Tag Archives: Educator

Episode 59: The Best Teachers Listen with Zeb Welborn

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The best teachers listen.  Vic Braden is one of the most famous tennis coaches of all-time.  When I interviewed Vic, he said the most important element to being a great coach was listening.  Learn how to be an amazing teacher.

The Best Teachers Listen Zeb Welborn

Zeb Welborn

My first job straight out of college was that of a high school history teacher.  As a teacher, I was so concerned with presenting the material that I never actually took the time to listen to my students to help them learn and grow.  It was not until I became a tutor did I really harness my listening skills to accommodate the needs of my students.  The best teachers are those who listen first and guide students to invest in their own learning.

My first week as a teacher brought about my first test to my students.  I was excited.  I prepared all the material I had taught them and I was eager to see how they did on the test.  They bombed it.  At first, my instinct was to blame my students, saying they didn’t try enough and that they should have studied harder, but in retrospect, I did not listen to them and I did not teach at their level so they could perform well on the test.  It was a valuable learning experience for me because I began to learn how to listen to my students first, teach second and assess their learning when all was said and done.

As a tutor, I worked with Nick who struggled in school.  He perceived himself as lazy, even though he was not and in order to get him to work with me I used my listening skills to help inspire him.  I asked him questions about the things he enjoyed and I tried to incorporate those into my lessons as much as possible.  Slowly, Nick began performing better and through continual listening and readjustment, Nick began to perform better in school.  Listening drastically helped my tutoring ability.

Vic Braden is probably the most famous tennis coach of all-time.  He’s met presidents, instructed the worlds best tennis players and is revered by everyone who has any knowledge of the history of the game.  In talking with Vic on the Defining Success Podcast, I learned quickly that the skill he thought was the most important to his coaching career was listening.  He listened first and came up with action plans second.  If the greatest tennis coach of all time thinks listening is important to coaching, don’t you think it should be important to you as well? Sales is something that is outside of my comfort zone, but every time I make a sales presentation, I learn so much just by listening.  I’ve also learned that many of the mistakes I’ve made come from not listening well enough.  Each time, the potential buyer explains their needs and it was up to me, as a salesman, to listen, pick up on those needs and then use my product as an opportunity to solve their problems.  But, sometimes, I focused more on what my product offered and the values it could bring in a general sense . . . rather than solve their specific problem. The listening skills I learned as an educator and a tutor has helped me in uncountable ways throughout my life.  I’ve learned to become a better teacher and can sell my services much better once I truly listened to what my potential customers were saying rather than what I thought they wanted from me.  The best teachers listen, truly understand and then offer their assistance as a peer.  The next time you find yourself wanting to educate someone on a topic of interest, ask them questions, listen to their responses and respond as if you were them.

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Episode 36: Help Young Adults Build a Financial Foundation | Larry M. Jacobson Author of Growing Success

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Larry M. Jacobson, author of Growing Success, helps young adults build a financial foundation.  He is an author, educator, motivator and public speaker.  He’s helping young adults figure out life and establish a financial future for themselves.  Developing financial awareness is a critical skill in today’s society, and is a subject that is rarely discussed in school.  Larry and I both feel that we need to educate young people on how to manage their money and how to do it effectively to help young people prepare for their futures.

Helping Young Adults Build a Financial Foundation. Larry M. Jacobson on the Defining Success Podcast

Larry M. Jacobson

Larry M. Jacobson helps young and emerging adults follow their goals to make decisions that positively impact their overall financial and personal success. He’s a professional speaker, a contributing author for the international best-selling Ready, Aim, Captivate and recently wrote his first book, Growing Success:  A Young Adult’s Guide to Achieving Personal and Financial Success.

For 22 years Larry M. Jacobson was a music executive for one of the largest record companies since he graduated from Indiana University with a Masters in music.  A year ago Larry left the music industry and is now devoting his life to educating young people and helping young adults build a financial foundation.

In 1993, Larry was in his apartment and decided to write an email to the then president Bill Clinton with the four things he wished he was taught during his time in school that he thought should be a part of everyone’s education.  These four items were sex education, personal finance, personal development and time management.

With all of these ideas, Larry began writing a book in order to help young adults make better decisions because they will have the tools and resources to do so.

Larry is very passionate about personal finance.  Experts say there are societal problems with finances, but not many are doing anything about it.  Larry is trying to get students to understand their relationship with money.  Money is like a gas pedal where you want to stay within your speed limit.

Larry M. Jacobson on the Defining Success Podcast with Zeb Welborn

Larry M. Jacobson

He is teaching young adults that money should not be used to show off, but it should be used to get the things you really want.

Schools should be teaching skills that students will be using in their real lives.  Critical life skills like how to balance a checkbook, typing and entrepreneurship are not being taught in today’s schools and our students are left unprepared when they get into the real world.

You could sit one hundred people down in a room to define what success is and you will get one hundred different answers.  It could be making a lot of money, having a great job, being in a relationship, or being the president of the United States.

The one common denominator that will not let people become successful is fear.  Most people don’t reach their goals because they don’t possess the tools and resources from an early age or they can’t get out of their own comfort zone.  They are afraid to be honest with themselves that they have a problem.

When kids are young, they always ask the same question over and over again . . . Why?  When kids get older, they end up asking how.  How can they get that job, how can they get those skills.

The biggest mistake young people go through is denying their strengths.  Most people go to their negatives.  To be successful people think you have to be the next Meryl Streep or Brad Pitt, because they envision that as successful.  But if you love acting then you don’t have to be the most famous actor or actress.  If you love what you do an you’re able to do it, you’re a success.

When Larry was younger, he told his friends, “I want to be a millionaire by the time I’m 30.” As he approached 30 years old he wasn’t on his way to becoming a millionaire and what he realized was that he needed to have a goal or a plan to achieve his goals.  He needed action steps.

When Larry left his job a year ago he wanted to see if he could change his life 180 degrees in 365 days, which he called Operation 365.  The main question that he asked of himself was, “How is that life working for you?”  It was the moment where he realized what was working and what wasn’t.  He wasn’t very happy and he decided he was going to move to Bloomington, Indiana and he started reaching out to people.  You need to do things by reaching out and asking for help.  Larry started reaching out to a lot of people who could get him where he wanted and where he wanted to go.

Larry was able to go back and do some of the things he loved doing the most.  He married the love of his life in May.  He would create action steps, and then would measure his goals to see if he was being successful.  Most people would stay in their comfort zone than do something scary and change.  It’s important to reach out to people you know and trust.

Nobody initially loves going to the gym and once you see the results it becomes easier to do it.

About his book, Larry wanted to figure out how he could become more successful at his job in the music industry.  He knew he needed to get in better shape, he needed to develop stronger relationships and he needed to learn more about how to manage his finances and in 2010, he attended an online training academy.  For the last 10 years, Larry’s been doing a lot of reading and got his PHD in organizational leadership.  He wanted a book that he could write that people wanted at his age.  At the end of each chapter, there are assignments that will help students manage their lives.

A lot of people do things that are not in line with their goals.  He wants to get kids to start thinking about their finances and he knows many young people are not prepared.

Writing a book forced Larry to look at himself and realize that there were decisions to make in his own life and he realized that there were many things that he was doing wrong.

Larry M. Jacobson Helping Young Adults Build a Financial Foundation

Larry M. Jacobson

Engaging Discussion Questions:

  • Why are so many people in economic and financial turmoil?
  • How is that life working out for you?
  • What do you think is important for young people to know about money?

Links to Great Stuff:

  • Larry M. Jacobson – “As a dynamic speaker who understands what it takes to reach this particular audience, Larry generously shares several of his personal life lessons and principles that he has painstakingly learned through his own personal successes and failures in his career, relationships and in business to inspire today’s young adults to achieve the success they desire and enable them to pursue all of their life goals and dreams from an early age and beyond.”
  • Build a Great Financial Foundation for Your Child – One of the first blog articles I ever wrote for The Tutoring Solution.
  • Educate Your Children About Money – One of the first blog articles I ever wrote.

Success Quotes:

  • “Success is getting to do what you love every single day, being supported by friends and people who love you.”
  • “I wish I had had the ability and maturity enough to start planning.”
  • “The reason why people don’t succeed is because they try to take short cuts.”
  • “Do something every day that will get you closer to your goal.”
  • “The people that are successful are not smarter than most, they have taken the initiative to do what they love.”
  • “The people that tend to be successful have a plan and then implement action steps immediately.”
  • “Education appreciates and things depreciate.”
  • “Every time you open up a newspaper, they are always slamming these young people.”
  • “Money is like a gas pedal . . . where you want to stay within the speed limit and live within your means.”
  • “By having more money and saving, it has an opportunity to get them where they want faster.”

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Follow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/WelbornSocialMedia and follow us on Twitter – https://twitter.com/dsuccesspodcast.

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Episode #6: Blog Writing to Learn | Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

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Erin Klein discusses how she uses blog writing to make her a better educator, to continue her learning, to share her learning with others and to communicate with other leading educators and education professionals. Pay attention to how Erin has used her blog to make positive change in her community and her classroom.

Thank you for visiting the Defining Success Podcast.  Please download, subscribe and rate our podcast on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-success-podcast/id619459909 Thanks for listening!

Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

Erin Klein from Kleinspiration

Recap:

Erin Klein has been a classroom teacher and has developed her own blog which has been successful in its own right.

Erin has taught 1st grade, junior high school and now 2nd grade and she loves it.  She used a website for her classroom highlighting her students work and her website became so successful in her school that she got recognition by her district.  And then was asked to give presentations to other teachers and she began to blog as a resource sharing site to share her students work and share resources with other teachers.

As a teacher, Erin feels that the blog helps her become a better teacher and gives her an opportunity to share, get feedback, and offers an opportunity for self reflection.  She knows that maintaining her blog has helped her become a better teacher and by sharing she has helped other teachers become better.

A recent activity Erin Klein did in her classroom that she shared with others is  “If Our Characters Had Instagram,” where students are encouraged to act as if they were a character and then encouraged to think of what types of pictures they would take and share on Instagram which has taken off and teachers all over the world have been downloading her If Our Characters Had Instagram lesson plan.

Erin uses Twitter and Facebook to connect with educators.  She loves using Twitter more so than Facebook because, to her, Twitter is more of a professional outlet.  She loves the ability Twitter gives her to connect with different types of educators all over the globe.

Blog writing is important for Erin because she uses it to share resources and reflect on what she’s doing in the classroom and it also gives her a way to connect with the parents as to what’s going on in the classroom.

One thing Erin didn’t expect when she began blogging is the amount of businesses that would contact her asking her to use their product in her classroom.   Some products she’s recently used in her classroom is the Sifteo Cubes and the Sky Livescribe Interactive Pen, which she says her students love.

Erin would like to see a lot more student choice in the classroom, more teacher-driven content, more creativity, more student voice, more projects, more top-level blooms taxonomy, more mobile and technology apps (used less by particular district approved apps).  Ideally, she would like to put the curriculum in the students hands and having them create it and teach each other.  Putting teachers in a more facilitative role and putting the learning into students’ hands.

Learning is a priority to Erin as she’s always looking for opporunities to learn and grow.  She encourages teachers to ask administrators for things and don’t take no as a final answer.  If she feels something is in the best interest of her students then she wants to ask why and that new teachers are so often told no and that that kills the creative process.  Erin does recommend being professional, but still challenging administrators to accomplish goals that she feels would be in the best interest of her students.

Erin equates success and happiness to each other.  Monetary value doesn’t mean success.  Many people she knows who some people would deem successful are often very unhappy.  She thinks if people are happy doing something they love, regardless of money than they are successful.

Engaging Discussion Question(s):

  • Where do you see the future of education going?
  • Where would you like to see education going in the years to come?

Links to Great Stuff:

  • Kleinspiration – “Erin Klein the technology chairperson for the Michigan Reading Association, a national A Plus Workshop Presenter, SMART Technologies Exemplary Educator, Really Good Stuff Monthly Blogger, Edutopia Guest Blogger, Edudemic Guest Blogger and Magazine Contributor, National Writing Project member, and award-winning EduTech Blogger.Klein has most recently appeared in the Scholastic Instructor Magazine and co-authored Amazing Grades with experts from 13 countries around the world.”
  • If Our Characters Had Instagram – A lesson plan designed by Erin Klein which can be used in classrooms from Kindergarten to High School – If a character/historical figure had Instagram, what kinds of pictures would they take?
  • Sifteo Cubes – “Sifteo Cubes are a magical new interactive game system built on the timeless play patterns of legos, building blocks, and domino tiles.”
  • Sky Livescribe Interactive Pen – “Record everything you hear, say, write and draw. Wirelessly sync notes and audio to your personal Evernote® account where you can replay, organize, search and share your interactive notes any time and anywhere.”
  • The Tutoring Solution’s Share Your Passion Scholarship – The Share Your Passion Essay Contest is open to all High School students. For students to be eligible for one of their scholarships they had to write an essay from the prompt:  “What are you passionate about? Why are you passionate about it? How do you plan on using your passion to help others?”
  • Welborn Media
  • #EdChat – Join the Discussion on Twitter.

Success Quotes:

  • “Put the curriculum in the students hands and having them create it and teach each other.” – Erin Klein

Special Requets:

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