Teens Try Out “Real Life” With Internships For Academic Credit
Extended-learning opportunities are finding favor in more U.S. high schools as educators look for ways to give teenagers avenues to explore what they might like to do with their lives. By thinking...
View ArticleCan Foreign Language Immersion Be Taught Effectively Online?
Learning to speak a second language often starts with memorizing words and phrases like colors, numbers and salutations. Soon teachers introduce present-tense verbs and students work to build simple...
View ArticleDoes Common Core Ask Too Much of Kindergarten Readers?
Sandwiched between preschool and first grade, kindergarteners often start school at very different stages of development depending on their exposure to preschool, home environments and biology. For...
View ArticleHow to Create the Learning Community Vital to Project-Based Learning’s Success
Project-based learning has become a hot topic as educators look for ways to effectively get students solving problems, working collaboratively and producing evidence of their learning. But as educators...
View ArticleHow Students Uncovered Lingering Hurt From LAUSD iPad Rollout
It started with a move by resourceful students who were able to unlock security settings on their iPads. The disastrous $1 billion iPad rollout by the Los Angeles Unified School District in September...
View ArticleCould Storytelling Be the Secret Sauce to STEM Education?
In the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” author Ursula Le Guin describes a utopian city that has everything people want or need — beauty, religion, happiness — but it’s all possible...
View ArticleHow to Turn Digital Games Into a Fun Physical Learning Experience at School
In order to take learning to the next level, there’s an experiment in Pittsburgh that brings game designers closer to the educators who want games for learning. The hope is that by working together,...
View ArticleInspired By Serial, Teens Create Podcasts As A Final Exam
In the months leading up to the final exam, 10th grade teacher Alexa Schlechter struggled. She’s an English teacher — an educator of stories told through the written word. But instead of focusing...
View ArticleA Simple Exercise to Strengthen Emotional Intelligence in Teams
By Gayle Allen “She needs every detail before we start, and it slows us down.” “He acts before we agree on a plan, so we make a lot of mistakes.” Sound familiar? These are just some of the frustrations...
View ArticleSteps to Help Low-Income Students Direct Their Own Learning
When Susan Wolfe, an elementary school teacher in Boise, Idaho, asks her class the qualities of a good student, kids often list things like: taking responsibility for themselves, doing homework, being...
View ArticleSteps to Help Schools Transform to Competency-Based Learning
It’s no longer a given that if a child spends twelve years in school, he or she will learn enough to succeed in higher education or a career. To address this issue, some educators are taking bold...
View ArticleThe Key to Boosting English Learners’ Language Skills? Challenging Content
The English language learner population in the United States is growing quickly, posing a challenge for cash-strapped schools struggling to balance the diverse needs of learners. And while technology...
View ArticleMaking Learning Visible: Doodling Helps Memories Stick
Shelley Paul and Jill Gough had heard that doodling while taking notes could help improve memory and concept retention, but as instructional coaches they were reluctant to bring the idea to teachers...
View ArticleWhich Reading Skills are Critical to Learn in the Ninth Grade?
Many freshmen coming into one of Nashville’s top public high schools are competent and fluent readers, but have a hard time reading deeply, making ninth grade a challenging year. In general, English...
View ArticleHow Teaching With Symmetry Improves Math Understanding
There’s a part of the brain that enables us to perceive magnitude — we can compare loudness when hearing different tones or compare the number of dots in a group at a glance. Neuroscientists have...
View ArticleFive Clever Ideas to Spark Independent Reading by Kids
There are so many concepts, skills and standards to be covered in any given school day, week or year that it can be easy to forget about one simple activity that promotes autonomy and starts students...
View ArticleBusting Stereotypes: A Homeschool-Public School Partnership That Works
The homeschool community has, in many ways, existed parallel to the traditional school system — both present but each distrusting of the other. It’s not uncommon to find professional educators who look...
View ArticleTeens Show Off Engineering Mettle With Pasta Bridge Competition
Imagine having to build a bridge — a strong bridge — out of nothing but epoxy and spaghetti. Yeah, hard. Just ask one of the 160 high schoolers who recently finished Engineering Innovation, a rigorous,...
View ArticleTaking the First Steps Towards Teaching With Video Games
Educators at Nordahl Grieg Upper Secondary, a public high school in Norway, are taking a unique approach to teaching that treats video games as just another classroom tool. If teachers use books,...
View ArticleSeeing Struggling Math Learners as ‘Sense Makers,’ Not ‘Mistake Makers’
In discussions of progressive and constructivist teaching practices, math is often the odd subject out. Teachers and schools that are capable of creating real-world, contextualized, project-based...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....