Author Interview: Drs. Persida and Bill Himmele, "Why Are We Still Doing That?"

We are wrapping up a fascinating season exploring why it is that some educational practices continue to hang on, despite empirical evidence showing that they aren’t effective - or even do harm. This week, we talk to Drs. Persida and William Himmele, the authors of the great little book that inspired this season, Why Are We Still Doing That? What led them to write this book? What practices did they consider adding to the book, but didn't make the cut? Their combined wealth of experience makes them very knowledgeable and credible on the topic of evidence-based teaching practices - but what we loved about them was their down-to-earth, real life way of addressing these common challenges in our profession. We hope you enjoy hearing from them as much as we did.

Co-Host: Sarah Egan-Reeves, SST8 Educational Consultant

About Our Guests: Drs. Bill and Persida Himmele are both on the faculty of the Department of Early, Middle, and Exceptional Education at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. In addition, they have conducted over 500 keynote, featured, and professional presentations around the world, both inside and outside of the field of education. One of their major areas of interest is cognitively engaging learning experiences and they are the authors of the ASCD best-seller, Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner. Prior to their careers in higher ed and on the speaking, consulting, and writing circuit, Bill and Persida both worked within a classroom environment - Bill as an Speech-Language Pathologist and ESL teacher, and Persida as elementary and middle school teacher in bilingual and multilingual classrooms and later as a district administrator serving ELL students in a high-incidence district.

Additional Resources

Why Are We Still Doing That? (book | ASCD study guide)

Total Participation Techniques: Making Every Student an Active Learner (book | website/resources)