In this season finale of Fuel Up, we reflect on a year of learning, growth, and conversation centered on EL Education and K–5 literacy. Katie and Kevin revisit key ideas, favorite episodes, powerful insights, and meaningful shifts in practice from across the season.
Literacy Essentials – Best practices in literacy instruction
EL Education Curriculum (K–5):
https://curriculum.eleducation.org
EL Education — K–5 Literacy Resources
https://eleducation.org/resources
We're gonna be naming lots of episodes.
I hope you guys are taking
pause the podcast, pencil and sticky notes. So as we're going through today, if you're like, Oh man, I never heard that one, take a note of it and go back. Because great. There are so many great pieces of learning.
Going back to Episode Four around interactive
word walls. And number 14 with Jackie, we were talking about
models of excellence. Episode Seven with building background
knowledge, the language dives when we had that conversation with Kelly. Welcome back to fuel up a place for conversations with and for those using el education as a resource to support k5 literacy learning, we are so excited to have you with us for this week's episode. Today we look back on some of our favorite things from this year. We hope today's talk serves as a pit stop, a chance to swing by for some fresh energy, insights, encouragement and celebration as we work together to do what's best for our learners, this is a chance to fuel up. So wherever this finds you today, we hope you were able to pull over, take a breath and crank it up and that spirit. Here we go.
Welcome back today. We wrap up this first season of fuel up. We will be looking back at all of the learning, conversations and fun from this year. Katie, can you believe it? I mean, we made it to the end of our first season.
I don't know that I can believe it. It is a little crazy.
It feels like we just started, but yet it does feel like that was about a year ago.
Yes, I was re listening to our episode two, and it said something about summer ending, and we're already back to summer almost starting again.
It's like summer Eve. We are ready for the warmer temperatures.
We sure are.
I remember when we started with Episode One, we talked about how yell was like 100 piece puzzle, and our hope with this podcast was to use each episode to zoom in and highlight one piece of that puzzle. We were able to highlight, I think, about 15 pieces this year, and our conversations have included teachers, coaches and other educational leaders, and today, we get the chance to look back and share a few of our favorite things. Makes me think of a movie we used to watch at Christmas. The Sound of Music. Do you remember this song? These are a few of my favorite things.
Yeah, yes, I do. Are you
gonna sing it today? I don't think so. Oh, man.
Speaking of favorite things, if you had one minute to quickly pace through your house and collect one of your favorite things, what would it be?
Oh, boy. All right, I think if I had one minute to collect one thing. I have a blue vase that I got. My husband sent me flowers on my first day here, so 10 years ago plus, and it was just a really cool blue vase that is now a catch all for all things, but I think that would be one of my favorite things, that I would just grab fun. What about you?
I think I would grab my running shoes I like, which is kind of a throwback to our first episode. Yes, I was out running this morning, and as I was jogging down the road in the dark, I thought this was our conversation for our first episode. I was running and training for a 5k at the time, and I slowed down a little bit during the winter months, and so the shoes are back, and you would be proud of me. So I have graduated from my headphones with wires to an official pair of
air pods. I Wow. I am proud of you. I do believe we talked about the dangle cord, yes, in the first episode, no judgment of anyone out there still using those. That's right. No, they're very proud of you for switching out.
So maybe I grabbed two things, my running shoes and my air pods.
There you go. Well, I know I probably should have said my coffee pot, but maybe, but that's a given. I always have coffee no matter where I'm I mean, we should
mention trucker coffee. Like it's been a while since
we've said that. I know, and I still a lot of people that was one of their favorite things. I think about our episode is the trucker coffee.
Trucker coffee. Yeah, trucker coffee and air pods. There. We go. There we go. Well, we are excited to look back and reflect on a few of our favorite things from this season of fuel up. You know, there is value for all of us in pausing and reflecting. And with that being said, let's take a minute to get grounded. Katie, share with our listeners what is the power of taking a few minutes to pause and reflect
well, research says
reflecting on learning is a powerful active process that boosts performance by up to 20% by transforming experiences into actionable insights. Research shows that taking time to think back, analyze actions and connect experiences to prior knowledge increases motivation, self awareness and critical thinking. So today, we're reflecting, but we're also going to invite you guys to reflect right alongside us. There's value
in that, and so we're gonna do some of that today, and you're gonna get a peek into some reflections from Katie and I and some of our favorite things from this season. And the hope is that you have the chance to do some reflecting on this past year too, yes.
And if you happen to know us and see us in person, we would love to hear some of your reflections, that would be cool, right?
Yeah. So here we are, Episode 1716,
episodes before this one.
As you think back on the past 16 episodes, what is your favorite piece of learning.
Oh, boy. So we have 16 episodes, and I can only pick one, one thing, thing, all right, I think I'm going to jump all the way back to episode three, which was student talk protocols. And that was their conversation with Jamie about student talk protocols and how she makes that come alive for her students. And one of the favorite things that from that episode was she said with me talking less, it allows my classroom to really be student led. And that was such a great aha moment. And those are kindergarten kids, right? So if we have even our little learners opportunities to talk, they're making learning come live. So that was one of my favorite pieces of learning. There's a lot of others, too, but to pick one that would be my
top Yeah, what a great reminder and something to reflect on, like, what is the balance between the teacher talk and the student talk? And Jamie did such a great job of reminding us and inviting us to reflect on that and hopefully make some shifts in the direction of students
or student talk. Yeah. And I remember her saying she learned from her students, and that was also another Aha, like, yeah, they're telling you information, and you're learning from them, and then you can make some teacher moves based on that. What about you? What was your favorite piece of learning? Yeah, I
would echo some of the things you said. There was a lot of good learning. And for this one, I did go back to episode four. So this was with Lisa, and we were talking about the interactive word walls, those vocabulary word walls. And, you know, many times we put vocabulary word walls up in their permanent so kids can see them. But you know the fact that we can make them interactive, or kids can come up and take them from a magnet or from Velcro and use those in an interactive way back at their their workstation. But one of the things that Lisa said that was new learning for me, and again, in your language, was like a great Aha. Was she had not just her interactive word wall that was down where kids could interact with it, walk up and use them second graders, but she also had, like a setup word wall, like a pre word wall. And so it was a board that was close to her group gathering space that the words that were introduced that day, she would put up there and highlight those, and use those throughout the lesson. And maybe they would stay for a couple days, and then they would almost like, quote, graduate to the official word wall, right? I had never thought of and seen somebody have like a pre wall, like a pre vocab wall, where the words that we were using that day are highlighted, and then they graduate to the official word wall, and that was new learning
for me. I agree with that.
I when she shared that that was definitely a bit of a shift, like, what a small tweak. Yes, we see a lot of interactive word walls, but I like your word you used highlight. Here's the words we're highlighting this week before they go to the the mass interactive word wall. Right? Yeah, I thought that was a great idea.
And it draws attention to them for that day, right?
Or that week, however long they're up there.
Sometimes they go into the word wall, and they can get lost there if there's a lot of words already posted there. And so the intention to move to, I'm going to pull them out for a couple days, and we're going to use these. And now, as they graduate to that official word wall that's on the wall. Kids are more attuned to where that specific word is that they just used
absolutely and I feel
like it allowed her to pull out words too, to re highlight, yes, if she's noticing, you know, there's some words that we need to revisit. She can pull them and highlight those for a day or two
before they go back. Yeah, yeah. She talked about, I mean, that word wall was not just for kids, how she used it right, and she would pull a word off and use it just as a part of her teaching
that modeling, right? I remember that now that was, that was a good advice.
That was a good one to go back and think
about, yeah, and that was episode
four, right? Yeah. Episode Four, we're gonna be naming lots of episodes.
I hope you guys are taking seminar, right? Because you too might
pause the podcast to grab a pencil and sticky notes. Yes, my hunch is our listeners, there may be some who have listened to all of them straight through. But if you're podcast listener like me, sometimes you you're drawn to the ones that a title catches your attention, and maybe there were a few you missed. And so as we're going through today, if you're like, Oh man, I never heard that one like, take a note of it and go back, because greater are so many great pieces of learning,
great advice. So we talked about our favorite piece of learning. What was your favorite insight this year,
favorite insight so let me think for a minute. I would say one of the insights for me was back to episode two, when we were talking about classroom setup and environment. Think it rolled out like in September, October. So we're all getting our room set up. And one of the things that we talked about was the different styles of classrooms. Remember, there was like the houses, yes, the house, the glass house, I love that
part. Yes,
the messy house and the organized house, and we had read about it, and we encouraged other people to think about was sit in the seat of a student, stand in the doorway, where your students enter, every day, and just pause and look through the lens of the student what they See sit at their desk. Where have you put your interactive word wall? Where have you put your anchor charts? Where do you plan to put those and take the perspective from a student and ask, is this in the best spot for them? When I was teaching, my view was up at the front or the teacher table, and it looked great for me, but I don't know in the many years that I taught, if I ever sat and looked at it from a student desk and said, What are they seeing? And I think that insight to pause and just take on the the role or the view of what a student sees and adjust as needed for their benefit was something that really got me thinking.
I agree with that. When you shared that, that was like a duh. It was like, Well, duh. Why would I have never thought to do that? Right? Such an easy thing to do. So, yeah, I 100% agree with you. And you
know, we can do that in September, and we should, but
you know you can do that anytime, like you could do that today and sit down. I'm like, Oh, I'm just gonna sit now. My kids have left for the day, or maybe they haven't come in yet. I'm just gonna sit and scan and what do I notice? And there may be some things. You're like, my kids can't even see that, where they're sitting right to move that.
It's interesting. Yeah, a different perspective, yeah.
What about for you, if you had to think about all the episodes from this year, any insights that stick out to you as a favorite?
Yeah? So for me,
Episode 12 around complex text and Amanda shared about mind shift. And she said mind shift around the students can the students can do it. It's hard because it's supposed to be hard. They're building that brain muscle, and when you're building muscle, you have to work it out. And I just thought that was such a good insight, because el is hard, yeah, and I hear that, and I'm sure you hear that all the time, this is hard work, or it's too hard for our kids. So I was after our conversation with her, I was a believer, like, yes, the kids can do it. Design this way, build those muscles. And I thought that was a really important insight that she shared.
Hard? Yeah, it does start
with the mindset. If we walk into it and we look at some of these complex texts, the anchor text, and you look, we look through it, and we say, this is way too hard for my kids, that mindset will transfer to our students, and they're going to be like, This is too hard, right? But if you start with a mindset of, you know, this is above them, and I'm guiding them through this, and, oh, man, we are going to strengthen our brain muscles today. Are you ready? And is set as a challenge and a framework, yes, with scaffolds as needed. But that mindset of kids can will transfer to students
too, and it goes to student talk protocols, giving them opportunities to talk about what they're reading. Yes, as this is complex text.
See these puzzle pieces? They're just coming together.
They start to lock together.
They sure do.
So we've talked about our favorite pieces of learning
and some of our favorite insights.
Next favorite, and some of these are going to overlap a little bit. What is a favorite quote or hashtag that stands out to you?
Well, going back to Episode Four around interactive word walls, was the quote from Lisa that said, messy is okay, yes, right, like that, yes, your word walls might get messy because they're interactive learning is messy, it is okay. So that one really stuck out to me.
Yeah, the words are often printed on tag board and man, we would like those tag boards to be nice and crisp and clean, no fingerprints, no bent edges. And you know what that means? Nobody's ever touched
it, right? It just looks pretty. It looks pretty, but it's not being, not being used for its intended use. And I have a few teachers that have shared they really like things to be lined up nicely in an alphabetical order and just again pretty but when you have an interactive word wall, it's gonna get messy. Words aren't gonna they're gonna be upside down. Yes, they're gonna be not where you intended them to be, but it's okay, and that's proof that they're using it right? It's good evidence, right there, yes. So what about you? What was your favorite quote
or hashtag? One quote that stands out to me was just a few episodes ago in number 14 with Jackie. We were talking about fueling up around models of excellence. Models work with students. And the quote is, make it visual. And we were talking about learning targets. We use learning targets every day. Often, they're embedded in the El slides, and we should have conversations around those. That is good practice. And often those words just look like a jumble of words on a screen right. We talk about it, we can strengthen that by showing them what models of success look like, taking a learning target and saying, Hey, here's what it is, here's what we're shooting for. And let me show you what success looks like. And that could be a completed essay. It could be a supporting sketch for information about whatever piece that is taking the visual and showing kids so they can actually see what that learning target looks like. So that, that quote that just says, make it visual, was something that stood out to me.
And again, a small
tweak, right? I feel like a lot of our episodes that was our goal is just to give our listeners a small tweak. You're already doing learning targets so small, tweak and make it visual. We all
have a plate full of things to do every day. The last thing we wanted to accomplish with our conversations this year was to say, here is a another plate of things to consider and do like nobody would be listening.
No, zero listeners.
The hope is, as we have these conversations in many places, you can say, Ah, I'm doing that, and I keep doing that, and I'm going to celebrate that. And here are some small shifts I might take to make that even better. So those are some of our favorite quotes. And along with that, let's go to favorite pieces of advice? Because here's the thing we're learning to Right? Like, yes, after many of these podcasts, we'd stop and have our own debrief and say that was so good. Like, I'm taking that back to the masses and to the spaces that we work, because those pieces of advice were so good and helpful. Do you have a favorite piece of advice that stood out to you?
Yes. So I think one of my favorite pieces of advice was on Episode Seven with building background knowledge. And it is simple take the time to build the background knowledge. Sometimes we. We are in these units for three months, and we want to skip ahead, but taking time to make sure we're all on an equal playing field with that background knowledge is vital for our students. So we talked about something around Velcro. Background knowledge is like Velcro, and when you give kids Velcro, they can now attach new background knowledge to that. And I don't know that just really stuck with me. I don't skip out on building background knowledge.
Yes, and a lot of that is built through the anchor text that we read collectively as a group. Could be a read aloud, if you're k2 with three, five, it could also be read aloud, or it could be sections that you're rereading in small groups or partnerships. All of that is helping to build background knowledge, and that connects to our conversations about vocabulary walls too. Those word walls are part of that building background knowledge. All of us have the same language that we can use together, and as we introduce these new concepts, hopefully that is velcro that all these pieces start to stick together.
What about you? What was your favorite piece of advice?
Mine is a recent one, a conversation just from our last episode with Stephanie and Jenna about high quality work in action. And it was around authenticity. We talked about how el as a resource, is written that anybody, no matter where you are in the country, the hope is, you can access those materials, but sometimes it might not be fully authentic to the population or the classroom that we have for a specific year. And so as you get into some of the performance tasks to say, hey, are there ways I can make a small shift that the topic or the focus of the animal or whatever that is, connects to the kids that are right in front of me this year and have permission to make that tweak, to make it authentic to them. I thought that was a great piece of advice.
I agree, and it really goes to that motivation and engagement piece too, right? When it's authentic to them and they're doing it for a real purpose or real audience, they're going to be engaged in it, and they're going to want to do it, even though it's hard, they're going to come ready to work.
Yeah, Stephanie and Jenna were making those adjustments to their performance tasks that was about investigating a real world problem, and they just tweaked that to make it school problems. What's happening in our school and our environment today that are personal to us as a group of fifth graders, and let's talk about that. And the hope is, yeah, we're going to raise the engagement. And it makes me think Courtney was a guest on our first conversation about high quality work, and she's doing something similar with making her performance task authentic. And it's about trees in kindergarten. And El does give a list of trees to study, but she's tweaking that to make it authentic to her kindergarteners by switching up the trees to trees that are in their school courtyard, these kids can go out and actually study with magnifying glasses the trees because it's right in their backyard. They just walk out the door and there they are. It's not this mysterious tree that's in the manual that they haven't heard about, she's just done that small tweak to make it more authentic. And that was a great piece of advice.
I love that. And again, something so small, yes, it makes it doable. Not adding to plates. It's probably actually taking some things off of her
plate, it's right there and
making it more enjoyable, yes, for
everyone, right? All right, so what was your favorite celebration? Because we do like to celebrate. We love to celebrate. I think that's the whole like point of this was to celebrate.
I mean, every episode was, What song would you crank up to the max to fill you up in launcher date, we could have done our last episode by just playing some of these incredible songs that just fill us up and celebrating around that. But if we are talking about celebrations from the podcast, I think I would say I'm celebrating a theme, as opposed to a specific episode, and the theme would be the theme of courage. It was so fun to have conversations with the guests at our table and to see how they were courageous, to take risks and step out and try things Jenna and Stephanie are courageous and Courtney to step out and ask the question, what would it look like to make this project more authentic and try it? We're not always guaranteed success when we try things right. That's part of risk taking. And for them to get out and say, I'm going to take the courage, I'm going to try it. For so many of our guests, to have the courage to take. Word wall and make it interactive. That takes some guts sometimes, because we're not used to that, right, or the language dives, when we have that conversation with Kelly, that language dives, can feel messy, and she was courageous to get in and try it. So I'm celebrating the courage of those at the table and many of our listeners to get out and try things that might feel uncomfortable at the beginning, but end up making a big difference,
and they were courageous to come on and share with you guys. Yes, that is no small feat right there.
Totally Yeah. What about you? What you have a favorite celebration from this year?
You know, I really think you're right. That theme of courage we saw every episode, every guest that came on, but specifically the language dives. Kelly spoke into how she wasn't sure how it was gonna go, and she tried it, yep, and she used integrity, and it went really well, and now she is able to be a model classroom for others. And then our last episode with Stephanie and Jenna that they went out to this institute, had amazing learning. And then, you know, we all have best intentions, but they came back, and they actually put it into action, yes, and that for all kids, not just some, but for all kids. And they made it authentic. So for me, it was really neat to listen to that, and that was one of my celebrations that I wanted to highlight.
Yeah, celebrating courage. And then something else you said, too, celebrating like sharing the learning. Like I'm trying this, and then I'm going to share with other people, like here. Here are some roadblocks you might want to watch out for. And here are some wins. Like, try it. It's not as scary as you think it is, right? So just do it. Yes, just do it, and try it and change if you need to, and then bring other people along with you. So those are some great celebrations. Well, the last favorite is kind of a light hearted fun one. We would always start our conversations with snacks and drinks to fill you up. And one of our ongoing jokes over this year was our table was getting full of all these different snacks we were going to put on here to allow people to try and share and just feel welcome at our table. And so as you think back on the many conversations this year and all the fun snacks and drinks that our guest highlighted as fueling them up, is there a favorite snack or drink that you are going to try.
Oh, boy. Well, I mean, we heard licorice to snack, mix two Alaniz two cheese. I mean, we probably heard just about everything over these last 17 episodes. My favorite was Stephanie and her Starbucks drink. Okay, you know, I love my coffee. It's not trucker coffee, but I think it was
pistachio, maybe. Yeah, I think it was a cold brew with pistachio. Yeah, cold cream.
I think I think you're right. I think it's gonna be fabulous. All right, Kevin, what about you? What was your favorite snack
or drink? So we are gonna go out on the same page today. So as I thought about that this morning, that's the one I went to. So I am a black coffee drinker. I like it black and strong, and so to try coffee drink that's got some sweetness to it, I think I was sold to. So maybe tomorrow morning I'll swing through Starbucks and order pistachio cream
cold brew. Yeah,
I'll see you there. Oh, we'll both be swinging. That'll be our celebratory drink.
That'll be our celebratory drink, and we'll have one of our theme songs from this year cranked up to the maxes, where we're pulling out and heading into work as we wrap up Season One of fuel up, Katie, and I simply want to say thank you. Thank you to our many guests who joined us at the table and invited us into their journeys, and thank you to all of you who listened and set aside time in your day to be part of the conversation that takes us to our last small steps for this year. Katie, you want to take the first one?
Sure so to echo what Kevin said, thank you to inviting us into your cars, your classrooms, on your walks, wherever you've listened to us. And today, my small step for you is to do some reflecting. What are you celebrating? What are you taking away from our fuel up podcast? What are those small tweaks for you? And to really think about that as you're refueling up to go into next year or to get you through the next month of school, there you go. Yeah. You're gonna need some fuel and coffee for that, so
pause and do some reflecting yourself.
Yes, all right, Kevin, what is your small step for our listeners?
Last one, so Katie and I have a favor to ask. If you have found Fuel Up to be helpful, might you take a minute and give this podcast a five star rating. And if you have an additional minute, leave a comment. Share with us. Where are you listening from and what's been helpful? We would so love to hear how it's been a benefit to you and your classroom. And there you go, a few small steps to consider over the next few weeks, as you get back into the work and as we close up this season, we hope you have got some fuel in the tank and leave with some fresh energy for the weeks ahead. We're going to close things off today with high fives and hitchhikers. Here's the cool thing, we have the power to re energize and refuel those around us. So find a colleague. It could be the person next door. It could be the person across the hall, maybe it's in another grade. Find that colleague and give them a high five. Tell them you got this. Remind them you're a rock star and pick them up as a hitchhiker. Invite them to join the conversation and take a seat with us at the table. All the best to you and see you next time on fuel up.