Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators

Jeff Utecht, Tricia Friedman

jeff@shiftingschools.com

For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.

Booking Overview

Shifting Schools brings K–12 education leaders and authors into practical conversations about teaching strategies and the big ideas students need to engage with—literacy, civics, and classroom-ready approaches. For PR, it’s a strong outlet for education thought leaders and recognized writers who can translate research and experience into actionable classroom implications.

Metrics

Episodes: 300

Frequency: Irregular

Rating: 4.8/5.0

Estimated listeners: 1k-10k

Gender skew: Neutral

Location: USA

YouTube: 12.6k subscribers

Instagram: 926 followers

Contact Information

jeff@shiftingschools.com

For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.

Host

Jeff Utecht - Hosted by educator Jeff Utecht, who helps lead conversations exploring trends, strategies, and tools in K-12 education.

Tricia Friedman - Hosted by educator Tricia Friedman, who speaks with education thought leaders about strategies and tools for improving teaching and learning in K-12 classrooms.

Booking Intelligence

Booking Requirements

medium
Typical Credentials:  
Established K-12-relevant authors and thought leaders—e.g., award-winning children’s literature authors and historians/researchers/education leaders whose work can be translated into classroom-ready pedagogy (literacy, civics, primary source inquiry, SEL, and related instructional strategies).
Required Achievements:  
Major literary awards (e.g., Newbery Medal), Published books for educators and/or general audiences, Academic or policy-affiliated leadership roles (e.g., research lab/directorship), Recognized expertise in history/civics pedagogy

Recent Guest Discussions

Jerry Spinelli - Writing Instruction, Perseverance, Childhood And Storytelling, Revision And Creative Stamina, And Classroom Read-aloud Impact

Katie Kennedy - Teaching The Declaration Through Primary Source Thinking, How Founding Documents Were Shaped By Conflict/compromise, And Classroom Approaches For Critical Inquiry

Colin Woodard - Civic Identity, Civic Trust, Polarization, National Identity Narratives, Social Capital, And Implications For Civics/history Teaching

Recent Topics

Education, K 12, Literacy, Civics, Curriculum

Episodes

Here's the recent few episodes on
Shifting Schools: Conversations for K12 Educators
:

The perfect middle grade book for readers during The World Cup

July 13, 2026

Award-winning author Christina Diaz Gonzalez joins Tricia to discuss Offside, her new bilingual middle-grade graphic novel about soccer, friendship, ambition, identity, and finding the courage to use your voice. Although soccer brings the characters together, Offside is also a story about young people learning to form their own opinions rather than simply inheriting the assumptions of the adults around them. Christina explains why she wanted her characters to have real agency, including the a...

AI Literacy Is Problem-Solving Literacy

July 07, 2026

Tricia Friedman shares a real-life story about a flooded basement, an insurance claim, and what it revealed about AI literacy. After a major storm in Ottawa caused basement flooding, Tricia found herself facing the kind of problem many people recognize: too many damaged items, too many documents, too many decisions, and a process that can quickly become overwhelming. But this time, compared with a similar flood two years earlier, the experience felt different. Using AI tools, Tricia organized...

Jerry Spinelli: What Young Writers Need to Know About Stories

July 06, 2026

Newbery Medal-winning author Jerry Spinelli joins the podcast for a conversation about writing, perseverance, childhood, and the stories that stay with young readers. Known to many elementary and middle school teachers through books such as Maniac Magee, Stargirl, Wringer, and his latest book, Fifth Grade Top Dogs, Spinelli reflects on the long road to becoming a published author. Before his first book found a home, he wrote four novels that were rejected and spent nearly twenty-five years wo...

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