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Good evening and welcome to the No Frills Teacher podcast.

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This is Joe Camps, a.k.a. the No Frills Teacher.

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And tonight we have a very special guest for Season 2, Episode 14,

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Empowering Students, Dr.

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Emily Levy. Dr. Levy, thank you for joining me tonight.

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Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Well,

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it's an absolute pleasure to have you.

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And there's so much that I want to cover and talk about with you,

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especially the title of tonight's episode, Empowering Students,

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and then also talking about June being Brain Awareness Month.

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So, with that being said, I was wondering if you gave us a little bit of your background.

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I know you're an educational expert, author, advocate for students with special education needs.

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You have your master's degree in special education and your doctorate degrees in education.

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Performed a five-year research study on an alternative strategy for teaching

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reading comprehension to students with learning disabilities.

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And receives a fifth place Westinghouse Science and Talent Award for this research.

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Very fascinating. And it seems like this is your passion.

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I know you have your coaching, your EBL coaching, supporting students with dyslexia, ADHD.

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And I guess a little bit of a background more on kind of how you came about

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starting the EBL coaching, your experiences working with students with dyslexia

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and and really what motivates you in your why behind all this and.

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Sure, absolutely. Well, to date back a little bit, I actually grew up in the

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field of special education. My mother was the founder of a school for students with learning disabilities

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down in South Florida, which is where I grew up.

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So I spent so much of my childhood working at her school, observing students,

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observing teachers, and really seeing how life changing it could be for children

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to receive the right support, the right methodologies to build their core academic skills.

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So that was very enlightening for me, really, as a young child.

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But of course, as an older teenager entering college, I felt like I wanted to carve my own path.

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So I went to Brown University, and then I decided to pursue finance,

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of all things, for a few years. And during that journey, I pretty quickly realized that it wasn't my calling.

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And I remembered just how rewarding and how gratifying the field of education

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was. So I ended up getting my master's degree in special education and,

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as you know, my doctorate in education. And I just very slowly and organically started to grow what is now EBL coaching.

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I began tutoring students myself who had special education needs in my little

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apartment in New York City and then eventually grew a larger office space and

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continued to expand the program. And we now have an amazing team of specialists who specialize in providing one-on-one

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tutoring to students who have special education needs,

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both in person in the New York and New Jersey areas and virtually really worldwide at this point.

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So it's been really rewarding and really exciting.

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That is remarkable to go from something small like that and to see it grow,

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to have that many students that you support. And like you said,

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not just in person, but virtually. Now, the students that are supported through this, through the EBL coaching, are they.

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Students with different needs, are they students that have dyslexia,

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a mixed ADHD, gen ed students, just as a mixed bag, whoever needs services,

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or do you specialize in certain areas?

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Well, our specialty really is helping students who have special education needs.

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So students with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, ADHD,

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autism, executive functioning challenges, speech and language challenges,

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and then also students who may not necessarily have a diagnosis,

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but who struggle with an academic skill like reading or a set of skills like

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reading and writing or reading and math. So that's really what we specialize.

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That's the population we specialize in helping.

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That's wonderful. And we talk about empowering students, and that's the title

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of this episode for the podcast, Empowering Students.

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And how does one go about empowering empowering students really that oftentimes

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have these obstacles or these challenges that they face within the classroom

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and then i guess another part of the question a follow-up would be,

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how do you go about supporting educators to support these students so that they can find,

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academic success emotional you know success within their own classrooms.

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That's a great question. And I think so many of the students that come to us

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are used to so much negativity.

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They have very low self-esteem, high anxiety, oftentimes depression,

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because they're so beaten down. There's, again, been so much negativity in their lives. So a huge part of our

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philosophy, my philosophy, and EBL coaching philosophy really is empowering

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students, building their self-esteem.

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And we do that in several different ways. One, of course, is naturally.

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As students' academic skills grow, their self-esteem, their self-confidence

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tends to grow along with it. But what we often do is we'll really show students the concrete improvement

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in their work. So it's not just abstract.

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We're not just saying, oh, you're doing great, you're improving.

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But we might show them a writing sample that they did on day one of tutoring,

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which maybe was one sentence with spelling errors and grammar errors.

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And then three months later, will show them a complete paragraph that they wrote

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on their own and show them the difference and really empower them with the change.

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This is what you did three months ago. Look at what you're doing now.

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You really should feel so accomplished and so proud of yourself.

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So really showing them concrete examples of their improvement often really builds their self-esteem.

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And then the other piece is really finding areas of strength for them.

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So if they struggle with reading. Let's say a child has dyslexia and really struggles to read,

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but they're an unbelievable artist. Well, it's really great to encourage that art, whether we build that into tutoring

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by having them draw visual pictures that support a reading comprehension exercise,

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or we encourage parents to put them in art class and really hang their art up

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on the wall so that they can really show them that even though reading may not

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be so easy for you, you are an unbelievable artist.

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So really Really finding little ways to empower them and to build their self-esteem,

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I think, is just so helpful. I love that, especially as a classroom teacher, because aside from moonlighting

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as a podcaster, I am a fifth grade ELA teacher.

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I teach ELA and U.S. history down in Southwest Florida. So I have my students.

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And as a teacher, I completely believe and agree with you.

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And that philosophy of finding areas of celebration,

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like ways to celebrate students and strengths that they have and building upon

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those strengths so that the student does feel successful and then kind of work

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it in with some of the academic areas and the skills and the abilities that

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they continue to improve upon. Han.

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Now, would you be able to, or can you touch on, you did a five-year research

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study on an alternative strategy for teaching reading comprehension.

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Would you be able to get a little bit more information on that?

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How did that go about and what were your findings over these five years of research?

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Sure. So my research was based on using an alternative strategy to help students

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with learning disabilities develop their reading comprehension skills.

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And really the The theory behind it is that many of us who might be strong readers

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and are able to comprehend well are able to kind of naturally form visual pictures,

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visual images as we read,

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which helps us to process and remember the information that we read.

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But many students who have learning disabilities are not naturally able to do that.

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So by learning a strategy to help them visualize information and then create

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visual diagrams with that information really can help strengthen their reading comprehension skills.

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And that's exactly what my research found. And that is something that we integrate a lot of as part of our work with students

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now in terms of helping them to visualize information as they read.

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Now, have you ever encountered, and once again, I'll just speak from personal

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experience, and I'd love to know your thoughts on this and your perspective.

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Students in the classroom that are undiagnosed or students in the classroom

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that are diagnosed with, let's just say, ADHD.

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Students are struggling or the teacher is struggling in the classroom to find

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ways to support the student for whatever reason. And they conference with the

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parents or, you know, guardians, family, whomever.

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And there's the discussion comes up of medication.

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And I'm just curious to see kind of what your stance is on this.

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And the teacher, you know, we don't go and say, you know, you should get your

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child on medication or something like that. that or parents sit in a meeting

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with a teacher or a conference and say, we realize this and,

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you know, child has seen the physician. However, we don't necessarily agree that that is the course of action we want to take at this time.

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But the child might still have difficulty or challenges in the classroom. The teacher does.

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So have you ever encountered where you have to support a child or family,

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a teacher in that situation or have any suggestions or strategies to better

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support teachers in that situation to then ultimately support the students for that success?

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Sure. That actually does come up a decent amount where parents will either ask

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my opinion or they will share their stance on it immediately.

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For example, many parents will call me and say, my child has ADHD.

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I'm adamantly against medication. I only want to try strategies.

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Geez, zero, don't even bring it up. I don't even want to have the conversation.

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And of course, I have to respect it. It's their child. It's ultimately their choice.

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If a parent asks my opinion, though, oftentimes what I say is that if their

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attentional challenges are so severe.

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They are just missing out on the majority of what's going on in the classroom,

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it's only going to negatively affect their ability to learn.

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They're going to miss out on so much material.

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They might be an incredibly bright child, but if they're not able to focus and

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listen and process the information, their academics are going to start to tank.

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And unfortunately, I've seen that so many times. So what I will often tell parents

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is talk to your child's teacher, develop a rapport, poor, build that communication.

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And if your child's teacher really feels like they are just not focusing at

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all, maybe it's worth exploring a very small dose of medication.

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And there's also so many different types of medication that are out there now

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that don't necessarily have those severe side effects that historically some

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of the common medications did. So I really believe that parents should work as a team with their teacher and

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ultimately try to make the decision for their child,

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if they're not learning, if they're not absorbing, in my opinion,

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it's worth exploring it as long as the parent is open-minded to that possibility.

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And I think that's, you know, very true that it's so important to have that

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conversation with the family and have that open line of communication so that

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you can know the parent's feelings instead of speculating that this is what

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they wanted or, you know, do not wish to have for their child.

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Now, I feel personally that, and Doug, please feel free to disagree.

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Not as much attention or workshops, trainings,

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professional development opportunities are available for teachers to learn how

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to support students or gain strategies or ideas on how to support students with

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different exceptionalities. Now, I can only speak to Southwest Florida, although I myself am from New York

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originally and a career I moved down to Fort Myers in 2004 and started my teaching

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career as a career changer back then and finished up my 19th year.

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In this little corner of the world, I feel we do not get that kind of support.

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Is it different up north? Do you agree

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that perhaps there should be more opportunities for educators to learn?

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Have these trainings or these professional development opportunities to better

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support students that have different needs or exceptionalities?

13:09

Absolutely. And I think for many reasons, well, first off, I don't think it's

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just Florida. I think it's really nationwide.

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I don't think there is enough professional development training on how to support

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students with specialized learning needs in the classroom.

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And I think that ultimately, if there was more training and more of these opportunities,

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these are strategies that could help pretty much all kids.

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So, of course, students who have the specialized needs need those strategies,

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but even neurotypical students could benefit from a lot of these techniques.

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And what may end up happening is that school districts could really prevent

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kids from ultimately being diagnosed and then having to provide additional services.

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So, in a way, it's almost being more proactive instead of reactive,

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active but i absolutely agree with you not enough

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training not enough professional development and i think there really needs

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to be a lot more of it oftentimes uh so

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i i have served as an instructional coach a mentor to new teachers and and i

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do find especially teachers coming out of you know various colleges of education

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they they might have certain courses you know in theory things but when they

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get at their class roster at the beginning of the year,

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a brand new to teaching or a career changer.

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And they look, well, students that are SWD and others, you have your ESOL students, all those things.

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I feel sometimes they are overwhelmed with right away thinking, what can I do?

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However, they don't have the necessary tools or strategies in their tool belt

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to be able to support these students. That's my opinion.

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I'll just throw it out there. Well, that's where the professional development comes in.

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I think in a way it's almost it is theoretical when when you learn about it

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in school and grad school or college. But it's not till you're thrown in there that you really almost understand the

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kinds of strategies you need. And I think that's where the professional development can be really helpful.

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Do you yourself, I know you do presentations and speaking engagements.

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You've also been published. Do you still go, in addition to supporting students with the EBL coaching,

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is that something that you do yourself or have your team do is go out and support educators?

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Or have you had them come and reach out to you saying, you know,

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we'd like to learn more about this through how we can support our students?

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I have in the past given workshops at schools. Now, I tend to speak more at

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conferences and sort of reach out that way, but I enjoy doing workshops at schools.

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I enjoy educating teachers. I think it's just such a great way to spread the word out and really offer tools

15:46

that can help so many students. And I did know that in 2017 that you were selected as one of Broome County's

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Commission on the Status of Women Honorees during Women's History Month,

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which congratulations for that acknowledgement.

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One, when you talked about the speaking engagements nationally, internationally,

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were they related to brain awareness, brain development, supporting students, empowering students?

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Was there one particular area that you tend to focus on or does it kind of vary?

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You know, it does vary a bit. A lot of my workshops and speaking engagements

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are about strategies for helping students build a skill or a set of skills,

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whether it's reading, writing, study skills, executive functioning skills, note-taking.

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So it's more sort of strategies for how to develop certain skills for the most

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part, but they varied a little bit. Would we be able to find any particular information or research or a publication

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that after listening to this episode,

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we could learn more about what EBL coaching is about and what you do and how

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you do support students that you could share? Yeah, absolutely.

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Really, the best place is our website, which is eblcoaching.com,

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which, by the way, stands for two things. EBL is Emily Beth Levy, my initials, and also evidence-based learning.

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I get that question a lot. But eblcoaching.com is our website.

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There's tons of articles that I've written. There's a section on publications

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that I've been in and different speaking engagements that I've been involved with.

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So I would say our website is the best place. Tons of information there.

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Fantastic. And I'll make sure those that are listening to this episode to include

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the link to the website as well once this episode is published.

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I'd like to transition over to the month of June and Brain Awareness Month.

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Month. And can you tell us a bit more about that?

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I feel, once again, similar to the support or the instructional coaching or

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professional that there appears to be a lack of.

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I'm not sure really Brain Awareness Month gets as much recognition in the general public.

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But once again, that's, you know, by just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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Can you tell us a bit more about Brain Awareness Month?

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Sure. Well, I think that, you know, over the past several years,

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there's been so much research behind sort of the brain differentiation in individuals

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who have dyslexia or who are sort of neurodivergent, so to speak.

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Meaning for students or for individuals who have dyslexia, certain areas of

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the brain may not be highlighted when they're reading like they are with neurotypical students.

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So when those students learn systematic approaches for how to read,

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it actually engages parts of the brain that were not being engaged before. for.

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I'm not a neuroscientist, but this is my understanding is that there's so much

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more awareness and research now about the different parts of the brain that

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control different aspects of learning and of executive functioning.

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And what we can do to sort of train the brain, so to speak, to really improve

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those skills, which I just find to be so fascinating.

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Which leads me to, I guess, circling back to the original, you had mentioned

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about the beginning over your career and you were, you know,

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went through finance and then went into, you know, special education.

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Was there anything in particular or specific, you know, in addition to,

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you know, your family and your experiences with that, that really made you want

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to focus on this area of study or education?

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Well, I knew that I wanted to, well, I should back up.

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I remember how gratifying and rewarding it felt to see these kids who came in

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struggling and like I mentioned earlier,

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low self-esteem, feeling so bad about themselves and really turning the corner

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and seeing them come to life.

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And that was something I knew that I craved when I was in a different industry in finance,

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which was, by the way, I learned a lot from that experience and I don't have

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any regrets in my journey, but it made me realize that it wasn't personally gratifying for me and that

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I wanted to be engaged in a field where I could truly help people and change

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the lives of these kids that are struggling so much.

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And there's so many of them out there that really need the support.

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So I think that's really what drew me back into it.

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As a career changer, I can definitely relate to the same thing.

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My prior career before being an educator was in communications and in media back in New York.

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And it was something that I personally felt was lacking.

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Maybe it was purpose or, you know, what you may call it.

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And it was when I went into the field of education that I got that gratification

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of knowing that, hey, I'm able to make a difference.

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I'm able to help these students in some small way, perhaps have some sort of

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impact, positive impact on their lives.

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And ultimately, they have had an impact on my life as well.

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Absolutely. I feel the same way. It's rewarding for me and it's affected my

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life in a positive way, along with with the children.

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So I completely agree with you. And we clearly have a lot in common between

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that and the Florida and New York connections. So it is a small world. It really is.

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So now, Dr. Levy, where do you see education, like the future of education,

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this profession supporting students?

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There's constant changes the introduction or

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you know the implementation of these you know ai tool for assistance and you

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know we have all these things this wealth of knowledge at our fingertips do

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you see that helping professionals or hindering what are your thoughts and where

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do you think this is going. I think that's a great question. I don't think any of us really know where it's going.

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But what I will say is I think that if AI is used in the right way,

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it can be a really helpful tool. To give you an example, I'm actually working on a really exciting project where

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I'm working on developing a writing software program that teaches students a

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systematic approach for how to write sentences, simple paragraphs,

22:31

extended paragraphs and five paragraph essays. Says, and that it actually integrates AI just for the scoring piece.

22:38

So it scores the writing, and then it gives the students direct feedback on

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their writing, what they did well, what they can improve upon,

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so that the ideas as they use and practice this program, their writing will get better and better.

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As you know, writing is historically so subjective, and there's not really a

22:56

great objective way to score it or grade it.

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So I just think that's an example of how we can really use AI to the benefit

23:03

of children and really to improving their lives rather than just thinking of

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it as a way to cheat and a way to kind of copywriting that AI generates.

23:12

So I think it's a matter of how it's used. I love that. I have this big smile on my face while you're saying all that. And here's why.

23:20

So part of teaching the fifth grade curriculum, we have our state writing test

23:26

or the Florida standards and the best standards.

23:29

So we this spring in May, we had the state writing assessment,

23:34

which was either expository or argumentative.

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And prior to the state assessment, I myself was using chat GPT along with the

23:47

state scoring rubrics for the grades four through six on scoring my student

23:54

essays and then providing feedback to my students.

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And then I was going around training other teachers in my county and in other

24:03

counties in the state on how to utilize chat GPT, where you we fed it the state

24:09

scoring rubric and then the student essays.

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And it would give us the domains and break down the discourse and based off

24:18

of the language of the rubric. And it was remarkable.

24:21

I felt personally I was very excited about that, where I was able to not only

24:26

reduce the amount of time scoring. Essays but i still read them and

24:30

i have i obviously was aware of the language of the rubric

24:33

as an educator professional and there were

24:36

times that there's a slight disagreement what i would have perhaps originally

24:39

scored an essay but almost on the nose what fat cpt was scoring these essays

24:45

and to see the opportunities for really the engagement and the enhancement of

24:54

assisting and teachers and scoring these essays, I thought personally was remarkable.

24:58

So I love hearing what you're creating.

25:02

Thank you. It is really exciting. And I think there are some amazing opportunities

25:05

that can come out of using AI.

25:09

So I think, again, we just have to really use it in the right way.

25:12

With the EBL coaching, so I believe you said you service over 2,000 students now. Is that correct?

25:22

Over the years, it's been over 2,000 students. I would say at any given time,

25:26

it hovers around $200,000 to $300,000, but it wavers a little bit.

25:30

But over the course of EBL coaching, definitely over $2,000,000.

25:34

That's remarkable. Is that something with the ABL coaching that is year-round?

25:39

Is it only during the school year?

25:42

It is year-round. We actually do a lot of work during the summer,

25:46

which we find to be this great opportune time because we don't have the academic

25:50

constraints, so to speak, of school. We can really focus on remediation for the kids who really need it.

25:56

To answer your question, absolutely. We do it year-round. We even do school

26:00

breaks and holiday breaks when students are around, so it's definitely year-round.

26:04

Have you found that there's truly what we like to call the profession,

26:08

the summer slide with students that perhaps do take summers off that need the support?

26:14

Or is that more of a teacher myth? Oh, 100% there is a summer slide for kids

26:19

who don't do any learning during the summer, without a doubt.

26:22

I think almost all kids can really face the summer slide, but especially students

26:28

who have learning challenges, attentional challenges, they really need that

26:32

consistent support over the summer. It doesn't necessarily have to be twice a week, every week, but they need to

26:38

be doing some kind of learning over the summer.

26:41

They need to be reading. They should write in a a journal.

26:43

They can even do daily math. If a parent's going on a road trip,

26:46

I tell them, talk about math in the car.

26:49

Talk about how far you're going and what the mileage is and how much gas you need.

26:53

And just keep the learning going over the summer because it's absolutely real.

26:57

And I've seen so many kids start the school year having lost so much over the

27:02

summer. I would imagine you have as well. And I have, yes. You can tell right away when you get those students at the

27:09

beginning of the school year, well, for us, it's usually August 10th.

27:13

And, you know, they're still in summer mode, of course, understandably.

27:16

But it's kind of finding your footing again. And you see things kind of gradually come back over time.

27:23

But I agree, you know, I do believe there is that summer slide.

27:27

And it's consistency is key with, you know, supporting, you know,

27:33

your children and your students. You know, as an educator and as a parent, I see that. Definitely.

27:39

So I'd like to talk real quick about students with dyslexia.

27:44

And do you have any advice? So I have listeners listening to this episode and their teacher.

27:53

They have students that have dyslexia, but they're not really sure how to support

27:56

a student with dyslexia.

27:59

And I have had students with dyslexia myself. And typically,

28:02

it's a case of it's, you know, it's notated, it's documented,

28:06

or a parent tells me at the beginning of school year, this is going on,

28:10

you know, my child has dyslexia, just kind of making you aware.

28:14

What would your advice be to teachers listening that has it,

28:19

but they don't really have the training or the background or the knowledge to

28:23

support a student with dyslexia? you have?

28:27

Well, I would first off start by saying that there's a method that you may have

28:31

heard of called the Orton-Gillingham method, which is research-based,

28:35

multi-sensory, and it's really the best method for helping students who have

28:40

dyslexia to develop their reading and their spelling skills.

28:43

If there is a support person at school who happens to be trained in Orton-Gillingham

28:49

and the student can receive some kind of pull-out support or some kind of support

28:53

with that method, In my opinion,

28:55

that's the best for really building their reading and their spelling skills.

28:58

If parents have the means to offer

29:01

that support to their child outside of school, that's the best method.

29:06

And I think that, you know, if there's any way to get that support for children,

29:11

that's really optimal. And then there's other accommodations that are oftentimes

29:14

in their IEPs that teachers can integrate.

29:17

But I think first and foremost, it's really building those key reading and writing

29:22

skills, which is really the foundation of just about everything in school.

29:26

Have you found yourself post-COVID that students are performing lower than,

29:35

say, five years ago, 10 years ago?

29:39

Because that seems to come up oftentimes, especially when we get into upper

29:43

elementary colleagues and other professionals like, okay, this is the kindergarten

29:48

group during COVID or this is the work.

29:52

And there seems to be almost this expectation of these huge learning gaps or

29:58

maybe it's unspoken sometimes that, okay,

30:01

this group might be a little bit lower academically because what

30:04

had happened in time away from school or virtually whatever it may be Have you

30:09

personally encountered something like that where you feel like the students

30:15

now that are moving into upper elementary and middle school seem to have some gaps versus pre-COVID?

30:24

Definitely. I think some of it depends on, of course, what school they were

30:28

at. I think some schools... As close to real classes as they could.

30:34

But I do think for the most part, especially kids who were in those foundational

30:39

years, kindergarten first, but even older kids, they really got nothing out

30:44

of, essentially nothing out of virtual learning.

30:47

I think it was almost impossible for them to engage.

30:49

And as a result, I think they really lost a lot of foundations.

30:54

And a lot of what we've had to do is go back and rebuild those foundations for

30:58

kids who are in fourth grade, and even fifth grade who just never got those early building blocks.

31:03

So I think, yes, it depends on what grade the child was in, what their school

31:07

environment was like, what their school was able to offer during COVID.

31:10

But generally speaking, definitely learning loss. And I think a lot of kids

31:15

really lost so much during that period. Is it a thing that you say, you mentioned your building blocks,

31:20

because the same thing we feel that way is that upper,

31:23

I feel upper elementary and the same, I could say, for all the professionals

31:28

that I spoke to or even my colleagues where there are a lot of foundational

31:34

skills that are still missing.

31:36

But then we have the dilemma of an upper elementary teacher saying,

31:42

well, I have to teach all this or cover all this or, you know,

31:46

the expectation is that I'm hitting these standards and try to find the time

31:52

to go back and remediate on those those foundational skills.

31:57

Is that something that you, you know, once again, have encountered or is that

32:01

where something like ABL Coaching really can be beneficial for a student?

32:07

Definitely. And that is a lot of what we do. I think it's really challenging

32:10

for teachers, as you said, during the school year to build those foundations

32:14

or to remediate skills in students who struggle with a set of skills.

32:18

So that's definitely where we come in.

32:20

We're able to do it during after-school hours, weekends, school breaks, holiday breaks.

32:25

Like I said, summer's a great time to work on building these foundations.

32:29

But that's definitely where we come in and something that we do a lot of.

32:34

And I think that's so, so important because, like I had just said and you had

32:40

mentioned, teachers do struggle with that.

32:43

Upper elementary teachers, middle school teachers, being able to fit in these foundational skills.

32:49

And we might You might be able to set aside and dedicate 30 minutes a day or

32:53

60 minutes, whatever it might be, triple I, when whatever your school may call

32:59

it to go back to intermediate on some of these.

33:01

But if you're missing these building blocks of reading and you have this disconnect,

33:08

you can just see the frustration on the students' face.

33:12

They are no longer engaged in conversation, participation, and you start to

33:19

kind of see that gap widen over the course of the school year, which is unfortunate.

33:25

Yeah, absolutely. Without those foundations, it's very challenging to move forward from there.

33:32

So where are we going now with EBL coaching?

33:37

You talked about the writing and the AI, anything else in the works,

33:41

any upcoming engagements, conferences that we could be looking forward to?

33:46

Yeah, I mean, I will hopefully be speaking at the Learning Disability Association

33:50

association meeting coming up. I think it's in Orlando, but don't quote me on that.

33:55

But I'm constantly attending and being involved with different conferences.

34:00

Really excited about the writing software program.

34:04

We're hoping to get more schools involved with that and really be able to help more kids.

34:08

And then really just expanding our reach of the one-on-one tutoring that we do.

34:13

We have developed just amazing resources and technology for our virtual tutoring

34:18

where we're able to engage with students as though we're working with them in person.

34:22

So that's just been a great way to reach so many kids that don't necessarily

34:25

have resources in where they live that they can access someone who specializes

34:31

in Orton-Gillingham or executive functioning coaching or foundational skills building.

34:35

So it's really given us the opportunity to help so many more kids in so many

34:39

other parts of the world that didn't previously have access to these kinds of services.

34:44

So students do not have to be necessarily a resident in New York,

34:49

the tri-state area, to be able to receive virtual tutoring?

34:53

Not at all. I just recently had a boy from Singapore that we worked with.

34:59

We have another one who lives in Belgium. So all over the world,

35:01

absolutely, they do not need to be a resident of New York, New Jersey.

35:05

That is so awesome to hear because sometimes things are local and you don't.

35:12

But that's the beauty of virtual learning, really, I suppose,

35:15

is that you no longer are confined just to your region to support students.

35:20

So when you have something fascinating like EBL coaching, you can have a broader

35:25

reach to help as many students as possible.

35:28

Yes. And one thing I want to say about that is I think coming out of COVID,

35:31

so many parents have had this negative association with virtual learning in a classroom setting.

35:37

And what I always tell them is that when it's one-on-one and we can really tailor

35:41

the instruction and we have the right technology and resources,

35:43

it's totally different. And it's nothing like that virtual classroom learning where no one really knew

35:49

what they were doing because we were all in this global pandemic.

35:51

But it really can be an amazing and life-changing opportunity to have this one-on-one

35:58

tutoring in a virtual setting. That's awesome. Now, Dr. Libby, in addition to your website, are you on social media?

36:06

Is EBL coaching on social media? How else can we find you or how else can others contact you?

36:11

And aside from the website, is there a way that we can follow EBL coaching on social media?

36:18

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have a Facebook and Instagram handles under EBL coaching,

36:22

where lots of articles I've written and videos and various resources.

36:27

And then we also have a YouTube and a TikTok channel also under EBL Coaching,

36:32

where I post different videos on various educational topics.

36:36

Oh, so you do have a TikTok channel where we can watch these videos?

36:41

Yes, it's relatively new. And I will say I have teenage daughters who have a

36:45

lot to say on how to create a TikTok video.

36:47

But yes, we do have a TikTok video.

36:50

And it's really fun just being able to educate people on various academic topics.

36:56

That's awesome. I have a 17-year-old daughter, same thing, who is trying to

37:02

get me on kind of the TikTok, you know, vote, if you will.

37:05

And I can't quite commit myself yet to recording any instructional coaching

37:10

videos or anything like that. But I see that kind of as a way to support students moving forward. I love that.

37:20

Absolutely. It's actually been a lot of fun.

37:51

Once again your time is greatly appreciated and

37:55

and i really do thank you for spending your

37:58

evening with us and get us let us get to know a little bit more about you and

38:02

what you do and how you do support students and educators well thank you so

38:07

much for having me i've really enjoyed this conversation and uh it's been a

38:11

pleasure of course well once again this is the the No Frills Teacher Podcast,

38:18

empowering students with my very special guest, Dr. Emily Levy.

38:23

Once again, you can find her on the web at www.ablcoaching.com.

38:30

In addition to social media, I will make sure to post those links on the podcast episode description.

38:37

I'm Joe Campuzaro. This is the No Frills Teacher Podcast.

38:41

Dr. Levy, have a wonderful evening. Everyone out there listening,

38:45

you too as well. Thanks so much.