Simply Teach Bonus Episode: Dr. Spencer Kagan ·

This week you get TWO episodes! Why? Because I got to sit down with Dr. Kagan last week at his Brain Friendly Training in San Marcos, Texas, and I couldn’t really wait any longer to share it with you all!

I can remember the first time I heard of Kagan Cooperative Learning- my college sorority advisor said something about “I’m a Kagan trainer” in a presentation she was doing…And I was like…what’s that?? Fast forward two years when I was accepted into the masters program she co-directed and I was surrounded with Kagan everywhere I went. For a brief intro to Kagan Cooperative Learning- just listen to the first 2 minutes of my interview with Dr. Kagan. I kinda wanted to do a “mic drop” moment right after he said his elevator pitch on Kagan, but I wasn’t sure he’d know what I was referencing.

Dr. Kagan is known for his research on cooperative learning, team building and class building strategies, and lots of brain research on how we can use what we know about kids brains and how we can use that to our advantage.

Anyways, Dr. Kagan tells us all about how he got started in his cooperative learning research, his experience with teaching in classrooms to convince districts and administrators to incorporate cooperative learning into their teaching, and how he got started training teachers by training student teachers. He gives us a few ideas for how we can incorporate Kagan structures like Rally Robin, Timed Pair Share, and Paraphrase Passport into our classroom. (We did Paraphrase Passport in the training last week and I already have worked it into my plans for this week- it was that good!)

We wrap up talking about Dr. Kagan’s biggest pet peeve in education (the most common way to get engagement is “who in the class can tell me?” and hands go up!) what is keeping him sane right now (photography, trips to Africa with his wife, and his home in the mountains), and his favorite kid moment (a student realizing that not using cooperative learning in a classroom means you don’t get to help your friends!!!!).

Don’t forget to head over to my instagram account (TheSimplyOrganizedTeacher) to read about the giveaway I am doing as a celebration of this fun podcast episode!!!

I’d love for you to have a listen HERE! And I would especially love it if you shared it with your other teacher friends!!!