The Knowledge Matters Podcast

Bonus Episode: Season 3 Reunion with Hosts Natalie Wexler, Dylan Wiliam, and Doug Lemov 29.04.2026 1h 4min

Welcome to a special edition of the Knowledge Matters Podcast. This episode is a special bonus—an audio recording of our recent webinar, Literacy and the Science of Learning. It is a dynamic, hourlong conversation between three exciting experts in the field: Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler, facilitated by Kristen McQuillan of StandardsWork. In this webinar, the panel responds to listener questions based on the podcast season that shares the same title. They explore what hap...

Bonus Episode: Following History's Stories, on Film | History Matters Podcast 25.11.2025 17min

Thirteen colonies rose up, rebelled against an Empire, and won their independence. These unlikely victors built a new nation on democratic principles that inspired similar movements around the world. How should we tell the story of our nation’s founding? Guests Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt, who co-directed The American Revolution with Ken Burns, explain how chronology and characters shape their longform PBS documentaries and accompanying curriculum materials, in a bonus episode of the His...

Curiosity That Goes Beyond the Classroom | History Matters Podcast 18.11.2025 16min

In Thermopolis, Wyoming, second-grade students love learning about the War of 1812, from the swashbuckling sea battles off the coast of Louisiana to the bombardment at Maryland’s Fort McHenry that inspired the “Star-Spangled Banner”—engaging lessons that build knowledge alongside literary and historical thinking skills. This type of learning is powered by a strong, coherent curriculum that ensures learning connects from unit to unit and year to year, says teacher Laura Stam, a 2024–25 Goyen L...

The Four Questions That Make History Come Alive | History Matters Podcast 11.11.2025 17min

Many teachers build history lessons on primary sources like letters and legal documents. But without context and historical thinking skills, students can’t make much meaning from them, say guests Jon Bassett and Gary Shiffman, co-founders of the Four Question Method for history instruction. “Primary sources, for us, are ways to practice doing what historians do. 8th graders aren't historians, 12th graders aren't historians. So it’s the silly mistake that says, we need to do exactly what the e...

Building Teachers' Historical Knowledge | History Matters Podcast 04.11.2025 15min

What do teachers need to successfully teach high-quality history lessons in elementary school? A strong curriculum is a great start, but teachers also need aligned professional learning and time to dig in and build the content knowledge that supports confident instruction, says guest Courtney Dumas. In this episode, she explains how her organization, Edu20/20, is supporting Louisiana educators as they implement the state’s content-rich Bayou Bridges elementary social studies curriculum. Effec...

Massachusetts' Big Move on Elementary History | History Matters Podcast 28.10.2025 17min

In Medway, Massachusetts, “social studies is a subject to be valued,” fifth-grade teacher Jennifer Lindsey explains in this episode. “It’s the place to teach kids how to talk to each other and negotiate conversations and digest information and form an opinion—but also listen to others’ opinions and back that up with evidence,” she says. This content-rich, inquiry-based learning is powered by Investigating History, a new, free social studies curriculum developed by Massachusetts teachers, scho...

History Can’t Wait Until High School | History Matters Podcast 21.10.2025 17min

In the typical American high school, 9th-grade history students are expected to dive into the historical content, grapple with complex ideas, and engage in deep inquiry. But teenage students often lack the historical knowledge such tasks require. If you haven’t learned much about the Civil War, for example, you won’t be ready to discuss whether the Compromise of 1877 was a fair deal. That’s one of the challenges described by this episode’s guest, Ebony McKiver, a curriculum expert and former ...

The Power of Historical Knowledge | History Matters Podcast 14.10.2025 16min

The more history young students know, the more they want to know. That’s one of the joyful discoveries that elementary teachers are making in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. In this episode, guests Angela Barfoot and Lauren Cascio describe the rewards of using Bayou Bridges, a content-rich, knowledge-building social studies curriculum, in combination with a high-quality ELA curriculum, Louisiana Guidebooks. Extensive teacher notes, rich texts, engaging visuals, and tie-ins to virtual field trips ...

What Makes Great Elementary History Curriculum | History Matters Podcast 14.10.2025 15min

Teaching history involves balance: too many facts and it’s boring, too few and students don’t have enough information to make sense of what they’ve learned. In this episode, host Barbara Davidson speaks with Sean Dimond, a former middle-school teacher and Louisiana state social studies director who is now senior social studies editor at the Core Knowledge Foundation. Dimond notes that in elementary school, history is often “a random collection of holidays,” with topics presented out of sequen...

A Case for Teaching History in Elementary School | History Matters Podcast 30.09.2025 15min

Elementary schools spend almost no time teaching history. How did we get here, and how can we reprioritize this crucial foundation for literacy and knowledge? Host Barbara Davidson begins the eight-part “History Matters” podcast with a reflective and forward-looking conversation with guest Robert Pondiscio, an author and former fifth-grade teacher who founded the Knowledge Matters Campaign. Pondiscio recalls his youthful passion for history, sparked by the nation’s bicentennial celebrations n...

Natalie Wexler on How Writing Promotes Clear Thinking | Literacy and the Science of Learning 29.07.2025 29min

Season 3 Episode 6 | “Teaching students to write clearly was actually teaching them to think clearly.” In the Season 3 finale, host Natalie Wexler brings listeners inside Monroe City Schools, a high-poverty Louisiana district where educators have paired a content-rich curriculum with explicit writing instruction. This combination has not only helped students become fluent writers but also expanded their ability to understand complex content and think analytically. For writing...

Natalie Wexler on Memory and the Writing Effect | Literacy and the Science of Learning 22.07.2025 23min

Season 3 Episode 5 | Writing is hard—and teaching writing is even harder. But science tells us it’s well worth the effort, because writing flexes the mental muscles that nurture literacy and learning. Host Natalie Wexler connects cognitive science to specific writing practices that transfer information from working to long-term memory and require students to retrieve and elaborate on that information. She’s joined by psychologists John Sweller and Jeffrey Karpicke, whose research has ide...

Doug Lemov on the Power of Whole Books | Literacy and the Science of Learning 15.07.2025 26min

Season 3 Episode 4 | “The book is in a death struggle with electronic and social media. And right now, it’s losing.” Host Doug Lemov makes a spirited case for reading whole books in the classroom—especially since today’s students read almost no books outside of school. He’s joined by guests Stephen Sawchuk of Education Week and cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham and speaks with two Texas educators using whole books in their school. “Learning to be able to struggle—to read a challen...

Doug Lemov on Fluency’s Impact on Comprehension | Literacy and the Science of Learning 08.07.2025 19min

Season 3 Episode 3 | When we read fluently, we recognize words without effort. We also maintain an engaged pace (automaticity) and perceive expression (prosody), all of which support attention and leave working memory free to make meaning from a text. This is a complex achievement, and many students have fractured attention spans. What can educators do to account for interruptions and focus on building fluency, which is key to developing comprehension? Host Doug Lemov looks at the scienc...

Dylan Wiliam on Building Student Knowledge | Literacy and the Science of Learning 01.07.2025 26min

Season 3 Episode 2 | Our memories grow stronger when we work to retrieve them. That’s why flash cards and pop quizzes are effective: they prompt students to recall and access information from their memory bank. What other instructional tools and techniques help students remember what they’ve learned, and how can teachers put these to use? Host Dylan Wiliam takes a deep dive into four vitally important principles that are rooted in cognitive science and receive far less attention than the...

Dylan Wiliam on How the Brain Learns | Literacy and the Science of Learning 24.06.2025 29min

Season 3 Episode 1 | How can schools and teachers maximize student learning? To answer this question, we need to understand how the human mind works. What needs to be explicitly taught, how many new things can we remember at a time, and what is the role of background knowledge in easing students’ cognitive loads? Host Dylan Wiliam begins the six-part “Literacy and the Science of Learning” podcast with an accessible overview of cognitive and educational psychology, in conversation with ex...

Trailer | Introducing Season 3: Literacy and the Science of Learning 17.06.2025 3min

How is the Science of Reading connected to the Science of Learning? Join hosts Dylan Wiliam, Doug Lemov, and Natalie Wexler as they delve into the links between the two, both in theory and practice, in Season 3 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast. Across six 30-minute episodes, we’ll explore how long-term memory shapes reading comprehension, why reading whole books is better than excerpts on a screen, and how teaching students to write clearly can help them think more clearly, in conversation wi...

Bonus Episode: Writing: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension 25.03.2025 1h 1min

This bonus episode is an audio recording of our most popular webinar ever, Writing: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension. It features familiar voices to listeners of Season 1 of the Knowledge Matters Podcast, best-selling author and host Natalie Wexler, as well as StandardsWork’s Chief Program Officer Kristen McQuillan, Doug Lemov (Teach Like a Champion), and Julia Cooper (SchoolKit). Their conversation focuses on why writing should be connected to content learning. How does the act of wri...

Bonus Episode: Knowledge: An Unsung Hero of Reading Comprehension 14.02.2025 1h 1min

Today’s episode is a special bonus—an audio recording of our recent webinar, Knowledge: Why It Matters. We found the conversation so valuable that we wanted to make it accessible in as many ways as possible. In this episode, StandardsWork’s Chief Program Officer Kristen McQuillan and Baltimore City Public Schools teacher Kyair Butts join Dr. Susan Neuman (New York University) and Dr. Margaret “Moddy” McKeown (University of Pittsburgh) to explore how content knowledge plays a critical role in ...

Building Stamina for Deep Reading | Know Better, Do Better 19.11.2024 25min

Season 2 Episode 6 | Explorers boldly venture into unfamiliar worlds, where confidence, curiosity, knowledge, and persistence are rewarded. When students approach texts like explorers, they bring these same qualities to the task—a mindset cognitive scientists call the “standard of coherence.” Such reading is purposeful, engaging, and expands the reader’s horizons. Reading anywhere, anytime is not just doable. It’s joyful. In this episode, hosts David and Meredith Liben discuss the key ingredi...