Rebel Teacher Alliance

Episode 280 - Finding Our Yeti Mug (S08E05)Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! Spooky season is over and thankful season has started, so Fabian, Jamie, and John go around the horn on what scares them and what they're grateful for in the age of AI. Fabian opens with the day a rainstorm knocked out the power and canceled the PSAT (he played Magical Athlete with his global politics students), John explains why Teachers Pay Teachers (now TPT) has him worried, and Jamie pictures two chatbots writing and grading her formal observation. They also get into teaching students to use AI like a fountain pen, why Jamie's fourth graders would rather build with manipulatives than play Blooket, and a Lego and museum placard activity from John. Fabian then shares his most ambitious project yet: global politics students using 360 cameras to record documentary interviews with community members in Hawaii. Whatcha been playin' brings The Night Cage and the Stephen King series Carrie. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social.Chapters:00:00 Rain Cancels the PSAT07:15 TPT, AI Workload, Two Chatbots13:28 Teaching Students Critical AI Use23:04 Manipulatives Over Mindless Tech29:37 360-Degree Documentary Project44:24 The Night Cage and CarrieThings mentioned on the show:Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT)Magical Athlete (CMYK)Insta360Traveling While Black (Felix & Paul Studios)Ben's Chili BowlThe Night Cage (Smirk & Dagger)

Episode 279 - Finding Our Giant Baby (S08E04)Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! John is back from his sick week (the doctor’s note is still pending), and this one is for Crosby, a listener who wrote in asking for beginner friendly board games for two players and for bigger groups. Fabian brings Sky Team, where a pilot and co-pilot land a plane without talking, and Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth. Jamie covers Tiny Towns and Pandemic, John picks Horrified and Carcassonne, and Fabian closes with Magical Athlete, a racing game where a giant baby blocks the track. He also shares how he used Pandemic: Fall of Rome in a classroom. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social.Chapters:00:00 Crosby's Board Game Question02:36 Sky Team for Two08:17 Tiny Towns11:19 Co-op and Strategy Picks27:57 Magical AthleteThings mentioned on the show:Sky TeamThe Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earthTiny TownsPandemicPandemic: Fall of RomeHorrified: Universal MonstersCarcassonneTicket to RideMagical Athlete (CMYK)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! John's out this week, so Fabian and Jamie catch up with returning guest Educator Andrea (Andrea Forcum). She's now prepping high school teachers at Indiana State, wrote a first-year survival guide called They Never Taught Us That (including a chapter that gives you permission to walk away), and shares the advice she gives student teachers, from skipping power struggles to staying off dating apps during field placements. Then it gets into stand-up: a sold-out Indianapolis show, a Chicago crowd that sounded like crickets, and a set at an administrator meeting in a steakhouse. She also tells us about the Teacher Talk Sycamore Summit, coming July 2027, and her dream of a rage room full of copy machines. Fabian closes with Cozy Stickerville for "Whatcha been playin'...?" Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social.Things mentioned on the show:They Never Taught Us That by Andrea ForcumEducator Andrea (also her podcast, How to Survive the Classroom)Teacher Talk Sycamore Summit, July 2027 (details at educatorandrea.com)Cozy Stickerville (Unexpected Games)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! Jamie's fighting her way through a brand new spiraling math curriculum that has her feeling like a first year teacher again, and the crew talks vulnerability, burnout, and the never ending cell phone and AI debate. John reviews Plunder: A Pirate's Life (gorgeous pieces, not much strategy) and Fabian picks the guitar back up after years away. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social.Things mentioned on the show:Plunder: A Pirate's LifeSurvive the IslandThe Quiet Year

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week: Fabian survives his first Hawaii hurricane, John opens the school year by blowing out his car's axle at 4:40am, and Jamie's district ditches the old textbooks for a new Thinking Classrooms curriculum. Fabian goes all-in on teaching through board games this year (Salem 1692, We're Doomed, Grudge Ball, Hot Streak), and the crew gets into a full-blown fight over dnup. Subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Join our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram/TikTok @rebelteacheralliance and BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social.Things mentioned on the show:Salem 1692We're Doomed!Hot StreakdnupThe Quiet YearJaws (Ravensburger)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we have an absolute treat: Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games joins us to talk about what happens when great game design and great teaching collide. We get into how Wingspan almost went in a completely different direction, why Scythe is basically a global politics class in a box, how the best games and the best lessons both start with a feeling rather than a mechanic, and what it looks like to spend three years falling in love with something you're building. Fabian shares how he used Scythe with his IB Global Politics seniors to teach power, sovereignty, and the very real cost of war. John goes full fanboy on the entire Span universe and asks the hard questions. And Jamey reveals his guilty pleasure game(s).If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky.Things mentioned on the show:Stonemaier Games -- stonemaiergames.comJamey's game design YouTube channel (via stonemaiergames.com)WingspanWyrmspanFinspan (including Sharks and Reefs expansion)ScytheViticultureSlay the Spire (Jamey's guilty pleasure)Toy BattleJakub Rozalski (Scythe artist)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! End of year energy is high and we are feeling all the feelings. This week Fabian finally got to play Salem 1692 with his students -- and used NotebookLM to build a rule explainer slide deck straight from the rulebook PDF, which worked beautifully. Jamie's district is adopting a Building Thinking Classrooms-based math curriculum next year and she is already throwing her old Houghton Mifflin materials into the sun. John drops the fishbowl method for introducing games to students, which is genuinely one of the better classroom moves we've talked about in a while. We also get into the emotional wreckage of sending seniors off to their IB exams, caps and gowns, old desks, and why the last week of school turns every teacher into a complete puddle of goo.If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social, Jamie @jedijamie.bsky.social, and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky.Things mentioned on the show:NotebookLM (used to generate rule explainer slide deck from rulebook PDF)Make It Stick (book recommended by John)Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth (Fabian)

Welcome back to a new episode of Rebel Teacher Alliance! This week we are sitting down with Travis Hancock, founder of Facade Games -- the company behind Salem 1692, Tortuga 1667, Deadwood 1876, Bristol 1350, and the newly Kickstarted Roma XLI. Travis talks about how a slow college summer tweaking Mafia rules turned into a full-blown game company, why social deduction games pull emotions out of people in ways other games can't, and what 70+ iterations of a rulebook actually looks like. We also get into why teachers keep using his games in history classrooms, the magic of giving students a hidden identity to inhabit, and the two very different themes he's considering for his next strategic game. He also shared a game in our ever popular segment “What’cha been playin’...?”! Follow Travis on the socials! Check for @facadegames and will surely find them! (tiktok, IG, Youtube)If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts -- it helps more teachers find the show! Join our Discord community at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on Instagram @rebelteacheralliance, BlueSky @rtalliance.bsky.social, and TikTok @rebelteacheralliance. You can also find Fabian @hofmannedu.bsky.social, Jamie @jedijamie.bsky.social, and John @meehanedu.bsky.social on BlueSky.Things mentioned on the show:Facade Games -- facadegames.comSalem 1692Ticket to Ride LegacyPandemic Legacy Season 1 & 2Flip Seven

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance -- just Fabian and John this time, Jamie had somewhere else to be. Fabian's turn-in rate was 23.5% and he is not okay. What followed was one of the more honest conversations on the pod -- about grade-less classrooms, students triaging their workload like professionals, and what it looks like to slow down and have the hard talk instead of reading kids the riot act. John brings his own version from the other end, scaling Microlab protocol down from 60 seconds to 30 because his seventh graders simply cannot do 60 yet, and that is fine. We also get into Portal Kombat -- Fabian's Civil War summative where students research historical figures and battles, claim their fighter in a draft system, and then argue why their fighter mattered more than their opponent's. Fabian also built a custom app to run it, which is either brilliant or over-engineered, possibly both. In our ever popular segment “What’cha been playin’...?” we close with Fire Tower, a two-player tug-of-war card game that John loved, bought the deluxe upgrade for, and now cannot bring himself to play because it has too many mechanics. There is a lesson in there somewhere.If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below.Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.socialThings mentioned on the episode:EMC2 Learning -- https://emc2learning.comPortal Kombat (EMC2) --https://emc2learning.com/portal-combat/Fire Tower board game -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WDNFQ8G

Welcome back to Rebel Teacher Alliance. Fabian is back from scuba diving with students -- five sea turtles, one octopus, one Insta360 camera, zero regrets. Jamie's class has hit their magical end-of-year stride. John is three days into teaching seventh graders for the first time and already knows every kid's name. Then Fabian asks Claude for assessment ideas and gets two words back: "Fabian. Stop." -- which leads into a full breakdown with John on how EMC2 Learning actually designs classroom games, from a quick Target shelf port all the way up to a 40-hour press-your-luck build. We close with a pile of unplayed games everyone swears they'll get to this summer.If you love what we're doing, subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts -- even a single emoji counts, we promise. Join the conversation on our Discord at rebelteacheralliance.com and find us on the socials below.Instagram: @rebelteacheralliance BlueSky: @rtalliance.bsky.social TikTok: @rebelteacheralliance Fabian: @hofmannedu.bsky.social Jamie: @jedijamie.bsky.social John: @meehanedu.bsky.socialThings mentioned on the episode:EMC2 LearningPortal Combat (EMC2) (subscription needed)Contraband Content (EMC2) TextQuest (EMC2)Sheriff of Nottingham Disney Robin Hood EditionCastle ComboTerraforming MarsSeven Wonders DuelEverdellRootFlamecraftPoetry for NeanderthalsUlyssesArticle we talked about