Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown

Jana Schmidt

What's Inside: In this episode, we chat with Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown and Jana Schmidt about their work as leaders in the field of literacy. Together Dr. Jill Brown and Jana Schmidt wrote Matching Reading Data to Interventions: A Simple Tool for Elementary Educators to serve as an accessible guide for teachers so they can better determine their student's instructional needs.

Dr. Jill Dunlap Brown has worked in the education field for 20 years as a teacher, literacy coach and Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education in a school district of 19,000 students. She is currently an Educational Consultant with Brown & Schmidt Consulting providing literacy training and support to teachers, leaders and school systems. Jana Schmidt has worked as an associate director in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis Department at the University of Missouri-Columbia and as an educational consultant. Jana served as a language arts coordinator for kindergarten through eighth grade in a school district with approximately 19,000 students.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Science of Reading

• The Simple View of Reading

• Scarborough's Reading Rope

• National Reading Report

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness

What’s Inside: In this episode, we chat with three dynamic educators working to change the way teachers collaborate, teach and learn in New Orleans: Nan Sterling, Dr. Jawan Brown-Alexander, and Adrienne Dowden.

Nan Sterling serves as the Executive Director of Instructional Quality with New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO) where she provides opportunities to support charter schools with professional learning and curriculum implementation. Dr. Jawan Brown - Alexander is Chief of Schools at NSNO and Adrienne Dowden is an educational consultant and owner of ASD Educational Consulting Group, LLC. ASD a consulting company that specializes in providing on-going job embedded professional development who works with NSNO on their school-based initiatives.

Jawan, Nan and Adrienne share their experiences navigating the challenge of providing consistent, high-quality research -based professional development in a district made up of several different Charter management Organizations (CMO) while also providing the time and space for teachers to collaborate and learn across CMOs.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The New Teachers Project

• ASD Educational Consulting

• NSNO

• Isabel Beck

• Tim Shanahan

This podcast episode was sponsored by Heggerty Phonemic Awareness