Cheri Dotterer 0:00
Welcome to the writing glitch. I'm Cheri Dotterer, classroom coach. Today we are with Rachel Schechter. I think I said it right, founder of LXD research. She is a literacy researcher. Today, we're going to answer questions that might sound a little bit different than what you're used to me talking about in this podcast, but let's let's listen in to the conversation today and see what we can find out about literacy and writing practices before we begin, though, I'd like to introduce our sponsor today's sponsor is disability labs. We are committed to impact the journey of 200,000 teachers by 2030 so that they can reignite their passion for learning. Our professional development series on Math and Writing Skills helps all students in your classroom. These interventions improve students with and without disabilities. All students have asset access to the mathematics and the writing skills. For October, we have a special running here at Disability labs. Get your limited edition holiday bucks for teachers and occupational therapists. This year's special is a buy one gift, one offer. Inside the box you will find information sheets on dysgraphia and dyscalcia, you will also find some accessories for your holiday parties and those nights that you want to stay home and stay warm by the fire. So check out the link in our show notes for more details. So let's get on with the show. Rachel, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you become a researcher in literacy? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 1:43
Thank you so much for having me. So my name is Dr Rachel Schechter, so I have my PhD in child development, and what I My specialty is really about how we use technology and media to support children's learning and to support teachers in the classroom. I got on that path. Because actually, when I was a undergraduate, I had the opportunity of working with one of the foremost researchers on television, children's television, and I had an internship at Dora the Explorer. I worked on the first and second season of that amazing show as a research assistant
Cheri Dotterer 2:20
Dora the Explorer. I remember those days that was a while ago, wasn't it? Yeah, it certainly
Speaker 1 2:25
was. But it really opened my eyes to how research and actually looking to see what do children understand from the information that are that's being presented in front of them, the format, the the detail in the script, the actual words that you use, they matter for students to not only be engaged, but also to remember and retain the information that we're telling them. Fast Forward, many years later, I went back to get my PhD in child development, and while my dissertation still focused on television, this was right about when maybe YouTube was just maybe starting, like barely starting, I was like, by faint TV, like sitting Saturday morning cartoon situation might not be the future. So I shifted to looking at different types of technology and how we can not only use technology to teach, but also to understand what students know. So that's what got me into research. And I was the director of research at Lexia learning for eight years. After that, I wanted to basically work with a company that was larger, that had more products, so I moved over to Hmh, hon Mifflin Harcourt, and I was vice president of learning science as they are. It was just amazing to be able to both inform the design of products. At the same time, while I was at Lexia, I was really focused on measuring the efficacy of products. So here I am. I my own company now called Alexei research, and that's what I do. I help folks use research to inform and explain how products work, and then we do those studies to see, okay, did they work, and how well did they work? And we work for all different companies, but mostly literacy. So we have over two dozen products that we've helped research and evaluate from across over over a dozen companies.
Cheri Dotterer 4:16
Wow, I'm still back in my head now singing Dora the Explorer in my head. Oh, no, I hope
Unknown Speaker 4:22
I didn't distract you too much.
Cheri Dotterer 4:26
That's quite all right, but I don't know if anybody else has a child who is now an adult that was going through the stage of the her early childhood years, where Dora the Explorer, was the thing, the what?
Speaker 1 4:46
Wow, it was powerful, right? It was really engaging and it was really effective. And I the thing that we think about, I think that's what a lot of teachers want. It's what tech buyers want. It's what district leaders want. They want a program that's engaging and effective. It both things.
Cheri Dotterer 5:02
Okay, so we're talking, you talk about Dorothy explorer. I'm gonna just sit here for just a little bit because there's something that somebody said to me recently, and I want to work on this thought process in my head so I'm thinking out loud as we're talking, okay, so my math teacher friend and I are working on a curriculum, and one of the things that somebody said to me recently is, don't you have any characters to go with it? And then I asked her, and she said, No, I don't want characters to go with it. Is there a benefit of having characters like Dora that are going to facilitate the learning? Or are you fine that that doesn't really matter? Characters
Speaker 1 5:54
are very are helpful. So characters are helpful. I would recommend having characters so so children, particularly young children, they form what they what we call parasocial relationships with those characters, and children learn better from characters they know than characters they don't know. That's, you know, that's one of the many reasons, maybe, why a student's actual teacher is more effective than a, you know, a substitute teacher that they don't know. Because they form relationships, and those relationships help facilitate learning.
Cheri Dotterer 6:24
That's what I was thinking. That you were going to say, she doesn't want to develop characters that go with these products. But that's a very that goes along with cognitive science research. And the things that I've been learning and researching is the more knowledge base that you can bring things together, you say para knowledge, the those resources that you can connect are going to help embed the information into the gyrus and the sulci a little bit more solidly, so that it sticks.
Speaker 1 7:02
There's also, there's also, if you think about recall mechanisms, right? I totally hear your friend and I get it, there are ways to get around it, and that's one of the things that I love doing, is helping think about, how do we solve problems with constraints. My son is seven, and he loves bringing his stuff to animals, to activities. He brought, for example, we went to see a Broadway show, and he brought his stuffed animal to the Broadway show because his stuffed animal really wanted to see the show too, right? So that is one way that you can someone using a program that doesn't have characters, could use a character or a friend or that's in the home or in the classroom to help facilitate the learnings, just because the product doesn't offer it doesn't mean it still can't happen in the learning space.
Cheri Dotterer 7:47
Okay? Now, one of the companies that I've been interviewing this year has puppets, all kinds of puppets, like they have hand puppets that they use online, that are like real honest to goodness puppets that you would see like Jim Henson puppets, but they also offer classroom puppets, which are more like sock puppets. And I am so looking forward to talking with them again, because I want to hear how those suck puppets and the they all work together, and it's just that's one of the things that I was like, Oh, this would be so much fun to add that dimension in that story, to go with the problems that we're researching. So it
Speaker 1 8:41
also helps extend that parasocial relationship, because if the puppets are in the room, the puppets can do other things besides math. They get to also sit and have coffee at the bakery right in the play corner. And they get to also learn learn their letters. So it can be extended. I was speaking with a kindergarten teacher recently, and I saw she had a bunch of just stuffed animals from one of the one of the television shows that she uses to help facilitate math learning. And she's, I love my stuffed animals. We use them all the time, yeah? Because then when you when, and then she sees the kids looking over at the stuffed animals when they're doing their math problems. Even if they're not an active player, they're still there in the room.
Cheri Dotterer 9:21
Yes, one of my favorite characters growing up here, I'm going to date myself with lamb chop. Oh yeah, Cheri, yes, Cheri. And because our names are spelled so close together, that was another attach for me. It was like that para attachment, and I now see Lamb Chop more in the pet department than I do anywhere
Speaker 1 9:44
else, because they're advertising to people our age or an older so, Mm, hmm, it's because then that's advertising for you, right? Advertising? Yes, yes. And I think that's what is challenging for the parent and the teacher who. Trying to find a product that will be engaging and will work is that the information they're relying on is essentially marketing information, and it's advertising. I've been hearing some product advertisements on my podcasts, right? And we hear them on the podcast too, and that's wonderful. People have to get their products out there. But then what do we use to know? Did it work with real kids? And that's what I'm helping contribute to is, for example, we have a pain point, right? So let's say our pain point is, my neck is stiff, right? My neck is stiff. I've got a problem. I was like, Okay, maybe one of the problems with my pillow isn't great. So I can go to the store and try a million pillows, but it's still not the same as actually sleeping with a pillow for a few nights, right? There's only so much we can do to try out something and then. So that's why we use wire cutter by the New York Times Consumer Reports kind of thing, or a Consumer Reports, or maybe we use Yelp or Google or Amazon reviews, right? There are all these places we can go to get more information about what other people's experiences are. And for me, it's maybe not having a great neck and having a good night's sleep, but for our kids, it's about being able to read and write successfully.
Cheri Dotterer 11:14
As we look at Dora the Explorer, we look at your history, and we look at the background, and you're talking about technology, what are some of those key factors that you're looking for in a resource to help somebody with literacy or math?
Speaker 1 11:31
What I really focused on is finding those stories of real kids who use the program. That's what I focus on, because people can say that their program works as many times as they want to say that their program works, but actually, having documented stories and data rich stories that their product works is different, and that's and it's important, and it's the law. And so maybe folks on the line have heard of No Child Left Behind. You've heard of No Child Left Behind. So that was President Bush's law for the education, federal law for education. When President Obama came in, he updated the law, and now it's called the Every Student Succeeds Act, which a lot of us call essa for short. And then so that law has guidance for states and districts that all products that are purchased need to have documented evidence that they have used real research by real researchers from universities to create their program and to design their program, and that they and then they work on building more tactile and explicit and with evidence, with real kids and real school, that their program and standardized tests, that their program is effective, and how it works, when it works, how it worked. Okay,
Cheri Dotterer 12:55
as I'm thinking through some of the things that you said, Yeah, let's go back through them. Yeah, you so you need stories of real students. Yeah, you need research of effectiveness at the college
Speaker 1 13:19
level. So universities, so a university would say, would help, you know, do you teach short vowels first, or do you teach long vowels first, or do you mix them up? Which is better? So someone, at some point, did some studies on that right, and said, You know, it's better when you do it this way, right? And they published that research. It was peer reviewed. It's in a journal, right? And that's why all the curriculum companies do it a certain way, okay? And they have that study they can cite this University found this when they did it this way. Okay, yeah, that's the kind of evidence. That's what I mean. But I when I say university research, or research conducted by universities or academic researchers,
Cheri Dotterer 14:01
alright? And then you said a third thing, I believe, and I it's it has left my brain.
Speaker 1 14:07
Okay? I have actually slides with you. Would it be helpful to just have that up? Just to help Sure?
Cheri Dotterer 14:11
That would be fantastic. Let's do it. So those of you who are listening to this go over to the YouTube channel, and then you'll be able to see what Rachel's talking about. I'll
Speaker 1 14:24
do my best describe everything, but I do think that the visuals can help. There aren't too many. Do you see my umbrella?
Cheri Dotterer 14:31
I do see fruit and an umbrella? Yeah,
Speaker 1 14:35
one thing that I've noticed that for parents and teachers, I've been getting a little confusing. This folks are describing research as this dichotomous thing, that a product either is research based or it's not research based, but actually research is this multi faceted umbrella term that is. Talks about a lot of different types of research under it, which is, it's research. There is, there are some things that are fruit or not fruit, but there are lots of different kinds of fruit. Same thing. There's lots of different kind of research. And we already talked about the Every Student Succeeds Act while it went into a while it was signed into law in 2015 it didn't actually start becoming the law until 2019 and I'm wondering if you're thinking the same thing. I'm thinking, wow, the law changed. States started figuring out, okay, how are we going to explain this thing? How are we going to teach people about it? And then right when they started getting some feedback about how that was going, the pandemic hit. And the last thing anyone needed to worry about or think about was if some product they were using had some piece of paper that says they had evidence. So everything, really, there were some people who were still working on it and thinking about it. For the most part, it was side tabled, and a few exceptions, with a few exceptions. And one exception is the state of Arizona. The state of Arizona did start communicating with folks around 2021 and said, heads up, we're going to start enforcing this fall 2024 now, if you don't have what you need, you can't sell on Arizona anymore. Reading products and intervention, reading intervention and reading supplemental and reading curriculum. Actually, that's one of the reasons why I've had two, two, over two dozen evaluations in reading, because really, the state of Arizona has insisted, and this is what we're talking about before, like, how should it be taught? What should be taught? That's research based, and that's the universities who are doing that research, and then they're nonprofit, wonderful, amazing nonprofit organizations that help translate that research. Two that I highlighted on this slide is the reading League and digital promise. But another one I think is particularly parent friendly, is Reading Rockets. Is that one that you're familiar with as well? I've heard of them. Yeah, Reading Rockets has great, really friendly materials for parents, grandparents, paraprofessionals. They have all different audiences. Materials, video, highly recommended. It's created by the PBS station in Washington, DC area.
Cheri Dotterer 17:09
Oh, okay, I didn't know that about Reading Rockets. I had not heard of digital promise, but I have a friend who is pretty active with reading League, so I get periodic information from her.
Speaker 1 17:24
Okay, they have a defined one. Something they have that I like is a defining guide on what is the science of reading. And I think they just started doing curriculum reports, evaluating curriculum, but I know that's very early. They only just started that, so I don't think they have that many published yet. So I wouldn't say first place to go for product reviews, because there's not that many yet, and I'm going to digital promise was also created by an act of Congress, actually in President Obama, I think they were thinking, we're going to have this new law. We need an organization to help people. So digital promise was actually created around the same time as the law right to make sure there was an organization in place to help folks be able to use research effectively. Digital promise has so many things on the website, but one of the things they do is they help certify products. If a company went down all the research that they use to create their product, like your friend saying, this is the research we use to create this product, they can get certified as research based,
Cheri Dotterer 18:22
okay, okay, see, I knew there was a reason I needed to talk to you.
Speaker 1 18:28
Ah, yeah. And it's, these are not expensive. I think that there might be some impression that, oh, it's so expensive to get this certification. That's why companies don't do it. It's not expensive. It is less than $1,000 to submit the application. It's an application fee that pays for the experts to review the application. If you think about how much a table costs at a national conference in an exhibit hall, that's $5,000 or more. So we're talking about less than $1,000 versus $5,000 if someone is saying it's too expensive, that's that's not a weak argument. I think.
Cheri Dotterer 19:10
Okay, yeah, so, hey, let's talk a little bit about evidence base that looks like what's next on the screen?
Speaker 1 19:16
Yes, okay, I'm a. I created a program and I followed all these, all this research, it says it should be, should work. But here's the thing, the research studies themselves didn't use your exact combination of things right in their studies. So it is important to now research. What about your recipe? You found all these amazing ingredients, and you put them together in this and this is even teachers, right? Teachers are doing this today. They're putting things together, right, pulling from and creating this learning experience. And that's why I call my company learning experience design research, LXD research, because it's really that experience, that recipe of these exact materials, at this exact moment, with this teacher, with these kids. Alright, that's that recipe. Learning. So what a study is, it's a it's documentation, it's like an investigation. Okay, what was this recipe? What did it look like? What was the context? And then, how did we measure it? What tests did we use? And depending on how the investigation is done, how the researcher does the study is what level of evidence it ends up being, there are four levels of evidence. I don't remember if I have a slide on that exactly, but there's four levels of evidence and but anyway, so that's just, they're they're different levels, but it's all in the nitty gritty detail that it's all in the person who's evaluating it to decide what level it is, basically,
Cheri Dotterer 20:38
yeah, I do remember that from my research class. I don't know if you knew this, but I was a research instructor for two project, projects.
Unknown Speaker 20:48
Oh, wonderful. So you're up.
Cheri Dotterer 20:50
So we were, we were doing, like, very foundational level face value, does this product meet? Face value, basically, was where the products that I did with the one of them, and the second one was back in 2013 a little bit before the act that you were talking about, when they were looking at unifying the standards across the Country, Common Core, it had already been implemented. And I have my students do a survey of occupational therapists here in Pennsylvania. Have you even heard of this product? Basically, it was our was our key question. And the answer was, No, what are you talking about? Even though it was already implemented in schools, the disciplines that were in the school district didn't even know it existed so
Speaker 1 21:44
many silos and the communication needs. Communication is challenge, is a challenge, and it's exactly there are also, of course, there are also, like you just said, different states have different ways of than enacting those laws right? Because even the law says that there, the law has guidance in it, but then it's really up to the states and the districts to then provide clear policies and expectations. And in fact, some states have gone so far to actually make reading laws. 49 states have already created reading laws that helps identify funds, which is good to help support reading, but then they're each state's different in what they detail that has to be done. What
Cheri Dotterer 22:29
is the difference between the red and the blue on this screen?
Speaker 1 22:34
This particular, oh, this is, this might not Oh, this is from a particular website. This actually, I think, is a little dated, but the red didn't at the time, did not have reading laws. But actually, this is a bit dated. Almost all of those red ones have reading laws. Now, if you you definitely can. It's probably the best thing to do if you want to know about the reading laws in your state is actually just to google it on your own state website or look on your own state website, because it's very there's actually no decent, comprehensive list of what the actual laws are so
Cheri Dotterer 23:04
and I've looked at a couple different states. One state that I see I was looking at was Ohio, and they have a really nice, detailed list of what they've approved and what they haven't approved, more what they've approved, and if it's not there, they haven't approved it, right? It's been very interesting seeing how much information from each state is available online, and theirs was just very interesting and very easy to look through.
Speaker 1 23:38
That's interesting, from what I understand, there isn't any particular research requirement for Ohio. So I never had a client come to me and say I need to do a study, because Ohio said so. So that hasn't been the case. And
Cheri Dotterer 23:53
I know they, I know one of the people that I'm interviewing this year, they are from Ohio, and they were trying to get their product approved in Ohio, and she so she was telling me some of the steps that she was having to go through to get her product
Speaker 1 24:09
approved. Oh, good. So you have some detail on that. A little bit, a little bit. Yeah, I can direct
Cheri Dotterer 24:18
you to her, and you could talk with her if you're interested.
Speaker 1 24:21
Oh, thank you. Most of the states focus on the research that was used to create the program, and that relatively few require evidence that real kids learned using the program. Yeah. And so how do you find out about that? Is that there are two websites that I recommend if you just want a big list and you don't even know what product you want and you're just like typing in words. Basically, Google Scholar and Research Gate are two free, quite extensive websites where you can find research on products. So if a product has a study. Basically most likely you should be able, and they want people to find it most likely you should be able to find it on one of these two places. And Google Scholar actually searches Research Gate. It might not be totally up to date, but it should crawl it to find it. And then if it's in a published journal, it'll be in Google Scholar. If it's been in a presentation at a conference. It probably might be on Google Scholar. And of course, everything that's in the government's database of research that's been published is also on Google Scholar. It's pretty handy, and you can type put the company's name in quotes. That's another thing I recommend doing. And then, if you this is the government's website, for those of you who haven't checked it out before. It's called Eric. So it's eric.ed.gov, not many letters, but if you can't find you could always Google it. So Eric is another great place. Again, this was 3000 results for the word phonics. But again, if you're looking for a very specific program, I recommend putting it in quotes and then so it's a lot right to ask people to go and do all this research themselves. Gosh, it's very difficult. And then even if you find some study, you have to be able to know how to read the study, analyze the study, all the statistics terminology. We shouldn't be expecting any, anyone that's not a researcher to be under to be able to understand an academic paper. Honestly, I don't think that's an expectation, that that's really reasonable, and that is why folks are coming in to help educators understand the quality and the impact of the studies. Because a study might get a level one, which is the highest level possible, or level two, or even a level three. But it doesn't actually mean that the program worked well. It just means that the study was designed well.
Cheri Dotterer 26:51
Yes, I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1 26:53
Yeah. I think I have an example of that and another challenge that's going on. I
Cheri Dotterer 26:57
love the What Works Clearinghouse. It has a lot of fun stuff, yes,
Speaker 1 27:01
so What Works Clearinghouse is the number one most amazing place to look for their practice guides. So if you're thinking to yourself, how do you really teach adolescents how to write, especially adolescents that are struggling, there might be a practice guide on What Works Clearinghouse, on exactly how to teach struggling adolescents how to write. Definitely, that's a place to check out, and they've already vetted all the studies. They looked through 1000s of studies, and they tried to pull what was most relevant for you. So before
Cheri Dotterer 27:36
you go on occupational therapists that are listening to this, I don't know if you even heard of What Works Clearinghouse before. I didn't learn about what works where Clearinghouse until I started bridging over in to literacy and some of the ideas of research. What Works Clearinghouse is definitely one of those areas that will make a difference in in how you teach at different levels. I didn't realize it went that deep and to create lesson plans based on age. So that is amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1 28:18
So I didn't I just say this teaching secondary students to write effectively. November 2016 right there. Practice Guide. There you go. We don't have to be running all over the internet. And even though we mentioned some really great trusted resources, this is also a really great trusted resource. Thank you. You're welcome. But what I want to about, or and what I want to like about, is that it's not necessarily the best place to find recent research on products. Okay, so I'm going to have you guess about what percentage of product research has been reviewed by the What Works Clearinghouse in the last 10 years on phonics instruction, oh, maybe 3% in your head. How many do you think? Maybe 3% you are close one.
Cheri Dotterer 29:15
Okay, that was my first guess. But I was like, Oh, it can't be one.
Speaker 1 29:20
Actually, one. So out of 621, studies published on Eric Since 2015 with the keyword phonics, only 1% was reviewed by What Works Clearinghouse. They
Cheri Dotterer 29:31
need more help. They need more help to get out there. They don't
Speaker 1 29:35
have enough time. They just don't have time. An organization that stepped in is called evidence for ESSA, and they are a nonprofit run by John Hopkins, University Center for Research and Education Reform, and they've reviewed 8% which is eight times more, so yay. Definitely great. 20% of those studies actually were led by me.
Cheri Dotterer 29:56
So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I
Speaker 1 30:00
told you, dozens of studies I've done, 20% have been led by my team, me or my team. So that is a good place to go for like, the latest, really high standard, high rigor. This is the kind of research that typically costs millions of dollars. I do not charge millions of dollars, but it's really high quality work. And I'm not saying this. The other research isn't high quality, it's the standards of criteria that are really rigorous. So what do you do if you don't have $150,000 to do a study, which really is actually about how much these studies cost to do a random control trial? You want to do a random control trial, it's about $150,000 minimum. To do that, to do a study,
Cheri Dotterer 30:44
and that's in addition to the tuition that you have to pay to get your PhD.
Speaker 1 30:49
Oh, no one needs no this your pay. You're hiring the PhD to do the study for you. Yeah, so, so because between the free products and the free trainings and the actual, the the cost of the research firm, yeah, $150,000 is about how much it costs for a random control trial nowadays. So that's, again, a lot. Getting your digital promise certification is less than 1000 so again, that can be done by most folks. They're just not eligible, right? It's just the product, the product research as an eligible for review because of those really rigorous standards. So does, like I told you, research is an umbrella term. So if research is an umbrella term, we can't ignore all the research that fits into all the other types of research. So that's why a bunch of different organizations have jumped in to help provide some guidance for what's level one, what's level two? So a level one means that students are randomly assigned to use the program or not. Level two means that someone chose who got to use the program, or maybe student teachers volunteered. Level promising. Level three, perhaps, is that everyone used the program, but some use it only a little, and some use it a lot, or it's before and after story. This is what happens before you use the program. This is what happened after they use the program, and then demonstrates the rationale. That's our level four. That's what I was talking about, research based that research was used to inform the design of the program. But remember, the designs, not the impact. We can have an RCT that changed children's trajectories for the rest of their lives, and we can have RCTs that made a 3% increase in how many words they can read, and they all get the gold badge, right star, level one, gold standard, level one. Study. So it is important to look at that impact. I have an example for you on evidence for ESSA, there was a product that literally had a 0.00 effect on students gains. But they still got to get their level three study. And also there's a consistency. The same exact product was reviewed by evidence for What Works Clearinghouse, and they were they got a 2% on the improvement index, and they said, Yes, it was significant. Get and it was a moderate, not a promising so what I'm saying is there are different websites that tell you different things because they use different criteria. There are other websites. I just very briefly going to throw them out there. For those of you who have a pen to pay pen and paper, want to check these out. I have EdPuzzle as an example that I'm going to use, because EdPuzzle is probably one of the most widely known products that I've worked with, and it helps with all different subjects. So EdPuzzle is on the Learn platform website, so when you go in, you can see the badges and the evidence that they have, and there's an evidence tab as well. And you can get there, you can see what their logic model looks like, and you can see the evidence that they've gotten. Oh, I'm we helped EdPuzzle get this badge. Oh, here's the logic model that we made them back in the day. And then you also can find it on the Ed Tech product index. So that both all of these are free, by the way, to review, and they don't cost any money. Have ISTE might be familiar to some of your folks. It's a teacher organization that focuses on technology use in the classroom. So ISTE has a really large list. It's like the trip advice, maybe not a Trip Advisor, but more like Consumer Reports list, perhaps. And they also have an evidence based button, so you can see the badges that the company has the product has earned. And then here's that I see. This is an international certification that's getting more traction. And they also have a list, again, free to review. And then digital promise has a list of who all the certified, which products are certified, and you can go and see which ones have the badges. You can get a nice list right here, and then also on evidence for ESSA once you find a product. So most of these are best when you actually have a product in mind. That you want to check out. That's when you type the product's name in all these spots, and you get to be able to collect that information for yourself. You can help to help you make an informed decision, and you can decide how much you want to weight these different pieces of information.
Cheri Dotterer 35:15
Oh, it's so complicated. Research. It's so complicated. Oh, you know,
Speaker 1 35:19
but the good news is that there are a lot of places now to get information. I would say even a year ago, none of these places existed or had decent search filters. So there's been a lot of improvement, even in the just, even in just the last year, with this information being more accessible.
Cheri Dotterer 35:37
Wow. I think I need to take some time and just re listen to this conversation probably five times so I even can absorb everything that you have shared. Thank you so much for your wisdom.
Speaker 1 35:52
Oh my gosh, there's a lot, which is why I try to focus on, like exposure a little bit in my talks, because this is stuff to look at later.
Cheri Dotterer 36:03
Absolutely, absolutely. Is there any way anything else that you want to talk about before we go today? And how do people get a hold of you? Yeah,
Speaker 1 36:14
I want to just take a quick peek at my list. Okay, yes, what I'd like you to know is that I have, I really am very passionate about helping educators, parents and the community members understand this stuff. It's for me, we all have to be informed as informed consumers as possible about our children's education, because we all want, everyone wants to help them learn and grow and thrive. And there's more information than you used to be, and there's so much information, right? So please know that on my website, LXC research.com we actually have articles for educators, and, I would say even for parents community members, that helps explain some of these things. And they're organized like by questions, almost like by questions, almost like Q and A style blog there. And I also post on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn, Doctor Rachel Schecter and I post every day articles from the news. And that's enough thing. No one has time to read all these news paper articles and online news organizations that are really even five years ago, there wasn't this much information about education in the news as there is now. There's so much more than there used to be. That's another thing I try to do is highlight that news for folks who follow me on LinkedIn. And if you want to get in touch with me, I probably LinkedIn is the easiest, or just pop a note to me from the website. So LXC research.com there's a contact form right at the bottom. And then if you want to find me on LinkedIn. You can pop me a note there too.
Cheri Dotterer 37:44
We are going to have to talk some more. That's all I have to say.
Unknown Speaker 37:47
Thank you so much for having me.
Cheri Dotterer 37:51
But for now, I would love our listeners to remember that you were put here for such a time as this. Go be awesome, go be brilliant, and help those students get through their day. You remember you heard it here first. Thank you so much everybody. Thank you so much for your time. Have a great day. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 38:13
bye, bye, bye, bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
