E20 - Casting a Wider Net with Laurel Aguilar-Kirchhoff

On this episode of Blending In, in May of 2024 I had the privilege of chatting with my good friend Laurel Aguilar-Kirchhoff!  I met Laurel through our involvement with CUE and have been so inspired by all of the work she has done in the world of Educational Technology that I invited her to be on the show.  Laurel is a former 20 year middle school teacher who now teaches in the Teacher Education and Foundations programs as a university lecturer. Laurel is an International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Community Leader and has served on the Board of Directors for Inland Area CUE. She is the instructor for the ISTEU grad course: Digital Citizenship in Action, as well. Her co-authored book, Bring History and Civics to Life: Lessons and Strategies to Cultivate Informed Empathetic Citizens was published in 2022 by ISTE. Laurel has also authored a jump-start guide, Student Data Privacy-An Educator’s Guide, which was published by ISTE and released in Spring of 2024.

When we began our conversation, Laurel and I spoke reminiscently about leaders who we have met along our paths who encouraged us to step outside of the classroom bubble to be able to support other teachers and cast a wider net of influence on students.  Particularly, so many women leaders who have paid it forward in our lives - "Empowered women empower women!"  Speaking of empowerment, Laurel recently invited me to guest lecture in one of her university classes.  In that class, she teachers future secondary educators how to best help English Language Learners be proficient as multi-lingual learners.  She spoke how Universal Design for Learning plays a huge role in designing activities to facilitate learning for these types of students.  We also discussed how to plan for meaningful blended learning activities that are accessible and pedagogically sound rather than the latest edtech fad that is happening in the moment. Some Laurel's "go to" learning strategies and and edtech tools in a blended learning environment are: traditional collaborative activities, Mentimeter, Slido, SEL Check-ins, Turn & Talk, Google Workspace products that are accessible to students, hyperdocs, and we agreed that Canva speaks our love language.  And we joked about how sad we were about Jamboard being discontinued - RIP Jamboard! We also discussed the saturation of AI and how it can seem overwhelming; but truly before freaking out, going back to the basics of "What do my students need to know and be able to do?" will provide the answer to what tech (if any) is needed for a learning experience.   

For advice for first year teachers, Laurel advises new teachers to focus on their time management and personal/professional boundaries to avoid teacher burnout in this service positions.  Secondly, she advises to truly focus on all the intricacies of classroom management because if that is solid, it is easier to get into all the "fun" of learning.  Slight plug from me for Dave Stuart, Jr. for redefining "classroom management" as "classroom stewardship" and Laurel shared a message from her friend Barbara Lane who gave her a sticker that says "Clear is kind."  When we are clear with our students on our expectations, it is not only kind the them, it is kind to us.

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