Schoolutions: Curious Educators. Evidence-Based Strategies. Classrooms Where Every Child Thrives.

Olivia Wahl
  • 4.7 (47)
  • Education
  • Updated Biweekly

Do you need innovative strategies to strengthen your school culture and spark student growth? This podcast is your go-to resource for coaches, teachers, administrators, and families seeking to create dynamic and engaging learning environments. In each episode, you'll discover how to unite educators and caregivers to support students, tackle common classroom challenges, and cultivate an atmosphere where every learner can thrive. With over 25 years of experience as a teacher and coach, host Olivia Wahl curates episodes with insights from more than 150 expert interviews, offering practical tips that bridge the gap between school and home. Tune in every Monday and Friday for actionable strategies and inspirational stories that can transform your approach and make a real impact on learning.Start with a fan-favorite episode today (S5E1: Inside the Secret Moves of Expert Teachers with John Hattie) and take the first step towards transforming your educational environment!

  1. 2d ago ·  Bonus

    Are Your Lessons Running Without You? Here's Why That's a Problem...

    Here's a test for tomorrow's lesson. Could you hit play, walk out of the room, and have it run exactly the same without you? If so, Katie Lewis White says you're presenting, not facilitating. In part two of Schoolutions S6E4, Katie and I discuss what separates the two. Presenting is a one-way message. Facilitation is a conversation. It means watching who's leaning in and who's zoned out, treating silence as a sign something isn't clear, and backing up to try another way. Katie also shows how learning debt makes this harder. Every "ignore this slide" or "this handout is a little outdated" pulls attention in class away from the learning. I share how Trevor Muir charts three desk setups with his students so the room can shift in seconds depending on the task. We talk about why a silent classroom is a signal and what student participation sounds like when the teacher works among the kids instead of at the front. Katie also opens up about leaving the classroom after ten years. After COVID she felt spent and knew her students deserved more energy than she had left. In corporate learning and development, she found names for the things she'd been doing as a middle and high school teacher all along. If you have strong lessons but a quiet classroom, I can help. My coaching cycles happen inside classrooms, alongside teachers, with real kids in the room. We plan together, watch who's engaged and who's zoned out, and adjust in the moment. Reach out at oliviawahl.com/coaching-consulting to bring that work to your school. Next week, Angela Lathem-Ballard joins me to talk about balancing the many roles teachers juggle while supporting students as inductive and deductive thinkers. 💫Check out part one & Katie's Infographics: The Warning Signs of Learning DebtYou're Presenting If You... / You're Facilitating If You...Chapters: 0:00 The hit-play test 0:35 Three questions to think about as you listen 1:00 Welcome back, Katie 1:20 Presenting vs facilitating learning 2:00 How learning debt makes facilitation harder 3:15 The one-question test for your lesson 3:55 What to watch for when you facilitate 5:45 Trevor Muir's three desk setups 6:25 Why a silent classroom is a signal 7:05 Katie's move from the classroom to corporate learning 8:50 Giving teachers words for what they already do 10:10 Takeaways and coaching Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #FacilitateLearning #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #InstructionalCoaching #TeachingTips #LearningDebt #TeacherPodcast #Schoolutions When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive. When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  2. 4d ago ·  Bonus

    Could Your Lesson Run the Same Way if You Walked Out of the Room?

    Could your lesson run the same way if you walked out of the room? My guest Katie Lewis White says if the answer is yes, you're presenting, not facilitating learning. In the full episode, Katie shares what to watch for when you shift from presenting to facilitating, why a silent classroom tells you something, and how outdated slides and handouts make facilitation harder. She also opens up about a career change that gave her words for things great teachers already do. Try the test on tomorrow's lesson before you listen. Then tell me in the comments what you found. Part two of my conversation with Katie Lewis White drops Friday, October 9, on Schoolutions. Subscribe so it lands in your feed. If you or teachers you work with want help moving from presenting to facilitating, I'd love to partner with your school. My coaching cycles happen inside classrooms, alongside teachers, with kids in the room. Reach out at oliviawahl.com/coaching-consulting. 🎧 Hear more from Katie Lewis White in the part one podcast episode!  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #FacilitateLearning #StudentEngagement #ActiveLearning #TeachingTips #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherReflection  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  3. 5d ago

    Every Teacher Needs This Master Hub Doc (Try It Tuesday Teacher Move)

    Ever rebuilt a Google Doc you knew you'd already made? My Schoolutions  podcast guest, Katie Lewis White, taught me there's a name for that. It's called learning debt, and once I heard it, I saw it everywhere. My Try It Tuesday tip: build one master hub doc for each unit you teach. Put every link inside it. Videos, graphic organizers, slide decks, readings. When it's time to teach, you open one file and everything is there. No digging through folders while thirty kids wait and attention in class slips away. It also gives you your Sunday night back. Watch a show. Watch the game. Walk into Monday without that two-hour search hanging over you. This is one of my favorite teaching tips for lesson planning because it works for new teachers setting up their first units and for veteran teachers clearing out years of duplicate files. Mentor teachers can share one link with a new colleague instead of six folders. Homeschoolers can use it to keep a full unit in one place too. Want to hear where this idea came from? Listen to my full conversation with Katie Lewis White on Schoolutions, Season 6, Episode 4. https://youtu.be/6R17J1PsCXc If your school wants help clearing out learning debt across a whole team, I partner with teachers, education coaches, instructional leaders, and school administrators to map what's on teachers' plates and decide what to keep, fix, and retire. Reach out at my Coaching & Consulting tab. Chapters 0:00 What learning debt is 0:15 Build a master hub doc for each unit 0:35 Get your Sunday night back #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #TeachingTips #TryItTuesday #TeacherHacks #LessonPlanning #GoogleForEducation #LearningDebt #TeacherTips When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  4. 6d ago

    What is Learning Debt (& Why You Need to Fix it Right Now)?

    It's 9:45 on a Sunday night. You're digging through a shared Google Drive for a document you made last year. You can't find it, so you rebuild it. Two hours gone. Katie Lewis White calls this learning debt, and in this S6E4 Schoolutions conversation, she shows me how much it costs teachers and schools. Katie spent eight years teaching Spanish in a K-12 school and has over a decade of experience in instructional design and global curriculum development. She explains learning debt as the work nobody puts on a job description: outdated curriculum maps, redundant materials, and new programs piled on top of old ones that never get retired. Her old textbook still taught vocabulary for VCRs and floppy disks. We talk about what school administrators and instructional leaders can do about it. Katie's starting point is a list of every program, field trip, and event teachers are asked to cover, and one question: are we managing our teachers' time well? I share what I see on teachers' calendars when they're pulled out for training once a week, and why new teachers who say yes to everything need school leadership to protect their time. You'll also hear Katie's unit-by-unit review cycle for lesson planning, the notes she kept after every class, and the one word she uses for a shared drive with no system. If your district wants to start paying down its learning debt, I'd love to help. We map what's on teachers' plates, from initiatives to coaching cycles to calendar overlap, and decide what stays. Find me at oliviawahl.com under Coaching and Consulting.  Katie's Infographics: The Warning Signs of Learning DebtYou're Presenting If You... / You're Facilitating If You...Part two drops Friday. Katie shares a one-question test that tells you whether you're presenting or facilitating learning. Chapters 0:00 A Sunday night search through Google Drive 0:30 Three questions to think about as you listen 1:00 Meet Katie Lewis White 2:25 What learning debt means 3:40 Teacher overwhelm and programs that never retire 5:50 Rushing to plan and rebuying what you already have 6:40 What administrators need to know about learning debt 9:50 Shared calendars and training overlap 11:20 Lightning round: the VCR curriculum map 12:30 What Katie does outside of work 13:05 The ideal review cycle for a curriculum map 14:40 One word for an unmanaged shared drive 15:00 Where a school district should start 15:55 Why new teachers say yes to everything 16:55 Takeaways and paying down learning debt Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027.  #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #LearningDebt #TeacherSupport #InstructionalLeadership #InstructionalCoaching #TeacherWorkload #CurriculumPlanning #NewTeachers  When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  5. Oct 4

    Why Depth Beats Delivery Every Time (October Podcast Preview)

    October on Schoolutions is all about depth over delivery. I edited every episode this month and noticed one question running through all four conversations: how do we ask kids to make meaning and wonder more, so learning sticks? Here's who joins me. Katie Lewis White explains learning debt. I didn't know it had a name until she told me. It affects every teacher and every school. She also breaks down the difference between presenting a lesson and facilitating learning, which changes how you think about student engagement, active learning, and student participation. Angela Lathem-Ballard talks about the many roles teachers carry inside school systems. She shows how we can support inductive and deductive reasoners with instructional strategies that fit how each kid actually thinks. This is effective teaching and inclusive teaching in practice. Jennifer Serravallo is back with her newest resource on whole book comprehension. Kids read short, testable passages in school no matter what. She shows how to balance that with whole book reading so comprehension goes deeper. Great for lesson planning, teaching tips, and education strategies you can use Monday. I close the month with Jason Blair, an artist and art teacher whose LinkedIn posts make me stop scrolling every time. We ask one question. What if we all had an artist mindset? He connects it to routines, school culture, instructional leadership, and education leadership. We also get into how AI is changing the art world and art classrooms. Come join the conversations. I can't wait to have you with us this October. Chapters: 0:00 October theme: depth over delivery 0:14 Katie Lewis White on learning debt and facilitating vs. presenting 0:30 Angela Lathem-Ballard on teacher roles and inductive and deductive reasoners 0:44 Jennifer Serravallo on whole book comprehension 1:03 Jason Blair on the artist mindset, leadership, and AI in art education #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #StudentEngagement #EffectiveTeaching #InstructionalCoaching #ReadingComprehension #ArtistMindset #TeacherPodcast #ProfessionalDevelopment #EducationLeadership When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  6. Oct 2 ·  Bonus

    The Truth About Year One: What Really Matters in the Classroom

    Jennifer Orr felt she had to prove herself to new colleagues in her 28th year of teaching. In part two of our S6E3 Schoolutions conversation, she explains why that feeling has nothing to do with being new and everything to do with being human. We take apart the myth of the Pinterest-perfect classroom and discuss why bare walls invite students to co-create the space and build a sense of belonging in the classroom. Jennifer shows how sentence starters, vocabulary lists, and partner talk are inclusive teaching and instructional strategies that boost student participation for English learners and anxious kids alike. She shares quick checks, like a fist of five and whiteboards, as active learning tools that give you real data without another formal test. Then we turn to relationships. Jennifer shares how to open parent communication with curiosity, why family partnerships work like a triangle between school, home, and child, and how to hear feedback from your principal without getting defensive. We close on what school leadership and instructional leadership teams can do right now: take things off new teachers' plates and map professional development across the first five years. In this episode: ➡️What still makes year one magical ➡️Why Pinterest classrooms work against student engagement ➡️Invitational small groups that build student motivation ➡️Parent involvement and the home-school connection with skeptical families ➡️Principal strategies and school improvement that protect new teachers 💫Check out part one & Jennifer’s most recent book:  📘 Letters to a New Teacher: Real Advice and Practical Strategies for Getting Started in Elementary Teaching. Chapters: 0:00 Welcome back 0:50 What's still magical about year one 2:30 The myth of the Pinterest-perfect classroom 5:30 Data, differentiation, and teacher jargon 8:00 Fist of five, whiteboards, and quick checks 9:10 Invitational small groups 11:10 Proving yourself to experienced colleagues 13:20 Building trust with skeptical families 16:10 Taking feedback from your principal 18:10 Patterns in mentoring new teachers 20:30 Take things off new teachers' plates 22:20 Tiered professional development for new hires Next week: Katherine Lewis White on learning debt and the difference between presenting and facilitating learning. Schoolutions is the podcast for educators and caregivers who are ready to grow alongside their children. Each episode delivers research-backed strategies rooted in the five practices of expert teachers from my upcoming book: Forever Getting Better: 5 Essential Practices for Reclaiming Teacher Expertise, so every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive.  I hope to have the book in your hands by June of 2027. If this is the kind of support you are looking for — someone to partner with you to think closely about your routines, your room setup, and the one student who keeps you up at night — let's get in touch.  You can find me on my website. Click the Coaching & Consulting tab to begin our thought partnership. #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #NewTeachers #TeacherSupport #ParentCommunication #SchoolLeadership #FamilyPartnerships #InclusiveTeaching #ProfessionalLearning When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  7. Sep 30 ·  Bonus

    How to Feel Confident Meeting with Families as a New Teacher

    Nervous about meeting skeptical parents at the start of the school year? You're not alone. 💛 In this reel, educator Jennifer Orr shares how she built trust with families as a 25-year-old first-year teacher, and the two mindset shifts that make parent communication feel less intimidating and far more powerful. TIP #1: LEAD WITH CURIOSITY Instead of trying to prove yourself, invite caregivers to talk about their child. Ask questions like: • What does your child love to do outside of school? • What are they really good at? • How do they handle challenges when things get hard? Genuine curiosity shows families how much you care about their child, and it can help you understand where their skepticism comes from. TIP #2: REMEMBER YOU'RE A TEAM Jennifer describes the school, the family, and the child as a triangle, the strongest shape architects use to build bridges. Even when teachers and families don't see eye to eye, keeping that connection at the center of every conversation builds a stronger home-school connection and supports student success. 🎧 Hear more from Jennifer Orr in the part one of our conversation!  💬 What's your go-to question to ask families at the start of the year? Share it in the comments! Chapters: 0:00 How do you handle skeptical families? 0:08 Jennifer's first year as a 25-year-old teacher 0:25 Tip 1: Go in with genuine curiosity 0:32 Questions to ask caregivers about their child 0:58 Why curiosity builds trust 1:10 Tip 2: The school-family-child triangle 1:25 Working together, even when it's hard #Schoolutions #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #CuriosityDriven #EvidenceBasedClassroomReadyStrategies #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting  #ParentCommunication #TeachingTips #NewTeachers #FamilyPartnerships #HomeSchoolConnection #FirstYearTeacher #ProKidMindset #WholeChild #TeacherLife #BackToSchool #Shorts When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

  8. Sep 29

    Why You Should Spend 2 Minutes for 10 days with Your Hardest Students (Try It Tuesday Teacher Move)

    Struggling to connect with a few students this school year? Try the 2x10 strategy! 🍎 In this Try It Tuesday reel, I share a simple, relationship-first approach from this week's podcast guest, Jennifer Orr, for teachers who are struggling to reach two or three students. Whether kids are resistant, having a hard time with the back-to-school transition, or showing low engagement, the 2x10 strategy builds classroom belonging one conversation at a time. How the 2x10 strategy works: Spend 2 minutes a day, 10 days in a row, connecting with a student about anything outside of academics. Hang out with them at recess, chat at lunch, or call their caregiver to learn what they love at home and how they handle challenges. These small moments show students that a whole team cares about them and wants them to succeed. Why it works: Strong relationships fuel student engagement, student motivation, and positive classroom behavior. This pro-kid mindset supports the whole child, strengthens the home-school connection, and builds a school culture where thriving students and student success come first. It's one of those effective teaching strategies and teaching tips that takes almost no time but can make a lasting difference. 🎧 Jennifer Orr shares many more strategies on this week's podcast. Check out part one and part two. Want a thought partner to take this back to your classroom or school? Find me here.  💬 Try the 2x10 this week and tell me in the comments how it goes! Chapters: 0:00 Struggling to connect with students? 0:17 What is the 2x10 strategy? 0:30 Easy ways to connect (recess, lunch, caregiver calls) 0:44 Why relationships matter 0:55 Hear more from Jennifer Orr on the podcast #SchoolutionsPodcast #ForeverGettingBetter #TryitTuesday #5PracticesOfExpertTeachers #OliviaWahlCoachingConsulting #2x10Strategy #TryItTuesday #TeachingTips #ClassroomBelonging #StudentEngagement #TeacherLife #NewTeachers #WholeChild #ProKidMindset #SchoolCulture #HomeSchoolConnection #BackToSchool #Shorts When teachers, coaches, administrators, and families grow together, schools change. Students get engaged, get support, and get the chance to thrive.

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Do you need innovative strategies to strengthen your school culture and spark student growth? This podcast is your go-to resource for coaches, teachers, administrators, and families seeking to create dynamic and engaging learning environments. In each episode, you'll discover how to unite educators and caregivers to support students, tackle common classroom challenges, and cultivate an atmosphere where every learner can thrive. With over 25 years of experience as a teacher and coach, host Olivia Wahl curates episodes with insights from more than 150 expert interviews, offering practical tips that bridge the gap between school and home. Tune in every Monday and Friday for actionable strategies and inspirational stories that can transform your approach and make a real impact on learning.Start with a fan-favorite episode today (S5E1: Inside the Secret Moves of Expert Teachers with John Hattie) and take the first step towards transforming your educational environment!

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