In this episode, Craig Randall talks with Megan Moggach, an AP Physics teacher at The John Cooper School, about creating an engaging classroom through strong content knowledge, enthusiasm, questioning, and meaningful student interaction.

Megan explains how knowing the content deeply allows her to respond to students, ask better questions, and adapt lessons based on their understanding. She shares how she uses demonstrations, modeling, movement, and question-driven lectures to keep students actively thinking rather than simply listening. She also discusses using “how” and “why” questions to uncover misunderstandings and help students transfer their understanding to new problems. Finally, Megan shares how getting to know students individually—including their goals and motivations—helps her better support and engage them.

In this episode, Craig Randall talks with Emily Taylor, a visual arts teacher at The John Cooper School, about creating a positive classroom where students feel safe experimenting, solving problems, and developing their own ideas.

Emily explains how care, clear expectations, and thoughtful questioning shape both student behavior and learning. She shares how her design-based art projects move beyond simply making artwork by asking students to consider audience, function, color, marketing, and product design. She also discusses why she prefers guiding students with questions rather than immediately giving them answers, giving them space to experiment, reflect, and learn from what does not work.

In this episode, Craig Randall talks with science teacher Toartou Kargou of The John Cooper School about a fast-paced collaborative activity he uses to introduce new units. Students work in pairs, research a scientist, create a concise presentation, and teach their findings to the class, all within one 80-minute block.

Toartou explains how time limits, small groups, random pairings, teacher proximity, and strategic questioning keep students engaged while helping them process information more deeply. He also shares how strong teacher-student relationships create the trust students need to participate, take risks, and learn from mistakes.