Trevor Muir
Let's Make Learning Unforgettable
Every student has the potential for greatness. I help educators increase student and staff engagement and unlock that potential through my books, speaking, & courses.
Travels from: Michigan
Fee Range: $ $10,000 - $15,000
Virtual Fee Range: $ Contact Us
International Fee Range: $ Contact Us
Tags: Attitude, Education, Learning and Education
FEATURED VIDEOS
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Trevor is a teacher, author, international speaker, and project-based learning expert. He is the author of The Epic Classroom: How to Boost Engagement, Make Learning Memorable, and Transform Lives, a book about using the power of story to make learning engaging and unforgettable. Trevor is a professor at Grand Valley State University, a former faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education, and is one of the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation educators. His writing has been featured in the Huffington Post, EdWeek, and regularly on WeAreTeachers. He gave a TEDx Talk titled, “School Should Take Place in the Real World,” at TEDxSanAntonio. Trevor’s Facebook page, The Epic Classroom, has inspiring videos that have been viewed over 25 million times. At the heart of Trevor’s work is the conviction that every student has the potential for greatness, and every teacher can be equipped to unlock that potential.
Trevor Muir's Programs
Trevor shares how educators can design and shape learning experiences to make deeper connections with students, have a more memorable classroom, and transform students’ lives. Using the power of storytelling, brain science, and authentic learning experiences, teachers can achieve real student engagement, and in return, learning that is permanent and unforgettable. When students are empowered to solve authentic problems and teachers become designers of meaningful learning experiences, school becomes a place where everyone can thrive.
Through inspiring stories, research, and even some spoken word poetry, this talk can help any teacher, in any subject area, and in any grade level learn practical and proven practices to transform their classrooms into settings where students are engaged, challenged, and transformed.
A nationwide survey showed that the top reason people are fired from their jobs is that they lack soft skills: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, adaptability, and confidence. People lack these skills not because they are incapable of learning them, but because they never had a reason to. So much of the education system is focused on technical knowledge and “hard skills,” and very little on these essential skills. Essentially, there was not enough purpose to do the hard work of developing soft skills.
Trevor talks about how teachers can design learning experiences that require their students to develop essential skills. While still learning ‘hard skills’ and academic content, students can do purposeful work that makes them better communicators, collaborators, problem solvers, and citizens.
Some students’ stories have made them hard to connect with and difficult to reach. They are often written off as “bad kids” or “too far gone.” However, by finding authentic ways to engage them in the classroom, as well as learning their stories and building relationships, connections can be made with the most difficult students. This talk is part inspirational and part instructional as it shares teaching practices that create an engaged and meaningful classroom for all students.
Trevor’s PBL 101 workshop was developed after years of working in a New Tech project based learning school, as well as his experience as a Buck Institute National Faculty member. Through this engaging and learning-intensive program, Trevor teaches any educator from any grade level how to implement project based learning in their school and classroom.
Project Based Learning at its core is about making learning- content and skills- authentic. PBL adds authenticity and real-world challenges to the work students accomplish, and in the process making learning more engaging and memorable. This workshop gives concrete methods, practices, and resources to create a standards-based, skills and content rich classroom in an innovative Project Based learning model.
Most teachers didn’t train to be virtual teachers. But most teachers also didn’t ask for a global pandemic to happen. However, just because virtual teaching may be different, doesn’t mean every teacher can’t be successful at it.
Trevor shares tested ideas, tools, and processes to thrive while leading a virtual classroom. From how to set up dynamic virtual meetings to how to create engaging virtual curriculums, every teacher can find new ways to thrive in the virtual classroom.
Topics covered:
Simplifying Your Work
Mastering the Virtual Meeting
Building Relationships in a Virtual Classroom
Engaging and Empowering Students
Maximizing Communication with Parents
Suggested Tools and Resources
Managing Assessment
Practicing Self-Care as a Virtual Teacher
The CEO of LinkedIn says “Communications is the number one skills gap” for employees. On top of that, in an increasingly polarized world, it’s evident many people do not know how to speak and listen to each other. They don’t know how to discuss.
This workshop is about how to make discussion a bedrock in any classroom. When discussion is central to learning, not only are students learning an essential success skill, their academic performance increases as well. Whether a kindergarten or 12th grade teacher, a math or English teacher, participants will leave with new inspiration, ideas, and strategies to teach their students how to have rich class discussions.
Technology for the sake of having technology is pointless and a waste of time and resources. However, when ed technology is used to make learning authentic, it has an essential purpose in the classroom. This session is about how certain technologies can be used to enhance authenticity in the classroom, assist students in meaningful work, and teach them skills they will need throughout life.
