teacher nerds, unite!

Teacher nerds design instruction so students connect to the content, their work, and each other.

We know school can be a source of meaning, vitality, and community in students’ lives.

We appreciate the elegance of a well-designed system and the artistry it takes to create one.

We work well alone but burst into bloom when we find each other.

We’re here for our students and clear on our values.

We’re teacher nerds.

nerdy workshops

Design for ENGAGEMENT

Use instructional strategies that invite and enable students to connect authentically with the content, their work, and each other.

Design for PROGRESSION

Create units that help students see their actions and interactions as meaningful steps toward a goal that matters—to them personally and in the world.

Design for BELONGING

Structure learning so students feel seen, heard, affirmed in their identities, appreciated for their strengths, and supported in their struggles.

Design for SELFING

Make every lesson and assignment an opportunity for students to discover what matters to them, choose how they want to live, and become the people they want to be.

green apples on a pink tree in a classroom.jpg

sustaining the nerdery

You know that while a one-and-done workshop can be helpful, it often doesn’t lead to deep, widespread, or lasting learning. We can provide a customized long-term professional learning plan that aligns with your school’s mission, taps in-house strengths, and equips teachers with the skills and support they need to implement new tools and strategies with their students. Let us help you create a sustainable and affirming professional learning culture.

Kickoff Workshop

Participate in an experiential workshop to build interest in making school a source of meaning, vitality, and community in students’ lives.

Book Study

Discuss a book using customized questions that help teachers imagine possibilities and connect each chapter or section to school priorities.

Design Labs

Prepare to use a tool or strategy from a particular chapter or section. Ask each other questions and help each other make adaptations.

Intervision Groups

Use an original protocol for peer observation. Give and receive nonjudgmental feedback on a particular practice.

nerdy books

You won’t find inspirational literature here. My books are not for teachers who need to be told WHY school should be a source of meaning, vitality, and community in students’ lives. They’re for teachers who want to learn HOW to design instruction that invites and enables their students do fulfilling work, build fulfilling relationships, and live fulfilling lives—not only in the future, but right now.

Learn 10 elements of instructional design that help students connect with the content, their work, and each other — not regardless of who they are, but fully regarding their identities, interests, needs, and values.

Design inclusive, participatory, cohesive, and effective professional learning experiences that leverage in-house interests and expertise. Build a culture of curiosity, creativity, and appreciation among adults in the learning community.

Which understandings, knowledge, and skills we deem “most important” for students to learn is always a question of values, so getting clear on values gives teachers a starting place to design cohesive and meaningful units, courses, and programs.

Discover a process-based, personally relevant, culturally affirming approach to SEL. Discover how to implement SEL as its own curriculum, as a pedagogy for academic units of study, or as a one-to-one intervention using that help students choose how they want to live, in and beyond school.

Learn to integrate student-centered social-emotional learning into every stage of an academic unit. This book contains 30 protocols, rooted in evidence-based psychological science and progressive pedagogy, that teach both academic and social-emotional skills.

EMPOWER stands for exploration, motivation, participation, openness, willingness, empathy, and resilience. This book offers activities that help students learn the habits and skills they need to bring their values to their relationships with themselves, each other, and school itself.

A quick guide to articulating a unit's goal—to explore a topic, develop a skill, or create a product—and choosing instructional strategies that foster engagement with that goal.

meet the teacher nerd

hear podcasts about my nerdy work

I‘m Lauren Porosoff. I was a teacher for 18 years, most recently at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York. I‘ve taught the 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, mostly in English and history, and I‘ve also served as a DEI coordinator, a grade dean, and a leader of curricular initiatives.

Now that I no longer have a classroom or a student roster or a salary, I don‘t know what to call my job. I usually say “educational consultant,” but that never sounds right for someone introverted and awkward who doesn‘t even own a hairdryer. But regardless of what I call my job, I see a difference between our jobs in education and our work—and my work in education has always been about making school a source of meaning and vitality and community in the lives of students and teachers.

Informed by my classroom experience and a branch of evidence-based psychological science called contextual psychology, I develop tools and protocols that transform the psychological experience of school. I‘ve developed applications in instructional design, social-emotional learning, professional development, and anti-bias action. I‘ve chosen to focus on instructional design, though, because meaningful learning is an ideal context for students to figure out how they want to relate to themselves, each other, and the systems in which they participate.

This is starting to make me sound cooler than I am. I‘m not cool. I‘m a suburban Gen-X mom who likes gardening, cooking, hiking, bingeing high-concept sci-fi and creative competition shows, and ordering the weirdest thing on the menu. Most of all, I like hanging out with my friend Laurie or my friend Tas or my husband Jonathan and talking about teaching. More specifically, talking about designing instruction so students connect with the content, their work, and each other. That makes me a teacher nerd. So that‘s what I‘m calling myself.

contact me

Let‘s nerd out together.