In this episode, Melissa talks to Janja Lalich, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Sociology, who is an international authority on cults, extremism, and coercion. Janja's work is promoting a deeper, more accurate understanding of cults with the intent to avoid their manipulation, exploitation, and abuse. Janja explains why people get into cults and the importance of cult education and helping people heal after getting out.

Melissa speaks with Dr. Ann Burgess, a leading forensic and psychiatric nurse who worked for the FBI for over two decades. Dr. Ann tells how she educated FBI agents in data collection and organizing their research. She also shares about her college teaching her work to help with threat assessment in schools.

In the 100th episode of The Teacher As... Melissa chats with professor and poet Penelope Pelizzon. Penelope shared her genesis of becoming the successful poet that she is and her ideas about teaching poetry to all ages of students. They get into the weeds about rhyme and theme and Penelope talks about the process of writing a book of poetry like her latest creation.

In this minisode, Melissa shifts focus from film director to film editor. Paul Hirsch's book, A long time ago in a cutting room far, far away... will provide the parallels to teaching for this series of minisodes.

It's helpful to check in with students in the trenches to see what we are doing right and how we can improve our practice, as well as remember why we went into education in the first place. In this episode, I chat with the amazing Anna, an 8th grade student who shares her interests and opinions. Anna has an important message for all educators in this episode.

Episode 82 is the other half of my chat with Dr. Claire Honeycutt. In this section, we talked about the pandemic and its effect on our students, as well as Claire's approach to home schooling.

Dr. Claire Honeycutt is a college professor and she also homeschools her two young children. The discussion in this episode centers about group work. Some topics include keeping in mind your learning objectives when structuring your groups, and providing opportunities for voice and choice.

In this episode, Melissa chats with Eric Gibbs, President of Ouriginal, a plagiarism software for K-12 and higher education. Eric shares how teachers can use the software as part of the writing process to help students learn how to create original work.

Melissa’s guest this week is her sister-in-law Dr. Bethany Milner. They talk about supporting students for success.

Connecting with and supporting students so they can thrive.