Inside The Mind of Teens and Tweens

Teachers are seeing continued growth in challenging teen behaviors in classrooms nationwide. What do we need to understand, support, and better manage this trend and its impact on our students?

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Janine Halloran is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has been working with children, teens, and their families for 20 years. She has been helping children and teens build their coping skills throughout her career in a variety of settings, including schools, mental health clinics, and in her private practice. She founded Coping Skills for Kids to help children and teens learn healthy and safe ways to manage big feelings. She has written several books, including the bestselling Coping Skills for Kids Workbook, the Coping Skills for Teens Workbook, and the Social Skills for Kids Workbook. She is also the host of the Calm & Connected Podcast. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, CNN, Huffington Post, and The Skimm® Newsletter. Janine lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Most educators following the growing interest in ChatGPT see the positive possibilities and peculiar problems with using AI tools for teaching and learning. This thoughtful discussion explores how artificial intelligence can either decrease bias in education and create new options for disadvantaged students of all types or accelerate bias exponentially. Which way are we heading?

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Carrie Rogers-Whitehead founded Digital Respons-Ability, which works with educators, parents and students to teach digital citizenship. Her company provides training to tens of thousands of students, parents, and educators across Utah and beyond. Carrie is also the author of several books, including Deepening Digital Citizenship (ISTE, 2022) with Vanessa Monterosa and Digital Citizenship: Teaching.

Keisha Rembert is a passionate learner and fierce equity advocate. She is an award-winning educator who taught middle school ELA and United States History teacher for many years and now instructs future educators. She hopes to change our world one student at a time.

We are discovering many engaging ways to use ChatGPT to engage teenage students in the classroom. My guests agree that once you begin to experiment with the platform, the more your mind begins to find additional possibilities.

@jmattmiller @ideasforteacher @RLamourelle @bamradionetwork @jonHarper70bd

Matt Miller spent more than a decade in the classroom, creating unique learning experiences for my students through technology and creative teaching. He is the author of Ditch That Textbook on innovative teaching ideas and rethinking education. He is a Google-Certified Innovator. and one of the top 10 influencers in educational technology and elearning worldwide.

Dan Jones earned a BS in Middle Grades Education from Ashland University and a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from American College of Education. Dan is an FLGI Master Teacher whose professional interests include e-learning and technology, as well as Project-Based Learning. He is the author of Flipped 3.0 Project Based Learning: An Insanely Simple Guide.

Dr. Regina Lamourelle is a professor of Human Development at Santiago Canyon College in Orange, CA, where she is also the department chair. She serves on the Board of Orange County Association for the Education of Young Children and is a former Orange County representative to the California Association for the Education of Young Children.She speaks three languages and holds a doctorate in Child and Youth Studies. Since 1996, her passion has been to teach educators how the young-to-adolescent brain learns so that they can care for children with kind hearts and with the knowledge of the child or adolescent brains’ unique developmental needs.

As we head back to school this year, right up there with getting through the learning objectives, is helping students navigate the big emotional ups and downs they’ll experience throughout the school term. In this episode, we unpack what we can do to help our students self-regulate.

Follow on Twitter: @copingkids @RLamourelle @bamradionetwork @jonharper70bd

Janine Halloran is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has been working with children, teens, and their families for 20 years. She has been helping children and teens build their coping skills throughout her career in a variety of settings, including schools, mental health clinics, and in her private practice. She founded Coping Skills for Kids to help children and teens learn healthy and safe ways to manage big feelings. She has written several books, including the bestselling Coping Skills for Kids Workbook, the Coping Skills for Teens Workbook, and the Social Skills for Kids Workbook. She is also the host of the Calm & Connected Podcast. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, CNN, Huffington Post, and The Skimm® Newsletter. Janine lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Most of us have accepted that managing student trauma is part of every teacher’s job in the wake of the pandemic. In this episode, we look at strategies and tools we’ve been using for years that can be repurposed to help students manage the social-emotional issues they’re bringing to school.

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Dr. Michael Gaskell is Principal at Hammarskjold Middle School in East Brunswick, NJ. following experience as a special educator and assistant principal in Paramus, NJ. He continues to model the pursuit of lifelong learning as he serves to mentor new principals through the New Jersey Leaders to Leaders program. An NJPSA Stars recipient, he has been published in over 2 dozen articles in education journals and blogs, including eSchoolNews, NASSP, Edtech and ASCD Smartbrief, he has made the most-read section of ASCD Smartbrief numerous times. Mike had a book published in October, 2020 (Microstrategy Magic), and a second book published in September 2021 (Leading Schools Through Trauma).

From discipline and punishment to academic expectations, stereotypical perceptions cause many of us to treat black teenage girls differently. The phenomenon is called adultification and our guest explains how placing grownup expectations on black teens in the classroom adversely impacts their academic performance.

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Nikki Jones is professor and H. Michael and Jeanne Williams Department Chair of African American Studies at UC-Berkeley. She is a Black feminist scholar and author of two books, The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption (2018), winner of the American Society of Criminology’s Outstanding Book Award in 2020, and Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence (2009). She is frequently cited in local, national, and international news outlets as an expert on race, violence, and policing.

There was a spike in mental health issues among teens before the pandemic, but there were many eyes on our students who could reach out and help. Pandemic isolation has introduced a new level and type of mental health struggles. What are the red flags? What can teachers and parents do?

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Phyllis L. Fagell, LCPC is the school counselor at Sheridan School in Washington, D.C. and a therapist at The Chrysalis Group. Phyllis frequently writes columns on counseling, parenting and education for The Washington Post, and she’s the author of "Middle School Matters" (Hachette, 2019). Phyllis blogs at phyllisfagell.com.

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving change across the global education community, including the transition to college. Join us as we look at the new role and significance of “the gap year” and how to help students make the most of it.

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Megan O’Connor is serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Kaplan, one of the world’s largest and most diversified educational services providers. She is currently spearheading development of Kaplan’s new Boost Year program, designed for pre-college students to help bridge the gap between the college experience and work readiness. Prior to joining Kaplan, Megan founded, led and sold Clark, a provider of end-to-end operation software, education services and coaching for teachers who want to grow their tutoring business

It’s been a challenging year for all of us, and if adults are struggling to navigate these unsettling times, how are teens and tweens coping? In this session, we talk about how to assess how students are getting along and what we can do to help those who need support.

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Robert C. Schmidt, Ed.D, LCPC, NCC is a national speaker and consultant on building sustainable school mental health and suicide prevention programs centered on data collection, outcomes, quality of services, and student achievement. With interests embedded in research, Dr. Schmidt has published chapters in recognized books including the award-winning book by Dr. Kathryn Seifert, How Children Become Violent (2006) and Youth Violence (2011). He has led studies in the field of youth suicide, school mental health and was a contributor to Preventing Suicide: A Toolkit for High Schools: Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). In 2009 Dr. Schmidt published and is the author of the Risk Identification Suicide Kit (RISK) and in 2018 the RISK2, a suicide assessment instrument for ages 7-24. Dr. Schmidt previously worked at Johns Hopkins BayView Campus in Baltimore, Maryland and provided coverage to the Johns Hopkins Psychiatric Children’s Center, Baltimore Adolescent Treatment Program, Outpatient Clinic, and 24-hour Baltimore Child & Adolescent Crisis Response Team. He is the Mental Health Coordinator for Talbot County Public Schools and provides outpatient mental health services in Centreville, MD.

The pandemic-driven closing of schools is forever altering the lives of teens and tweens in ways big and small. Canceled activities and traditions from proms to graduations have amplified significance to our students and parents. How can we help tweens and teens through this period?

Follow on Twitter: @RLamourelle @raisinghappines @bamradionetwork @jonHarper70bd @ideasforteacher @bamradionetwork @peter_santoro @MrHabegger @DrBioTom Rapid Transition to Online Learning

Episode Guests
Christine Carter, Ph.D., is a sociologist and the author of The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction (2020), The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less (2017) and Raising Happiness (2011). A senior fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, Carter draws on the latest scientific research in psychology, sociology and neuroscience — and uses her own often hilarious real-world experiences — to give parenting, productivity and happiness advice. She lives with her husband, four teenagers, and dog Buster in Marin County, California.