HeyJaredBetter Teaching: Only Stuff That Works
Descriptions of effective teaching often depict an idealized form of "perfect" instruction. Yet, pursuing perfection in teaching, which depends on children's behavior, is ultimately futile. To be effective, lessons and educators need to operate with about 75% efficiency.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 12
- Latest publication
- Sep 23, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 8, 2026
Latest episodes
How to Sabotage a Coach (opens the original)
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Summary Instructional coaches are often treated as a school’s all-purpose backup: covering classes, managing testing logistics, joining extra committees, and handling whatever emergency appears next. In this episode of Better Teaching, Gene Tavernetti explains how those individually reasonable requests quietly dismantle a coaching program. Gene makes the case for protecting coaching time as carefully as instructional time. He recommends a clear job description, a schedule that protects observati
The Coaching Trap: Why Scripted Feedback Makes Coaching More Human (opens the original)
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Summary In this episode of Better Teaching, Gene Tavernetti challenges the belief that effective coaching must be spontaneous and unscripted. He explains why a well-designed coaching script does not make a feedback conversation rigid or inauthentic—it gives the coach a reliable structure for specific, courageous, and useful feedback. Gene connects coaching scripts to classroom-management routines, surgical checklists, crisis-response training, and his own experiences as a counselor, principal, a
Teaching Adolescents to Read: Faith Howard on Literacy Intervention That Works (opens the original)
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Summary What does effective literacy intervention look like for students in middle and high school? Faith Howard returns to Better Teaching: Only Stuff That Works to explain how she built Literacy Lab, a 6–12 intervention model that combines the science of reading with age-appropriate, grade-level texts. Faith shares how a glorified study hall became a focused literacy intervention, why secondary educators need practical support in teaching foundational reading skills, and how schools can build
Before Innovation, Fluency: Why Every New Teacher Needs Explicit Instruction (opens the original)
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Summary What should every new teacher know before they are asked to improvise, differentiate, or innovate? Gene Tavernetti argues that one of the most important foundations is fluency in explicit instruction—not just hearing about it in professional development, but learning to design it, deliver it, practice it, and receive feedback until the work becomes automatic. Gene explains why that fluency matters in real classrooms: it reduces the number of decisions teachers have to make, gives them a
Evidence-Based Schools with Glenn Whitman (opens the original)
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Summary Glenn Whitman is a distinguished educator who has worked with schools around the world to support schools and teachers bringing evidence practices to their classrooms. In this episode Glenn talks about his own school’s journey to becoming an evidence-based teaching institution, his continued role in that journey, and how his school supports schools around the world who also want to become evidence-based through The Center for Transformative Teaching. Episode Links Website: Home - The Cen
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