The Debrief
Sep 24, 2026 · 13 min · 9 segments
What’s a great way to assess whether a lesson went well? Ask the kids! In this episode Jill shares an idea used by the Detroit Catholic Microschools that can be applicable across the board with any…
Sep 24, 2026 · 13 min · 9 segments
What’s a great way to assess whether a lesson went well? Ask the kids! In this episode Jill shares an idea used by the Detroit Catholic Microschools that can be applicable across the board with any…
I have an awesome idea, Colleen, 'cause I was hanging out in Detroit, in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and sharing good ideas amongst teachers, and this is super applicable across the board, every classroom, so everyone be ready.
We got something here-
Awesome.
Great
... that you can all use.
We were doing a pretty complicated concept for the day in a PD session of training teachers on station rotation model, and Colleen and I have done this kind of training-
Oh, yeah
... before together.
But so, but teachers are, like, three years into doing station rotation, and they were starting to teach other teachers how to, how to do this type of-
Okay
... replacement for direct instruction.
So the actual strategy doesn't matter, 'cause here, but here was the cool tip that came out.
The teachers at Christ the King Catholic Micro School in Detroit, beautiful little school, they shared that when they do something new as a teacher for a few days, and they're, like, teaching the procedures around a new unit or a new, like, "Hey, we're gonna do group work," or, "We're gonna do this project," or, "We're gonna do this new thing," they do what they call debriefing afterwards, which is super fun to think about little kids doing, like young classrooms.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So after the station rotation, so, like, the bell's ringing and they're doing, "Go to station three, go to station four, go to station five," and kids are moving into their small groups around the room.
At the end of the stations, the teacher's like, "Okay, time to debrief," and then everyone goes into metacognition mode, and the students, with the teacher, talk about how did that go as a procedure.
So we're super good at describing procedures.
We've done lots of episodes on classroom management-
Oh, yeah
... strategies and procedures and all that.
Mm-hmm.
But when you're giving students new instructions and they've been practicing it, it was very rewarding for these teachers at Christ the King to share, students share out how it was going during a debrief session.
And then the teacher had a lot of insight about things, 'cause kids love solving problems.
So the teacher's like, "Okay, we've been doing stations for a few weeks or a few days or a few sessions.
I have an awesome idea, Colleen, 'cause I was hanging out in Detroit, in the Archdiocese of Detroit, and sharing good ideas amongst teachers, and this is super applicable across the board, every classroom, so everyone be ready.
We got something here-
Awesome.
Great
... that you can all use.
We were doing a pretty complicated concept for the day in a PD session of training teachers on station rotation model, and Colleen and I have done this kind of training-
Oh, yeah
... before together.
But so, but teachers are, like, three years into doing station rotation, and they were starting to teach other teachers how to, how to do this type of-
Okay
... replacement for direct instruction.
So the actual strategy doesn't matter, 'cause here, but here was the cool tip that came out.
The teachers at Christ the King Catholic Micro School in Detroit, beautiful little school, they shared that when they do something new as a teacher for a few days, and they're, like, teaching the procedures around a new unit or a new, like, "Hey, we're gonna do group work," or, "We're gonna do this project," or, "We're gonna do this new thing," they do what they call debriefing afterwards, which is super fun to think about little kids doing, like young classrooms.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So after the station rotation, so, like, the bell's ringing and they're doing, "Go to station three, go to station four, go to station five," and kids are moving into their small groups around the room.
At the end of the stations, the teacher's like, "Okay, time to debrief," and then everyone goes into metacognition mode, and the students, with the teacher, talk about how did that go as a procedure.
So we're super good at describing procedures.
We've done lots of episodes on classroom management-
Oh, yeah
... strategies and procedures and all that.
Mm-hmm.
But when you're giving students new instructions and they've been practicing it, it was very rewarding for these teachers at Christ the King to share, students share out how it was going during a debrief session.
And then the teacher had a lot of insight about things, 'cause kids love solving problems.
So the teacher's like, "Okay, we've been doing stations for a few weeks or a few days or a few sessions.
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