

And so we really wanted to create an opportunity for those types of moments to come forward to celebrate those teachers with recognition. You know, sure, there's some other aspects of it, but it's really about saying, Hey. Yes, you applied and yes, like your work bubbled up to the top and yes, good job.

Because they don't hear 

[00:12:11] Alex Sarlin: that enough. That's true. Let me dig into this question of helping outside of the classroom, because this is about teacher leader impact. It's not necessarily about, you know, teaching prize. It's really about leading the entire profession from within your role as a teacher or the entire building, entire community, as you're saying.

So I'm curious how technology plays into that story. You know, I'm sure that there are people who have won this award who do not use a lot of technology in their classroom, and I'm sure there are people who in this award who are all about educational technology. Tell us about the relationship between tech and being a teacher leader.

I mean, we both 

[00:12:46] Adam Geller: work in ed tech, but I'm gonna say it shouldn't be the top of the list and it isn't on the top of our list for evaluating these things because ultimately I think technology is. A facilitator, it's an accelerator. It's an amplifier of something that the teachers in a building are working to achieve.

So you know, if you are a team that's meaningfully adopting collaborative cross curricular assignments that are enabled by technology. Like it's all the stuff that came before enabled by technology. That's the really important part because at the end of the day, technology is not the thing that is unlocking some door to student achievement in schools.

It is. I. A tool to enable all the teachers and the support systems around the students to help those students achieve their goals and their dreams. 

[00:13:45] Alex Sarlin: I think that's really well put. You know, technology can be an amplifier or accelerator of good practices, but it, it's never, it's, especially in education setting, it's never its own reward.

It's, it's supposed to be to support students, to support teaching practices, to support instructional methods, to support teachers in making their lives better and easier and more effective for their profession. So I, I like that take, and I think it, it dovetails with what you were saying earlier about how ed tech products that work in the classroom are ones that don't have to spend a lot of time and energy convincing people that their approach is worth doing.

It's something that actually should be co-designed with teachers or made with the understanding of what teachers are truly trying to accomplish rather than trying to. Push them in a direction that they weren't already trying to go. So as we talk to each of these winners of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards, one thing that I always find interesting about doing this EdTech podcast is that our audience is primarily people in the education technology industry, which is, you know, a, a global industry.

It's a growing industry. It's, it's wonderful people. I'm, I love the ed tech world, but I think a lot of the things we talk about would be incredibly valuable for classroom educators or for admins, or for procurement people, or for people who are really in the trenches of actually using this. We don't have actually that many educator listeners, and I think part of why that is, is that we sort of maybe aren't talking the right language for them.

I'm curious, as we talk to these teacher leader impact award winners, what can I do to help bridge the gap? And given that this is educators talking to ed tech professionals, how can we speak the same language more coherently as, as somebody who's been doing, bridging that gap for over a decade? 

[00:15:26] Adam Geller: I think.

More so now than we would like to admit post pandemic, that teachers feel hesitant, scared, disempowered to be implementing tools in their classrooms. Now, certainly there are some tools that are, especially in the generative AI space that teachers have taken to, but those are not necessarily, again, student facing and they're not changing the system or the process.

And so I think that there is a mismatch between what we wish was true for teachers and what's actually true for teachers right now, and that they may have less agency and authority to implement these tools than we might. Hope for. I also think that compounding the situation is the deserved it security posture stance, right.

Of districts. Right. And so, you know, there have been some pretty major negative situations that have caused those district admins to dial the dial way back down, you know, so you can't log into anything unless I approve it. Right? Like that's. We build products that are single sign on, so their password are more secure.

But if you can't try out a product without it getting approved, you see it's a conundrum. Yeah. Right. So 

[00:16:53] Alex Sarlin: it's a really, really important point. I think it's important for our audience to think about that, and it'll be important for us. I, I will make sure to, to dig into that narrow conversations. This has been a pleasure.

I'm really excited to speak to the winners of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards. And it's amazing to hear about your journey with Athena, from SoundCloud to video platforms, to AI coach by Athena, and, you know, continuing to evolve with the education and EdTech professions. Thanks so much for being here with us, and let's jump to the teachers.

For our first winner of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena, we have Betsy Springer. She works as an instructional coach for Gull Lake Virtual Partnership, which is a division of innovative programs in the Gull Lake Community School District in southwest Michigan. Betsy holds a bachelor's in secondary education, a master's in instructional tech, and is a doctoral candidate in education policy.

And her favorite things are family coffee. Me too. And doing what others say can't be done. Welcome to the podcast, Betsy. 

[00:17:54] Betsy Springer: Thank you for having me. I look forward to chatting. 

[00:17:56] Alex Sarlin: Yes. First off, congratulations on the award. Let's talk about your teacher leader practice. Why is it important for you in your teaching profession to continuously improve your practices?

And what do you do to support not only your own practice, but the entire community of teachers at Gold Lake? 

[00:18:14] Betsy Springer: Yes. That's a great question. I think the answer to that is in my program here at Gullet Community Schools, we are innovative programs. I often borrow a quote from a colleague of mine who said, today's innovation is tomorrow's status quo.

And we really embrace that here at the virtual partnership, trying to stay ahead of what students and families need in education in innovative ways, such as online learning, blended learning, hybrid learning, all those buzzwords. We include the early college program, so we don't want to get too comfortable in what we're doing just because it's been working for over 15 years here.

But continue looking ahead to things like AI and VR and community involvement and see where else we can enhance opportunities for both the students we have and maybe those that we don't have yet. I. View my role as an instructional coach for an mostly online school, as somebody who has to make what's really not normally visible, visible to our staff so that they can help one another.

So I. I have a lot of conversations with them, coaching cycles, and then I encourage them to lead professional development in our PLC time and other opportunities so that they can all share. If we're in a brick and mortar building, it's maybe a little easier, although it can still be challenging to see the teacher across the hall or at least talk in the lounge.

And when we're all behind a screen, you don't always know. What another teacher is doing, right? So getting them together. We've developed within our organization a way to do learning walks virtually, and the teachers share. It's one of their favorite things to do, is just to see inside each other's classrooms online and see how they're doing things.

And I am a lifelong learner, so I continue to study finishing up graduate school here very soon. I hope this summer, and attend conferences, speak at conferences, serve on boards. I'm on the leadership panel for the National Standards for Quality Online Learning, and led the refresh of the course standards that launched this year.

So just trying to stay up to date with what's going on in ed Tech. 

[00:20:34] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, so I wanna double click on something you're saying that feels like an incredibly important point for both the educator and the ed tech side of the house, which is that it is often very difficult for educators to know what is happening in other classrooms, even ones, whether they're across the hall in a brick mortar, or certainly if they're on an online environment and you've created an environment where teachers can share out, where they can learn from each other, where they can share practices and education technology tools.

This is something that Ed tech founders and creators and marketers and everybody really wanna know more about because I think that it's very important for them to know how people are learning about what tools are out there and what might be most useful or what your peers are using that are working for them.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how the virtual partnership designs these learning sessions and these learning talks where people can learn about what's happening in classrooms and how education technology companies might support other. Communities and doing similar sharing experiences.

[00:21:33] Betsy Springer: Absolutely, and it's been an iterative process over the last three years that I've been an instructional coach. I drew a lot of inspiration from a virtual school in Georgia that I heard speak at the Digital Learning Annual conference earlier this year. The concept was started during a lunch and learn pd.

We had where our teachers that were together in person in our virtual school building, I just had them log into a course I. We have within our learning management system, a student called Sam Student, and we put Sam into a class that the teacher's choosing. And we said, log in as Sam and go through someone else's course as a student and see what it looks like.

One, they don't have access to courses that are not their own for very good reasons, but that also makes it difficult to share. Yep. And two, the teacher doesn't always see what the LMS looks like from the student side. So that was also very enlightening. They were surprised at the things that were not the same, that maybe they assumed had been.

So that's where we started. And now during our learning communities, our PLC time, we group in very small groups, three or four people. We have a goal that's the theme for that month, and it's sent ahead of time tomorrow. During PLC, we'll have a learning walk. I want you to share for three to five minutes about this goal.

And it can be how you. Worked towards that goal. It can be a glow, it can be maybe a struggle, and you can ask your colleagues to help you problem solve some learning and some growth around that goal. So that's where we've been doing it and like I said, it's, they never keep it to three to five minutes, and it's been a really powerful learning opportunity for all of our staff.

Now we do it in a hybrid situation with some staff that are onsite and some that are not. So over zoom and then some people in person and screen sharing and all of those things. 

[00:23:24] Alex Sarlin: That's fantastic. And there's some really important points in there. You know, teachers don't have the ability often to see tools from the student perspective.

Some LMSs have a sort of view as student feature, but it is not universal and it is certainly not something that, that everybody appreciates. How, how difficult that sometimes could be. And this concept of Sam student, right, of just having a, a student avatar by which teachers can see each other's teaching experiences.

A very powerful and something that ed tech companies could certainly use. When you think about your relationship, you have a master's in instructional tech. You've been working in education and EdTech for quite a while. Ed tech companies often want to solve problems, right? There are a lot of the entrepreneurs or teachers themselves or principles and they know their.

Things in schools that could be improved through technology and they wanna solve them, yet often there's a lot of training involved or they, or teachers don't always feel empowered or they feel nervous about trying new technology or they feel overwhelmed by it, or they feel just, you know, like they don't need another thing on their plate.

How would you suggest that Ed EdTech companies think about educator's real needs? How do they surface them and how do they make sure they're building for something that is actually needed and not just, you know, another thing to remember to log into another dashboard to remember to look at every week?

[00:24:37] Betsy Springer: Yeah, I could think of a few, I guess kind of pain points and then I could think of some organizations we've worked with that have done really well. Please. One is on time support and professional development. I know maybe seven, eight years ago when I was newer in the ed tech digital learning sphere, we would have a.

An intense all day training on a new technology tool. Worst case scenario, it would be in June, and that is not helpful at all. So you have to design it. So it's in little, little bite size pieces and it is when the teacher needs it. I do not need to know necessarily how to enter final grades in August even, but we have to plan to do that at the end of the marking period or whatever it is.

So on time pd, that's where my work as a coach is to meet teachers right when they need it. You know, I send them a lot of little videos. So I'm say, if you're up designing a course at 2:00 AM I don't want you calling me, but you can watch this video. The other things that can be important is. The value of saving somebody just a few clicks.

We work with a smaller learning management system, and I love that they're really agile and we can ask them for improvements. I had in my grade book, I said, if I could see in my grade book the last date a student logged in, then I would know if they were failing yesterday. And I log in today and they haven't logged in since I last looked at it.

They're the same. And by the end of the day, they literally had that updated in our LMS. That was amazing. And somebody might say, well, you just need to click here and then click here, and you would have that information. But when you multiply that by maybe 150 students, those two clicks are a lot of time.

And then the final thing I can think of is more maybe for the adopters of technology, that it takes time. I think there's a lot of shiny object syndrome within education, and we want to use the new thing because it looks cool. Technology. I've heard so many people say it should solve a problem and it might be bumpy the first year.

And you know, commit to the long road to see if it works for you. And then think of kind of an alignment. I remember being on a planning committee in the summer of 2020 and a group of teachers saying, well, the second grade will use this ed tech tool and then the fourth grade will use this ed tech tool to keep it simple.

And after some thought, we realized that doesn't help families because if I have a second grader and a fourth grader, it doesn't matter to me that all of the fourth graders are using the same tool. I still have so many things to log into. So we've tried to really capitalize on single sign-on. 

[00:27:24] Alex Sarlin: Yep. 

[00:27:24] Betsy Springer: And keeping everything housed in one place to keep it simple for families.

They don't want a whole bunch of logins and neither do the teachers. 

[00:27:32] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's sort of a masterclass on how to make sure that staying agile in response to your educator users when they're asking for something, how can you deliver it? How can you avoid more clicks?

These are all fantastic insights that I think our, our EdTech product managers and our EdTech founders can really, really use. I wish we had more time, but we are going to speak to a number of the teacher impact award winners today. If you could just leave one sentence for the ed tech world about how to really meet teachers and educators where they live, how to do something that's really gonna make them happy, what would it be?

[00:28:10] Betsy Springer: I would say consider giving them a seat at the table. It's great. Sometimes I, I talk and I meet with a product representative and, and it's several steps removed from them to the design team. Closing that loop, give the educators a, a seat at the table and let them in the process. 

[00:28:28] Alex Sarlin: I love that. That's fantastic.

Betsy Springer is an instructional coach for Gull Lake Virtual Partnership within the Gull Lake Community School District in southwest Michigan, and a winner of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena. Thank you so much for being here with us on EdTech Insiders. 

[00:28:43] Betsy Springer: Thanks for having me. 

[00:28:45] Alex Sarlin: We have with us Wavell blades, deputy Head at the British International School of New York, where he leads initiatives in student wellbeing and school culture.

Wel specializes in building systems that foster belonging, purpose and leadership across the school community. And Wavell is one of the winners of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena. Welcome to the podcast. 

[00:29:08] Wavell Blades: Thank you. 

[00:29:09] Alex Sarlin: So first off, tell us a little bit about the British International School of New York.

It sounds like an incredibly interesting and specific school. Yes. And what your role is as a deputy head of school. 

[00:29:20] Wavell Blades: Yeah, we are a great school here in New York, just next to the East River. My role involves overseeing all of the student wellbeing and student care across the school. And I also oversee a lot of the co-curricular work as well.

So all the kind of afterschool clubs and community initiatives fall under my remit. We're a small school. We have just under 300 students, and we run from pre-K all the way up to 12th grade. Wow. So we are a really tight knit community. A lot of our students are from the uk, but not just alone. We also have students from all around the world and some American students here as well, who were really interested by the British education system.

We follow an international curriculum through all grades up to eighth grade, and then we focus on a international, but British aligned curriculum for our high school. 

[00:30:11] Alex Sarlin: Fascinating. Such an interesting model. I love it. So tell us about how you think about the teacher community at the British International School.

You focus on student wellbeing, and I'm sure you also bring together educators around professional learning, professional development. And how do you think about making sure that tight-knit community, as you mentioned, is all learning from each other feels really 

[00:30:32] Wavell Blades: connected? It's so important. I mean, in our community we have a lot of teachers who have taught all over the world.

Some of our teachers are from the US and bring that great kind of their learning and their experiences and their pedagogy. But we also have a number of teachers who are from the UK and from other countries as well. And so what that means is we have a community where it almost feels like we're bringing the best practice from all of these different kind of educational systems.

And so we all are able to grow from each other to share what we have done in the past and try to almost make it fit this. Amazing melting pot we've got here. So I know for all of us at the school, professional development is something which is ongoing and it's certainly something that we dedicate a lot of our time to.

[00:31:19] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, this podcast focuses on educational technology, and I'd love to hear a little bit about how you think about the ed tech landscape. It's obviously changing a lot, growing a lot. There's a ton of different tools. This tools in ai. There's tools in video this tools in professional development. How do you approach technology within the British International School?

Yeah. And how did learn from one another? 

[00:31:41] Wavell Blades: Absolutely. We have a dedicated digital lead across the school who is a member of our senior leadership team. One of my colleagues, Oliver. And he runs regular training sessions for the whole school, both as a school community and then in division. So for elementary teachers, for the high school teachers, depending on what you teach.

And I think this year in particular, I've really been amazed by how much tech there is out there and how many amazing models are really grappling with the AI space and thinking about how it can apply to a school and how it can apply to teachers. I'm very lucky in my position, but I. Still teach regularly.

I'm a history teacher by trade, and so I am at the forefront in my classroom using a lot of this technology. And even just this morning, I was having a conversation with the digital lead about how history lents itself really well to a lot of the kind of models that are being developed. I was using one app today, d it to uh, for lesson planning and just, it's so easy.

As a history teacher, teacher to be able to experiment because our subject is so factually based and there are so many things you can do within that factual based arena. And so I know personally I get a lot out of being exposed to new technology, but for other teachers as well, across the board and across divisions, we are finding and discussing what works best for them in their context.

So we also have like, as I said, a pre-K, a nursery and it's thinking, okay, what technology works best for them. In one of my roles, obviously, as I said at the beginning was, is looking after student wellbeing. 

[00:33:15] Alex Sarlin: Yes. 

[00:33:16] Wavell Blades: And one of the things that I picked up on early in my time here was about how there was a bit of a disengagement with some of our older students in terms of.

Taken on kind of community work and citizenship work, not because they were just disengaged teenagers, but because so many of our students come from other countries and they are used to moving from school to school. And so sometimes it takes a bit of time for them maybe to warm up, to kind of feel like they can contribute to the school.

And so I organized this initiative called the Citizenship Award, which is I think what I got my Athena Award for, which essentially tried to document exactly what students were doing so that they could be rewarded for things that they might be doing without even thinking very much about it. And I've used technology in order to make that successful.

So the way that students log their achievements, the work that they've been doing, you know, we use manage back as our kind of foundation system to log, to give points, and to have this ongoing cumulative track of their achievements. So it really does permeate every aspect of the school. 

[00:34:20] Alex Sarlin: That's fascinating.

We are big DFI fans here. Di we've had the founders of DFI on the podcast and you know, Vlad is, is a New Yorker as well. 

[00:34:27] Wavell Blades: Yeah, 

[00:34:28] Alex Sarlin: it's a great tool and I think, I love your role as a teacher and as a deputy head of school gives you perspective on what the whole school is doing. But you also get to, to dive right in, I wanna double click on your example 'cause it's really interesting, the idea of wellbeing.

We talk on the podcast a lot to people who are, you know, concerned about student wellbeing and are creating ed tech tools for mental health support or therapy, whether it's AI therapy or, uh, online, you know, connections to, to support the project you just named is strength-based approach to wellbeing.

You know, catching people doing good or doing things and then reframing them positively and saying, Hey, you're being a good community member, a good citizen by the things you're already doing. That's a fascinating approach and I'm curious if, if you were an ed tech founder and you would saying, how would I productize that?

How might I do something because it's, it's an idea I've never heard before. 

[00:35:16] Wavell Blades: It's a great question because what I found as I've been working on the project, and this is our, we're gonna be going into our third year of the Citizenship Awards at Disney. I've been thinking to myself a lot about how it can be replicable and scalable with other schools.

Yeah. And I have talked to teachers from other schools about it. I've led workshops. I led a, a workshop with a council, British International Schools just a few weeks ago about the Citizenship Awards. So for me, professional development is not just about my own development, it's also about trying to engage others and trying to kind of, you know, move them forward as well.

And I think the Citizenship Awards is certainly one way that that can be done in terms of how to kind of make that a product. There certainly is space within the way that it's been created, that it can be tailored to different schools and also made very easy for staff to take on by essentially, you know, creating some sort of program where I.

Students find it very straightforward to just enter the work that they've been doing. So what we found here is that, you know, we have been using our existing systems to track work, but one of the bits of feedback that I get from the teachers is that, you know, sometimes it can be a bit onerous, you know, kind of putting in all these different tasks for different students.

And if there's any way to streamline that to make it easier, to make it faster, to make it smoother, that would be amazing. And so for our students, I know that our coordinator of the Citizenship Awards created an app, which is just internal, but was allowed them to kind of look at how many points they accumulated so far and what kind of put.

The creation of the awards and the creation of the app, but that increased engagement with it in by about 30% in terms of the number of students that were getting an award. So I would say if a company could find a way to essentially package it through an app and a, you know, an easy to use, I'm sure AI can support that where, you know, they can just make it kind of automatic rather than teachers are doing work that would make it amazing.

[00:37:18] Alex Sarlin: That's a terrific idea. I have just a call to action for our listeners, uh, to, to, uh, to get in touch. 'cause I think that's a fantastic idea. I just love the idea of the Citizenship Award, allowing people to lean into the community, especially as you say in a, in an environment where there's lots of movement, where there's lots of students who have been in many different schools that made, that's not unique to the, the British International School.

There's lots of places in, in the world where there's populations that, that go in and outta different schools. The idea of quickly building communities, it's really powerful. Well, congratulations on winning the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Award from Athena, and I'm really excited to hear about all the interesting things you're doing in ways you're looking at it using technology and using professional development in the classroom.

I'd love to talk to you more about some, some interesting history. There's some really cool stuff to do with AI for history, so we'll take that offline, but really nice to meet you. Wave Blades is the deputy head at the British International School of New York, where he leads initiatives in student wellbeing and school culture.

Thanks for being here with us on a tech insiders. Thanks so much for having me. We're here with Leon Carine. She is a teacher at Scandia Elementary in Travis Unified School District in Northern California. She holds a Master's of Arts in teaching a master of Science in Higher Education, an MBA and a Bachelor of Science, and has seven years of experience teaching in diverse classroom settings.

And she believes teaching is all about creating a space where students feel supported, challenged, and inspired to learn and grow. Wonderful. And of course, she is a winner of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena. Welcome to the podcast, Leanne. 

[00:38:49] LeeAnn Caradine: Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:38:53] Alex Sarlin: I'm excited to have you here. So, first off, tell us a little bit about your practice at Scandy Elementary and what work you were recognized for in the Teacher Leader Impact Awards. 

[00:39:02] LeeAnn Caradine: So currently at Scandia, I am a second grade teacher. I'm actually moving into third grade this upcoming school year. I teach everything.

The biggest thing that I think I've, when it came to the nomination was incorporating technology into the classroom. I've really tried these past two years trying to incorporate coding in the classroom. I'm actually gonna try to do 3D printing coming up this following year, just to give kids a more hands-on STEM approach.

But I've really tried to do that. I started doing a pilot program with the district. We're not a one-to-one school district, which is sag, so we're kind of behind. So I feel like it's very important because the districts around us are one-to-one. So giving students the ability to be able to. I guess you could say stay in line with their peers outside, within the other districts and being competitive.

When it comes to education, I try to really strive for doing more technology within the classroom. So we just started a pilot program for, uh, typing program. I. And I think we're gonna be using type C for the younger students, which is nice, so that way they can get more of that hands-on approach on how to use a keyboard and not just their thumbs on the phone.

[00:40:11] Alex Sarlin: Right, exactly. That's very impressive. Teaching coding and 3D printing to second and third graders is really, really exciting. Tell us a little bit about your professional learning approach. I mean, part of what is interesting about Athena is it uses education technology to create supported professional learning environments to help teachers share their work with one another.

And it sounds like you're doing really, really interesting work in your classroom. How do you share it with others in the school and the community? 

[00:40:36] LeeAnn Caradine: So within the school, I could definitely say my second grade team, we've done a really good job this year of trying to. Having more of a collaborative approach.

So we've done a lot of cultural events where I'm teaching them how to use Canva, 

[00:40:50] Alex Sarlin: right 

[00:40:51] LeeAnn Caradine: to make flyers and things to pass out to families. Just something simple as passing out a new flyer within the classroom. Just teaching the kids typing, taking AR quizzes, which is something students not knowing, they can know how to use a phone, but they dunno how to use the computer.

So trying to do like more of a technology class on just simple control, alt, delete, how to go back or control Z teaching students. Just the basic functions of a computer has been the primary thing for a lot of the younger age groups right now. 

[00:41:18] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. 

[00:41:19] LeeAnn Caradine: Collaborating with the other teachers though I can definitely say right now I did a training this past summer on, I don't know if you've heard of it, positive Behavior Intervention Systems, PBIS.

It's something that we're doing with behavior intervention within the schools and so I was gonna, the meetings and I just feel like everything was all over the place and so I took it upon myself to say. You know when you go, everything is disorganized. How do we make it organized? So I just created a SharePoint team.

SharePoint for the site here, just so we can put all of our files in one place. When you have new, and this is for everyone that comes into the school that gets hired, them being able to have that one stop shop to be able to come in and train on something or to at least get a run through of something.

So. I did come up with that this year, so That's great. And then sharing it with families too. 

[00:42:07] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. Often that's really the missing piece in Communities of Practice is it's not often one central organized place where people can get to so that they can know exactly what's going on or what we have all their files or their training videos or whatever it is, all in one place.

So the fact that you were able to build that within your community is a big deal and it obviously could change things. I'm curious. The EdTech community, we are always trying to figure out how to support educators and how to support educators in not feeling like it's a mess, right? Not feeling like, Hey, a new program is coming in and it's all over the place and I don't even know how to do this and this and this.

Like, you obviously have a lot of initiative and take it upon yourself to organize things. But for EdTech companies or EdTech systems, EdTech products, how can they make sure that they're not coming across as yet another burden on teachers that they have to organize and clean up and instead coming that they're actually supporting teachers and making their lives easier?

[00:43:01] LeeAnn Caradine: Prime example. So we had a pilot program. I was part of two this year. Just the typing. I was also part of a reading program. Yeah. So California actually they are mandated for kindergarten through second grade is mandated now to do a reading screener to help support the low readers. So I was a part of the pilot program for the district and we had, it was between Amira and I believe a few other programs.

And I remember when we were doing one of the programs and it.

Three seconds and then it's wrong. And I was like, well that's a lot to look at the screen and you're trying to monitor the student and you have to monitor the paper. I was like, can it not automatically be filtered in when just getting that feedback? And it's funny because the, I can't remember the person who it was, or at least the organization that it was, that was presenting the AI program, but they were like, we've never been asked that.

Maybe we can ask our tech department to add that in there to make it easier. 'cause the biggest thing is, I don't think teachers should shy away from the educational tools that are being put into place. But if the educational companies getting that feedback and actually taking it back and saying, Hey, we might need to do something with this to make their jobs easier.

Because it is a lot to, you know, even when it comes down to simple testing, you know, testing a class of 24 to 30 students on reading and it needs to be something that's shorter, you know? 'cause you can't. You, you lose track of time throughout the day and you only have so much time to teach, so, and we don't wanna miss any of it.

[00:44:31] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is to really be deeply empathetic and ideally have educators in the loop, in the design sessions and helping create the products so that you don't accidentally add. Burdens like that you don't, that EdTech products don't accidentally add what might feel like a small thing within one instance, but a teacher has to do it 20 times.

Yes. In a row or, because that is something I think, you know, we've talked to a lot of EdTech companies and I doubt very many of them have sat down and said, I'm gonna do this 20 times in a row and see what, say what the hardest part is. But that's the experience for many educators. So I think that's a really interesting insight.

How would you suggest ed tech companies engage educators to get that kind of feedback? 'cause and it sounds like they were very responsive. You said, Hey, it should go this way. And they said, oh, we're gonna pass that back and hopefully, you know, make a change. You obviously understand a lot about technology.

What would you recommend that Ed tech companies do to sort of solicit that feedback? 'cause they do wanna hear it. They want to know what experiences are like, but there aren't just always that many channels to do. So 

[00:45:29] LeeAnn Caradine: I think. If the district's not purchasing it, and it's not like a pilot program, a lot of the ed tech companies are not gonna get the viable feedback that they really need.

So maybe creating, I guess you could say open pilot programs where it's something free that they can connect to teachers and say, we want your feedback. Because you know, it's just like blaze potato chips when they do the, Hey, make a new product and vote for your favorite, you know, new flavor. It's stuffing it's salsa, you know, and getting that product feedback from the actual people that are going to be utilizing the product or eating the product or whatever it is.

I definitely think that maybe some opening doors up in that way where they say, Hey, we're gonna ask for these teachers within this district. Can we get five teachers? We're offering this. And it could be an, I don't necessarily think everything has to have an incentive with it, because the incentive is that in the future, they're fixing their program to best support the schools.

[00:46:29] Alex Sarlin: That's really interesting. I think sometimes in the. User research sort of community. When people are thinking about how to get teacher feedback like that and whether to offer incentives like, you know, Amazon gift cards or whatever it is, they have this internal debate with themselves where they say, we wanna respect teachers time.

We don't wanna ask them to come give us feedback. They have so much to do. They already have many tools they're already using in the classroom. We don't wanna ask them to give us their time and feedback for nothing. Yet at the same time, incentives can make it feel like very transactional and not feel like you're sort of part of a community or like you're being a, a true beta tester and really contributing.

I'm curious, you know, how you react to that. If you were, if EdTech company came to you and it was not, as you say, part of a formal pilot program and just said you, let's say it was something to do with 3D printing, they said, I hear you're teaching 3D printing to third graders. That is totally amazing. We have an amazing program for 3D printing for third graders.

We'd love to have your feedback. You have so much to do, you obviously have so many different projects and programs going on. What would make you take a moment to say, you know what, I'm gonna take this call, or I'm gonna take an hour out of my busy day and see if I can give them the feedback and improve their product?

[00:47:36] LeeAnn Caradine: I would say it all comes down to the person and it, I think at the end of the day, it also comes down to the educators that are teaching right now because there is a swift change within the world of education and technology is not going anywhere. If anything, it's only expanding. So I would say it comes down for me, I would be open to it because I would see it as an opportunity for, everything is an open door opportunity.

It's just a matter of how you take it in. And I think that that's where educators, we as educators, need to open up our minds and expand that, you know, you don't have to get something in order to provide something back to somebody. It's the same thing you wanna teach. You know, we're teaching our students, you don't get a lollipop or a trophy for everything you do.

Yeah. You just do it sometimes, and if it works for you, it might be something that works for you. And if it doesn't, then you know, you're giving that company some feedback that they may be able to help for another district that aligns with where they're going at, you know, within their pathways. But I definitely think not everything requires something.

And I would do it. I would definitely be open to, to a company saying, Hey, we'd love for you to utilize this program without any, you know, you're not gonna get a gift card, you're not gonna get anything back from us. Okay. I'll definitely take it. Let me see what I can do in my classroom with it. Because at the end of the day, it's all for the students and it's all for the kids.

And if we can't change as educators or be open to, you know, something that's coming to us, like I just got asked to go to a professional development, but the principal's like, oh, but I don't think you guys are gonna get paid for it. Okay, I'll still do it because it's something that I wanna, I wanna do, I wanna expand my, you know, if you're not motivated to do something without money, then.

Might be looking to retire, might need a new job, you know? Sorry.

[00:49:28] Alex Sarlin: Well, you clearly have a lot of energy to learn new things. You have four degrees and have, you know, can continue to expand your knowledge. It's really, really amazing. Yes. I wish we had more time. These conversations are way too short, but we have some other winners of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards.

It's been really a pleasure and I, you may get some emails after this from MedTech companies saying, Hey, would you look at our product and I'll get some 

[00:49:49] LeeAnn Caradine: feedback. Send them my way. 

[00:49:53] Alex Sarlin: They'll knock on your door. They want the feedback. They really want it. Leanne Carine is a teacher at Scania Elementary in the Travis Unified School District in Northern California between Sacramento and San Francisco.

Such a pleasure. Thanks for being here with us on EdTech Insiders. 

[00:50:08] LeeAnn Caradine: Thank you so much, Alex. Have a wonderful day. 

[00:50:11] Alex Sarlin: You too. We are here with Davina Lyons. She is an award-winning educator speaker and the founder of Rising Resilience, which we will find out more about in just a moment. Really interesting organization.

She's also a 2025 teacher leader impact award honoree from Athena, and she empowers others who rise above adversity through storytelling mindset and healing spaces. And she has a transformative Right to Rise workshop. She is calling in from Arizona, just between Phoenix and Tucson. And Maricopa, welcome to the podcast Aina.

[00:50:44] Davina Lyons: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

[00:50:45] Alex Sarlin: So first off, congratulations on being honored by the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena. There it's all about educators who are making an impact in their community. So with that, I'd love to first ask you about. Your work with rising resilience and what you're doing as an educator to support struggling communities dealing with all sorts of different things.

[00:51:06] Davina Lyons: Yes. Thank you. Yeah, so as a teacher, a little bit over a decade now, I realize the pattern of our young people don't have the same level of resilience. That what I feel like I was accustomed to maybe when I was a student. And so a lot of, they're just. They run outta steam. It's really difficult to handle situations.

And as a teenager, I teach middle school, so as a teenager it's even tougher. I understand that they're going through changes, so I felt like they needed to be more resilient and therefore they can handle and have more stamina, not only academically, but socially and emotionally. So I found it rising resilience 'cause I really wanted to target helping kiddos, but not only helping kiddos, but also helping parents and helping the educators that are in their lives every day.

And so I founded this and I offer workshops and coaching not only for helping the educators, but I can coach young people as well and give them some strategies to cope with some of the things that they face in the classroom as well as at home. Yeah. So that's what rising resilience is all about. That's 

[00:52:13] Alex Sarlin: wonderful.

From your vantage point, what are some of the major stressors that students are dealing with in the classroom right now? We're obviously a couple of years post. Pandemic, but we're in a time with enormous amounts of social and technological change. What do you attribute some of this lack of resilience to, and what do you feel like people are dealing with?

I. 

[00:52:33] Davina Lyons: I think, especially right now, I'm teaching kiddos who were second, third grade during the pandemic, and so some of that initial structure that they really needed, they didn't get and coming back into the structure as they got older and missing, there are some gaps, there's some academic gaps, but what I found is that there's much more social disconnect.

Many students like to be loners. They don't want to work in teams or in groups. They don't want to have to do any type of project that requires collaboration. They just can't handle it. So I see a lot of that with the personalities. I see a lot of, oh my God, I teach English Language arts. They hate to read.

A lot of them hate to read. I have very few kids who actually want to read, whether it's informational text or it's even literature. They don't have interest in it. And I think the other thing is that the cell phone in the classroom has become a huge issue. They are so addicted to their technology that they really can't focus.

And as a teacher, it is like swimming upstream with all of these things. And it's something that if you reach out to parents, the parents don't quite know what to do about that because they're dealing with that at home. So again, it's like. We realize what they need in order to be successful moving forward in life, but what are we gonna do if we can't get them to start being more engaged?

So I think a big focus for mine, and we are in a team set up in our school, we are on teams, and so within those team structures, we try everything we can to engage students, get them wanting to learn and excited about it. And that's the challenge. It really is. 

[00:54:18] Alex Sarlin: Within the ed tech world, I'll speak for myself.

I always have this mixed reaction because I agree with you that I think cell phones, there's a lot of research about it now, and cell phones have really been problematic for a lot of students. And the pandemic obviously had a huge effect. And you know, everyone in education, technology wants education to be better.

They want students to be engaged and to be resilient and to read right? But sometimes technology actually draws students away from some of those goals and especially the ubiquity of technology over the last few years. I'm curious, if you were an education technology, if you were in that field or if you were supporting people in the field, how do you think we can make sure that technology is a positive force for students who are dealing with post pandemic isolation or who don't wanna work together or who are dealing with some of the problems?

You're saying how can technology not exacerbate these problems, but actually. Try to mitigate them? 

[00:55:11] Davina Lyons: Well, I think what tends to be much more successful is when it's gamified, when their learning is gamified, and it can't be too elementary for their age group because they can point that out right away. But I have seen some platforms that are engaging that are exciting.

The brain breaks are nice, the kids like that, but at the same time. It's things like Kahoot or just programs where they're being competitive. Now you can get them to come together, so to speak. But it is all in the design is what I'm saying. And I may not know the answer as to what design, but there's definitely a use for technology in that way and it can be such a plus.

There just has to be a balance. 

[00:55:58] Alex Sarlin: Yep. I think Kahoot and other gamified applications are a good example of ed tech that is designed to sort of bring people together and engage them and have them be using technology in a hopefully really positive way in the classroom. Right. I wanna dig into your comment about students not reading, because this is something that is enormously.

I don't know. Painful. I think for many of us in education and in ed tech, we've talked to a number of different ed tech founders who are trying to bring technology to the reading experience and actually make reading itself somewhat more gamified or more technologically enhanced so that you can, I talked to an founder of an app called Literal where literally you can read all of Dickens or all of classic literature through text messages, and they have characters and they do all this stuff to try to make it sort of resemble the type of technology that students do use voluntarily all the time.

When you hear an idea like that, would you say, that's really interesting, I'd love to know more about that, or do you say, oh man, technology can't fix everything? I think we need to think about the fundamental problem here. 

[00:56:59] Davina Lyons: Well, because I'm a person who loves the physical books still, I am always going to want to see kids with actual books in hand.

I still realize that there are ways in which you can engage students with literature online or informational text. For instance, I as an English teacher, would love to see a lot more annotation tools. We have it already. They're able to annotate as they're reading, but in some ways maybe come up with ways to engage and more merit-based as they are annotating.

As they are. Okay, great job in this area. Maybe instant feedback. In a perfect world, as long as they're using their brains and their eyes and their reading, but also. The comprehension is the most important thing. I ask kids all the time, you're reading, do you remember what you just read? And they'll say No.

So this is why I have them all engaged by making sure they annotate, they're write in the margins, they close, read all of those things. All those strategies are super important because otherwise it's in and it's out. They don't retain it. And that's probably where I think you can use technology. But you really have to figure out a way to draw them in.

[00:58:24] Alex Sarlin: That's a really good point. We talk a lot of 'em on this podcast about ai, as you can imagine, especially over the last two to three years, as it's become a huge part of the technological landscape and one of the use cases that I think could be very interesting, I'd love to hear a reaction to this is just a floating idea, but that type of, you know, close reading or retrieving information as you're reading, active reading is something that is actually very hard to do, even as adults and certainly hard to train students to do.

But it's something that AI is actually pretty good at. The idea of being like, read this page, and then the AI will say, I'm gonna stop you after you've read this page and ask you a couple questions just to make sure that this is making sense and that you're understanding it and you can ask me questions about it.

You know, it doesn't have to feel, it can feel very conversational. I'm curious if there's a world in which AI could actually enhance that type of reading, experience reading to learn from nonfiction or just. Reading comprehension, asking you to respond in real time to these totally abstract ideas, but do you think there's a role that technology could play in actually enhancing the reading experience?

[00:59:25] Davina Lyons: Absolutely. What you just described to me would be ideal. I'd love that experience, and I'm sure it already exists. Well, AI just never ceases to surprise me. I love ai, so I use it quite a bit. So I do understand the capabilities are just getting better day after day, however, I could see that happening. I think that as long as it's pretty intuitive and it understands as it's going along where the growth is and it's adjusting, you know, because it's all about growth.

I think that's the most important thing. Getting kids to grow and improve in their abilities. And so I could definitely see that happening. Yes. 

[01:00:02] Alex Sarlin: I can imagine Even something that follows you around the internet and you're reading a news article and it says you, you read that five minutes ago. Do you remember anything in it?

Do you, if I were to ask you this question, because it's sometimes hard, but I, you know, one of the things that the Teacher Leader Impact Award honors is people who are not only doing really interesting things like. What you're doing with rising resilience or your right to rise class. Not only doing really interesting things directly with students, but actually supporting the community of educators and creating sightlines so that people can learn from one another.

Mm-hmm. I'm curious what that looks like in your context. You know, how do you spread the word about some of the innovative work you're doing? How do you learn about innovative work that other educators in commu in your community are doing? 

[01:00:42] Davina Lyons: Well, I'm very fortunate, first of all, that I'm in a wonderful school district, Maricopa Unified School District.

Number 20, I have to say, is amazing. We have access to a lot of different tools, and one of the things is my school, like I said I mentioned earlier, is teams based, 

[01:00:58] Alex Sarlin: right? 

[01:00:58] Davina Lyons: So we work in teams. The core, I am ELA teacher, and there's a math, a science, and a social studies teacher, and we work as a collaborative team, and that way we service the whole student.

We actually are able to have conversations about the data from student results, and we learn how to compliment one another in our curriculum and how we present it. So that's the first thing. And then outside of that, I've been fortunate to, I'm the team leader, so I'm fortunate to have additional training and support in that way.

And I also facilitate professional development for other teachers. And just, you know, my everyday conversation. I'm all about education. I mean, I have a, I come from a long line of educators and so. It's that thing I never get bored to talk about. So it's just what it's, but yeah, inside the school it's that way.

Rising resilience also carries the conversation over, and I'm big on social media. I'm all over the place from LinkedIn to. Instagram to TikTok. I'm all about improving, you know, the education space. 

[01:02:02] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. And about helping people share ideas and sharing your ideas. Yeah. It's so powerful right now, and this is something that we talk about the ills of social media, especially in in relationship to students, but sometimes you, you do, you mentioned you're on all the platforms.

Social media can be really, have a positive impact and not that I'm here to defend it or anything, but it can have really positive impact when it allows people to share ideas. We've seen a huge teacher community on TikTok. We've seen teacher communities, all sorts of Facebook groups, lots of Instagram influencers sharing ideas about education.

I'm curious, you know, where you see the future of that going, especially in the age of, of ai. You know, I know that's a very abstract question, but I'm just curious like how might teachers, especially really innovative teachers like yourself and other winners of the teacher leader impact awards, how you might.

You know, I can imagine you training a virtual coach that can respond to things like you using your corpus of knowledge or I don't know. What do you see the future in terms of teachers sharing ideas through technology? 

[01:03:02] Davina Lyons: I really see technology and AI as faster speed to market, so to speak. I think you can get more done in a shorter amount of time.

You can respond more quickly, you can grow with it, and it's not just your knowledge now. It's a collective knowledge that I think it's a very positive thing because as. You know what? Our kids are changing. They're evolving, they're getting, you know, generation to generation things are evolving. I believe that AI allows us to keep up with that and not stay stuck.

I mean, you take my age and the average person my age as not as into it as I am, but my kiddos keep me young. Yeah. And also they just do. And also, you know, keeping up with what's happening. I think AI helps you to do that for sure. And it's just collective knowledge. There's nothing wrong with that. I do think we have to be responsible in how we use it.

I think we have to be responsible. We have to teach kids to be responsible, because what I don't want is. To no longer sharpen my own saw. I wanna stay sharp, I wanna stay knowledgeable, and I can't depend on ai and I don't want my kiddos to depend on something else. For artificial intelligence in that way, I think it's important to use it as a resource, and I tell my students that you're gonna use it.

We know it's there. They have their cell phones, they're gonna figure it out. But they still have to use their heart and their soul and they have to grow. And so that's where I think it, it's important to differentiate and it's also important to remind our young people that it's okay to use it as a tool and a resource, but don't depend on it completely.

I guess that's my answer. 

[01:04:50] Alex Sarlin: I. I think that is a fantastic message. I feel like that's going to be the core competency of the next few years, is figuring out how to use this powerful, powerful technology to, to learn more about the world, to stay up to date on things, to try new things that you've never done before, yet not become overdependent or get to a place where you're, you're outsourcing all your critical thinking to technology, which is exactly, it's never been a concern before, but it suddenly, suddenly is, it's actually one of the top concerns for educators is that their students are gonna start doing that, and we're starting to see a little bit of it.

I, we all have to stay vigilant around it, but it sounds like you're doing incredibly interesting work and obviously being very, very thoughtful about it. I think your students are very well served and your team and your community. Thank you so much. DAV Alliance is an award-winning educator speaker, and she's a founder of Rising Resilience.

She's out of Maricopa in Arizona. Thank you so much for being here with us, and congratulations on your Teacher Leader Impact Award for 2025 from Empathy Athena. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. Thank you. 

[01:05:50] Davina Lyons: Appreciate it. 

[01:05:52] Alex Sarlin: We're here with Xing Yang Kong, one of the recipients of the 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Awards from Athena.

She holds two master's degrees in bilingual elementary education from Loyola Marymount University and in English education from the University of Wisconsin at Platteville. She's a third grade Mandarin teacher in the English Mandarin Immersion program. She's also the grade chair and a member of the instructional leadership team at Broadway Elementary in Venice, California.

Welcome to the podcast. 

[01:06:22] Qingyan Kang: Hi. Thank you for inviting me. I'm very excited. 

[01:06:24] Alex Sarlin: I'm excited to have you here as well. So first off, you have such an interesting role as a third grade Mandarin teacher. Tell us about why it's important for you to continuously improve your teaching practices and what do you do to.

Teaching that has actually impacted the, your third grade students in the school? 

[01:06:45] Qingyan Kang: Well, first, my students are from different backgrounds, so every year I got different students and then they have specific different needs. So I teach Mandarin in all the subjects, which means like couple students will have some background for Mandarin, some students don't.

So I'm facing a lot of different needs, so I have to keep myself using different strategies, even changing my classroom layout every year is different. So in order to meet specific students' needs. I like the dynamic classroom. If I don't change, like just do the teacher teach and student listen, I feel bored.

I'm very exciting, you know, an energetic teacher as to parents and as to my colleagues. So I enjoy teaching. I want students to enjoy learning and while playing and making their friendship in my classroom. So that's why I try different strategies, different technology in order to make the lessons fun.

Interesting. So my philosophy for teaching the target language Mandarin is have them have the strong interest in learning it. So I'm a second language learner as well. I study Korean myself and I study English. Now my family members speak English. So I want my students to have strong interest for further, not just learning content at third grade.

Of course, that's the basic, but I'm looking for further. I want them to go to middle school and high school and continue, because in the west side here, we actually have immersion schools when they go to middle school and high school. So it's a whole pathway. 

[01:08:24] Alex Sarlin: Yeah. So you're trying to sort of light that fire, build a really deep interest in learning, not just getting to the next assessment or quiz or activity, but actually getting really excited, making them identify as a Mandarin learner, which I think is amazing.

So, you know, one of the things we love about the Athena Award is that it's about professional learning, both for yourself and for others in the school community. And you are a member of the instructional leadership team. Tell us a little bit about how you support others in their professional growth and how you work with others in the school community.

[01:08:55] Qingyan Kang: In my school, we plan as a whole grade and as a whole school as well. So just for small group, I have my English partner, so we have to communicate like on a daily basis because we switch in the middle of the day. Right. And I have a Mandarin partner as well, which she has her class. So I have been helping my Mandarin teachers because she was new, she just graduate.

And then she was preparing her credential because she only had the single subject, but we need Mandarin teachers, so she have never get the multiple subject credential. So she was doing that busy. So I was supporting her, like I was planning every content and communicating with her, leading her. So the first year for her, I prepared all the materials.

All she needs to do is to make it her own style and using it so that way she is not stressed out for the first year. I'm so glad she said I didn't cry, Eddie. 

[01:09:58] Alex Sarlin: So 

[01:09:58] Qingyan Kang: for my partner, we help each other, we send reminders. So sometimes during the middle of the night, like 10:00 PM and then she still email me, say, Eddie, tomorrow we have our class.

So we remind each other. So for those small things, yeah, and for whole grade, every week we meet as a team to plan as a whole grade. So for like math and science and so none of the target language we plan together and as a grade chair. So I remind the little routine things like school activities. We have tons of activities at school, so I make sure every member's on their task make sure the activities go smooth so they know what they need to do.

For example, field trip, I will make sure the field trip tracker is finished. Mm. For example, they will have their chaperones ready. Their students are in small groups. We have sent out the forums for parents. The lunch counts are ready to go and the sites are contacted. So all those needle details, I'm on it.

And make sure every member know the information they are forwarding to their homeroom parents. So that's what I do. And for instructional leader for the school, we make plans for the professional development Tuesdays, make sure every teachers have strategies to go. And I also host a science club for the first year at my school, and we actually joined the competition for Minecraft, the Level Up.

So I was very excited, but as a new one, so we didn't go to the next level, but I'm very confident to go to the next Bahamas students next year. So that's what I do. 

[01:11:42] Alex Sarlin: Fantastic. All these different opportunities to collaborate and sometimes, like you say, the calls at 10 at night or there's the formal meetings in school and in classrooms, and then the informal, just supporting each other.

Setting up materials for another teacher can be incredibly impactful in growth and just in sort of creating a supportive community. Community. Well, I wanna ask you about your professional learning goals in the upcoming year. And particularly, you mentioned Minecraft here and I know that you use technology in your classroom.

This is an EdTech podcast. So all our listeners are always interested in technology. I'm curious where you are continuing to grow your teaching skills and especially where they going in relationship to technology. 

[01:12:18] Qingyan Kang: So every year as a teacher, I give myself a focus. To reach. So for example, last past year, I set for writing, so I use Google document for mm-hmm.

Speech to text, right? Yep. Every classroom we have a Chromebook for third grade. 

[01:12:36] Alex Sarlin: Yep. 

[01:12:36] Qingyan Kang: And then so I create documents and show them how to doing it. And then it's fantastic because the under tools, they have voice to type in. So for language, it's hard because only me, it's hard for them to like, oh, just go say it.

They was like, uh, those kind. It's sad. And so I will guide them to say, how you gonna write and practice? So one example I did, I published the book and the students first, I teach them how to write, right? So like for example, you gonna write about your ankle, the favorite person. So that's my topic. So you can choose your dad.

So first describe what's your relationship to the person, right? For the first paragraph and then so I get them how to write this through the writing strategies that we have. We use bubble map and then flow maps after those strategies we finish. So students already have their content ready, but I want them to practice speaking first.

[01:13:37] Alex Sarlin: Mm-hmm. So 

[01:13:37] Qingyan Kang: they'll have friends to practice speaking and say, oh, I'm gonna write about my uncle, or I'm gonna write my best friend. And first describe the relationship. And then second paragraph, you're gonna describe how the person look like, because I'm gonna connect him with their second grade content.

Right. And after that, they're gonna say about why they want to write this product, this person, right? Because for example, my mom cook dinner for me every day. You know, their reasons are very cute every year. So, and then by the end, they will express their hope. So they will end with this essay, but they practice first.

So when they're ready for speaking, they go to the document. So they go to school DI send a link to every student in their own account so they know where to go. They have the link and they open the documents, which is safe because we're not allowed them to go anything anywhere else online using technology that the online safety is our first concern.

And then when they are ready and then online, because I have a link, I made the chart. So I see both classes, students names, so I just click, they'll say, Hey, come on, I'm ready for my writing. So I check online. It's so cute to see, like, they are so surprising because we know, you know, adults know like we shared the documents.

So I'm there and, but for them they're like, how did you do that? You just edited for me. You know, like it's simultaneously. So I edit using, suggesting editing. So they see what, they changed it, and then they finish, they use the paper, and then they write on it, and then we publish it. Then we make into a schoolbook.

So the parents can, it's optional they can buy it or not. Right? So that's, I used for one of the technology, which is speech to text. I also use a lot more. For example, LSD have Adobe Express for free for educator and students. So I use the animation video to make recordings and then it's very engaging, right?

So they like to speak. So I say you can using it, but my only requirement is you have to speak Mandarin. Right? And then we chat a lot and then they, they love it, you know, to just describing things. I also use Google Maps for example, when I was teaching the social studies and China geography, right? And I used my own picture as Vijo and I say, Hey look, I went to the Mount Everest, right?

And then we're so surprised Are, is that you? Is that Renee? You I like, yes, that's me. And then say, guess what? What am I gonna learn today? So, and I get them into, I say, yes, we're gonna go see the Mount Everest through Google Maps, but here you can only go where I asked to go. You cannot go anything, anywhere else.

I use Google Maps because, you know, the visitors post videos on the site so the students can use their census to, here, for example, when we, uh, introduce Yellow River. The color of the river and also the strong motions from the rivers they can see and how long it is. You cannot just use a picture, a word to describe.

So they have to experience it through the videos. That's from the visitors at the site who took it. I think it's very good, you know, tools to use and it's safe too if you know you under control guiding it. So that's another ai I used it. Yeah. Minecraft. It's another one. So I just learning about it. Yet some of my students doing it, some students are not liking it.

For example, one of the program I joined it is tap into water to introduce saving water, buy less bottled water. Right? So they create the video to introduce, say no more water. They use signs to posting, you know, to advertising. So save our Earth, buy less plastic bottles by drinking tap water. It's save what the benefits.

Yeah, so that's the so ex examples I use. 

[01:17:40] Alex Sarlin: Yeah, it's amazing and you're mentioning safety first, but then within the safety, you know, you find safe tools and safe environments. You can create engaging experiences, experiences that help do translation or speech to text or build students' ability to, to move with confidence and that's really, really exciting.

Last question for you, just in our last minute. What are you most excited about as somebody who is helping light that fire for students, get them on this pathway to do immersion programs or to understand, you know, to really live in different languages throughout multiple subjects. What are you most excited about in terms of what is just happening in the technology and AI world in general?

Like when you, even outside of the classroom where everything has to be very controlled, are there technologies that you use or that you are excited about that you'd love your students to be able to have access to in the future? 

[01:18:26] Qingyan Kang: Well, I set my next year goal already, which is improving their speaking.

It's really hard in the classroom setting. I tried a lot of different strategies, you know, structures. I think using AI can get them excited. You know, like technology, the kids knows already there are 21st century babies, right? So there's one website I'm starting to using, which is like, it's free just for chat part, but you can pay, but it's monthly pay.

So that part is a little hard. But then just for the chat part, it's free. So basically the students go on the website, it's called Talk Pal ai. So you just introduce yourself like, Hey, my name is Xen, I like fruit. You like fruit I Mandarin, right Han. And then AI will speak back in Mandarin and which is a fanatic.

So I. Will get them excited. So that's one of the tools I'm gonna using quite more often next school year to improve their speaking on topics. Because everyone has a computer, it's hard for me to have students with students just for supervising because some students don't even want to say anything. So I want them to practice with AI when they, their confidence increased and then I put them to, you know, with the peers.

So at that time, I think they're more confident. They already practiced. I think it's more engaging because I don't want them feel embarrassed or feel bad about their speaking. Like, oh, I cannot speak you. Knowledge and confidence, and then go into that conversations. 

[01:20:17] Alex Sarlin: I think it's a powerful use of technology to create those safe spaces where students can take a chance or put themselves out there, especially in a new language, and get feedback and build confidence so that they can then go out and, and do it with confidence in a classroom or with a peer or mm-hmm.

Go visit somewhere and use it that way. It's really exciting. I, I think you're doing amazing work. This is Xian Kong. It goes by Eddie who holds two master's degrees in education, and she's teaching at the Broadway Elementary School in Venice. Teaching third grade Mandarin, using Minecraft, using Talk Pal, using all sorts of amazing tools, the Google Suite in all sorts of interesting ways, including Google Maps, which I love.

Congratulations again on your 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Award from Athena, and we'll be following your work. We should talk more about some of this amazing language work you're doing in the future. 

[01:21:05] Qingyan Kang: Oh, thank you. Love to share. So I'm joining the district just on the side of the talk. You know, I'm holding workshops Great.

About those to share with more teachers for the district, like next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the whole district will have a whole district dual language, world language, you know, like the Amazing Teacher Conference. By then, they'll have over close to 1000 educators join at the PRI month high school.

It's a big event. So I'm just holding one workshop on the second day and the other. I'm just gonna, you know, support there. 

[01:21:39] Alex Sarlin: I'm so glad that you and other educators are finding ways to share practices in this time of a very fast change and all this opportunity to do amazing things for your students.

[01:21:48] Qingyan Kang: Yeah, the district, I think they are changing. They are having, involving the educators to share with other educators. We have teacher help teacher program at our district, which is a very good district program. If you want more of those, you should get into those. And I think other district would be interested too, because it's very successful program for like new teachers.

Like the more experienced teachers will help new teachers. I mean, we learn from each other. 

[01:22:18] Alex Sarlin: That's what it's all about. That's amazing. Yeah. I our listeners as well. I just think that there's so much opportunity here for interesting collaboration between these groups of really innovative teachers ready to share and learn from one another, and then all of these education technology tools and founders that are trying to help the classroom as well.

So it's really exciting. Thank you so much for being here with us on the pod. Thanks for listening to this episode of Ed Tech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more, EdTech Insider, subscribe to the Free EdTech Insiders Newsletter on substack.