Season Two, Episode 9: Every Class is a Reading Class
About this episode
The episode discusses how explicit instruction and trauma-informed practices can enhance education in disadvantaged communities.
Summary In this episode of Chalk Dust, Rebecca Birch and Nathaniel Swain are joined by Andrew McCrorey, an experienced educator and instructional leader at Monterey Secondary College in Victoria. Drawing on classroom footage from a secondary setting serving a highly disadvantaged community, Andrew demonstrates how explicit instruction, trauma-informed positive education and high expectations can work together rather than compete with one another. The discussion explores entry routines, co-regulation, secondary choral reading, gist statements, cold calling, participation as an equity issue, and the explicit teaching of behaviour expectations. Andrew explains how consistency across classrooms can function as an equity strategy, creating predictable environments in which students know what success looks like and teachers can focus on teaching rather than repeatedly resetting behaviour. Across the episode, Rebecca, Nathaniel and Andrew return to the idea that supporting students does not require lowering the bar. Instead, effective practice combines strong relationships, clear routines, deliberate participation structures and carefully sequenced academic support. The result is a…
More episodes of Chalk Dust
- Season Two, Episode 10: Professor Anna Stokke on Effective and Engaging Math(s) Instruction
- Season Two, Episode 8: Getting Hands-On
- Season Two, Episode 7: Everyone can learn mathematics with John Mighton
- Season Two, Episode 6: The Knowledge Rich Classroom of Laura Stam
- Season Two, Episode 5: The choreography of learning
- Season Two, Episode 4: The power of precision
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