Tag: Student Voice

Ep. 281 | Why Most Teachers Get Student Voice Totally Wrong

Discover how to move beyond student surveys and start amplifying real student voice through leadership, feedback, and classroom collaboration. Empower your learners to co-create meaningful learning experiences.

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What if your students had the power to shape your lessons—and it actually worked? In this insightful conversation, educator and author Jennifer Casa-Todd joins us to break down the real meaning of student voice. From her work with high schoolers and pre-service teachers to co-authoring a book with a student, Jennifer shares how to move from “listening” to “collaboration” to full-on student leadership.

You’ll learn:

  • Why asking students to “keep it, ditch it, tweak it” transforms your teaching
  • How classroom committees build purpose and belonging
  • The surprising ways students are using AI to innovate (not just cheat)
  • Why your mindset—not your method—is the biggest roadblock

This episode will have you rethinking the role of students in everything from curriculum design to digital citizenship. Time to put the “co” in co-creator!

Connect With Gabriel Carrillo

About Jennifer Casa-Todd

Jennifer am a wife, mom, educator, a former Literacy Consultant, a Google Certified Innovator, and author of several educational publications–most recently, Hopes for School: A student perspective and ideas for educational transformation. She’s an ISTE Community leader, a Google Educator Group leader for Ontario and a Board member for the Canadian School Library Association. Jennifer can currently be found supporting pre-service teachers at Lakehead University (Ontario). She’s passionate about amplifying student voice and helping learners use technology positively and productively.

Connect With Jennifer Casa-Todd

Ep. 13: Claudio, #Singasong, and West Coast Eats

In this special episode, I sit down with Claudio Zavala Jr. to discuss his contributions to the Educational and EdTech world including, #singasong. If you’re unfamiliar with #singasong, it’s a very innovative way he has incorporated Flipgrid to spread some #positivenoise around the globe. If you’d like to know more about it, listen to this episode. He’s come a long way on his educational journey and has taught various grade levels and now serves as an Instructional Technology Coordinator. We share many similarities being that we’re both born and raised in San Diego, California and both graduated from San Diego State University. We probably crossed paths in the past but never realized it. Now, we’re recording a podcast together discussing two passions of ours, educational technology and west coast eats. This was definitely a fun episode and conversation that continued even after I hit the “Stop” button.  Don’t take my word for it though, check it out for yourself. Don’t forget to follow Claudio on Twitter and share your voice using #singasong. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast, share it with others, and leave a review. As always, enjoy and buen provecho!

Flipgrid Basics: Amplify Student Voice Using Flipgrid

One thing that all teachers want more of in their classrooms is more student participation. How do we do this when we have a mixed bag of personalities all in one class? Some of those personalities can and will dominate the conversation while other want to participate but are afraid to possibly be wrong in front of their peers. And then there are some who genuinely do not want to participate because “it’s stupid”. How do we get participation and more #studentvoice in our classrooms while keeping it relevant and engaging? Flipgrid! That’s how!

Flipgrid is a digital tool that allows teachers to create a “Topic” (question) and have students respond with video. That video can be recorded on the spot, can be a YouTube video, or can be a video created with digital software such as iMovie. It’s easy to use and can be done so on a Chromebook, PC, Mac, Android, and iOS (the response part, at least). Not only that, these student responses can be created at anytime, not just in the classroom. If you’ve never used it, here is a recipe card to get you started quickly. In addition, you can upgrade to a Classroom account, which has more bells and whistles, by using promo code: GABRIELC . So here you go, amplify student voice in your class with Flipgrid.

If you’d like to experience Flipgrid first hand from a student perspective, there are many grids and topics out there. Just search #flipgridfever on Twitter and see what is out there that might interest you. One of my personal favorites is by fellow San Diego rockstar Claudio Zavala who posts a different music genre every week to help you get your week going. Check it out at hashtagsingasong.com.

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