Key points:

• Building a data-literate school culture takes time and intention
• We are all digital immigrants now
• Data-informed decision-making in education: A comprehensive approach
• For more news on data literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

While digital literacy has become an aspirational cornerstone of modern education, the exponential growth of data-driven decision-making across industries reveals critical gaps that demand a stronger focus on data literacy. Digital literacy provides foundational technical competencies, but data literacy is necessary to equip students with the analytical frameworks needed to responsibly navigate our quantified world.

In today’s technology-rich classrooms, digital literacy is becoming a foundational skill–students are learning to navigate devices, use educational software, and collaborate online. But as we prepare students for the future, it’s no longer enough for them to simply use technology. They must learn how to understand and interpret data that drives so many aspects of their lives.

This is where data literacy comes in. While digital literacy is about accessing and sharing information through digital tools, data literacy is about making sense of the information those tools produce and using it wisely. For K-12 educators, building students’ data literacy is not a “nice-to-have.” It is essential.

Our classrooms are data-rich, but are we data-literate?

Whether we realize it or not, data is everywhere in our schools. Every test score, attendance log, learning app, or digital assignment generates data. Teachers use data dashboards to track student progress. Schools use analytics to identify at-risk students or allocate resources. Students, too, interact with data daily, whether analyzing graphs in math class or using feedback from educational platforms to guide their learning.

However, using digital tools does not automatically mean students, or educators, understand the quality, context, or implications of the data they see. Students may know how to make a chart in Google Sheets, but do they understand what story the data tells? Do they know how to question a graph they see on social media? Can they understand the difference between correlation and causation? This gap is what separates digital literacy from data literacy, and it’s a gap we urgently need to close in K-12 education.

What is data literacy for K-12 learners?

Data literacy in a school context means more than reading charts or calculating averages. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) published a Forum Guide to Data Literacy, which articulates the processes to create data-literate schools, but does not directly outline the skills of data literacy itself. The authors would posit the following are the necessary core skills for data literacy:

• Understanding how data is collected, and by whom
• Asking questions about what data does (and doesn’t) show
• Analyzing patterns and drawing evidence-based conclusions
• Recognizing bias in data collection or interpretation
• Considering the ethical use of data, especially personal information

When students are data literate, they’re equipped to make informed decisions, evaluate claims, and engage as thoughtful citizens in a data-driven world. In other words, they’re not just passive consumers of information, they’re critical thinkers.

Why it matters for K-12 teachers

As educators, we regularly interact with data, benchmark scores, reading levels, engagement analytics from edtech tools, and state test results. Data is only helpful if we can interpret it accurately and use it effectively to support learning. The same goes for students. As artificial intelligence, personalized learning platforms, and algorithm-driven content become more common in classrooms, students must understand how data influences what they see and how they are assessed. Teaching data literacy helps students succeed academically and develop the civic skills they’ll need to navigate the wider world.

Integrating data literacy into K-12 curriculum

The good news? You don’t need to be a data scientist to teach data literacy. And it doesn’t require a separate course. You can build it into existing coursework.

In math, students can move beyond computation to analyze real-world datasets. They can explore questions like, “What trends do we see in this data?” or “What might be missing from this information?”

In science, students can design simple investigations, collect data, and consider variability and bias in their experiments.

In ELA, students can critique the use of data in argumentative texts or analyze how data is used to persuade in advertisements or media.

In social studies, students can interpret historical or demographic data, question sources, and discuss how data is used to shape policy.

What’s important is creating opportunities for students to question, reason, and reflect–core components of both critical thinking and data literacy.

Professional learning for educators

Just as we strive to be lifelong learners, we need time and support to develop our own data literacy skills. Many of us were trained to teach content, not to analyze student data or model data reasoning in the classroom. Professional development focused on data literacy can help us feel more confident using student data for instruction, identifying meaningful trends, and teaching students how to critically examine information. Educators need to be given the necessary resources to support the development of data literacy, including the technology tools, time, and fiscal resources to be successful.

Schools and districts can support this work by embedding data literacy into ongoing training, not just tech integration workshops. Coaching, co-teaching models, and collaborative inquiry teams can also build teacher capacity and create shared language around data use.

Data ethics and student agency

There’s another layer of data literacy that’s especially relevant in today’s digital age: ethics. Students’ data is collected constantly, from learning platforms, devices, and even classroom tools. Yet many students aren’t aware of how this data is used or what rights they have. Teaching students to think critically about data means helping them ask:

• What personal data am I sharing–and who has access to it?
• How can data be used to help or harm individuals or groups?
• What responsibilities do we have when interpreting or presenting data?

These conversations help build data literacy and digital citizenship and student agency. It empowers students to ask hard questions and make informed choices–skills that are essential well beyond the classroom.

The road ahead

Building a data-literate school culture takes time and intention. It requires rethinking what we teach, what data we share with students, and how we engage with information ourselves. The payoff is worth it. We will create students who are more confident, more critical, and more capable of navigating the world around them.

As K-12 educators, we’ve already done the hard work of integrating digital tools into learning. Now it’s time to go further. Let’s help our students not only use technology but understand and question the data behind it. Let’s prepare them not just to function in a digital society, but to lead in it.

Key points:

• When students fail productively, they become better learners
• Explicit instruction: Students need more of it
• 3 ways to engage students in productive struggle
• For more news on productive struggle, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Throughout my education, I have always been frustrated by busy work–the kind of homework that felt like an obligatory exercise rather than a meaningful learning experience. What puzzled me even more was the stark difference between K-12 education and higher education in this regard.

In college, assignments were purposeful, designed to deepen my understanding of the material rather than simply reinforce rote memorization. These assignments provided valuable opportunities to fail, seek help, and ultimately grow from the experience. Unfortunately, this kind of productive struggle is largely absent from K-12 education, leaving students ill-prepared with the mental resilience required to learn and adapt in college and beyond.

The issue is not just that K-12 education lacks challenging work; it’s that the system actively discourages failure. Homework is often designed to be simple, easily completed, and graded primarily for completion rather than mastery. This approach fosters a culture where students equate success with immediate correctness rather than with the process of learning. In contrast, the ungraded, complex assignments I encountered in college allowed me to struggle through difficult concepts, ask questions, and refine my understanding in a way that simply wasn’t possible in high school. Worse still, the pressure to get everything right in K-12, combined with the increasing competitiveness of academic environments, has contributed to widespread cheating, an issue that has only been exacerbated by advancements in generative AI and online learning.

In undergraduate courses, particularly in STEM fields, weekly homework assignments often required upwards of 12 hours of effort. Whether it was coding a project or working through intricate physics problems, I regularly found myself stuck. This wasn’t a sign of failure; it was an essential part of learning. If I couldn’t figure something out on my own, I had resources at my disposal: office hours, teaching assistants, or discussions with peers. These assignments weren’t just practice. They were designed to stretch my limits, to force me to engage deeply with the material rather than skim through a textbook for quick answers.

A common theme in my college coursework was the emphasis on application and difficulty. I can’t recall a single homework assignment that was easier than a test question. The homework was intentionally challenging, often requiring problem-solving beyond what was covered in lectures. It was assumed that students would struggle. The struggle was the entire point. Unlike high school assignments, which often consisted of repetitive, simple problems that could be completed in under an hour, college homework demanded creative thinking, persistence, and resilience. These assignments weren’t about getting a perfect score; they were about refining my ability to approach complex problems–an invaluable skill in any field.

This experience stood in stark contrast to my K-12 education, where everything was graded, and the expectation was to get as many correct answers as possible. The emphasis on grades instead of growth fostered a fear of failure, making students hesitant to take risks. Because failure was so rare in primary and secondary education, many students experienced their first true academic challenges in college, often with devastating effects. Those who had never learned how to struggle through difficult material suddenly found themselves unable to cope, leading to a general sense of academic unpreparedness.

What happens when we give students opportunities to struggle and fail productively? We create better learners. Students develop a more realistic understanding of their own abilities and begin to appreciate the process of learning rather than just the outcome. A teacher’s role is not just to impart knowledge but also to teach students how to learn. By introducing challenging assignments that require deep engagement, teachers can help students build the mental resilience necessary for future academic and professional success.

This shift is particularly important given the increasing competitiveness of education. In a world where high school GPAs are inflated and students feel immense pressure to achieve perfection, we must reframe failure as a necessary and valuable part of learning rather than something to be avoided at all costs. The first time a student struggles shouldn’t be in their freshman-year college calculus course; it should happen much earlier.

How can educators integrate productive failure into their teaching? One of the most effective strategies is to assign difficult, application-based homework that correlates directly with classroom learning. Instead of grading these assignments for accuracy, they should be graded for effort or completion. This removes the fear of failure while still encouraging students to engage deeply with the material.

Imagine a high school math class where, instead of assigning a dozen repetitive practice problems, the teacher includes a few complex multi-step problems that require students to think critically. When students struggle with these problems, they should be encouraged to ask questions and work through their difficulties in class. The goal is not to punish students for making mistakes but to help them recognize gaps in their understanding and develop the problem-solving skills needed to overcome them.

For educators concerned about limited class time, even small changes can make a difference. A simple way to introduce productive struggle is to incorporate a “challenge problem” into existing homework assignments. This doesn’t require a complete overhaul of the curriculum; it just means providing students with opportunities to test their limits. These questions should be difficult enough to make students think, but not so overwhelming that they become discouraged. Over time, as students encounter these challenges regularly, they will build confidence in their ability to tackle difficult problems independently.

Another approach is to dedicate class time to reviewing these challenging problems collaboratively. There is immense value in the “eureka moment” that comes when a teacher explains the missing step that allows a difficult problem to click into place. When students experience this firsthand, they learn that struggling through a problem isn’t a sign of failure–it’s a fundamental part of the learning process.

Implementing failure in the classroom isn’t about making school harder for the sake of difficulty–it’s about making learning more meaningful. By embracing this shift, educators can help students develop the perseverance and intellectual resilience they need to thrive, not just in college, but in every aspect of their lives.

Key points:

• Movement helps boost student engagement in learning
• Using free resources to connect the environment to education
• Empathy, adaptability, and real-world readiness: Supporting students in 2025
• For more news on movement and learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

When one thinks about using technology to support learning, the typical types of spaces we think of are traditional classrooms, media centers or STEM labs. After all, it’s easy to imagine how technologies such as AI tools, robots, VR headsets, and computers, for example, can be used to support learning in these settings. But gymnasiums? They probably aren’t even on the list during these conversations for most districts. We believe they should be–here’s why.

Physical movement supports academics

There is significant evidence of the connection between physical movement and learning.  Some colleges and universities encourage using standing or treadmill desks while studying, as well as taking breaks to exercise. The NEA encourages teachers to bring physical activity into the classroom by incorporating brain breaks in students’ daily routines or taking classroom activities outside. A university developed a course that meshes physics lessons with martial arts. An elementary school teacher discussed how math can be integrated into PE class–for instance, students can measure and make calculations related to how far they jump or how fast they run, or myriad other activities.

Learning and physical activity also work well because of the “fun factor.” When students are moving, they are having fun. When they are having fun, they are engaged. When they are engaged, they retain what they learn. Think about the songs or chants that kids come up with when they skip rope. As adults, we likely still remember those rhymes. A student might not remember their score on a math test, but they likely vividly recall that time they shot the winning basket that sent their team to the state championship. It’s all about learning through physical activity.

Tech as a tool to facilitate movement-based learning

Using technology to support learning is a core priority at West Baton Rouge Parish Schools. Our technology team, because of the reasons we just described, wanted to find a way to use technology to leverage the excitement and fun that accompanies physical activities–whether it’s sports, dancing, or other types of movement–to engage students in learning.

We were able to accomplish this in a larger-than-life way by installing a system called Lü that uses projectors and educational games to create an amazing physical learning experience in our school gymnasiums.

We installed Lü systems, featuring Epson laser projectors, in every elementary and middle school gymnasium. The projectors are used in combination with a motion-detecting camera, a powerful sound system, a fully automated multi-color lighting system, and a library of educational content and games to transform school gyms into immersive learning environments.

To use the system, teachers select from a library of fun, educational games that are then projected onto the gymnasium wall, creating big, bright images so students can physically interact with the content. For instance, students can bounce balls off of the wall or jump and move around to touch or tap different spots on the wall during a game to trigger responses from the system. Games incorporate math problems, vocabulary, and other lessons, creating experiences that blend physical activity and learning in a fun and engaging way.

During March, teachers created a multi-week “March Madness” competition in which students were divided into two teams during PE class to play an interactive basketball game with the system. A basketball hoop was projected onto the wall and each team had five minutes, during which students took turns throwing basketballs at the image trying to “make a basket.” Leveraging the interactivity of the system, which senses where the basketballs hit the wall and gives students points based on how close they are to the basket, teams scored as many points as possible during their five minutes, and the scores are tallied and tracked. At the end of the several-week challenge, the team with the most points earned a pizza party.

We aren’t the only school district using projection technology in school gymnasiums. It is a great way to add a new and exciting twist to PE class, whether it’s helping students hone their soccer skills or using it with interactive learning to reinforce classroom learning.  For the students and teachers, it’s just plain fun. From a technology standpoint, we look at the system as a form of blended learning, where online activities complement regular face-to-face instruction. It’s the idea that tech is being used as a tool to deliver fun, engaging instruction. The kids are using technology to play a game, and at the same time are learning math and other content without really thinking about it because they’re so engrossed in the game.

Strategies for success

There are many ways schools can incorporate technology and movement to support learning. If your school is considering jumping in with a new system, product, or initiative, here are some things teachers and technology coaches should keep in mind.

1. Start small. If you are purchasing equipment, do a trial run first with one classroom or one school. Get feedback, work out any kinks, and get it to the point where the teachers love it before expanding it to other classrooms and/or schools. At our district, we started with installing the Lü system in an elementary school that serves grades 3-5. Teachers loved it. It got to the point where in the afternoons, some of the teachers would use the system to get exercise after school. They would gather in the school’s gymnasium and use some of the activities for aerobic exercise instead.  Once we got that level of buy-in at one school, all of the other schools really wanted one. We were able to use pandemic-related funding to expand the initiative. It was all about getting kids active and moving and healthy while promoting learning.
2. Be creative. When installing new technology, there will always be challenges. Perhaps there isn’t a strong enough internet connection, or there are too few outlets, or myriad other issues. In order to make a tech initiative work, it’s important to think outside of the box. In our case, there was one school that didn’t have a flat wall large enough to accommodate the games (it’s recommended that the walls be at least 19 feet by 11 feet with a ceiling height of 10 feet). That school, with the support of our reseller Trafera, created a work-around by building a “temporary wall” that connects on a hinge. We can unfold the wall and use it for the activities, then fold it back up when it is not in use. When facing implementation challenges, there is almost always a way that the problem can be solved by approaching it at a new angle.
3. Have fun! When doing professional development, emphasize how much kids love playing games. By implementing game-based learning, you can kind of trick them into doing math problems because they think they’re playing a game. And when you mesh physical activity and gaming with learning, it has even more of an impact. Even rote memorization like practicing multiplication tables is suddenly exciting to them.

Embracing gaming and movement is a magic potion that makes learning fun. By utilizing technology, schools can create opportunities where physical education classes can teach both physical activity skills and skills in math, reading, vocabulary and more–taking engagement and learning to the next level.

Key points:

• Teachers are supporting students taking ownership of their learning
• Explicit instruction: Students need more of it
• 3 edtech tools for station rotation in early learning
• For more news on real-world connection, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

In my classroom, I frequently encounter students expressing their opinions: “How is this relevant to the real world?” or “Why should I care? I will never use this.” This highlights the need for educators to emphasize real-world applications across all subjects.

As an educator, I consistently strive to illustrate the practical applications of geography beyond the classroom walls. By incorporating real-world experiences and addressing problems, I aim to engage students and encourage them to devise solutions to these challenges. For instance, when discussing natural resources in geography, I pose a thought-provoking question: “What is something you cannot live without?” As students investigate everyday items, I emphasize that most of these products originate from nature at some point, prompting a discussion on the “true cost” of these goods.

Throughout the unit, I invite a guest speaker who shares insights about their job duties and provides information related to environmental issues. This interaction helps students connect the dots, understanding that the products they use have origins in distant places, such as the Amazon rainforest. Despite it being thousands of miles away, I challenge students to consider why they should care.

As students engage in a simulation of the rainforest, they begin to comprehend the alarming reality of its destruction, driven by the increasing demand for precious resources such as medicines, fruits, and beef. By the conclusion of the unit, students will participate in a debate, utilizing their research skills to argue for or against deforestation, exploring its implications for resources and products in relation to their daily lives. This approach not only enhances their understanding of geography but also creates a real-world connection that fosters a sense of responsibility toward the environment.

Creating a foundation to build upon

Engaging in academic discussions and navigating through academic content is essential for fostering a critical thinking mentality among students. However, it is often observed that this learning does not progress to deeper levels of thought. Establishing a solid foundation is crucial before advancing toward more meaningful and complex ideas.

For instance, in our geography unit on urban sprawl, we start by understanding the various components related to urban sprawl. As we delve into the topic, I emphasize the importance of connecting our lessons to the local community. I pose the question: How can we identify an issue within the town of Lexington and address it while ensuring we do not contribute to urban sprawl?  Without a comprehensive foundation, students struggle to elevate their thinking to more sophisticated levels. Therefore, it is imperative to build this groundwork to enable students to engage in higher-order thinking effectively.

Interdisciplinary approaches

Incorporating an interdisciplinary approach can significantly enrich the learning process for students. When students recognize the connections between different subjects, they gain a deeper appreciation for the relevance of their education. According to Moser et. al (2019), “Integrative teaching benefits middle-level learners as it potentially increases student engagement, motivation, and achievement. It provides learners with the opportunity to synthesize knowledge by exploring topics and ideas through multiple lenses.” This method emphasizes the importance of making meaningful connections that deepen students’ comprehension. As they engage with the content from different perspectives, students will apply their learning in real-world contexts.

For instance, principles from science can be linked to literature they are studying in English class. Similarly, concepts from physics can be applied to understand advancements in medical studies. By fostering these connections, students are encouraged to think critically and appreciate the interrelated nature of knowledge.

Incorporating technology within classrooms

In today’s digital world, where technology is readily accessible, it is crucial for classroom learning to align with current technological trends and innovations. Educators who do not incorporate technology into their teaching practices are missing an opportunity to enhance student learning experiences. In my class, I have students explore their designated area using Google Earth, which we previously outlined. Each student selected a specific region to concentrate on during their analysis. This process involves identifying areas that require improvement and discussing how it can benefit the community. Additionally, we examine how these changes can help limit urban sprawl and reduce traffic congestion.

We have moved beyond the era of relying solely on paper copies and worksheets; the focus now is on adapting to change and providing the best opportunities for students to express themselves and expand their knowledge. As Levin & Wadmany (2014) observe, “some teachers find that technology encourages greater student-centeredness, greater openness toward multiple perspectives on problems, and greater willingness to experiment in their teaching.” This highlights the necessity for teachers to evolve into facilitators of learning, acting as guides who support students taking ownership of their learning.

Strategies for implementation

1. Start with the “why”: Teachers should critically consider the significance of their instructional approaches: Why is this method or content essential for students’ learning? Having a clear vision of the desired learning outcomes enables educators plan effectively and what instructional strategies to use. This intentionality is crucial.

2. Use authentic materials: Incorporating meaningful text that involves real-world concepts can significantly enhance students’ engagement. For instance, in social studies class discussing renewable energy can lead to academic discussion or projects where students research about local initiatives in their community.

3. Promote critical thinking: Encourage students to engage in critical thinking by asking open-ended questions, creating opportunities for debates to challenge their ideas, and urging them to articulate and defend their viewpoints.

4. Encourage collaboration: Students excel in collaborative learning environment, such as group projects and peer reviews where they can engage with their classmates. These activities allow them to learn from each other and view different perspectives.

5. Provide ongoing feedback: Providing constructive feedback is essential for helping students identify their strengths and areas for improvements. By having planned check-ins, teachers can tailor their instruction to ensure that they are meeting the academic needs of individual students.

References

Levin, T., & Wadmany, R. (2006). Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in Technology-based Classrooms: A Developmental View. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(2), 157–181. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2006.10782478

Moser, K. M., Ivy, J., & Hopper, P. F. (2019). Rethinking content teaching at the middle level: An interdisciplinary approach. Middle School Journal, 50(2), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/00940771.2019.1576579

Key points:

• Real-world relevance makes STEM learning more personal for students
• 12 lesser-known K-12 STEM education resources
• Using free resources to connect the environment to education
• For more on STEM concepts, visit eSN’s STEM & STEAM hub

“Why are we learning this?”

This is a question every educator has faced before. To be fair, it’s a valid question. Students are naturally curious, and it’s normal for them to wonder about the knowledge that they’re acquiring. The real issue is how we, as educators, choose to respond to them.

In my experience, teachers have two standard replies to this question:

1. They’ll try to explain the subject in detail, which results in a long-winded answer that confuses their students and doesn’t satisfy them.
2. They’ll argue that the information is important because it’s on an upcoming test, which typically leaves students feeling frustrated and disengaged.

Either way, the result is the same: Students lose all legitimacy in the lesson and they’re unable to connect with the content.

If we want our students to engage with the material in a way that’s memorable, meaningful, and fun, then we need to help them discover why it is important. Teachers can accomplish this by introducing real-world connections into the lesson, which reveal how the information that students acquire can be practically applied to real-world problems.

Without building these connections between the concepts our students learn and real-world applications, students lose interest in what they are learning. Using the strategies below, you can start to build student investment into your classroom content.

The everyday enigma

Use everyday items that operate with mystery and frame your lesson around them. Your students’ curiosity will drive them to learn more about the object and how it functions. This allows students to see that the small concepts they are learning are leading to the understanding of an object that they interact with daily. When choosing an item, pick one that is familiar and one that has multiple STEM elements. For example, you could use a copper wire to discuss electrical currents, a piece of an automobile to explore chemistry and combustion, or shark teeth when teaching about animal adaptations and food chains.  

Interest intersect

Connect your students’ personal hobbies to the subject matter. For instance, if you have a student who is really passionate about soccer, try having them create a mini poster that connects the sport to the concepts learned in class. This gets them to think creatively about the purpose of content. This strategy has the additional benefit of helping teachers learn more about their students, creating opportunities to build communication and rapport.

Get an expert

Invite professionals (scientists, engineers, etc.) to talk with your class. This gives students a first-hand account of how the concepts they are learning can be applied to different careers. If you’re teaching chemistry, consider inviting a nurse or doctor to share how this subject applies to human health. If you’re teaching math, a local architect can expound on how angles and equations literally shape the homes in which students live. Not only does this provide a real-world example of students, but it helps schools connect with their community, creating vital relationships in the process.           

Problem to progress

Create an engineering investigation based on a local, real-world problem. For instance, I once knew a music teacher who was frustrated because pencils would regularly fall off his music stands. I challenged my 5^th grade students to create a solution using the engineering design process. Not only did they succeed, but the experience allowed my students to see the real-world results of the inventions they created. When students understand that their work can make a tangible difference, it completely changes their relationship with the material.  

Project-based learning

Project-based learning is driven by inquiry and student ownership. This allows students to make contributions to the real world through hands-on investigations. What makes these inquiry-focused lessons so useful is that students are the driving force behind them. They choose how to approach the information, what questions to pursue, and what solutions they want to test. This makes the learning intensely personal while taking advantage of students’ natural curiosity, creativity, and critical-thinking skills. If you need a little help getting started, consider using one of these Blue Apple projects from Inquiry Outpost.

By linking our STEM lessons to real-world experiences, teachers can provide a meaningful answer to the age-old question of, “Why are we learning this?” We can equip our students with the skills to not only navigate everyday challenges but also create positive change within their own communities. So, let’s empower young learners to see the relevance of STEM in their lives, and lay a strong learning foundation that will support them well beyond the classroom.

This story originally appeared on the Christensen Institute’s blog, and is reposted with permission.

Key points:

• This pivot presents a remarkable opportunity for teachers and society at large
• AI is changing the role of teaching assistants
• Navigation and guidance in the age of AI: 5 trends to watch
• For more news on AI in education, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

Picture your favorite teacher from your childhood. He or she may have been great at explaining things, energetic, affirming, funny, or had other wonderful attributes. I remember Mrs. Rider. She was smart and pretty, and showed she really believed in me.

With this picture in mind that highlights the many wonderful teachers who typify the “sage on the stage” teacher role, you may wonder why Guide School (full disclosure: I’m the founder) prepares teachers and other adults to become “guides” instead of sages. Why not spend our efforts developing more wonderful sages like Mrs. Rider?

The printing press provides a helpful analogy to answer that question.

Over time, Disruptive Innovations change how things are conventionally done

Before the invention of the printing press, books and written materials were primarily produced as handwritten manuscripts. Scribes, often monks or other church officials, painstakingly copied texts by hand using quill pens and special inks to illuminate and decorate each parchment.

The printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, revolutionized the production and sharing of written knowledge. It allowed for the mass production of books at a much faster rate and lower cost. In short, texts became accessible to a greater number of people.

But it also meant disrupting the profession of scribes, who suddenly found their work had shifted. Some scribes found new opportunities as proofreaders or editors within the emerging print industry. Others continued to provide handwritten services for personal letters and legal documents. Additionally, a market remained for beautifully handcrafted manuscripts among wealthy patrons who valued calligraphy.

There’s a parallel between the stories of scribes and conventional teachers. Just as the best scribes produced unique artistry in rare, individually commissioned works, the best teachers create rare but enviable classrooms with well-behaved, deeply motivated, impressively thriving students. Unfortunately, however, many people are left out of these ideal scenarios. Without the printing press, millions of people would have languished without access to printed materials. Without transforming the conventional classroom, millions of students today will continue to suffer from want of effective instruction. That’s because while the conventional system could develop more wonderful, conventional teachers like Mrs. Rider, doing so requires an investment of resources often unavailable to every student in every school across the world. All too often, only those who are lucky or whose families can pay receive the benefits of those investments. 

Happily, the printing press’s disruption of scribing proved to be an irrefutable boon for the education of humanity. The printing press facilitated the growth of literacy, numeracy, and scientific knowledge by enabling the widespread distribution of printed materials with dependable accuracy and lower costs. It played a crucial role in the Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution, allowing for the mass sharing of ideas at unprecedented speed and scale. By the end of the 15th century, millions of copies of thousands of book titles had been printed, marking a dramatic shift in the accessibility of knowledge.

AI and its potential to disrupt conventional teaching

Similarly, the rise of AI-powered, online apps for instruction is disrupting the teaching profession. It’s giving rise to a new wave of global knowledge distribution with increasingly dependable accuracy and precision, allowing for mass learning at unprecedented speed and scale.

When the printing press arrived, the scribe profession did not disappear, but scribes did have to adapt to new roles as their industry changed. Similarly, many conventional teachers will need to adapt to a new role as their role of sage becomes disrupted. 

Fortunately, this pivot presents a remarkable opportunity for teachers and society at large. For years, experts have identified that students do best when they have personal, individual tutelage to help them learn. Top-down, whole-class, monolithic instruction isn’t working for most students–and observant teachers know that. The shift from sage on the stage to guide on the side of each student is a welcome relief for teachers who see that the conventional approach is broken in that it leaves behind too many students and want a model that allows them to have the individual impact they hoped for when they entered the teaching profession.

AI frees up teachers’ time to give more individual attention and students’ time for more than foundational knowledge attainment. The Flex blended-learning model, which pairs AI-powered apps with group discussions, real-world projects, individual coaching from guides, and other student experiences, attracts teachers who see its value and want its benefits. Rather than feeling replaced by computer-based instruction, these teachers feel attracted to a clear opportunity to shift their time spent on lectures and embrace the facilitation of a more student-driven learning design for their students.

Guide School prepares adults who feel called to this new role. The guide profession is different from the conventional teaching profession. It requires different mindsets, skills, and dispositions. But for those well-suited to and trained for the role, it’s a profession with unprecedented opportunities to help youth worldwide develop knowledge and talents to a higher level than ever before.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

As a progressive educator in New York City for 30 years, I thought I had all the answers. The best teaching had to do with inquiry, with “higher-level thinking,” with “student-centered” project-based learning. I still believe in all of that, but I now understand that these are just part of the picture.

What students–especially struggling students–also need is teacher-directed explicit instruction.

By explicit instruction, I am speaking of the “I-do, we-do, you-do” strategy, where the teacher models a concept or skill, engages students in targeted practice, checks and corrects understanding, and then gives students more independent practice, with more checking for understanding and corrective feedback.

As an assistant principal in a public school in Manhattan, I have begun to use explicit instruction more in my own teaching and have focused on explicit instruction in my professional development with the history and physical education teachers I supervise.

When I taught ninth grade Global History to an integrated co-teaching, or ICT, class last year, I used explicit instruction in ways I had not done before. When I asked students, who were a mix of general education students and students with disabilities, to do Harvard’s Project Zero’s “see-think-wonder” protocol, where they look at an image and consider the ideas and questions it brings up for them, I realized that many students had trouble with thinking and wondering. They needed modeling, practice, and feedback.

There is ample evidence that explicit instruction works for everyone, especially struggling learners. This research dovetails with the “science of reading” practices that have been transforming reading instruction to favor a phonics-based approach.

Explicit instruction is also common sense.

If I need to learn something I don’t know anything about–tie a specific fishing knot, say–any amount of “productive struggle” would not be so productive. I would need someone to show me what to do, multiple times, and give me plenty of practice and feedback as I attempted it myself.

My daughter in high school needs explicit instruction. She has severe dyslexia and dysgraphia. She goes to a small, progressive public school in New York City, similar to one that I taught in for 10 years, that is focused on project-based learning. This is the type of school that I believe in, but this school does not prioritize explicit instruction, and my daughter is struggling.

Small, progressive schools in New York City often create project-based curriculums that focus on issues of social justice, both for educational and political reasons. But if you are not effectively teaching the students who struggle most, you are perpetuating educational inequity.

In my history and physical education department meetings last year and this year, I have focused our work together on explicit instruction — a shift from the project-based learning strategies I had favored in years past. Many of these explicit instruction strategies do not take much time to learn or use, and some of the teachers I supervise are already starting to use them.

Some of these same teachers have told me that they have been wary of using explicit instruction because they were told previously that instruction needs to be “student-centered.” But learning does not have to be student-driven in order for it to be student-centered.

While it’s true that explicit instruction is teacher-directed, it offers opportunities for student participation as well as the teacher to call on students to check and correct understanding. It is also true that explicit instruction is not mentioned in the Danielson framework, the rubric that New York State uses for teacher ratings.

Student-centered learning is often conflated with the idea of “productive struggle,” when students figure things out on their own, such as the meaning of a text or the rule for a set of problems. Productive struggle may work for some students who have the background knowledge, skills, and desire to figure things out on their own. But productive struggle does not work for my daughter. As she said one night at dinner, “I can’t learn if I have no idea what to do.”

Explicit instruction, done well, is not a return to traditional teacher lectures. It is a deliberate progression of modeling, guided practice, and independent practice of a skill or a concept.

Explicit instruction is not contrary to project-based learning — they are complementary. Students do need to be engaged with authentic tasks and real-world problems, such as writing letters to elected officials about current issues of the world. But along the way, they also need explicit instruction on topics such as how to identify a policy goal and structure an email.

Project-based learning helps ensure that learning is meaningful and long-lasting for students. Explicit instruction helps ensure that students learn at all.

As New York State transitions to a Regents-optional high school graduation regime, I hope that project-based learning expands to become the dominant curricular model. And I hope that explicit instruction expands along with it.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Related:
Turning classroom boredom into student brilliance
6 educator predictions about teaching and learning in 2025
For more on classroom learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Key points:

• Learning to compose–not just write–helps students become confident, creative communicators
• Creating podcasts in the classroom
• Closing the digital use divide with active and engaging learning
• For more news on digital tools, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

Teaching writing today is much like being a conductor of an orchestra. Just like a conductor brings together different instruments and dynamics to create a cinematic score or a symphony, teachers help students use digital tools and the multimodal resources they offer to communicate meaningful messages effectively.

But here’s the catch: most conversations about classroom technology focus on the shiny tools or the end-product possibilities. What about the steps in between? That’s where the magic happens–in the process.

Over the years, writing instruction focus has swung between the final product outcome and the processes that gets us there. Digital tools have reignited this tension towards product, but now it’s time to help students learn how to compose, not just write. This article aims to give teachers practical ways to guide their students through a creative composing process, bringing topics often associated with “presentation” (think 6 Traits +1) to the center stage of meaning making.

I recently worked with a group of 5th graders in an after-school Digital Composing Club. Using tools like Google Chromebooks, Adobe Creative Cloud, and Screencastify, these students tackled all kinds of creative tasks: making infographics, writing blog posts, and designing thank-you messages, among others. Along the way, we recorded their screens and listened to their thoughts as they worked. What we found were 11 distinct steps that kids take when composing digitally, several of which carry great weight in helping students use digital tools and the resources they afford for more than “presentation.” From choosing images to arranging resources in virtual and real spaces, these insights can help us teach students to compose, wielding all the multimodal resources to communicate meaningful messages.

Classroom connections and applications

Digital platforms give students so many ways to express themselves by combining text, pictures, space, audio, as well as the design tools used. To help kids make the most of these tools, we need to teach the process explicitly. Here are three key process activities for which explicit instruction can add great value towards an end product: selecting, manipulating, and completion.

Selection

Selection is all about choosing the right resources–words, images, colors, or even layouts–to include in a project. For kids, this means making decisions about what best represents their ideas.

Why it matters: Choosing the right image or phrase isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about helping kids translate their ideas across words, visuals, and space, which can be tricky!

Try this in your classroom:

• Quote slides: Start with a motivational quote and ask students to create a visual representation. They can pick a background photo or color to go with the text. Include time for discussion and sharing of decision making regarding the selection allowing student to explain their meaning connection between text and visual. Future conversations could add in which mode (text, visual) is “leading” the meaning making and why.
• Six-word memoirs: Challenge students to sum up a personal story in just six words and pair it with an image. Like the quote slides, students add a visual background that enhances the communicative value to and is related to the story being told. Modeling and exemplars allow for the opportunity to help understand these connections better and can lead to discussion of affordances and constraints of modes (pictures can communicate in ways words cannot and vice versa).

Recommended tools: Canva, Adobe Express, or Google Slides.

Manipulation

Manipulation involves arranging (sizing, positioning, orienting) text and visuals in a way that makes sense to the audience. It’s about creating balance and guiding the viewer’s eye.

Why it matters: Where a student places an image or how they size their text can change how the whole project is understood. Teaching kids to think like designers helps them become stronger communicators.

Try this in your classroom:

• Infographics: Study and create infographics for nonfiction topics. Studying models is essential to how space, size, and placement of resources serve the purpose of organization and communication. Often, using and modifying templates provided by a platform can help scaffold student experiences in connecting their content to this type of presentation.
• Quote slides next steps: Build on the earlier activity by asking students to add extra visuals or adjust text placement. Discussion and sharing should include how and where elements (text or visual) are placed to emphasize meaning or lead the reader to an intended meaning.

Recommended tools: Canva or Adobe Express.

Completion

Completion is all about sharing work with an audience. Digital tools make it easier than ever to publish and celebrate student creations.

Why it matters: Sharing work gives kids a sense of pride and purpose. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to teach them real-world skills like downloading files and emailing projects.

Try this in your classroom:

• Tech scavenger hunts: Create a checklist to help students learn how to navigate the platforms they are using for composing. Include tasks such as product downloading and sharing functions.
• Share it out: Include sharing of final products as part of the project requirements/rubric. Post student projects on a class or school social media account (managed by you/school!) or email them to parents, the principal, or local community members.

Recommended tools: Investigate sharing and cross-platform functions when selecting digital platforms for student use.

Conclusion

Teaching kids how to compose digitally means adding a few extra steps to our lessons, but it’s worth it. These are skills they’ll use for life, and they’re already part of many state and national standards. Quick mini-lessons and real-time feedback in student conferences during dedicated writing/composing time can help you integrate these ideas without adding too much extra work to your plate.

So, think of yourself as the conductor, and your students as budding musicians. With your guidance, they’ll learn to compose–not just write–and become confident, creative communicators ready for whatever the future holds.

Key points:

• Dynamic resources make a significant difference in student engagement and learning outcomes
• Turning classroom boredom into student brilliance
• 3 tips to authentically engage students in real-world STEM learning
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

As a National Board-Certified Teacher, I love incorporating media literacy, environmental literacy, and civic engagement into my teaching. I want my students to think critically about how things interconnect, and I am always searching for new and engaging ways to help them lead with curiosity.

In a recent lesson, I had my students explore the circular economy and biomimicry. For their summative assessment, they used the engineering design process to create products to address local or global problems utilizing nanoscience and nanoparticles. They were challenged to think about the issue (climate change) from a unique perspective (nanotechnology).

To make this project happen, I relied on two free resources connecting the dots between the classroom and the wider world:

Resource 1: Concept of a circular economy

The first resource I used was a pre-made studio teaching about the concept of a circular economy. With lessons plans and video lesson bundles from the Environmental Education Initiative, my students learned with this resource that participating in a circular economy is an innovative way to have a positive impact on the planet. They saw how students in Charlotte, North Carolina are participating in a circular economy by reusing, recycling, and repurposing old bike parts.

My students enjoyed creating connections and were able to grasp how their actions connect to the wider world. This resource was instrumental in helping students identify problems around them. I love the plug-and-play nature of the resources; they serve as excellent introductory hooks and points for further discussion. Additionally, the topics are timely and relevant to students’ lives, making the learning experience more engaging.

Resource 2: Sustainable futures

The second resource I used to assist students with their design process was from the Sustainable Futures program with Trane Technologies. There are so many resources, but my students especially loved the resource on biomimicry. This resource showcases how nature can inspire innovative design solutions. From bats’ echolocation being the basis for radar and sonar devices to geckos’ sticky feet inspiring the design for adhesives, we are constantly motivated by the world around us to create products that help people.

Having a resource with ready-to-go-lessons like this makes understanding high-level topics like biomimicry-based design easy, providing students opportunities to engage with content in a brand-new way.

This resource served as a great introduction and jumping-off point for students in their design challenge. It also provided a scaffold for students to refer to when sharing their ideas. Like the first resource, I appreciate how it is ready-made and can easily enhance classroom learning experiences.

Insider tips:

Having these materials ready at your fingertips is only the first step, and there are so many good resources out there. Sometimes, though, it can be hard to know how to get started. Here are my three insider tips for facilitating the use of these resources:

• Tip 1: The Discovery Education resources are great if you are looking for vetted content on just about any topic. Whatever you’re teaching, there is a good chance you’ll find some kind of video or activity that can be adapted or used in your classroom to complement your lessons.
• Tip 2: When I am looking for resources that are aligned with real-world examples and exposure to industry careers, finding trusted information that covers a wide range of pathways is top of mind. Once I see what my students are really interested in, I look to help them make career connections by intentionally noting job titles and industries.
• Tip 3: Getting your students to engage with the lesson makes all the difference in their academic success. That’s why I love project-based learning–the students get a “something” out of the lesson that they made themselves. Project-based learning experiences put students in charge of their own learning and provide opportunities to elevate their own student voice.

Integrating resources like these into your teaching can make a significant difference in student engagement and learning outcomes. The world is incredibly unique and there are many ways to creatively draw connections between seemingly unconnected topics and industries. This better prepares students to think critically in all aspects and pushes them to live curiously.

Key points:

• Educators must balance academics with students’ well-being
• 6 educator predictions about teaching and learning in 2025
• Educators outline 5 priorities for the new school year
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Each year, we continue to see K-12 education evolve, from the increase in homeschooling to the power of parental choice to advancements in AI and VR. At the same time, students’ needs are more complex than ever: Mental health struggles, widening learning gaps, and a shifting post-graduation landscape demand a renewed focus on empathy and innovation in education. 

With 2025 poised to bring new uncertainties, educators must prioritize flexible approaches that balance academic rigor with emotional well-being to help students learn, grow and thrive in life. As a superintendent for a California online public school, I’ve experienced the transformation students and families have when they are given the appropriate support and flexibility in classroom learning.

Here are my four pieces of advice for educators and what I expect more schools will implement heading into 2025:

Meet students where they are and embrace empathy in the classroom: As we enter the New Year, many students continue to face mental health challenges, which may become exacerbated by political discourse from the U.S. election. In fact, 93 percent of school health workers say they’ve seen an increase in students with anxiety since 2019. However, less than half of schools are equipped to provide mental health services to students in need. Schools should be a haven for young people, and as educators, it’s our responsibility to help navigate the delicate balance between fostering academic excellence and prioritizing student self-care, especially for those students dealing with learning challenges. Empathy will remain essential in addressing these complex needs, and it’s essential schools have enough resources in which in-school mental health counselors, social workers, and dedicated teacher training can help support.

Personalize curriculum and support: Children continue to face learnings gaps, particularly in math and sciences, and students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and other special learning needs will require additional support that is not always offered within a traditional classroom. According to the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, more than 60 percent of students with disabilities spend at least 80 percent of their school day in general education classrooms. Administrators and curriculum developers should consider flexible learning models–such as online, blended, or hybrid environments–that account for diverse learning styles, ensuring parents have options to select the best learning environment for their children.

Create opportunities for real-world skills: The college enrollment rate for recent U.S. high school graduates fell to 61.4 percent in 2023–the lowest level in three decades. No matter whether a student goes to college, pursues a skilled trade, or immediately enters the workforce post-college, it’s never been more crucial to prepare the next generation with real-world skills. When students engage with a curriculum that addresses real-world problems, learning becomes meaningful. Solving challenges they care about can help students turn education into an opportunity for personal growth and community engagement. We’ll likely continue to see more school counselors guide students through different career pathways, whether that be right into the workforce, a four-year degree, or skills-based training programs, and see more and more school districts implement extracurricular activities which offer hands-on training

Boost morale amid a predicated talent shortage: Nearly 37 percent of U.S. public schools experienced at least one teacher vacancy entering the 2023-24 school year. Despite California’s attempts to curb the loss of teachers through various programs and resources, the teacher shortage will still plague California who recently ranked 47th among all states for its student-teacher ratio. Online schools and districts must collaborate to boost morale and retain teachers by fostering career growth, building upskill opportunities, offering mental health resources, and providing a flexible teaching environment. Supporting teachers with these recommendations can help mitigate burnout and keep talented professionals in the classroom.

Key points:

• Linking students from diverse cities and nations helps them learn from and with each other
• Lifelong learning from K-12 to career
• 4 keys for unlocking student curiosity and critical thinking
• For more news on global learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Picture this: a seventh-grader in Madrid is discussing how her class is developing an approach to water scarcity with peers in Mumbai, Buffalo, Buenos Aires, and Astana. You could think of it as a virtual roundtable rivaling a U.N. assembly, except the diplomats are 12 years old and probably wearing sneakers.

This is the magic of the virtual exchange program Global Scholars, which we’ve spent the last decade nurturing through Global Cities, a program of Bloomberg Philanthropies. As the founder and president  of Global Cities, I’m thrilled to announce an expansion of our partnership with Madrid, Spain’s public schools, an effort that will help even more young people develop the elusive but essential skills of global competency–the knowledge, capabilities, attitudes, and behaviors they’ll need as adult citizens to navigate an interconnected world where borders and barriers matter less than the problems they will collectively face. The OECD’s 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) demonstrated that students worldwide need to further develop global competency, which is not correlated to other areas of academic performance and therefore must be directly taught.

The existing Global Scholars program has already built connections among nearly 127,000 students ages 10 to 13 in 119 cities in 39 nations. Student teams–comprising 8 to 10 classes from far-flung cities in e-classrooms of approximately 300 students–have developed responses to such issues as climate change and access to clean water.  They are identifying real problems confronting their own communities and exploring unique ways to address them. For example, they might interview an expert in their city to learn about the local supply chain, then exchange proposals with peers around the world for how to make these systems more sustainable.

Madrid, with its strong local leadership, is the perfect place to take the next steps in expanding this kind of educational experiment. For one thing, over 1,700 Madrid students annually already participate in our existing Global Scholars program and will continue to do so. For another, the city’s public schools are microcosms of the world, with students whose families come from different socioeconomic backgrounds and hail from Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, and beyond. What’s particularly innovative is how our new Madrid partnership will operate within the political boundaries of one European metropolis–explicit acknowledgment that a single community can contain multitudes. This has long been a familiar truism for Americans–sharing as we do a land constituted by immigration–but only a relatively recently recognized reality in Europe.   

Madrid’s educational leadership, believing that the city’s very diversity is a source of its strength, will expand our collaboration by launching Global Scholars Madrid.They will use this new program to deliver the Global Scholars curriculum and program model to train more teachers and create additional classroom exchanges within the Madrid school district.

David Cervera Olivares, the Madrid education official spearheading this initiative, gets why this is such critical work. “Our community has benefited greatly from the Global Cities model, and we’re eager to give more students the opportunity to connect with a diverse set of peers,” he said.

He knows that having students engage with one another across neighborhoods, nations, and even continents builds cultural understanding, appreciation for diversity, global knowledge and global engagement–learning outcomes we have defined and measured–as well as general academic skills.

Our own country is based in difference, in the recognition that so much of our achievement as a nation depends on what we learn from each other. Over the last decade, Global Cities has sought to realize this vision on a global stage, linking students from diverse cities and nations so that they can learn from and with each other. We’re pleased that Madrid’s educational leadership is expanding its partnership with us to treat the rich diversity of its own student population as an exciting opportunity to teach global competency “at home.”

So here’s to Madrid’s young scholars, and to the teachers guiding them with vision and heart. They’re not just preparing themselves for a globally competent future–they’re creating it.

With 2025 barely in its infancy, educators are looking to new technologies and strategies to meet the needs of students. AI, digital learning tools, and personalized supports have become central to the classroom.

At the same time, schools are placing a stronger emphasis on mental health, equity, and future-ready skills, ensuring students are not only academically successful but also are prepared for the challenges of today’s every-changing world.

We asked educators to share their views about teaching and learning in 2025 (find industry predictions for 2025 here). Here’s what they had to say:

In 2025 and beyond, providing high-quality professional learning will be essential in retaining teachers, as well as helping to ensure they feel fulfilled in their work. As part of the professional development offerings at Adams 12 Five Star Schools, we are implementing video coaching via the Edthena VC3 platform to add another layer of job-embedded support for our teachers, specifically for new teachers and special service providers. There is truly nothing more powerful–or that grows your practice more—than watching yourself on video, and the use of this technology will help our teachers engage in more meaningful self-reflection while receiving targeted feedback from coaches and coordinators.
–Rebecca Bergstrom, Induction Coordinator, Adams 12 Five Star Schools

In 2025 we will continue to see a shift toward learning opportunities that allow students to make real change in their communities. For example, one of our PBLWorks’ project-based learning experiences involves having students answer the driving question “How do we inspire people to move to this region?” Students in our Student Technology Leadership Program have conducted surveys and will use this data to conduct further research about what our community has to offer, working alongside the Tourism Commission and community partners. They will then create digital materials to promote the region. Students are engaged and invested in a project that has local benefits! In a time when we are expecting students to graduate with authentic learning experiences and real-world skills in addition to academic knowledge, vibrant learning projects like this will become much more popular and widespread.
–James Hood, Principal, Rodburn Elementary School, Rowan County Schools

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are transforming the educational landscape, ushering in a more integrated and dynamic approach to teaching and learning. By embracing interdisciplinary learning, NGSS weaves math, language arts, and social science concepts into the science classroom, creating a richer, more connected educational experience for students. In addition, NGSS ensures that students have opportunities to formulate disciplinary core understandings by engaging in the science and engineering practices, through the lens of the crosscutting concepts. This shift marks a departure from the traditional model of rote memorization and a movement toward inquiry-based learning, where students are encouraged to learn through hands-on experimentation, problem-solving, and critical thinking in the context of real-world scenarios, rather than passively absorbing information. A key aspect of this transformation will be an increased use of digital tools and platforms such as Kognity in the science classroom. Virtual labs, simulations, and data analysis tools will become commonplace, enhancing the experiential learning process while addressing the core essence of the three-dimensional structure of the NGSS. These technologies offer exciting possibilities, from personalized content to tailored assessments that adapt to each student’s pace and learning style. As the NGSS continues to gain traction, we can expect a shift in how student learning is assessed. Traditional tests focused on factual recall may instead give way to assessments that better align with NGSS’s emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving, and the application of knowledge in real-world contexts. Ultimately, the NGSS will not only elevate science education but also foster a more holistic, engaging, and dynamic approach to teaching and learning across disciplines.
—Nancy Nasr, Science Educator & Assistant Principal, Santa Paula Unified School District

The need to support adolescent learners, especially those who may still be struggling with reading fluency, is imperative. With many secondary-level teachers simply not trained in strategies to help students with phonics and fluency, the use of technology can go a long way in building these foundational reading skills, as well as students’ overall confidence. At my middle school, for example, we use WordFlight to support Tier 2 and Tier 3 students who are not yet proficient readers based on a beginning-of-year screening. This online program has given us the system, support, and resources to make a measurable difference in our students’ reading growth.
–Jennifer Savery, Middle & High School English and Spanish Teacher & Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Program Supervisor, Humboldt Middle School  

Every school is using AI tools in some capacity, yet only a few districts have developed a structured approach to implementation. By 2025, we’ll see districts moving toward comprehensive enterprise AI plans that benefit all areas of the system.To make this shift, districts must evaluate AI tools that can enhance not only classroom learning but also operations like data management, administrative workflows, and communication. Collaboration among leaders and teams across departments–academics, IT, HR, finance, and beyond–is essential to ensure these plans are practical and support thoughtful, responsible AI use throughout the entire district.
—Tony Spence, Superintendent, Waterford Graded School District

With the paradigm shift towards teaching science phenomena and skills, science educators are being asked to reimagine how we define and structure our pedagogy. Innovative teachers are moving away from “recipe” labs and simply delivering content to now increasingly incorporating digital sensors to help students solve real-world problems. For example, to teach Newton’s Laws and Conservation of Momentum, I inserted an acceleration sensor into a baby doll sitting in a car seat to help my students determine the best method for safe car seat installation. Creating a tangible context in which students can learn and apply abstract concepts can help us raise the next generation of STEM professionals.
–Nick Watkins, Science Teacher, Franklin Pierce School District & Vernier Trendsetters Community Member

Related:
25 AI predictions for 2025
20 predictions for student success and learning

Join eSchool News for the 12 Days of Edtech with 2024’s most-read and most-loved stories. On the 10th Day of Edtech, our story focuses on student engagement.

Key points:

• Use boredom in the classroom as a catalyst for creativity and self-discovery
• See article: 3 pillars for building a positive classroom culture
• See article: 3 ways ChatGPT can reduce teachers’ workloads
• For more news on classroom management, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

As someone who began teaching in middle school, I’ve had plenty of firsthand experience dealing with boredom in the classroom. Most educators will recognize the signs: students sleeping during class, students watching the clock, students daydreaming when they should be paying attention. If, like me, you work with younger students, you might have even seen one or two get up and start wandering the classroom. Needless to say, these things can be highly disruptive and undermine our ability to manage the class.

Despite these problems, I’ve learned over time that boredom itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, when approached correctly, boredom can become a powerful force for good in the classroom.  

Typically, student boredom is triggered by a lack of choice, challenge, or engagement within a lesson. This means that educators can turn boredom to their advantage by tailoring their content to meet these student needs. These adaptations do not need to be complicated either. In fact, there are a number of simple methods teachers can use to spark student engagement while fostering curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.

Below are five strategies that I have found incredibly useful for turning a blasé lesson plan into student brilliance:

• The Bored Board: Extra time, free time, downtime, whatever name it goes by, can be a great time for students to pursue some of their own interests, However, not all students know what to do with this time! The “Bored Board” can help give students options and eliminate the question, “I’m done, now what?” This can be a physical handout, but it also works great as a digital tool that can link to text, videos, interactive simulations and more.
• Learning Menus: Provide students with a learning menu filled with intellectually rich activities. Students can then choose which activities to complete in order to meet the assigned requirements. It’s best to include choices that differentiate for content (such as harder or easier texts), process (such as where to work), and product (such as presentation format). This can take the form of a tic-tac-toe board, or an appetizer-main course-dessert, or any other format you dream up.
• Notes Scavenger Hunt: Turn your next lecture into something interactive and exciting! Create a handout with blanks that need to be filled in then paste QR codes, books, articles, or other materials around the room and allow students to move around freely and explore each resource in order to complete their notes. This strategy actively engages students in notetaking and gets them up, moving, and thinking.
• Wrong Answers Only: Have students come up with the best wrong answers to a question. Wrong answers might be great because they show a common error, because they’re the exact opposite of the correct response, or just because they’re funny. Students will be challenged to understand the correct answer deeply in order to get it wrong just right.
• Project-based Learning: Through PBL, students work on hands-on, real-world projects that are relevant and interesting to them, fostering a deeper connection to the subject matter. This approach encourages critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration, as students are often working in groups and learning from each other. The dynamic nature of PBL maintains student interest and motivation.

When we use boredom as a catalyst for creativity and self-discovery, we show students that learning is about more than just memorizing old facts. Learning is about engaging with questions, using knowledge to expand our horizons, and equipping ourselves with the tools needed to meet new challenges as we grow.

So, when you see boredom beginning to take hold in your classroom, take steps to channel it toward something positive. After all, a little boredom could be the starting point of a student’s ongoing learning journey.

See previous 12 Days of Edtech:
1st Day of Edtech
2nd Day of Edtech
3rd Day of Edtech
4th Day of Edtech
5th Day of Edtech
6th Day of Edtech
7th Day of Edtech
8th Day of Edtech
9th Day of Edtech

Key points:

• New edtech advances are democratizing education for all students
• 3 tips to authentically engage students in real-world STEM learning
• Educators outline 5 priorities for the new school year
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Reflecting on the developments of 2024, this year has been transformative for the entire educational landscape. We’ve witnessed how the thoughtful integration of artificial intelligence can elevate learning experiences, but perhaps the most profound lesson has been the reaffirmation of the irreplaceable role educators play in this journey. 

From STEM to general education, the lessons we’ve learned through student and instructor feedback have proved universal. Students just don’t want to be fed answers, and educators need to ensure their students are learning–not cheating.

One of the most enlightening insights from this year has been understanding how students engage with content through multiple senses–sight, sound, and interaction. The rise of short-form videos and multimodal learning resources has shown us that students benefit immensely when we cater to diverse learning styles. By incorporating visual aids, interactive elements, and audio, education is becoming more accessible and engaging.

This accessibility is key to the democratization of education, making subjects that previously were difficult to approach in the sciences and mathematics easier to understand without reliance on privileges like tutors or funded programs. Higher education is becoming more and more attainable for students through online programs that provide the tools students need to supplement their education.

I believe the future of learning depends on commitment to a hybrid approach, combining unique human teaching approaches with the versatility of AI. Educators bring nuance, empathy, and context that technology alone cannot provide. This collaboration must be instrumental in shaping content, ensuring it is not only pedagogically sound but also resonates with students on a personal level.

Looking ahead to 2025, I anticipate several key trends that will further enhance the fusion of educators, AI and multimodal learning:

1. Expansion of multimodal learning experiences: Students will increasingly expect learning materials that engage multiple senses. Integrating short-form videos created and vetted by actual educators, interactive simulations, and audio content will cater to different learning preferences, making education more inclusive and effective.
2. Deepening collaboration with educators: Teachers will play an even more critical role in developing and curating multimodal content. Their expertise ensures that the integration of technology enhances, rather than detracts from, the learning experience.
3. Leveraging audio models for accessible learning: Audio learning will become a significant component of education. By utilizing advanced audio models, we can provide students with the flexibility to learn anytime, anywhere, accommodating those who prefer auditory learning or need to learn while multitasking.
4. Hybrid learning models becoming the norm: Blended learning environments that combine in-person instruction with AI-driven, multimedia-rich online resources will become standard. This approach acknowledges that while technology can significantly enhance learning, the human touch remains essential.
5. AI-powered personalization enhanced by multimedia: AI will deliver personalized learning paths enriched with various content formats. By adapting to individual learning styles–whether visual, auditory, or kinesthetic–we can make education more engaging and effective.

As we step into 2025, I am more optimistic than ever about the future of education. By embracing a hybrid approach that values both cutting-edge technology and the irreplaceable human touch, we can create learning experiences that are more engaging, personalized, and accessible than ever before.

The democratization of learning is closer than ever thanks to the tools being developed alongside the feedback from students and expertise of teachers.

Key points:

• Students are motivated to dig deep into science with real-world implications
• Rethinking STEM to shape the future workforce
• Getting pre-service teachers comfortable using and teaching with STEAM tools
• For more news on science learning, visit eSN’s STEM & STEAM hub

Earlier this year, I was teaching science to a group of rising 9th grade students involved in a summer learning program. Despite not having access to a dedicated lab space, it was important my students had the opportunity to engage in hands-on, tech-enabled, and real-world learning.

All the boxes needed to be checked–the investigations needed to be:

• Hands-on
• Related to students’ lived experience
• Quantitative, ideally with a dependent variable that could be measured
• Entry level as the students in the program had hugely varying levels of experience and exposure
• Low-hazard for students as well as the room, which was carpeted and did not provide access to sinks or running water
• Doable without chemical glassware

The hands-on component was especially important as this type of learning connects students with the process of science–in particular, it allows them to practice making observations and to identify possible patterns, or the lack thereof.

Whether in a decked-out lab space or a more traditional classroom setting, such as where I taught this summer, below are three tips for fellow educators looking to incorporate more hands-on learning into their STEM instruction.

Start simple. It doesn’t have to take a lot of expensive supplies to engage students in hands-on learning–just start with a thermometer or, better yet, a temperature probe!

For the summer program, I created an experiment in which students got to test out different types of road salts. I used AquaDoc IceMelt, which is mostly calcium chloride, and KindMelt, which is mostly magnesium chloride and sodium chloride. Both are readily available on Amazon.

I then gathered a set of Vernier Go Direct Temperature Probes from the school where I teach during the school year and ordered small water bottles that students could use as reaction containers. The summer program provided Chromebooks for the students to use. These were perfectly suited to run the Vernier Graphical Analysis App, which my students used to help analyze their data findings.  

Give students agency. In my experience, even reluctant students become interested in setting up a science experiment when they have some level of agency over what they will be testing.

After a brief introduction, my students determined their constant variable–for most of them it was the amount of water used in each trial–and their dependent and independent variables.

Because all my students are from the Northeast, they were already familiar with road salts–their parents or guardians spread it on sidewalks, driveways, and apartment steps during wintery weather. What they did not realize is why those salts are so effective in melting ice and snow.

The moment they discovered calcium chloride and magnesium chloride cause a dramatic rise in temperature when added to water, they were surprised and excited. Even more so when they realized sodium chloride seems to result in a small, but noticeable, lowering of the temperature.

During the experiment, students had the opportunity to record the maximum or minimum temperature for each trial using the temperature probes, and then use the Graphical Analysis app to create graphs to analyze their results. The use of probeware helped students quantify their observations–while students can feel the temperature changes from just holding the containers in their hands, the use of data-collection technology provided the measurable data they needed to understand the relationship between the amount of salt added and the temperature change.

Invite questions to drive the next steps in learning. Authentic,hands-on experiments, like this one, will often generate questions from students. And, when students realize their questions are taken seriously and that they are invited to create testable questions, they will become more engaged in the learning process.

I have often found the moment I give students a sensor and appropriate guidance to explore, they start asking more and more questions. In this instance, “What if we mix the two different ice melts?”, “How high can the temperature go?”, and “Can we melt the plastic bottle if we add enough salt?” all came up.

If circumstances allow, giving students the time to test some of the more entertaining questions can further their learning. In this experiment, for example, one water bottle lost its shape due to the heat generated when a group of students added tablespoons of AquaDoc to the small water sample. This prompted students to ask, “Why does one salt make the water so much warmer than the other one?,” which aligns well with the Next Generation Science Standard focused on matter and its interactions.

After additional testing and discussion, students researched the environmental pros and cons of different types of road salt and made an informed evaluation as to which one to recommend. This further engaged them with engineering and environmental standards.

Authentic, hands-on learning and data collection such as this creates the infrastructure for students to wonder and think about their results critically, as well as connect their findings to the world around them. In my experience, this level of STEM engagement is really hard to achieve with just textbooks and practice problems alone.

This article originally appeared on iCEV’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

As classroom teachers, one of the many challenges we face is student engagement. With the changing landscape of education, how do we keep students focused and provide them with a foundation to learn our varied subject areas?  

There are many ways to tackle this question and no right response. But in my experience, I’ve found that these eight strategies can help maximize student engagement in the classroom:  

1. Plan and teach with enthusiasm 
2. Build and maintain relationships 
3. Optimize your classroom set-up  
4. Promote active learning  
5. Build your students’ capacity to complete tasks 
6. Capture their attention from the beginning 
7. Make your lessons as relevant and fun as possible 
8. Review and revamp

After reading this post, you will be able to employ steps that can immediately impact your ability to engage students, assist teachers with student engagement, and see an overall positive impact within CTE curriculum areas.

What is student engagement? 

Before we begin, let’s define student engagement. According to Merriam-Webster, engagement is defined as the act of engaging, which is to draw favorable attention or interest.

For our purposes, we are going to say that student engagement is the ability for a teacher to draw the attention or interest of students for the sake of learning.  

So how do you do that? Let’s look closer at eight steps you can take to keep your learners interested! 

1. Plan and teach with enthusiasm

The first step is to begin with yourself. As teachers, we set the tone for the educational experience that our students are going to have.  

We can liken this to a spark and a fire. It only takes a small spark to light a fire. We are to be the spark to ignite their passion for learning.  

This starts with how we plan. You must believe in your ability as a teacher to create or find engaging lessons. You also must believe that the students are going to enjoy the lessons and can do the required work. If you do not think the lesson is a good one or will be effective, neither will your students.  

Students feed off of your enthusiasm. This enthusiasm will come across in your planning but must really take off with how you implement the lesson.  

Does this mean you have to put on a dog and pony show? No, not necessarily. But it does mean that your authentic joy and happiness will shine through your teaching.  

Again, if you don’t believe in the lesson neither will your students. The lesson could benefit them in their learning now or in the future. Either way, hook them with your excitement.  

2. Build and maintain relationships

Relationships are the key to everything that we do in education. They form the foundation upon which all other work is built.  

John Maxwell and Theodore Roosevelt are both attributed with the quote, “Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”  

This sentiment is so true. Students should know that you care for them as individuals and are trying to help them reach their dreams and goals, even beyond what they can see now. As a result, they will give the effort and energy to match it.  

This process begins with something as simple as remembering students’ names and how they are pronounced. It is said that a name is the most important thing to a person. It encompasses all they are. The same is true for students.  

Beyond that, it is critical to learn about who your students are, including their skills, their interests, their dreams, and their goals. Incorporating these things into lessons and activities is a way to help keep them engaged. Checking on them often and attending their extracurricular activities such as sporting events, chorus concerts, or award ceremonies can go a long way toward showing you care.  

3. Optimizing your classroom set-up

As simple as it sounds, the way that your classroom is set up can hinder or aid in classroom engagement. Student desks and workstations can be arranged to facilitate learning.  

This can be as simple as arranging tables for partner activities such as Think, Pair, Share. Or you can opt for a more complex layout and arrange students into strategically organized work groups. Desks can even be arranged to allow you to circle the classroom to provide feedback and interaction with the students while they are working.  

Some classrooms do not have the luxury of an adjustable set-up, so you will have to get creative. For example, there are picture light covers that you will see in certain health care and dental facilities. Covering flat ceiling lights with pictures of galaxies or clouds can provide additional stimuli to help students stay engaged.  

4. Promote active learning

Active learning is a simple concept where the students themselves are participants in the learning process.  

Spurring students to be actively engaged is important. Some of this is a continuation of building and maintaining relationships, while the rest of it hinges upon facilitating learning and instruction.  

Students do not always know how the material is going to help or benefit them. Sometimes they must be reminded of these things.  

To further promote active learning, consider incorporating these practices into your instruction: 

• Call on students to be involved 
• Use skills students have demonstrated in class 
• Incorporate skills you noticed students have already mastered 

For example, students that are always trying to disrupt the class, whether by making jokes or constantly talking can be encouraged to use that energy in a positive way. These students can serve as speakers for group activities, or they can lead a lesson.  

Another example is the leaders in your classroom. If you can encourage them to help you during a lesson, they can assist you in bringing the rest of the class on board.  

5. Build your students’ capacity to complete tasks

Building students’ capacity means that you are building the ability for them to complete tasks or work on their own within your classroom. They may not have all the answers or know what to do all the time, but building their capacity means they have the means and resources to seek assistance, find answers, and finish assignments.  

One such strategy is the “Three before Me” concept. Students are to consult with three other learners to see if they can get their questions answered before they come to me as the teacher. Before incorporating this activity, model it for your students. Once they’ve practiced, it can be very effective in cultivating students’ abilities to learn on their own and can be used in practically every instructional situation.

6. Capture their attention from the beginning

It has been said that you only have seven seconds to grab someone’s attention. If this is true, then we must maximize our first few seconds at the beginning of class.  

One way that we can grab students’ attention in the classroom is by using bell ringers. Bell ringers are nothing more than activities that students will begin working on as soon as they enter your classroom. 

 Learners can answer an essential question or review questions. They can respond to writing prompts, pre-thoughts about new content, and more. With the students working as soon as they enter your room it gives you a launching pad from which to facilitate the rest of the amazing lesson that you have designed. 

7. Make your lessons as fun and relevant as possible

Relevancy is so important to engaging students. This is not easy for every type of content or lesson, so you may have to use some creativity to connect with your students.  

If you’ve been working on your relationship with our students, you’ll have an idea of some of the things which interest them. You can incorporate that into the lessons that you create. For example, a marketing promotion lesson could incorporate your students’ love of soccer. Students can create a promotional campaign for their favorite soccer team and or player. You can use this strategy for activities as well as projects.  

In addition, think about how you can incorporate learning games into your classroom. Teachers can use games through platforms such as Kahoot, Quizziz, and more. You can give students the option to create their own games as well.  

Lastly, be sure to continually promote lessons by informing students of how the lesson is going to benefit them now and in the future.  

8. Review and Revamp

After you’ve completed a lesson or unit, review that lesson with your students. Receive and accept their input about the lesson. This can be done informally by simply asking questions. Or it can be done through a set of questions like a survey.  

Consider questions such as: 

• What did they like about the lesson?  
• What do they think can be improved?  
• What would they do about it differently?  

Getting students’ input helps create buy-in for future lessons. This is especially true when students can see that their input is being utilized.  

Boost engagement in your CTE classroom 

There is no silver bullet to remedy student engagement. There are, however, strategies that we can use to help our cause. The previous eight strategies will provide you with a great starting point. They are simple yet effective strategies you can implement no matter where you are in your professional educational journey to increase how engaged our students are.   

When you’re successful, you’ll see an increase in more than just engagement. Your program will benefit from improved attendance, test scores, and even certification numbers. 

Related:
3 key opportunities to address education’s biggest challenges
4 key findings on student engagement
For more on student engagement, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Key points:

• Teachers must accept that there’s no putting the AI genie back in the bottle
• How much AI is too much?
• AI’s impact on education: Wider and wiser curricula
• For more on AI in education, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels as though AI is starting to take over the world. To be clear, I don’t mean this in an “evil robots” sort of way. Rather, in a short amount of time, AI has become widely integrated into almost every area of our lives. Programs like ChatGPT and Dall-E are becoming mainstays in office environments. Companies are racing to see how AI can give them an edge in the competitive marketplace. Then there is the world of education, where teachers like me are watching AI completely change the way students learn.

I won’t minimize the risks. Already we’re seeing students use AI to plagiarize or cheat on their assignments. Learning how to prevent abuse of AI will be an issue of serious concern moving forward. However, as an educator, I also believe that when AI is used correctly, it can be a positive force for good in our classrooms. For schools to effectively engage with this new technology, teachers must first learn how to implement these tools into our classrooms in ways that foster student growth and show them that AI is meant to complement their learning journey.        

Here are just a few simple strategies teachers can implement to unleash student curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking using the power of AI.

Creativity

• Novel Name Tags: Nothing is more important than building a positive classroom community at the beginning of the school year. Have students submit some personal information into a survey (such as their favorite food, animal, or school subject). Then use an image generator to create customized name tags for each student. Hang them around the room and challenge students to guess which name picture belongs to which student. It’s a great way to facilitate conversations and encourage student collaboration. 
• Tandem Tales: Have students begin writing a story. Then, after a few paragraphs, have a program like ChatGPT fill in the next paragraph. Once it has supplied the content, have students take over again and continue the story. Students should repeat this back-and-forth until the story is over. This strategy is useful for sparking student creativity while engaging with AI.  
• Choose Your Own AI-dventure: In the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure Books, use AI to create a story that is left on a cliffhanger. You can even design the story around a subject that your students are studying, such as hurricanes, animal habitats, or an era of history. Working with AI, have students navigate through the narrative, applying the information they have gathered while also reacting to the AI’s response.

Curiosity

• Curiosity Prompts: Ask an AI program like ChatGPT to give you learning prompts designed for your grade level and focused on common classroom topics. Use these curiosity prompts as a kind of, “question of the day.” Pose them to students at the beginning of class or adjust them depending on what subject you’ll be teaching on that day. It’s a useful strategy for cutting down on those smaller lesson tasks.   
• Digital BreAIkout Rooms: Anyone who has ever attempted to create a digital breakout room knows how tedious they can be, but programs like ChatGPT can help streamline the process. Use AI to brainstorm ideas for the breakout room and aggregate options depending on what you want your students to learn and accomplish. Simply select the ones you like best and bring them all together using a template that can be found on an outside website. This allows teachers to maximize student curiosity without exhausting their time and energy. 
• Scavenger Hunt and Curiosity Quest: A fun way to keep kids curious and learning is to get them moving. Use AI to create a scavenger hunt that is math based. Using specific prompts, an AI program can help teachers hide clues in places that relate to the day’s lesson or to a certain principle that students need to learn. This will help students connect with the material while also staying actively engaged.

Critical Thinking

• Alternative Perspectives: Each of our students comes to the classroom with different experiences and perspectives to share. However, depending on your location and the type of school you’re in, it’s possible that most of the classroom will have a shared mindset. In cases like these, AI can serve as an alternative perspective for constructive debate. If most of the classroom agrees on a specific idea (such as having less homework), have AI provide a different opinion. Then, challenge students to engage with its arguments!   
• Beat ChatGPT: Have ChatGPT do the work that students will be doing. Then, see if your class can produce something even better! Once students have finalized their work, bring in an impartial judge, like the principal or the school librarian, to determine which submission was best. Encourage students to think about how they can improve their work and distinguish it from the AI product.
• RAInk the Writing: What ifour students could engage with the perspective of something that cannot talk? Use AI to give voice to inanimate objects or scientific processes (such as photosynthesis, the planet Mars, etc.) Not only does this encourage students to be curious, but it also pushes them consider common information and ideas for a different angle.      

Teachers must accept that there’s no putting the AI genie back in the bottle. We need to prepare ourselves and our students for a future where AI is the norm. Still, I believe there is reason to be hopeful. The invention of the calculator didn’t stop humans from becoming mathematicians. AI won’t stop students from learning.

Let’s equip our students with the tools they need to thrive in this new digital age and ensure that AI only serves to enhance their natural curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking skills.        

This is republished as part of a series in collaboration with the Headway Election Challenge. Chalkbeat and Headway at The New York Times will ask young people to share their insights and perspectives throughout the 2024 presidential election.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Throughout 2024, Headway and Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization focused on education in America, have been in conversation with teenagers about the upcoming presidential election.

We’ve asked these teenagers some big questions: How are you engaging with the election? Why are you engaged, or why not? What issues matter to you? So far, we’ve heard from a broad range of students, from self-described political junkies to those more hesitant or uninvolved. In total, we’ve exchanged messages with nearly 1,500 students nationwide.

With each questionnaire, we also invited students to ask us their own questions about the election. Here’s a synthesis of what we’ve heard from them.

What are the candidates’ policies?

The two major candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, have very different records and plans. Maggie Astor, a New York Times reporter covering the election, contacted both candidates’ campaigns and reviewed hundreds of interviews, statements, policy papers, bills, and agency actions to build a guide to each candidate’s key policies.

The guide outlines both Trump’s and Harris’ stances on major issues like abortion, climate change, crime, democracy, the economy, foreign policy, immigration, and the Israel-Gaza conflict. Check it out here, and save the link, as more topics will be added in the coming weeks.

How does the electoral process work?

While the specifics of what happens during an election cycle may vary, the overall electoral process — the steps candidates, campaigns, and voters take to prepare for and participate in Election Day — tends to follow a set order.

First, individuals interested in running for president officially declare their candidacy. Campaigning can begin years before Election Day. These candidates, who aren’t yet official nominees of any political party, campaign by holding town halls and rallies, competing at debates and doing interviews with news outlets. Eventually, the process leads to the primaries and caucuses, where voters select their preferred party’s nominee. These primaries and caucuses occur on the state level, with each state having its own schedule and rules.

Four years ago, Times journalists Sarah Almukhtar, Matt Flegenheimer, Umi Syam, and Eden Weingart created a guide to help readers navigate the intricacies of the 2020 presidential election’s primaries and caucuses. Their definitions remain relevant today:

Primaries are reasonably straightforward: Voters vote, and their votes go to candidates who hope to receive more votes than the other candidates.

Caucuses are like this in spirit, but with a dash of municipal sausage-making and D.M.V.-style chaos.

Generally, supporters for various candidates sit or stand together in groups. A head count is conducted. And if a candidate doesn’t reach a certain threshold of support — say, 15 percent of attendees at a caucus site — the group is deemed “nonviable,” and its members realign with other clusters before a final count is made.

After the votes from the primaries and caucuses are tallied, each party coalesces around the winning candidate. Next, the candidates announce their vice-presidential running mates. Finally, the candidates head to their respective party’s national convention, where they are formally nominated by the party’s state delegates.

The conventions themselves are multi-day events full of speeches and presentations, nearly all focused on telling the story of the campaign to a national audience. More than 200,000 words were spoken at this year’s Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention combined. The Times reporter Jonathan Corum analyzed all those words, which you can check here.

As Election Day approaches, the presidential candidates continue to persuade voters through more debates, speeches, rallies, and media interviews. In many states, eligible voters can vote early.

In this year’s election, early voting has already begun in many states, and voter registration deadlines have begun to pass in some. Here’s a full guide to the key dates in each state. (We also received a lot of questions about how results are counted, which you can read about here.)

Once voting concludes, the ballots are counted in each state. This is where the Electoral College comes into play. In almost every state, the candidate who wins the most votes secures all of the state’s electoral votes. (Maine and Nebraska allocate some of their electoral votes by congressional district). There are 538 total electoral votes, and the candidate who earns at least 270 is declared president-elect. The president-elect officially takes office at noon on Inauguration Day, which is usually on Jan. 20.

Why do we still use the Electoral College?

The Electoral College was a clear point of confusion for teenagers. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but still lost the election to Donald Trump because she lost the Electoral College. Teenagers wondered why this system remains a part of our electoral process.

In 2022, The New York Times published a comprehensive guide to the Electoral College. In this guide, the Times fellow Allyson Waller explained that although a majority of the public supports the Electoral College’s abolition, it remains politically contentious “since Republicans currently benefit from the electoral clout of less populous, rural states.”

She continues:

In 2020, Gallup reported that 61 percent of Americans supported abolishing the Electoral College in favor of the popular vote. However, that support diverges widely based on political parties, with support from 89 percent of Democrats and only 23 percent of Republicans.

One route to changing the system would be a constitutional amendment, which would require two-thirds approval from both the House and Senate and ratification by the states, or a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

Some hope to reduce the Electoral College’s importance without an amendment. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia, which together control 195 electoral votes, have signed on to an interstate compact in which they pledge to grant their votes to the winner of the national popular vote. The local laws would take effect only once the compact has enough states to total 270 electoral votes.

If you want to dive deeper into what fake electors are, how many electoral votes it takes to win, or if there could ever be a tie, you can read more here.

For this year’s election, Times journalists Lily Boyce, Jon Huang, and Blacki Migliozzi created an interactive that allows you to game out how Harris or Trump could reach 270 electoral votes, depending on which swing states they win. You can play that here.

How do polls work, and can we trust them?

Many teenagers had questions about polls. Times reporter Kaleigh Rogers broke down how election polling works here. If you’re short on time, she also explains it in a video. Here’s the gist:

The golden rule: Never put too much stock in a single poll. Remember that polls are a snapshot of how people were feeling at a particular moment in time; they are subject to error and are best understood in aggregate, such as through New York Times polling averages.

But when you do want to understand more about a single poll, consider the so-called P.S.T. No, not Pacific Standard Time — take a look at the pollster that conducted the poll, the sample population surveyed, and the time frame in which it was conducted.

Now that you’ve been introduced to the importance of considering a survey’s pollster, sample, and time frame, you can read Rogers’ explanation for each of these terms in clear, easy-to-understand detail here.

How can I tell if the information I’m consuming is accurate and unbiased?

In 2022, Times technology reporter Tiffany Hsu explored how teachers are helping students navigate a media landscape littered with misinformation. The article touched on a number of strategies that teachers and students can employ to improve their ability to find verified facts and mitigate bias.

A New York Times Opinion article about misinformation by Charlie Warzel — later incorporated into a lesson plan from The New York Times Learning Network — argued that consuming accurate and unbiased information requires going beyond a single source. One teacher encourages students to remember the acronym SIFT:

1. Stop.

2. Investigate the source.

3. Find better coverage.

4. Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.

You can find more resources here in the lesson plan from The New York Times Learning Network.

How are election results counted?

There are two main types of ballots counted during an election: in-person ballots cast at polling stations on Election Day, and absentee or mail-in ballots, which voters submit either by mail or by hand before Election Day.

For in-person voting on or before Election Day, voters go to designated polling places and fill out ballots.

Absentee or mail-in ballots, which in this election are starting to go out, are becoming more popular among voters. There are state-specific rules for when they should be returned — you can see your state’s deadlines for registration and voting here.

At the close of voting on Election Day, all ballots are sent to state authorities for official counting. Each state has established procedures for processing in-person, absentee, and mail-in ballots. After all votes are tallied and certified, the state’s overall result determines which candidate receives its electoral votes. Once a candidate reaches 270 electoral votes, he or she wins the presidency. The results are then formally sent to Congress, concluding the election process.

In 2024, for the second presidential election in a row, we may not know the winner until days after Election Day. One of those reasons is the rise in popularity of mail-in voting. In an article about mail-in ballot delays, Times reporter Nick Corasaniti explains why:

Counting mail ballots takes more time because there are more steps involved. A variety of security measures, including signature verification and ensuring that voters did not also try to vote in person, are required. Election officials must open the ballots and flatten them before they can be put in a tabulator to be counted.

Corasaniti adds: “If a winner is not declared on election night, it will not necessarily point to failures in the process. More likely, it will be a result of the intense security measures required for counting mail-in ballots.”

In 2020, it took two weeks before every state was called. New York Times reporters Alicia Parlapiano and Lazaro Gamio explained how and why that happened here.

Starting on election night, you can follow along with The New York Times as we process the 2024 election results reported by each state.

How do candidates finance their campaigns?

Candidates finance their campaigns through a combination of donations from individuals, joint fundraising committees, political action committees (PACs), and super PACs. Each of these fundraising mechanisms has its own rules and contribution limits. Candidates may also lend personal funds directly to their campaigns. They can also receive large donations from wealthy individuals and organizations through super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money as long as they do not coordinate directly with the candidate.

In 2023, Times journalists Molly Cook Escobar, Rachel Shorey, Charlie Smart, and Christine Zhang examined the sources of funding for the 2024 presidential candidates. Although the article was published before Trump secured the Republican nomination and Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee after President Biden’s withdrawal, it provides a clear explanation of how campaigns are financed.

What is the role of foreign interference in this election?

According to U.S. officials, Russia, Iran, and China have all engaged in disinformation campaigns, cyberattacks, and influence operations targeting U.S. elections. These efforts are an attempt to undermine public confidence in the U.S. electoral process, create discord, and sway public opinion. In the article “Crunchtime for Election Interference: October Is the Month of Mischief,” Times reporters David E. Sanger and Julian E. Barnes report that U.S. officials identify Russia as the most active threat, followed by Iran and China. To counter these efforts, U.S. officials have ramped up measures to protect election systems, especially against hacking and misinformation.

The scenarios that worry American officials are legion. While the actual balloting processes being used on Nov. 5 seem safer than in previous elections — 97 percent of votes cast will involve some form of paper backup that makes recounts far more reliable — federal officials have been war-gaming the possibility that registration systems become locked up, perhaps in what may initially look like the kind of ransomware attacks that have closed down city services in Baltimore or Atlanta, or hit the Seattle airport.

But why are foreign agents interfering? Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told Sanger and Barnes that these agents have common goals.

“The two main goals are to undermine American confidence in the security of our election and our democratic institutions and to sow partisan discord,” she said in an interview. “Those are the two goals of all our foreign adversaries.”

You can read more about this issue here.

What is the significance of swing states in this election?

The significance of the most competitive states in any close presidential election is monumental. Appropriately named, swing states are states with close polling and enough Electoral College votes to swing the election to one candidate or another. Swing states are again the main focus this year as Harris and Trump are essentially tied in the polls.

Polls suggest that the presidential contest this year hinges on the results in seven states in particular: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. To explore how each of these states may influence the election, check this swing state tracker from Times journalists Lily Boyce, Lazaro Gamio, Eli Murray, and Alicia Parlapiano.

Why are third-party candidates not more prominent?

Third-party candidates face significant challenges in gaining national traction in the winner-take-all system of U.S. politics, although some are competitive in state and local races. Restrictive ballot access laws, legal opposition from major parties, and concerns about vote-splitting limit their influence. In an article headlined “Democrats Prepare Aggressive Counter to Third-Party Threats,” Times reporter Rebecca Davis O’Brien touched on third-party candidates. She wrote:

Gaining access to the presidential ballot is a complicated and expensive process for candidates, particularly for those not affiliated with a party, even a minor one. Laws vary from state to state, with some requiring merely a fee or a few thousand signatures, and others requiring tens of thousands of signatures gathered under tight deadline pressure, along with other administrative hurdles.

State rules limiting ballot access “ensure that the people who are on the ballot have legitimate bases of support, and it’s not simply a vanity project,” said Robert Lenhard, a Democratic Party lawyer who co-led an effort to fight against third-party candidates.

Independent candidates and third-party leadership see restrictive ballot laws, and efforts to monitor and enforce them, as anti-democratic, exemplifying the kind of two-party political machinations they say they are trying to combat.

“What are ballot access barriers? They are barriers against free speech,” said Ralph Nader, who has made four third-party runs for president. He described state ballot laws in the United States as “the worst in the Western world, by orders of magnitude.”

Efforts to reform the system, such as switching to proportional representation, face political and structural challenges. Times journalists Alyce McFadden, Taylor Robinson, Leanne Abraham, and Rebecca Davis O’Brien are tracking where third-party candidates are on the ballot here.

For a snapshot of third-party involvement in U.S. presidential elections, Darcy Eveleigh wrote a brief history in 2016 for The Upshot, detailing major third-party candidates and their eventual outcomes. And if you’re weighing a vote for a third-party candidate on your own ballot, the Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine offered some considerations here.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

Related:
4 key findings on student engagement
Educators outline 5 priorities for the new school year

Key points:

• AI, well-being, and career readiness take top billing for educators
• Back-to-school predictions for the 2024-2025 year
• 4 educator reflections on the 2023-2024 school year
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

With a new school year comes new priorities for educators and students alike. Teaching is evolving at a rapid pace, pushed forward by advancements in AI, the need for real-world relevance in classroom lessons, and a focus on student wellness.

From career and technical education (CTE) to STEM learning and AI’s evolution, here are five priority areas for educators in the 2024-2025 school year:

Student achievement and well-being

Now more than ever, the need to focus on educating the “whole child” is a top priority for our schools. Educational experiences extend beyond the traditional classroom setting. For instance, in Baldwin School District, we continue to expand on our emotional wellness efforts through our very own Wellness Center, allowing our students and their families seamless access to the support services needed to help their child succeed in school and beyond.
–Dr. Shari L. Camhi, Superintendent of Schools, Baldwin School District

There’s a growing emphasis on wellness and addressing the complex needs of students as they navigate a challenging world. This holistic approach is reshaping how we engage students, pushing us to rethink traditional models and deliver teaching and learning in more relevant, responsive ways. To truly improve student engagement and achievement, we must start by valuing the conversations and dedicated time needed to measure and adjust the adult behaviors that directly impact these areas. This reflective process is essential for driving meaningful improvements. As we think about this work, it’s crucial to shift the conversation from merely tracking student attendance to focusing on how students are showing up: how they engage with complex problems, interact with their peers, and connect with adults. It’s not enough for students to simply be present; they need to be actively involved in learning experiences that challenge them and foster critical thinking.
—Jonah M. Schenker, Ed.D., District Superintendent, Ulster BOCES

CTE and career readiness

As an engineering teacher who runs a hands-on laboratory class, I like to start the year off by exposing my students to all the industry equipment and industry-certified credentials that they will have access to throughout the year. Leading a career and technical-focused class allows me the opportunity to inspire and prepare students for their future careers. Informing students about industry trends and showing how current practices are incorporated into the curriculum gets them excited and eager to learn. By demonstrating the various types of training equipment–from mechatronics to robotic arms, 3D printers, pneumatic trainers, AC/DC electricity trainers, and more–students understand the big picture of how this dynamic and engaging learning environment equips them with the skills they need to succeed. By implementing these strategies, CTE educators can expect a vibrant, engaging learning environment where students can obtain skills and knowledge for a successful future. 
–Stefany Gurgel, NC3 Master Instructor, Festo and Instructor, Jewish Leadership Academy

Learning and experiencing outside the four walls of the classroom is essential. We continually focus on creating industry partnerships and new opportunities for students to explore future career prospects in high-demand fields. Creating a relevant and robust learning environment and always doing what is best for our children is successful because of the dedication of our administrators, teachers, and staff.
–Dr. Shari L. Camhi, Superintendent of Schools, Baldwin School District

Nationally, we’re seeing an increased focus on integrating AI into the classroom. This isn’t just about using AI as a tool but also about preparing students for a future where AI literacy will be crucial. Moreover, we must move away from a mindset of informational compliance–where students complete tasks for the sake of completion–and instead focus on engaging them in authentic problem-solving. By providing opportunities for students to work on real-world problems and present their solutions to experts and audiences outside their schools, we not only make learning more relevant but also empower students to see their work as meaningful contributions to their communities and the broader world.
—Jonah M. Schenker, Ed.D., District Superintendent, Ulster BOCES

Personalized hands-on learning

Personalization of the student’s learning experience is becoming a necessity to make it meaningful, engaging, affirming, and rigorous. We adopted and implemented a new instructional framework with a keen focus on these aspects. Now, we are building a program to braid in the appropriate technology to drive it forward. One way we do this is through the implementation of interactive projection technology from Epson. Students can interact with content being projected on the board or cast the screen from their device to model for their peers. This brings engagement and personalization in a whole new way.
–Lisa Irey, Director of Technology, Des Moines Public Schools

We’ll see more classes stepping away from strictly virtual content this school year. Teachers are ready to have students put away their Chromebooks and engage in discussions and hands-on activities. Technology will still play a role in classrooms, with teachers and students collaborating using tools like interactive projectors, but after a few years of students looking at screens all day, there will definitely be a shift to technology’s role being supplemental and not the end-all be-all.
–Nate Moore, executive Director of Technology, Kearsley Community Schools

AI in K-12 learning

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented districts everywhere with new teaching and learning opportunities. This year at St. Vrain Valley School District, we will continue to provide our teachers with ample opportunities to collaborate, discuss, and share resources and strategies to enhance their understanding of AI and the potential benefits of AI tools. To support their professional growth, teachers will also have continued access to the AI Coach platform, which enables them to watch and reflect on videos of their classroom instruction, set professional goals, and receive personalized observation tips, coaching, and resources from a virtual, computerized AI coach. This helps our teachers strengthen their practices and participate in ongoing, reflective coaching at their own pace.
–David Baker, Professional Development Coordinator. St. Vrain Valley School District

As the artificial intelligence integration continues to develop in schools, I expect to see more use of individualized AI student tutoring as well as a greater emphasis on personal connection and creativity. The AI technology boom in education, includes some well known issues as well a great deal of potential. The ability to offer students personalized coaching is one of the more exciting areas of opportunity as long as it’s safe and supports student privacy. There is still a great deal of trepidation among educators about AI now, but there is also opportunity, and many schools don’t want to fall behind. At this point, much of the AI used in schools serves as a replacement for traditional tests and assessments, but new tutoring and teaching tools are beginning to emerge. As AI begins to be utilized more in education the focus on the areas where humans are necessary such as making connections, developing creativity, and versatile storytelling gain more importance in the classroom. An unexpected effect of the AI boom is that it heightens the focus on innovation and creative problem solving and relationship building.
—Tim Needles, Technology Integration Specialist, Smithtown Central School District & Author of STEAM Power

It seems everywhere we look companies and products are announcing their new integrations with AI or AR/VR. For some, this may be a struggle to embrace due lack of access or belief that paper is better. In the current iterations of AI, teachers who explore their options are able to find tools that make their daily task loads easier. The most time consuming or emotionally taxing items can be processed via prompts. Some of these tasks might include replying to parent emails without emotional interference, creating differentiated assignments with ease and expertise, and creating interactive lesson components and higher order questions that probe thinking patterns. With the rise of AI comes AR/VR. The use of AR allows students to interact and problem solve in a space that is free of the constraints of budgets and in some instances time. Students are able to manipulate very large items or very small items a typical classroom would not have access to (the sun and stars, for example). With the use of VR, students are able to create, repair, and manipulate items that have been and will continue to be out of reach for many students. With a sincere focus on college/career/military readiness, access to VR training is allowing students to gain and perfect skill sets prior to their entrance into the post-high school phase of life.
–Jessica Campos, Instructional Technology Coach, Mesquite Independent School District

STEM skills

With an increasing number of schools limiting personal device usage during the school day, I foresee a shift in education toward teaching more interpersonal skills and incorporating more hands-on activities. One of my favorite activities is having students make powered paper airplanes with the POWERUP 2.0 Airplane Kit. It’s a great hands-on activity with a technology element that helps students learn STEM-related concepts, the engineering process, and collaboration skills.
–Josh Underwood, Physics and Aviation Teacher, Mason County High School

As educators prepare for the new school year, we must incorporate scientific probeware into STEM classrooms to enhance student engagement and learning. Probeware, which combines sensors and software to collect and analyze data in real-time, offers a practical approach to teaching science and technology. I plan on using probeware in all my courses, from AP Chemistry to Organic Chemistry to Forensics, as students conduct captivating experiments in colorimetry, melting-point analysis, gas pressure inquiry, gas chromatography, and more. The use of this technology will enable students to engage in active learning and real-time data collection, visualize with graphs, explore complex phenomena, and develop important scientific skills.
–Diane M. Vrobel, Ed. D., Science Teacher, Archbishop Hoban High School and Member, Vernier Trendsetter Community

Key points:

• Student engagement is at an all-time low in the classroom–here’s how to fix it
• Student engagement requires more than edtech tools
• How we can improve literacy through student engagement
• For more news on student engagement, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Schools in the U.S. and across the globe continue to struggle with student engagement, according to new research from LEGO Education. Only one-third of U.S. administrators, teachers, and parents/caregivers say students are engaged in learning, underscoring the critical need for more engaging learning experiences.

Nearly half of U.S. administrators (47 percent) believe student disengagement leads to increased absenteeism and decreased enrollment. More than half (61 percent) of U.S. teachers report that disengaged students demonstrate increased behavioral issues, according to the LEGO Education State of Classroom Engagement Report.

The report summarizes findings from a global survey of more than 6,000 administrators, teachers, parents, and students aged 5-14. It spotlights deeper insight into what engages, inspires, and builds confidence in students and educators.

The research yielded four key insights that call attention to universal challenges–and opportunities to meet those challenges–in education today.

1. Administrators, teachers, and parents agree that students are not engaged in their learning, but peer collaboration is a powerful engagement driver. “Student engagement is lower than we want it to be. Administrators and educators are concerned about academic performance and absenteeism, and in need of new approaches and resources,” according to the report.

Key takeaway: Leverage student connection for with collaborative, hands-on learning. Hands-on learning fosters collaboration and uses students’ natural inclination to connect with one another, driving engagement by making the material more fun, tangible, and relevant.

2. Engagement improves academic outcomes and student well-being. “Students who are engaged perform better in school and they’re happier. Teachers who describe their students as engaged report much higher satisfaction with their performance across subjects than those whose students are disengaged,” the report notes. “Beyond academic results and skills, teachers and parents want to inspire a lifelong love of learning.”

Key takeaway: Engage the whole student to boost academic performance, attendance, skills development, and overall well-being. Ideally, the methods we apply in the classroom should help close the gap in academic comprehension and performance, while also boosting students’ self-esteem and happiness to ensure their overall well-being and future readiness.

3. Improving student engagement improves teacher retention. “Eight in 10 teachers would be happier with their work and find it more rewarding if their students were more engaged,” according to the research. “But teachers are feeling the weight of not having enough support. Compared to their global counterparts, U.S. teachers are more likely to say they need resources that are flexible for all learners.”

Key takeaway: Invest in and empower teachers with ongoing support, professional learning, and resources to improve teacher retention and job satisfaction.

4. The path to increased engagement is paved in purposeful play. “The learning through play methodology leverages our natural and intuitive way of learning–which is actively engaging, meaningful, iterative, socially interactive, and joyful. This methodology is defined by its use of creativity and curiosity, encouraging students to adapt, build confidence, and problem-solve,” the report notes. “It encourages active student involvement in the classroom, from asking critical questions to creating connections between concepts.”

Key takeaway: Foster a culture of play to make learning engaging.

Key points:

• What priorities will be a focal point in the new school year?
• How 5 educators use digital tools in the classroom
• Stop using AI to replicate outdated teaching–get creative, instead
• For more news on edtech priorities, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

Back-to-school season comes with highs and lows, and along with those mixed emotions come trends and predictions around edtech tools, digital learning resources, and important curricular objectives.

Here are some back-to-school tips, advice, and valuable insights from educators, stakeholders, and industry experts:

As I reflect on two decades of work in the clean energy education space, I become increasingly convinced that the key to impacting students is people. Inspiring educators is critical to moving a clean energy economy forward. We must find and support high-quality teachers so we can help them bring engaging content to students to help them see their pathway into these ever-growing sectors of the U.S. economy. Our goal this year is to support any teacher who is interested in bringing a robust understanding of the power grid or wind, solar or storage technologies to all of their students!
–Michael Arquin, Founder, KidWind

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented districts everywhere with new teaching and learning opportunities. This year at St. Vrain Valley School District, we will continue to provide our teachers with ample opportunities to collaborate, discuss, and share resources and strategies to enhance their understanding of AI and the potential benefits of AI tools. To support their professional growth, teachers will also have continued access to the AI Coach platform, which enables them to watch and reflect on videos of their classroom instruction, set professional goals, and receive personalized observation tips, coaching, and resources from a virtual, computerized AI coach. This helps our teachers strengthen their practices and participate in ongoing, reflective coaching at their own pace.
–David Baker, Professional Development Coordinator. St. Vrain Valley School District

Career-connected learning will become more important than ever. The workforce has undergone significant changes, and today’s jobs require advanced skills and specialized training, particularly in STEM fields. However, many high school classrooms still use outdated college and career preparation models, which can leave high school graduates feeling unprepared for their future. This highlights the increasing need for high schools to incorporate career-connected learning. In the upcoming school year, we can expect more educators and counselors to focus on aligning their students’ educational experiences with the demands of the job market so that they are better prepared to pursue college and/or career pathways that will empower them to succeed.
—Edson Barton, CEO, YouScience

Stress-inducing issues like staff shortages, teacher burnout, and the political climate may lead to significant conflict on campuses this year. More than ever, educators and administrators will need to be armed with conflict management skills like setting clear boundaries. With students and colleagues, set boundaries about political discussion in your presence. With colleagues, have a “no politics at work” rule. With students, adopt an “only as initiated and overseen by me” rule regarding political discourse. Another skill that can help prevent conflict is to always keep your eye on the prize and remember what’s most important. When someone introduces a stressor into a class, a meeting, or a conversation, ask (yourself and perhaps that person) a simple question: How does this promote student success? Improving student outcomes is a unifying theme that transcends the daily news, a transient bad mood or a poorly phrased statement.
–Richard Birke, Chief Architect of JAMS Pathways

The Science of Reading continues to gain momentum in changing how educators approach reading instruction, particularly in foundational skills for Grades K-3. To realize our common goal to help all students become engaged, proficient readers and learners, educators are asking for evidence-based practices across all grades. The importance of identifying and instructing students at any grade who cannot reach fluency and comprehension because of gaps in foundational skills cannot be overstated. Furthermore, engaging these students in effective, efficient, and structured practice to fill these gaps will propel them to word-level, sentence-level, and passage-level fluency, essential for comprehension.
–Dr. Carolyn Brown, Chief Academic Officer and Co-Founder, Foundations in Learning and Creator, WordFlight

There continues to be a disconnect between how students are doing academically and how parents think their children are doing in school. In the 2024-2025 school year, we will need to bridge gaps between school and home to engage parents in academic recovery efforts. By engaging with families to help them understand their children’s academic progress and what the data means for their child, we can partner with families on interventions and help students get back on track. There will be an increased focus on making data accessible and applicable so that parents not only understand what the data means, but also have actionable next steps to take to help support their children’s progress.
—Jacob Bruno, SVP of Professional Learning, NWEA  

Now more than ever, the need to focus on educating the “whole child” is a top priority for our schools. Educational experiences extend beyond the traditional classroom setting. For instance, in Baldwin School District, we continue to expand on our emotional wellness efforts through our very own Wellness Center, allowing our students and their families seamless access to the support services needed to help their child succeed in school and beyond. Learning and experiencing outside the four walls of the classroom is essential. We continually focus on creating industry partnerships and new opportunities for students to explore future career prospects in high-demand fields. Creating a relevant and robust learning environment and always doing what is best for our children is successful because of the dedication of our administrators, teachers, and staff. This is why we offer a number of innovative as well as empowering professional development opportunities for our faculty, such as our 4-year New Teacher Cohort Program, so our educators know how to most effectively teach students in today’s world and into the future while feeling supported by our district.
–Dr. Shari L. Camhi, Superintendent of Schools, Baldwin School District

As someone who has been in education long enough to be considered vintage and to see major pedagogical shifts, I always wonder when the next big change will come. After the major shifts of the Covid era, the question still remains: What’s next? Here are a few trends I see from working with teachers and students. Artificial intelligence/augmented reality: It seems everywhere we look companies and products are announcing their new integrations with AI or AR/VR. For some, this may be a struggle to embrace due lack of access or belief that paper is better. In the current iterations of AI, teachers who explore their options are able to find tools that make their daily task loads easier. The most time consuming or emotionally taxing items can be processed via prompts. Some of these tasks might include replying to parent emails without emotional interference, creating differentiated assignments with ease and expertise, and creating interactive lesson components and higher order questions that probe thinking patterns.  With the rise of AI comes AR/VR. The use of AR allows students to interact and problem solve in a space that is free of the constraints of budgets and in some instances time. Students are able to manipulate very large items or very small items a typical classroom would not have access to (the sun and stars, for example). With the use of VR, students are able to create, repair, and manipulate items that have been and will continue to be out of reach for many students. With a sincere focus on college/career/military Readiness, access to VR training is allowing students to gain and perfect skill sets prior to their entrance into the post-high school phase of life. For anyone who might be curious what teachers are doing with these amazing tools, I encourage you to look at the halls around you in your district or region. You might be surprised to find creative AI/AR solutions to problems not being addressed anywhere else. Happy new school year!
–Jessica Campos, Instructional Technology Coach, Mesquite Independent School District

In the 2024 to 2025 school year, districts will be asking more questions about evidence of impact when they’re evaluating and selecting education technology solutions. It’s important to be able to answer not only if a solution works, but for whom, and under what conditions. Some of the most used edtech products that have bold claims about their effectiveness only base their research on a very small fraction of students and on schools where implementation was exactly right. That might only be 5 percent of the students. When districts are thinking about effectiveness claims, they will need to think about implementation and local context. There is a growing movement across the education space to raise the bar on edtech evidence. By raising the bar on edtech evidence, we can make sure districts are investing in solutions that will make a meaningful difference for K-12 students.
–Auditi Chakravarty, CEO, Advanced Education Research and Development Fund

Now that absenteeism is such a widespread issue, there will be increased attention on closing the gap between how parents and caregivers perceive their children’s academic performance and the reality in the classroom. Many families don’t know that their child is falling behind or understand the consequences of absenteeism. To address this issue, districts will increasingly turn to data to catch trends and intervene before the challenges become chronic. Specifically, schools will be looking at markers for academic, behavioral, and social/emotional challenges that have historically led to poor attendance and a downturn in academic performance. By providing families with insights that go beyond grades and test scores, schools build trust and open up a two-way dialogue that can directly impact a student’s success throughout their academic journey. By making data accessible and easy to understand, districts can cultivate a more transparent and supportive environment, empowering both students and their families to achieve academic success,”
–Russ Davis, CEO and Founder, SchoolStatus

Networking and security will continue to be a priority for districts, especially after a summer of updating or replacing classroom technology and student devices. There are questions surrounding what should or shouldn’t be added to the network and why, how a district handles network bandwidth and performance, and what kind of training staff needs in order to manage new devices and displays on the network. Vendors play a crucial role in helping districts answer these questions, and, because of this, we’ll see more collaboration among vendors, integrators, and administrators this year.
–Remi Del Mar, Senior Product Manager for K-12 Projectors, Epson America

As students head back to school, anxiety and stress can be through the roof.  To help schools and educators navigate these challenges along with parents, these tips can help: When a child is resisting going to school: Try to understand why a child doesn’t want to go to school, collaborate with parents and other school resources and problem-solve with the child. Approaches to handle bullying: Enforcing rules around behavior in schools, establishing communications between families and schools, and having open conversations about bullying with children have been shown to decrease bullying. Improving after-school conversations with parents and caregivers: Remind parents to be specific about what they’re asking a child. Instead of “How was your day?” You might ask questions like, “Who’s one friend you played with that you liked? What’s one cool toy you saw in your classroom?” Understanding why a child might be “good” at school but “bad” at home: School has lots of structure, but families and homes may not. Kids may also be experimenting with roles or may let their guardrails down at home.
—Dr. Helen Egger, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer, Little Otter Health

We’re seeing a growing interest in AI-powered weapons detection systems among schools as educators realize their ability to help create safer spaces without turning schools into fortresses. The buzz is around how AI can spot potential threats more quickly and accurately than traditional metal detectors, and do it without needing every backpack turned upside down or long lines at the front door. The coming years will be crucial in shaping how these AI-driven measures are implemented. With careful planning and community involvement, these technologies have the potential to significantly contribute to school safety while supporting education’s broader mission. The goal remains to create secure learning environments where students can focus on learning, not looking over their shoulders.
–Peter Evans, CEO, Xtract One Technologies

This school year we will see a continued focus on nurturing 21st century skills in the classroom. The COVID effect has impacted students’ communication, critical thinking, and motivation. As educators, giving students a safe place to fail, to learn, and practice these skills to better prepare them for college and professional environments is crucial.  It’s crucial to give students a safe environment to learn these skills, practice them, and be okay with potentially failing, in order to better prepare them for college or professional environments. Resources like iCEV’s Career Exploration or Professional Communication courses offer lessons for students that are practical and will be so helpful for their future careers.
–Rhonda Evatt, Health Science Educator, Anderson Institute of Technology

Our education system is still grappling with the ongoing challenges of incomplete learning and lower student achievement. We in the education community should caution against creating edtech just for the sake of more edtech–and create innovation that serves the needs of diverse students in all American schools, not not just those in the most affluent areas. Expect increased pressure for more purposeful edtech solutions that are proven-effective and evidence-based to support teachers with interventions aimed at helping students regain their academic footing. These solutions will prioritize the relationship between teacher and student, enabling teachers to serve as motivators and facilitators of student learning, which is critical to student engagement and success.
–Matthew Mugo Fields, General Manager of Supplemental and Intervention Solutions, HMH

I believe we are entering a golden age of edtech, with emerging technologies giving us so many new opportunities to power teaching and learning. Leaders in education now have the opportunity to leverage GenAI to accelerate the transformation of data into feedback for students across subjects. This new age of teaching and learning will be more integrated into the day-to-day, more interdisciplinary, and more based on the lived experience of the teacher and student. Supplementing teacher-student relationships with technology will reduce the administrative burden on educators and allow them to personalize instruction like never before to enable growth for every student. I am excited to see what’s to come as educators continue to embrace these new tools.
–Andrew Goldman, EVP, HMH Labs

As an engineering teacher who runs a hands-on laboratory class, I like to start the year off by exposing my students to all the industry equipment and industry-certified credentials that they will have access to throughout the year. Leading a career and technical-focused class allows me the opportunity to inspire and prepare students for their future careers. Informing students about industry trends and showing how current practices are incorporated into the curriculum gets them excited and eager to learn. By demonstrating the various types of training equipment–from mechatronics to robotic arms, 3D printers, pneumatic trainers, AC/DC electricity trainers, and more–students understand the big picture of how this dynamic and engaging learning environment equips them with the skills they need to succeed. By implementing these strategies, CTE educators can expect a vibrant, engaging learning environment where students can obtain skills and knowledge for a successful future. 
–Stefany Gurgel, NC3 Master Instructor, Festo and Instructor, Jewish Leadership Academy

In the last few years, we have seen a change in workforce needs–there is strong emphasis on skills-based education, technological proficiency, and adaptability. Microcredentials and certifications that offer students practical, high-demand skills and that can be immediately applied in the workplace are increasingly complementing high school and post-secondary degrees. We anticipate partnerships between school systems and the business community will continue to grow, ensuring that curriculum and course offerings are aligned with real-world skills and applications. Thus, preparing the next generation of STEM-literate citizens has never been more critical. It is imperative our education systems prioritize equipping students with the skills needed to succeed in an economy that values critical thinking, problem solving, and technological fluency. Implementing high-quality, hands-on science and technology solutions can help bridge the gap between the classroom and workforce, ensuring our students are not only ready for the future but also inspired to shape it, regardless of the path they choose after high school or college.
–Jill Hedrick, CEO, Vernier Science Education

Personalization of the student’s learning experience is becoming a necessity to make it meaningful, engaging, affirming, and rigorous. We adopted and implemented a new instructional framework with a keen focus on these aspects. Now, we are building a program to braid in the appropriate technology to drive it forward. One way we do this is through the implementation of interactive projection technology from Epson. Students can interact with content being projected on the board or cast the screen from their device to model for their peers. This brings engagement and personalization in a whole new way.
–Lisa Irey, Director of Technology, Des Moines Public Schools

Teachers are increasingly seeking out innovative technologies like virtual reality to engage students in content and support instruction, and I believe this trend will continue this school year–although with a subtle shift. Instead of doing mostly what I call “event-based VR”–using the technology primarily for virtual field trips, on special occasions, or confining it to STEM labs–teachers will increasingly use the technology to introduce and expand lessons in all subject areas, making it a core part of everyday instruction. We will consequently see schools adjusting professional development to support teachers in making this shift.
–Chris Klein, Vice President of Educational Services, Avantis Education, Creators of ClassVR

As we head into the 2024-25 school year, districts must be equipped to help older students with foundational literacy skills. We see older readers struggle with foundational literacy skills, which are often only taught up until the third grade. More students than researchers previously thought struggle to decode or, use their knowledge of letter sounds to sound out complex, multisyllabic words. Older students with low decoding skills had consistently low reading comprehension scores, while the students whose decoding scores were above a threshold value had much better comprehension scores. Many teachers in older grades are not taught how to teach foundational literacy skills. To help older readers, we will need to equip teachers for older grades with technology-enabled solutions to address this gap in foundational literacy skills. In the 2024-25 school year, I believe we will see more of a focus on helping students cross the “decoding threshold” by using research-backed protocols and solutions.
—Rebecca Kockler, Executive Director of the Reading Reimagined Program, Advanced Education Research and Development Fund

Current assessments tend to just ask students to regurgitate information, which doesn’t prove they’ve internalized the content. Performance-based assessments, on the other hand, ask students to demonstrate their learning by showing how they would apply it to the world beyond school–for instance, through creating a product. When students are asked to show what they learned and when they are able to articulate what worked, what didn’t work, what they might change next time, and how they would replicate success, it shows they truly understand the concept and it helps prepare them for the world beyond school.  We anticipate more districts will adopt performance-based assessments this year to better understand what students know and can apply.
–Bob Lenz, CEO, PBLWorks

Generative AI continues to dominate the conversation in education, and I don’t see that changing this Back to School season. We already know that districts and educators are continuing to explore new technology to elevate the learning experience, and the use of AI is a growing part of that increase. This isn’t anything to fear. When thoughtfully implemented, Generative AI is a transformative technology that will elevate student success, empower educators, and enhance the ways we teach and learn. By focusing on AI literacy and empowering teachers and students to understand and leverage this transformative technology, we’ll be preparing them both for the future of learning and the workforce.
—Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Strategy, Instructure

As an educator, you have a unique opportunity to support your students’ mental well-being alongside their academic success. Here are five strategies to help your students stay balanced and thrive in the virtual classroom: 1. Encourage a balanced routine: Remind students to structure their days with a mix of study, exercise, and relaxation. Help them understand that maintaining a consistent routine, including regular sleep patterns, is key to avoiding burnout and staying focused, even in an online learning environment. 2. Incorporate mindfulness into lessons: Introduce brief mindfulness or meditation activities during online classes to help students manage stress and improve concentration. Even short, guided sessions can enhance their ability to cope with academic pressures. 3. Promote physical activity: Encourage students to stay physically active, even when learning from home. Suggest short exercise breaks or simple activities they can do between classes to boost their mood and cognitive function. 4. Facilitate social connections: Create opportunities for students to connect with each other, even in a virtual setting. Use breakout rooms, group projects, and online discussion boards to foster a sense of community and reduce feelings of isolation. 5. Highlight mental health resources: Ensure students know where to find help if they’re struggling. Share information about school counseling services and online resources that offer additional support. By focusing on these strategies, online educators can create a supportive environment that prioritizes mental health, helping students achieve both personal and academic success.
–Nhon Ma, CEO, Numerade

Educator burnout will continue: Districts with high rates of open teaching positions are likely to face continued challenges, deepening educator burnout. However, those that have focused on supporting new and novice teachers through high-quality curriculum and content-based professional learning are positioned to thrive. AI won’t revolutionize learning… yet: While generative AI will bring some minor quality-of-life improvements for teachers and students such as saved time, it won’t revolutionize the profession or the industry in general just yet. The continued proliferation of AI in education technology could expose many teachers to subpar content. Districts that adopt smart AI policies and invest in high-quality materials will be best positioned to navigate these challenges and ensure meaningful, grade-level aligned learning experiences for all students. Investment in high-quality instructional materials will pay off: As the new school year begins, districts that made deliberate investments in high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and curriculum-aligned professional learning last year will see the benefits, with more students entering at grade level.These districts are expected to continue this success by aligning their assessment systems with daily instruction, supported by technology and coaching systems for implementing HQIM.
—Abbas Manjee, Co-Founder and Chief Academic Officer, Kiddom

Coding is a new literacy in today’s technology-centered world. Learning to code is an essential 21^st century skill that should be part of every child’s education, as it can unlock new interests and pave the way for future jobs both in and out of the tech sector. Even in the face of new generative AI tools that can write code, understanding how computers work and how we can communicate with them through code will still be vitally important. Plus, learning to code supports children’s growth as problem solvers who can decompose big problems, persevere in the face of challenges, and develop then implement solutions to address them. While some parents may worry about the additional screen time that comes with learning to code, research has shown that productive screen time, where children are actively creating with technology, is far better than time spent passively consuming media and content online. Coding education lets children to learn to code in a fun, collaborative environment with engaging programs that teach coding through game development and set them up for future success as logical thinkers and creative problem solvers.
–Bill Marsland, Director of Education and Training, Code Ninjas

For students with low vision or blindness, going back to school can be an especially challenging time. With new guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education and tremendous growth within the assistive technology industry over the last few years, I believe we’re in for a big change. Heading into the 2024-2025 school year, I think we’ll see an increase in the funding and focus on meeting the needs of students with disabilities, like low vision and ADHD, through innovations in technology. School systems are also now obligated to ensure that students, their parents, and their educators are trained to use the needed assistive devices, possibly opening the gateway for additional staff dedicated to assistive tech education and troubleshooting. Assistive technologies and devices are not only crucial to helping students with disabilities approach their curriculum but also beneficial in participation in extracurriculars and social interaction with their peers.
–Roland Mattern, Director of Sales and Marketing, eSight at Gentex Corporation

Schools will address students’ desire to explore multiple paths of learning. The education landscape will increasingly shift to accommodate students’ desires for exploring diverse learning paths. As students grow more skeptical of the traditional ‘go to college’ narrative, schools will face the challenge of providing comprehensive career guidance and accurate information on various career options, leading to more personalized and varied educational pathways. One way to make guidance more personalized is by implementing aptitude assessments to help students understand what they are innately good at.
–Hans Meeder, Senior Fellow for Education and Workforce Innovation, YouScience

Schools will continue to diversify CTE courses. In recent years, research has shown that career and technical education (CTE) can profoundly impact student success in high school. It has been reported that the graduation rate for students who take a concentration of CTE courses is about 93 percent, approximately 10 percent higher than the national average. This is illustrated by the increasing recognition of successful CTE programs nationwide, particularly in fields like manufacturing, automotive, logistics, and healthcare, where there is a high demand for skilled workers. This ongoing interest and success will encourage schools to expand the variety of CTE courses they offer in the coming year to meet the demands of the job market and ensure that students have the necessary skills to fill these opportunities after they graduate.
—Amy Miller-Weiland, VP of Professional Services and Learning and Development, YouScience

In this post-COVID and ESSER funding era, single point in time data will lose its relevance if it is not connected to the fuller picture of student academic health. With COVID academic recovery still in progress, access to quality, connected data that provides educators with meaningful, nuanced information will be critical. Today, an average teacher has hundreds of data and curricular tools at their disposal. It’s overwhelming. Not to mention, those tools may often provide conflicting information, often are hard to navigate between and make it hard to truly understand how best to help each student. We can do better. We must continue to innovate, use technology wisely, and provide cohesive, holistic platforms that truly simplify educators’ lives and drive student growth. That’s what you should expect to see from HMH and NWEA.
–Chris Minnich, President, NWEA

In order for districts to monitor and grow the success of their career and technical education (CTE) programs, they need real-time access to data. That includes data about industry-based certifications, work-based learning, and participation in career and technical student organizations (CTSOs). As CTE continues to grow across the country, we will see administrators look for innovative ways to access timely and relevant CTE data to help meet the demand for CTE programming in their school districts.
–Dusty Moore, CEO, iCEV, Providers of Eduthings

We’ll see more classes stepping away from strictly virtual content this school year. Teachers are ready to have students put away their Chromebooks and engage in discussions and hands-on activities. Technology will still play a role in classrooms, with teachers and students collaborating using tools like interactive projectors, but after a few years of students looking at screens all day, there will definitely be a shift to technology’s role being supplemental and not the end-all be-all.
–Nate Moore, executive Director of Technology, Kearsley Community Schools

We all know that teaching is more than a job; it’s a deeply human endeavor. And right now, with the weight of staff shortages and burnout pressing down, the ability to read the room, to sense when a colleague is nearing their breaking point, or when you yourself need a breather, is invaluable. EQ isn’t just about being aware; it’s about knowing when to step in and offer support and when to step back and take care of yourself. It’s the difference between a team that’s just getting by and one that genuinely supports each other through the ups and downs. Schools that focus on developing EQ this year will be better equipped to handle the challenges ahead. Building an environment where emotional awareness is a shared responsibility, educators can create a stronger, more connected community–one where everyone is attuned to each other’s needs and ready to face whatever comes next.
—Darrin Murriner, Co-Founder and CEO, Cloverleaf

Educators and students should prioritize protecting their digital identities this school year. Cybersecurity, like real-world security, is all about assigning trust to someone based on what you know about them. Just like how schools verify parents’ identities before releasing their students, networks verify a user’s identity through passwords, cryptographic keys or biometric tokens. Unfortunately, these digital identity tools can be compromised much easier than stealing someone’s real-world identity. One way to prevent hackers from accessing your school’s systems with your information is through multi-factor authentication. MFA adds an extra layer of security by requiring additional verification steps, such as entering a code sent to your email or scanning a fingerprint. Another way is to have long, random and unique passwords for each account. Because managing multiple strong passwords can be difficult, using a password manager to generate and store them can be easier. Students and educators can better guard their digital identities from potential threats by taking these safety precautions.
—Corey Nachreiner, Chief Security Officer, WatchGuard Technologies

Artificial intelligence will continue to be a significant focus for K-12 education this year, and the discussion will increasingly focus on not whether to teach it, but how to teach it. Students need to know how to use AI so they can be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow. Our role is to teach them how to use it appropriately, ethnically, and responsibly, and how to help them discern real data from what’s fake. I use the analogy of milking a cow. The milk is available, but in order to access it, there are certain steps you must take. It’s the same with AI. The information is there and AI will point you in the direction you need to go. But you have to put some work into the process in order to use AI effectively to get what you need. The discussion in schools this year will focus on teaching students how to do this work.
–Ulysses Navarrete, Executive Director, Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents (ALAS)

As the artificial intelligence integration continues to develop in schools, I expect to see more use of individualized AI student tutoring as well as a greater emphasis on personal connection and creativity. The AI technology boom in education, includes some well known issues as well a great deal of potential. The ability to offer students personalized coaching is one of the more exciting areas of opportunity as long as it’s safe and supports student privacy. I’ve seen a number of different tools on the market in recent educational conferences at different stages of development and I believe we will see the beginning of more widespread usage. The nature of artificial intelligence tools is that they are able to improve the more they are used so the price points have lowered on many of these tools as companies try to gain a larger stake in the growing market and improve the tools they have to offer. I’ve seen a number of tools that pass the privacy tests and offer tutoring on specific national and state standards and exams which are very attractive to schools if the price is right. In talking to these companies, there seems to be a moment of opportunity and flexibility as the number of educational AI tools that are out there multiply. There is still a great deal of trepidation among educators about AI now but there is also opportunity and many schools don’t want to fall behind. At this point much of the AI used in schools serves as a replacement for traditional tests and assessments but new tutoring and teaching tools are beginning to emerge. As AI begins to be utilized more in education the focus on the areas where humans are necessary such as making connections, developing creativity, and versatile storytelling gain more importance in the classroom. An unexpected effect of the AI boom is that it heightens the focus on innovation and creative problem solving and relationship building.
—Tim Needles, Technology Integration Specialist, Smithtown Central School District & Author of STEAM Power

Cybersecurity preparedness will continue to be a critical challenge for K-12 schools in the 2024-2025 school year. K-12 schools house many kinds of valuable student data that appeal to bad actors–everything from personally identifiable information like social security numbers to medical histories. Schools can reduce their risk of data breaches by fostering a culture of cybersecurity best practices among students, parents, educators, and staff. These include good password hygiene and remaining vigilant of phishing attempts via traditional methods like email and less well-known means like phony QR codes. School IT teams should implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible to protect their systems from identity-based attacks. MFA adds a step to the login process and a layer of protection while still prioritizing the end user experience. Tackling technical debt is crucial for a strong cyber posture. As more and more schools are targeted with cyberattacks each year, IT personnel must prioritize observability and detection in their systems. Some school districts have dozens of campuses and sites and tens of thousands of devices to manage. Without proper visibility into these networks and endpoints, schools can’t protect themselves. Being able to quickly detect and respond to a cyberthreat is a critical factor in preventing a threat actor from accessing multiple systems and in stopping an incident from becoming a more serious data breach.
—Helen Patton, Cybersecurity Executive Advisor, Cisco

As the new school year begins, it’s important to stay safe while using public Wi-Fi networks, which are often less secure than private ones and attractive targets for hackers and scammers. Common attacks include man-in-the-middle, malware, phishing, and data breaches. In a man-in-the-middle attack, hackers intercept your communications, accessing passwords and sensitive data. Malware attacks occur when hackers distribute malicious software through infected websites or emails, which can steal data or control your device. Phishing attacks use deceptive emails or texts to lure you into entering personal information on fake websites. Data breaches on public Wi-Fi can expose your information to hackers. To protect yourself on public Wi-Fi, follow these tips: Connect only to personal hotspots and trusted networks, avoid entering sensitive information, use a VPN, and keep your software updated. By taking these precautions, you can focus on your studies without worrying about cybersecurity threats.
–Eric Plam, President, SIMO 

During the upcoming school year in New York, we’re anticipating significant discussions around new graduation measures, particularly with the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission, which is re-evaluating how we define and assess student success. Teacher evaluation reform is also on the agenda, aiming to create more effective and supportive systems that align with the evolving demands of education. Additionally, the debate around banning cell phones in classrooms continues to be a hot topic, balancing the need for focus with the realities of digital citizenship. Nationally, we’re seeing an increased focus on integrating AI into the classroom. This isn’t just about using AI as a tool but also about preparing students for a future where AI literacy will be crucial. There’s also a growing emphasis on wellness and addressing the complex needs of students as they navigate a challenging world. This holistic approach is reshaping how we engage students, pushing us to rethink traditional models and deliver teaching and learning in more relevant, responsive ways. To truly improve student engagement and achievement, we must start by valuing the conversations and dedicated time needed to measure and adjust the adult behaviors that directly impact these areas. This reflective process is essential for driving meaningful improvements. As we think about this work, it’s crucial to shift the conversation from merely tracking student attendance to focusing on how students are showing up: how they engage with complex problems, interact with their peers, and connect with adults. It’s not enough for students to simply be present; they need to be actively involved in learning experiences that challenge them and foster critical thinking. Moreover, we must move away from a mindset of informational compliance–where students complete tasks for the sake of completion–and instead focus on engaging them in authentic problem-solving. By providing opportunities for students to work on real-world problems and present their solutions to experts and audiences outside their schools, we not only make learning more relevant but also empower students to see their work as meaningful contributions to their communities and the broader world.
—Jonah M. Schenker, Ed.D., District Superintendent, Ulster BOCES

Last school year, the edtech space saw the beginning of what we at Discovery Education are calling “The Great Rationalization and Consolidation.” During the pandemic, school districts made unprecedented investments in education technologies. Now, districts are carefully analyzing their edtech spending, evaluating its ROI, and rationalizing their purchases through a careful review of the usage data, alignment to outcomes, and evidence of student learning. With in-hand, efficacy data that highlights which resources are working and which are not, school systems are consolidating their edtech spending and selecting fewer, higher-impact services.  This phenomenon will have a tremendous impact on school systems and the edtech market. The ongoing period of rationalization and consolidation is making edtech providers look carefully not only at how they can demonstrate greater value for school-based partners, but also how they can continue to innovate and provide the highest-quality digital products to the systems they serve. This is good news, as I believe teachers and students will benefit the most from this new era. Rationalization and consolidation mean that an array of new easy-to-use digital resources will support teaching and learning in multiple disciplines. The development of these resources has been guided by large doses of educator and student input, meaning they are directly aligned to their unique needs of today’s classrooms. The resources I am most excited about are suites of complimentary products that work in harmony with one another, providing school systems high-quality content, adaptive technologies, and formative assessments that are easy for teachers to use and drive higher student achievement. These products will deeply engage all students in learning, diagnose areas for intervention, and provide appropriate content to support remediation. I think these types of products are truly the future of edtech.
—Brian Shaw, CEO, Discovery Education

With books like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt spreading across districts, and as we move further out of the pandemic era, there’s a natural desire for more student-to-student interaction. I think we’ll see a very welcomed move towards more face-to-face collaboration. While some classrooms may reduce or remove screen time, I believe many educators are now re-evaluating digital technologies with a discerning eye, recognizing that not all digital tools are created equal. In the math classroom, tasks like games or puzzles–where kids naturally engage in mathematical problem-solving without coaxing–are beginning to become essential, rather than just nice to have. Those of us on the content design side have the opportunity to breathe life into this shift by providing some classroom-worthy content that aligns with brain-based principles. If we do, then I think there’s a real chance that, within a decade, the math class of today will feel like the distant past. Kids will be active, engaged, and productively struggling, and learning at a scale we just don’t currently see. Teachers’ approach will align with brain-based learning principles, fostering deep understanding and critical thinking. Moving beyond traditional methods of math education creates inclusive, engaging learning environments that encourage students to become innovative problem-solvers, making math not only accessible to all, but a joyful experience–the deep enjoyment that comes from effortful play. Play, by its very nature, invites us to embrace challenges and uncertainties. Just like a student attempting a half-court buzzer beater or riding a bike sitting on the handlebars. The excitement comes from the possibility of both success and failure. When there’s a chance that it won’t work (but a chance it will), light-hearted, effortful tasks are exhilarating. This kind of playful experimentation is essential in the classroom. It’s not about making math “easy,” but about transforming math into an exhilarating and meaningful experience that fosters deeper engagement and achievement.  Often, in an effort to cover standards, mistakes become something to avoid instead of embraced. That’s not playful. Humans have tremendous capacity to synthesize creativity and play. The key is that it’s not educators who make math exciting. When we provide experiences and an environment for math to be engaging, it’s the students who create fun.
–Brandon Smith, Lead Mathematician and Product Director, MIND Education

An overwhelming majority of schools have shifted to 1:1 technology, and K-12 IT teams have the tremendous responsibility of preparing devices for distribution at the start of each year. Take these 7 best practices to start: Create a comprehensive plan to serve as a blueprint for your distribution process. Tag devices for inventory and assignment purposes and make sure they’re all properly charged. Identify specific pick-up dates, times and locations (I recommend two separate distribution periods for teachers and students). Check your staff–is your IT team big enough to support on distribution day? If not, be sure to recruit extra help beforehand. Acknowledge who is authorized to pick up devices–students under 18 must have a parent/guardian sign forms to check out a device. Develop thorough device agreements for each unique scenario such as teachers, remote learners, or IEP students. Lastly, make sure to communicate these device distribution steps to students and parents/guardians. Device management can be a tedious process, but it’s directly linked to student success and with the proper planning it can be done efficiently to ensure a successful technological kick off to the new school year.
–Emily Stapf, Customer Success Manager, Incident IQ

In the 2024-2025 school year, high schools will start to shift towards more flexible and personalized learning models to address high absenteeism. Expect increased options for blended learning, career-focused pathways, and micro-credentialing alongside traditional coursework. Schools may experiment with new schedules, flexible class times, and independent study opportunities to better meet students’ needs. Additionally, there will be a stronger focus on cultural responsiveness and social-emotional support through expanded advisory programs and community partnerships. While these changes will be gradual, successful pilot programs could lead to broader reforms. 
–Kara Stern, PhD, Director of Education and Engagement, SchoolStatus

Staying up to date with the latest fire safety, egress, and accessibility codes in schools goes beyond compliance–it ensures people can safely evacuate during dangerous situations. Some hardware, like door barricade devices, can be more harmful than helpful to a school’s security and accessibility in emergencies like active shooter events, fires and more. While fear can increase focus on security, it’s essential to critically evaluate products that exploit this fear instead of offering proven safety solutions. Recent updates in codes emphasize ADA compliance, fire protection, and egress, which marks a significant shift toward improved safety standards. Looking ahead, there is hope for further advancements in code requirements, such as stronger door/window glazing and more consistent compliance across states, to enhance safety and accessibility in all educational facilities. Online resources from PASS (Partner Alliance for Safer Schools) and the Changing Face of School Security Podcast can help schools understand and navigate these regulations to create a safer, more inclusive environment for everyone in our schools.
–Paul Timm, PSP, Director of Education Safety, Allegion

In 2024, STEM and STEAM education are more critical than ever, with technologies like AI, drones, 3D printing, and virtual reality becoming integral to our daily lives and future careers. AI is transforming education by enabling personalized learning experiences and more effective assessment methods. Drones are revolutionizing industries such as construction and agriculture, offering innovative ways to interact with and understand our environment. Meanwhile, 3D printing is unlocking new possibilities in creation, from home projects to large-scale industrial applications. Virtual reality is reshaping how we learn, work, and play, providing immersive experiences that push the boundaries of traditional education. To prepare students for this rapidly evolving technological landscape, schools and educators will be required to prioritize STEM and STEAM education. Even if schools are not fully equipped to teach these emerging topics, there are numerous free resources available to help bridge the gap. Nvidia offers free courses on AI, making cutting-edge knowledge accessible to students and educators alike. Additionally, platforms like YouTube host a wealth of educational content, with experts providing in-depth explanations of these technologies and insights into the jobs of the future. By taking advantage of these resources, we can ensure that the next generation is ready to innovate and thrive in a tech-driven world.
–Bobby Torres, Chief Relationship Officer, 302 Interactive

With an increasing number of schools limiting personal device usage during the school day, I foresee a shift in education toward teaching more interpersonal skills and incorporating more hands-on activities. One of my favorite activities is having students make powered paper airplanes with the POWERUP 2.0 Airplane Kit. It’s a great hands-on activity with a technology element that helps students learn STEM-related concepts, the engineering process, and collaboration skills.
–Josh Underwood, Physics and Aviation Teacher, Mason County High School

As educators prepare for the new school year, we must incorporate scientific probeware into STEM classrooms to enhance student engagement and learning. Probeware, which combines sensors and software to collect and analyze data in real-time, offers a practical approach to teaching science and technology. I plan on using probeware in all my courses, from AP Chemistry to Organic Chemistry to Forensics, as students conduct captivating experiments in colorimetry, melting-point analysis, gas pressure inquiry, gas chromatography, and more. The use of this technology will enable students to engage in active learning and real-time data collection, visualize with graphs, explore complex phenomena, and develop important scientific skills.
–Diane M. Vrobel, Ed. D., Science Teacher, Archbishop Hoban High School and Member, Vernier Trendsetter Community

As we look towards the 2024-2025 school year, there’s a pressing need to integrate career exploration and employability skills into core academic subjects, starting as early as middle school. This change is crucial given the rapidly evolving job market, where an estimated 375 million workers worldwide will need to switch occupational categories by 2030. Educational systems should focus on developing students’ career adaptability skills and future time perspective, fostering a more holistic approach that balances academic knowledge with practical workplace competencies. However, significant challenges remain in equipping teachers with the necessary tools and resources to effectively incorporate these elements into their daily instruction across all subject areas, highlighting the gap between current practices and the imperative for change to ensure students are truly prepared for their futures. 
—Ian Zhu, CEO and Founder, SchoolJoy 

Key points:

• A creative and flexible approach makes the ELA classroom engaging
• 4 ways to encourage play in education
• How to use PBL with makerspaces across your curriculum
• For more news on instructional trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

As a former teacher and current teacher trainer, I have seen first-hand how challenging it can be to create English language arts (ELA) lessons that deeply engage students. While novels are engrossing for some students, teachers who use a variety of texts and media sources engage more students and address a broader range of topics and reading standards.

Supplementing novels with a variety of informational texts and primary sources that offer historical and modern context helps students make sense of the novels’ settings and characters as they connect the literature to the larger world. These connections make students more interested in the stories they read, enhancing their overall classroom engagement. If you then encourage students to research topics that interest them, they’ll be even more motivated to read and write–and they may even have some fun.

Here are four fun ways to get students engaged that worked for me in my classroom:

1. Helping students uncover their passions

I once had a student who insisted on writing her research paper on body piercings. I wasn’t convinced this would make a strong topic, so I suggested she consider other ideas. She was determined, though, and ended up delivering one of the most impressive research papers I’ve ever read. It covered a range of insights about body piercings, including how different religious cultures apply them and how they may benefit migraine sufferers. I genuinely learned several things from her paper, while she learned about research and writing because she was focused on a topic she was passionate about.

To create papers like this, students need the autonomy to discover and explore resources about a topic that interests them. In inquiry-based classrooms, teachers guide students through the research process and allow them to share their knowledge on their chosen subject. Teachers ask questions to encourage students to dig deeper, and then provide the variety of texts they need to conduct their research most effectively. 

2. Giving students multiple points of entry

Offering access to novels, informational texts, primary sources, and audio resources such as podcasts gives students multiple ways to increase their understanding and appreciation of topics that interest them. (I would recommend listening to podcast episodes before assigning them to make sure they’re age-appropriate.)

Another point of entry for students is learning about the experiences of their peers, so when I taught eighth grade, I always assigned The Outsiders. This novel by S. E. Hinton is about teenagers living on two sides of Tulsa, Oklahoma, during the 1960s. While the novel is relatable to teenagers of any generation, the specific setting of Tulsa in the 1960s requires additional context about the historical background of the turbulent 1960s for students to grasp the novel’s intricacies. The moon landing, the Vietnam War, the explosion of youth culture, Woodstock, and the Civil Rights Movement all contribute to the novel’s background. Incorporating added historical context enhances how students understood the novel.

Another book I used to teach is Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science. This nonfiction book chronicles the story of a man who was working on the railroad when he suffered a horrible brain injury that had a profound impact on his personality. Adding informational texts about the history of the medical profession, including previously accepted (now debunked) practices such as phrenology, gave students a historical perspective on medical knowledge. It opened up engaging dialogues about how far the medical field has come and where it might go. The subject matter helped students make connections across subjects, including science and math, adding to their engagement and excitement.

3. How fun days can be rigorous, too

Balancing rigor and fun is an ongoing challenge for many teachers. One way I did this was by making Fridays “fun days” that connected everything we did to a theme. For example, I stumbled upon a gorgeous sweater with a goose on it that inspired me to do an entire day focused on the topic of geese.

The students engaged in goose-related activities all day, including reading Aesop’s The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. During a math lesson, they answered questions such as, “How much would a golden egg sell for today?” To answer the question, students needed to figure out the size of the average goose egg and then solve for mass and volume, considering the current value of gold. We did a gallery walk where students identified phrases and idioms that use the word “goose.” Even the informational texts we read were goose-centric.

To ensure students completed these lessons on time, I set up timed stations. The day went quickly. Students were so engaged in learning how geese flying over mountains ride the thermal updrafts like roller coasters that they didn’t quite realize how much time they had spent practicing important skills such as math, close reading, and critical thinking.

4. Looking beyond the research paper

It’s typical for ELA students to submit a final paper showcasing their ability to make an argument based on their interpretation of various texts. However, giving students options aside from a research paper can significantly increase student engagement. For example, I gave students a “choice board” that invited them to take a creative approach to showing their understanding of a novel. Some students created a playlist to accompany The Outsiders, choosing songs as a backdrop for specific scenes and explaining their reasoning. Others painted or drew a picture. Still others recorded a podcast episode on a particular scene or topic of interest relevant to the novel.

Having students participate in oral discussions is another fun way to enhance their understanding. I have held Socratic debates in my classroom, assigning students to develop and present arguments in front of an audience. Unlike a traditional speech format, debates force students to think on their feet and anticipate the arguments their opponents might make so they can counter them in real time.Allowing students to develop their debate topics can ease any nervousness they may feel about speaking in front of the class. They’ll be confident in the knowledge they have gained about a topic of their choosing.

I believe that every student has something–whether it’s a research topic or a way of showing what they know–that will get them excited about learning. When creative and flexible teachers discover that thing and provide the tools and support to explore it, the ELA classroom is a fun place for everyone.

Key points:

• Piaget’s theory emphasizes developmental readiness and individualized instruction
• 5 educators share insights into teaching and learning
• Equitable learning with small-group instruction and student-tracking
• For more news on instructional strategies, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, it is important to understand how students think and learn so as to be able to teach effectively. Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, profoundly impacted educational theory with his comprehensive theory of cognitive development. His work was developed in the mid-20th century, but it remains highly relevant and influential in today’s classrooms.

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Piaget proposed that children move through four distinct stages of cognitive development. Each stage represents a different way of thinking and understanding the world. The concepts can be applied in the classroom.

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years)

In the sensorimotor stage, infants learn about the world through their senses and actions. This stage is characterized by the development of object permanence, which is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.

In early education, incorporating sensory activities and interactive play can greatly benefit infants and toddlers. Sensory experiences (i.e., tactile play with different textures, auditory stimulation through music, and visual exploration with bright colors and shapes) help stimulate and develop the senses of infants and toddlers. Additionally, engaging them in interactive play activities (i.e., peek-a-boo) encourages movement and interaction, which aids in developing essential cognitive skills, such as object permanence.

2. Preoperational stage (2-7 years old)

During the preoperational stage, children begin to use language and think symbolically, but their thinking is still intuitive and egocentric. They struggle with understanding the perspective of others and exhibit centration, and focus on one aspect of a situation at a time.

In early childhood education, fostering language development and utilizing play-based learning are essential. Language skills can be nurtured through storytelling, singing, and conversations, which encourages children to express their thoughts and feelings. Play-based learning (i.e., role-playing games and imaginative play) helps children explore different perspectives and scenarios. Additionally, using concrete examples through visual aids and hands-on activities ensures that abstract concepts are made tangible and relatable thereby enhancing understanding and retention.

3. Concrete operational stage (7-11 years old)

In the concrete operational stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events. They understand the concepts of conservation, classification, and seriation, and can perform mental operations, but their thinking is still grounded in concrete experiences.

In elementary education, incorporating hands-on activities, promoting group work, and using visual aids are crucial for effective learning. Hands-on activities (i.e., experiments, manipulatives, and real-world problem-solving tasks) require logical thinking and reasoning, which helps students grasp complex concepts. Group work fosters collaborative learning through projects and discussions, thereby encouraging students to consider different viewpoints and ideas. Additionally, visual aids like charts, diagrams, and models help students understand and organize information, making learning more accessible and engaging.

4. Formal operational stage (12 years and up)

In the formal operational stage, adolescents develop the ability to think abstractly, reason logically, and plan systematically. They can consider hypothetical situations and use deductive reasoning.

In secondary education, challenging students with abstract thinking, encouraging debate and discussion, and assigning independent projects are key strategies for promoting deeper learning. Engaging students with problems that require abstract thinking (i.e., algebraic equations, scientific theories, and philosophical questions) helps develop their analytical skills. Debates and discussions on complex topics enhance critical thinking and reasoning abilities. Furthermore, assigning independent research projects that necessitate planning, investigation, and synthesis of information fosters self-directed learning and comprehensive understanding.

Integrating Piaget’s theory into modern classrooms

Piaget’s theory emphasizes the importance of developmental readiness and individualized instruction. To integrate his principles into modern classrooms, educators can employ several strategies. First, differentiated instruction recognizes that students are at different developmental stages and tailors instruction to meet their individual needs. This approach provides a variety of activities and assignments that cater to different learning styles and levels of cognitive development. Active learning is another key strategy, which involves students in hands-on activities, experiments, and interactive lessons to solidify new concepts and foster deeper understanding.

Scaffolding offers support and guidance as students learn new concepts so as to gradually reduce assistance as they become more proficient, which allows them to develop independence and confidence. Formative assessment is crucial for monitoring students’ progress and understanding, thereby providing regular feedback to identify areas where additional support or challenges are needed. Lastly, reflective practice fosters a classroom environment that encourages students to think deeper, ask questions, and explore different problem-solving strategies, promoting deeper cognitive engagement and self-awareness.

In summary, it is important to understand Piaget’s theory of cognitive development because it provides valuable insights into how students think and how they learn. By applying these principles, teachers can create more effective, engaging, and developmentally appropriate learning experiences. Embracing the stages of cognitive development ensures that instruction meets students where they are, thereby fostering growth and maximizing their potential. As educators, recognizing and responding to the cognitive needs of our students is key to nurturing their intellectual and emotional development so as to pave the way for lifelong learning and success.

Key points:

• Playful learning helps students work together and share ideas more effectively
• Michigan Virtual survey highlights K-12 educators’ AI beliefs, needs
• Purposeful play helps kids learn–here’s how to integrate it
• For more news on AI in education, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

In the year and half since the launch of ChatGPT, AI-powered edtech tools have flooded the market–but most, if not all, of these products may be missing out on the most exciting and creative ways to use AI in the classroom.

While 89 percent of teachers reported in a recent survey that they believe generative AI will have an impact on teaching, recent reporting in the Wall Street Journal and The74 have rightly identified some of AI’s limitations in education, questioning the technology’s ability to serve as, for example, an effective tutor. But is asking generative AI to do math or engage students in a tutoring relationship really the best way to use this incredibly powerful technology? We are overlooking simpler but more effective ways to use AI in the classroom. 

As an edtech researcher and designer who has spent the last 15 years studying how technology can bridge the gap between learning and play, I’m struck by the ways in which generative AI can bring creativity and playfulness to the classroom–a notion that I know runs counter to some of the current critiques.

Amplifying creativity and collaboration with AI

My former colleague and MIT professor Mitch Resnick bemoans the current uses of AI in education, which aim to replicate conventional teaching methods by focusing on problems that have a right answer. For example, answers provided by generative AI chatbots can sometimes be misleading when it comes to subjects like math, where a student’s solution to a problem is either right or wrong. “AskingChatGPT to do math is sort of like asking a goldfish to ride a bicycle–it’s just not what ChatGPT is for,” observed Yale professor Tom McCoy.

Instead of replicating current instructional methods and tasks, there’s tremendous potential to leverage generative AI in scenarios where students can creatively solve meaningful problems that don’t have a known answer. Zenny Ulloa, a curriculum support specialist at Miami-Dade County public schools, told me at ISTELive 24 that part of this creative learning process should require students to explain how they used ChatGPT or other AI tools. For instance, instead of banning tools like ChatGPT for essay writing, teachers can encourage students to use AI in their work but clearly document how their essays evolved through multiple drafts. Students then engage in “intelligence augmentation,” or the enhancement of human intelligence through AI tools.

Resnick calls for more opportunities for students to collaborate by using AI systems to support real-world team-based projects. This might happen, for example, when students work together as a team but ask AI questions to jumpstart their own brainstorming on a topic. Then, students can evaluate the AI tool’s suggestions and bounce ideas off one another to build on AI’s suggestions. In this type of exercise, AI provides a scaffolding for student collaboration–not a replacement.

When used creatively and collaboratively, AI can help students learn more than just facts. It can teach them important skills for the future, like working well with others and using new technologies effectively.

The next generation of playful learning

A creative and collaborative approach to AI aligns with “playful learning” teaching methods, in which learners are allowed to explore, experiment, be curious, and try new things in a low-stakes environment. Research shows that playful learning helps students work together and share ideas more effectively. Using AI playfully in the classrooms helps students construct an understanding of the technology while they build soft skills.

So what might playful learning with AI tools look like in practice? For one, it can involve students getting hands-on with AI. In my graduate-level education course, I gave students the opportunity to create their own AI applications and test them out with teachers or learners. Students used the PlayLab platform to experiment with and iterate on their ideas, with projects like an inquiry-based guessing game for students and a tool to make lessons more culturally relevant for teachers. By building new tools with AI, rather than using existing AI tools, my students had a deeper learning experience, enhancing their understanding of not only what AI can do, but also what teaching and learning mean to them. 

Future-ready learning through playful AI

Imagine a history class where students use AI to generate images of historical figures or events, then work together to analyze the accuracy and biases in these depictions. Or a science class where AI helps students visualize complex molecular structures, allowing them to manipulate and explore these models in ways previously impossible. These examples show how AI can enhance learning experiences, making them more engaging and interactive.

While the AI-powered features already built into edtech tools are certainly useful, they often mask the AI technology behind an interface and focus on product over process. A more hands-on approach would allow students to experiment directly with AI, learning through trial and error. For example, students could try to “outsmart” AI by finding creative ways to ask questions that challenge its limitations, thereby gaining a deeper understanding of both the technology’s capabilities–and flaws.

While it’s challenging to change how teachers think about education, this playful approach is part of a much needed rethinking of what education should be and how it can best prepare students for a rapidly-changing future. The combination of playful learning and AI tools has the potential to empower learners and build future-ready skills, putting them in charge of their own learning now and throughout their lives. Let’s get creative instead of focusing on the conventional. 

Key points:

• PBL and maker education offer a great change for deeper learning and student engagement
• PBL isn’t used enough–let’s change that
• Infusing PBL with edtech to enhance collaboration, critical thinking
• For more news on PBL, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Project-based learning (PBL) has many definitions, but at its core, it is a teaching method through which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.

Combining PBL with makerspaces (also called maker education) gives educators an infinite number of projects, assignments, and activities that engage students and truly immerse them in learning.

The best part? It’s possible to combine PBL and maker education across the curriculum–and during a must-see ISTELive 24 session, Nicholas Provenzano, a teacher, technology coordinator, and makerspace director at University Liggett School in Michigan, demonstrated just how to do it. Provenzano is also the 2013 winner of ISTE’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

Maker education is when a person can demonstrate understanding through the creation of an artifact. It could be a video, a photo essay, a 3D rendering, or even an interpretive dance performance.

With PBL, “the kids do a significant portion of the heavy lifting–that’s how I look at it,” Provenzano said, noting that students should do at least 51 percent of the work. “It’s not you speaking at them for 45 minutes and telling them to work on their projects. It should be, ‘This is the topic–what interests you, what do you want to dive deeper into? Here’s a rough outline of what you need to accomplish–now share it with me by creating something.’”

This is where PBL and maker education intersect.

Why maker education?

1. Mental health: Research shows that being creative through the arts helps heal the mind and body. Educators talk about writing across the curriculum–what about arts across the curriculum?
2. Creativity: Creativity leads us in directions we wouldn’t necessarily see or know to go.
3. Engagement: “You won’t have a problem with a kid on his phone if he’s working on an awesome project he’s excited about. We want that engagement,” Provenzano said.

“People always assume that when you do PBL, the teacher doesn’t do anything,” he noted. “You’ll log more steps moving around your classroom with PBL than anything else, if you’re doing it right.”

Now, projects are nothing new–students have made dioramas, tri-fold poster board displays, and egg drop challenge designs for decades. But combining PBL with maker education leads to fully engaged students who are creating and problem-solving.

Using examples from his own school, Provenzano offered a look at just a few PBL and maker education projects students have created, including:

• A rap about the themes, symbolism, and other elements of The Great Gatsby
• An interpretive dance linking characters from The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye
• A photo essay using gothic elements to illustrate the basic tenets of gothic American literature
• Using a 3D design program to redesign the Great Sphinx of Giza
• Recording a Spanish-language version of SpongeBob SquarePants in front of a green screen
• Using Sphero RVR+ programmable robot to defuse a “bomb”

“The projects are infinite,” he noted, adding that teachers can use SchoolAI for project ideas and details.

“Makerspace PBL is all about culture,” he said. “Do your students feel safe to build? Do your students feel safe to screw up? If you don’t have failure built into your maker education and your PBL system, just forget it. I don’t want a kid to not try an idea because they won’t get the A. Embracing those failures has to be part of your culture.”

Tools and resources to support PBL and maker education:

• Book Creator: A great tool for organizing portfolios and keeping information together
• SeeSaw: Offers a great introduction to portfolios, and students can document online and offline work
• Cardboard and duct tape: These will always be essentials in a makerspace
• Makedo: Tools for students and cardboard can connect cardboard without tape
• Strawbees: Offers tools and building components for a STEAM classroom
• Snorkl: An AI tool with which students record and share their reasoning, then receive
  instant feedback to drive deep and meaningful learning
• MakeyMakey: Great if you’re into coding and physical computing
• Microbit: Helpful for coding, and physical computing; also offers a virtual option
• 3D printers: Students can design and bring to life their own ideas
• Soundtrap for Education: For podcasting and music-making
• Magic School: Another AI tool to help educators
• Figma/Figjam: Figma and FigJam are design and collaboration software students and educators can use to ideate, create, and share work
• Minecraft EDU: A beloved sandbox game that is so much more than a game
• MadeCode Arcade: Students can create their own arcade games
• SchoolAI: Great for generating project ideas and details

Provenzano offered a great tip about misguided worry that teaching may be replaced by AI and AI teaching tools: “If you can be replaced by AI, you should be. If you’re just showing up and playing videos every day–yes, YouTube should replace you.”

Key points:

• A rotation-based approach ensures students receive equitable learning opportunities
• 5 educators share insights into teaching and learning
• Student engagement requires more than edtech tools
• For more news on classroom learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

In the realm of education, balancing instructional strategies like small-group instruction and student-tracking presents both challenges and opportunities for fostering equitable learning environments.

While small-group instruction offers personalized learning experiences, student-tracking aims to tailor instruction based on abilities. However, both approaches have raised concerns regarding inequity and stigmatization. As an educator, navigating these complexities led me to employ a rotation-based approach that integrates both strategies to ensure all my students receive equitable learning opportunities over the academic year.

My approach was informed by recognizing the inevitability of initial low performance data, which I attributed to factors like the summer slide. I prioritized targeted support and intervention strategies to address the diverse needs of students from the outset and aimed to mitigate learning loss and promote academic growth. Student-tracking, while offering tailored instruction, has been subject to criticism for perpetuating inequality and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives. Conversely, the personalized approach to small-group instruction fosters deeper engagement but may pose challenges in managing multiple groups and ensuring equitable access to resources.

To address these concerns, I implemented a rotation-based model where each quarter focused on a different student group. This approach allowed for tailored instruction while ensuring all students received the same amount of instructional time by the year’s end. Specifically, I may have seen one group for more minutes during the first quarter, but then saw that group for fewer minutes in a future quarter. By the end of the school year, each group was seen for the same number of minutes (more or less).

Flexibility and adaptability were crucial in adjusting instruction duration to meet the evolving needs of each group. By embracing inclusivity and flexibility, I aimed to foster an environment where every student felt valued and supported in their learning journey. By integrating both small-group instruction and student-tracking within a rotation-based framework, I aimed to strike a balance between personalized learning and equitable access to educational opportunities. This approach allowed me to address the diverse needs of my students while minimizing the potential for stigmatization or exclusion. Throughout the school year, the rotation-based model facilitated a dynamic learning environment where students received targeted instruction tailored to their individual needs. Whether focusing on remediation, enrichment, or skill development, each group received the attention and support necessary for academic growth.

Upon reflection, the outcomes of this strategy have been overwhelmingly positive. Through dedicated efforts and personalized support, students experienced significant growth across various domains. Notably, there was an overall typical growth of about 144 percent in mathematical performance amongst my fifth graders; the end of year data also revealed that my students went from 0 percent proficient to 71.4 percent proficient or nearing proficiency. This indicates the effectiveness of the implemented strategies.

This growth is a testament to the commitment of both students and educators alike and demonstrates the power of targeted interventions and a supportive learning environment in fostering progress and achievement. The journey of implementing tailored strategies and providing individualized support has yielded remarkable outcomes. Witnessing tangible growth in academic performance (with an overall mathematical increase of 144 percent) highlights the effectiveness of this effort. These results reaffirm the power of personalized education and the importance of fostering a nurturing learning environment via intentionality.

Key points:

• Student engagement and achievement remain paramount for educators
• 4 ways to encourage play in education
• Educators love their edtech, but want more training
• For more news on teaching, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

The end of the school year naturally inspires a period of reflection among educators, particularly as we close the door on a year that saw challenges around equity, continued learning gaps, and uncertain funding with ESSER’s impending expiration.

But it’s not all bad–educators found success as they dedicated their efforts to improving student engagement and achievement, creating community-based approaches to learning, and inspiring students to become lifelong learners.

Here’s what educators have to say about the 2023-2024 school year:

Improving engagement and test scores with phenomena-based curricula
April Pence, Edison High School

Last year was my first time using phenomena-based units aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in chemistry. As with any big change, there were some ups and downs, but overall I saw greater engagement. This year, with the support of my team, I’ve improved my timing, which has smoothed the bumps I encountered last year, and engagement is even greater. I feel like my students understand chemistry better, our school is testing well above the state average in science, and I’ve even had more students asking about how they can continue in the sciences than in previous years because they feel more comfortable with the material.

I know that, as a teacher, I bring energy into the classroom, but so do my students–and when they are excited about the topic, we all get energized. I am definitely one of those teachers who loves classroom discussion, so I didn’t have to change much to bring more of it into the classroom, but since I began using Kognity’s phenomena-based curricula, I’ve been able to adapt instruction to share more real-life examples and experiences. We have been discussing wildfires, for example, and connecting them to combustion by discussing what fuels and limits a fire, and also connecting them to climate change.

My students talk more than they used to in class because they know I will ask the same driving question about every topic throughout the unit. They know what to expect, and start thinking, “How does this all connect?” before I even ask. They’re more willing to think ahead and link their ideas to each concept instead of waiting for me to prod them forward.

I was terrified of the switch to phenomena-based curricula and NGSS, but two years on the other side of it, I would tell other teachers who are about to make the change not to be afraid. If you work into it gradually, have a collaborative team, and are willing to put in some work, it makes a big positive difference in the long run, and it won’t just be better for your students. It has renewed my excitement for teaching because my students feel connected to the material. I have more confidence in my instruction because they aren’t always asking, “Why are we learning this?” Students already see the connection and understand why it’s important.

April Pence is science teacher and co-department coordinator at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, Calif. She can be reached at apence@hbuhsd.edu.

A culture of continuous learning
Wendy W. Amato, K12 Coalition–Teaching Channel

As the 2023–2024 school year winds down, I find myself thinking about how educators are models for students, whether or not they are in a classroom. When we commit to participating in a culture of continuous learning, we are living out phrases like, “It’s okay not to know,” “Everyone has things they are still learning,” or ,“We all make mistakes.” We also get to show our own curiosity, struggles, and successes, which are all natural parts of learning, regardless of our stage in life or the role we play.

Continuous learning doesn’t always mean being enrolled as a student in a formal class. Learning is about growth, reflection, and improvement. It is anchored in exploring new ideas, testing our knowledge, and applying information in new contexts. Learning can happen in many ways! Some of my favorite ways include using video for self-reflection and for peer feedback. Even a few moments of video can provide rich substance that can accelerate my learning as an educator. I can evaluate how clearly I give directions, how purposefully I manage time, how meaningfully I relay the significance of the work, or whether I call on students equitably.

Ultimately, though, good teaching is really only measured in student learning outcomes. As I reflect on the past school year, my advice for teachers is to prioritize the work that makes the greatest impact on your students’ progress toward their learning goals. Is it more important for them to get their work in by a certain deadline than it is for them to take the time to understand the concepts? Is it more important to finish all the problems, rather than getting through them with accuracy? And as you ask yourself all these questions, remember to breathe. Remember that it’s okay to pause when you need to, to ask for help, and to make changes that support not only continuous learning but also your long-term wellness.

Wendy W. Amato is the chief academic officer for K12 Coalition—Teaching Channel. She holds a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Virginia, where she continues as an instructor in the School of Education and Human Development. Prior to her doctoral work, she served as an administrator and classroom teacher in a K–12 program. Her publications, presentations, and research interests center on culturally sustaining pedagogies and teacher formation. She drinks a lot of coffee and plays pickleball. She can be reached at wendy.amato@k12coalition.com.

Making school engaging for today’s students (and teachers)
Nancy Chung, Orchard Hills School

This year I’ve observed the lasting impact of the year-and-a-half of remote learning. During that time, students didn’t have the opportunity to develop strong learning routines and academic stamina. As a result, many of them seem to crave constant stimulation and entertainment to stay engaged. In response, I’ve adapted my teaching approach to make assignments more interactive. By weaving technology and art into my lessons across the curriculum, I am tapping into more modalities of learners and gaining more interest.

It has taken a good bit of trial and error to find what truly yields results, and I’ve had to be adaptable and flexible in finding the most effective ways to foster student growth.

These days, I’m assigning far less homework and have shifted away from busywork toward more purposeful and enriching activities. I’ve significantly reduced my reliance on physical documents, transitioning the majority of my assignments to digital formats. This has not only streamlined processes but also increased student engagement by offering them a more appealing way to learn. To help my students develop essential skills like critical thinking, collaborative teamwork, effective communication, and creativity, I actively promote various small-group activities. I get my students fired up about digital storytelling. We start by mapping everything out–everyone gets a specific role in the team. Then they put together a tight little storyboard to visualize their story. After that, it’s showtime! They bring that storyboard to life by producing a short film to teach their topic to the rest of the class. It’s a fun way for them to get creative, work together, and really dig deep into the subject matter.

As I’ve made these changes, I’ve discovered significant advantages. Spending less time grading piles of busywork has left me more energy to enhance my teaching and enabled me to craft interactive lessons tailored to my students, creating a more engaging learning experience for all. My students are diving deeper into understanding the standards in a fun memorable way, making this a win-win situation for all.

Nancy Chung is a 5th-grade teacher at Orchard Hills School and host of The Schoolyard Podcast by School Specialty. She can be reached at fancynancyin5th@gmail.com.   

Using disruption as an opportunity to build a community-based approach to math
Courtney Smith, Heritage Elementary School

At Heritage Elementary, a K-5 school in Tustin, CA, our 2023–2024 academic year was interrupted when a nearby fire forced us to temporarily close our campus and relocate students and teachers to various host sites. When we were finally able to return to campus, we greeted students and teachers with a number of newly implemented strategies.

These included deeper integration of ST Math, which has been a game-changer. As the principal, I’ve observed a significant surge in student engagement and math achievement levels across all grade levels. Students are not just passively learning math; they’re actively participating.

The shift towards deeper understanding and application of math concepts is palpable across the board. When introduced to new topics, students draw from their experiences, demonstrating a solid grasp of the material.

To further reinforce this commitment to engagement and learning beyond the traditional classroom setting, we’re building a community-based math culture through initiatives like the “ST Math Lunch Bunch,” where I meet with students each Friday to guide them on their math journey as they eat lunch and complete puzzles, and a special recognition during our Friday flag ceremony for students who have completed 100 percent of their math puzzles.

With students more independently engaged in their learning, teachers have found themselves with increased opportunities for targeted interventions and individualized support. This shift has translated into tangible improvements, as evidenced by the correlation between ST Math usage and higher STAR growth points.

Looking ahead, I anticipate these positive trends to continue into the next school year. With continued focus on personalized instruction, I foresee further advancements in student achievement and overall academic growth across all grade levels.

My advice to educators facing the sort of disruption we have is to use it as a catalyst for student engagement and learning. By leveraging innovative technology tools effectively and creating intentional learning environments, educators can empower students across all grade levels to take ownership of their learning journey, ultimately leading to improved outcomes and academic success.

Courtney Smith is the principal of Heritage Elementary School in the Tustin Unified School District (TUSD). She began her career in TUSD teaching in a magnet school for 20 years. She has also been an instructional coach and an intervention specialist. Among her many accomplishments, Smith was named TUSD Teacher of the Year and Orange County Teacher of the Year in 2016, was a California Teacher of the Year nominee in 2017, and was named a 2024 top five leader in Orange County by OC Parenting Magazine. She can be reached at csmith@tustin.k12.ca.us.

Key points:

• Incorporating nature into learning engages students in surprising ways
• Outdoor classrooms should outlast COVID
• How outdoor learning spaces lead to STEM engagement
• For more news on outdoor learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

I live in the state of Michigan, which means that a large chunk of the year is dominated by cold, dreary weather. I’ve noticed that my students tend to lack energy during these months. There’s a kind of blanket lethargy that spreads across the classroom and makes it difficult for them to engage with lessons. Then, on the first sunny day of spring, everything changes. All that latent energy suddenly explodes, and my once sleepy students are now bouncing off the classroom walls with unrestrained excitement.

I’ve found this experience to be quite revealing. Despite the growing urbanization of our society, we humans are still deeply tied to the cycles of nature. As such, I believe the solution for curbing our students’ excess energy lies in reconnecting them with the outdoors.

This might sound daunting, especially if you live in a city where green spaces are few and far between. However, I’ve devised four simple methods for incorporating nature into existing science lessons that foster student curiosity and creativity.   

Here are four strategies that will bring nature’s power to your classroom:

1. Utilize outdoor environments: Taking students outdoors doesn’t necessarily mean taking them into a forest.A zoo, an aquarium, a botanical garden, even a local park can be a source of nature that can help students gain a new perspective on the world. These spaces allow students to experience different plants and animals, which can be leveraged into existing science lessons. For instance, a local garden could serve as the ideal setting for a lesson on pollination and pollinators, while an aquarium could be used to teach students about different marine ecosystems and how animals adapt to survive in their surroundings.      
2. Bringing nature INTO the classroom: Is it raining outside? Or are there other reasons it’s just not feasible to go outside? That is OK! Bring nature to your students inside the classroom by establishing an indoor nature center that features specimens, artifacts, and models representing local flora and fauna. This can be a great way to teach students about the unique species native to their state, and by encouraging them to bring in specimens of their own, you get them to invest in their own learning.
3. Take a virtual field trip: Virtual resources became popular during the 2020 pandemic, and many offer students the chance to explore wild environments from the safety of their classroom. Take advantage of wildlife cameras that feature African watering holes or lush tropical forests. Have students take notes on what they observe, as well as how different animals interact with each other. These tools also make for great background content for classroom transitions, work time, or brain breaks! 
4. Use project-based learning: Through project-based learning (PBL), students work on hands-on, real-world projects that are relevant and interesting to them, fostering a deeper connection to the subject matter. For instance, the Blue Apple project, State of Sustainability, tasks students with designing a book about their state that informs readers about how small changes can develop a more sustainable world. It’s a practical lesson that shows students that they can make a real difference in their community!

Incorporating nature into science lessons not only enriches students’ learning experience but also fosters a meaningful connection with the environment. This spring, lead your students into the wild green yonder and show them just how interconnected this world of ours truly is. Then step back and let their curiosity and creativity do the rest!

Key points:

• Putting play into lessons is easy if teachers get creative
• 4 keys for unlocking student curiosity and critical thinking
• 6 trends to watch in K-12 schools in 2024
• For more news on play in learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

As a longtime educator, I’ve witnessed firsthand the incredible benefits that play can have in a K–8 classroom. Unstructured play is how students learn to interact with the world around them. It’s what allows them to master social skills and shapes their communication, cooperation, and responsible decision-making abilities.

A quick Google search on the topic will confirm that play is a primary vehicle for learning, so naturally, teachers should make a point to include plenty of it in their weekly lesson plans. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. It’s all too easy for modern education to become locked into rigid policies and learning models. 

Thankfully, injecting play into lessons can be a simple process if educators are willing to get creative. Here are just a few ideas that have helped me incorporate fun and curiosity into my students’ lessons:

• Gamification: Gamification is when educators use game mechanics in non-gaming situations to improve student engagement and encourage greater participation. For example, when teaching students their multiplication figures, an educator could have them play dice games that require multiplying instead of adding the numbers to determine how far to move. Another strategy is to develop “levels” of difficulty that mimic the mechanics of modern video games. Sometimes these simple strategies are all that’s needed to get students more invested in the content. 
  
• Curiosity hour: Before engaging in an investigation, set up several stations where students can experiment, explore, and engage in open-ended play. Allow them to “mess about” with the materials in an unstructured way and write down any stray thoughts or questions that might come to mind. This helps them to gain a hands-on understanding of how the materials work while encouraging them to explore and follow their curiosity.
  
• Outdoor discoveries: Never underestimate the power of the great outdoors!Take students on a walk outside in nature–but equip them with clipboards and paper so they can collect the things their walk inspires them to wonder about. Then, let them do research to satisfy their curiosity. You could even send students on an outdoor scavenger hunt and encourage them to find things that connect with the academic content you’re learning.
  
• Artificial intelligence: Educators should not overlook the growing presence of artificial intelligence in schools.Our students will likely graduate into a world where AI tools like ChatGPT are commonplace. As such, educators should incorporate AI into lessons as a means of fostering play while also teaching students about emerging technology. Consider having an AI system like ChatGPT generate a response to something you’d like your students to do–and then challenge them to make it BETTER. This closely mimics an essential skill for students to develop and prepares them for future challenges in an AI-driven world.

When we incorporate play into K-8 education, we teach students to invest in themselves and enjoy the learning process. Play enriches their experience, supporting their cognitive, social, and emotional development. So, let’s embrace positive play in education and empower students by laying a strong foundation for their lifelong success.

Key points:

• It’s critical to keep students’ minds working over summer break
• 11 resources to avoid the summer slide
• 5 keys to a successful summer reading initiative
• For more news on learning loss, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

When the school year ends, it can be hard to tell who’s more excited for summer vacation: teachers or students. While it can be easy for both camps to slip out of routine over the summer break, it’s important that students don’t get out of the habit of learning, lest they suffer learning loss.

A 2020 study shows that the average student loses 17 to 34 percent of their learning gains over the summer break–and this is a phenomenon that’s been studied since the early 1900s. While no child wants to study over the break, there are fun and creative ways to encourage students (and their parents) to practice the skills they learned without sitting down and studying.

Keep them reading

Students in grades 3-5 often lose an average of 20 percent of the reading progress they made during the previous year, so it’s vital that they choose to keep reading even when school’s not in session. When students read books they enjoy and that engage them over the summer break, they build stronger skills and feel more confident and motivated.

Many teachers and parents turn to reading programs that use research-based instruction (such as those from the Institute of Reading Development), which have been found to be effective in building reading skills over the summer. These programs also encourage students to practice the age-appropriate skills they learned in school so they don’t fall behind when classes resume in the fall. Plus, while this isn’t always the case in school, summer reading can be just for pleasure; if students find books they enjoy and that engage them, they’ll be more inclined to practice their reading skills because they’ll like what they’re reading.

Enroll them in summer programs

Whether it’s a daytime adventure or sleepaway camp, enrolling students of all ages in summer programs will ensure they’re engaged in learning even when school’s not in session. Many organizations offer summer programs for learners of all ages, covering everything from math and science to language and literature, sports and medicine, and more.

Selecting a summer program can be daunting. However, gravitating toward programs that combine learning opportunities with areas of a student’s interest will ensure they remain engaged with the material and look forward to attending the program all summer long. Many programs for middle and high school students will also offer them a peek into what life on a college campus is like, so if a young learner is already thinking about that next step, this could be a fantastic opportunity for them to get excited about their future.

Embrace technology

While many parents try their best to keep children from spending the entire summer on their computers, tablets, or phones, games and apps can be a powerful tool for combating learning loss. Platforms like Storygraph encourage readers to maintain a reading streak (reading a certain number of pages in a day or books in a week), apps like Duolingo reward students for practicing a new language every day, and hundreds of free games for mobile devices encourage math, language, and science skills–while also being so fun that students won’t realize they’re actually learning.

For older students, consider enrolling them in an online course training them in a skill like graphic or web design. Self-paced courses often empower teenage learners to learn at their own pace while also preparing them with applicable skills they could leverage in classes, extracurriculars, or even in their future workplace.

Combating summer learning loss starts the moment school gets out. By encouraging students to continue reading, enrolling them in enriching, educational summer programs, and embracing technology and all its ongoing learning opportunities, parents and teachers alike will be rewarded with lower learning loss rates even after their students are back in the classroom.

Key points:

• Educators are the essential ingredient in today’s classrooms–here’s what they’re doing to help students succeed
• 6 trends to watch in K-12 schools in 2024
• Student engagement requires more than edtech tools
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Educators today face myriad challenges in their classrooms, including low student engagement, staffing issues, funding shortages, and gaps in opportunity and access.

But despite these challenges, there are bright spots in teaching and learning. Inspiring district leaders, classroom teachers, and school staff have found unique and innovative ways to engage students in learning, motivating students to see beyond classroom walls and truly immerse themselves in learning.

Here’s what today’s educators have to say about AI, STEM, SEL, and more:

In 2024, education will move to adopt AI–but slowly. Students are already using artificial intelligence tools, so now is the time for educators to catch up by learning how AI can improve teaching and learning, says Julianne Ross-Kleinmann, an Instructional Data Analysis and Technology Specialist with Ulster County BOCES. In the coming year, early adopters will continue to play with new AI tools to see how they can be used in education. They will have some amazing successes–and some failures–as they light the way forward and the rest of us endlessly discuss the potential uses and abuses of AI in our classrooms. Read more about Ross-Kleinmann’s thoughts on AI in schools.

PBL isn’t used enough–let’s change that. The pedagogical approach to brings learning to life for students through hands-on engagement that lends itself to both differentiation and personalization, writes Kendall Stallings, a first grade teacher in Baltimore County. However, PBL is one of the most sensible solutions to the variety of needs teachers must try to meet for each student because it allows student autonomy and targets specific areas. The concept hinges on the idea that students complete a project on a single topic–ideally, they choose their own topics to promote interest and motivation–and, in doing so, dive deeply into that topic, ultimately becoming an expert on it. Projects can be individually completed or a collaborative effort, promoting group work and social skills. Because students control their learning in the PBL approach, differentiation is simple, if needed at all, as students conduct their own learning at their own pace and present their learning in a mode that makes sense to them. Find more PBL insight from Stallings here.

Elementary-level STEM education fosters our future innovators. Dr. Yuvraj Verma, a teacher at Chalkville Elementary School in Alabama, notes that investing in STEM education from an early age nurtures the next generation of innovators, problem-solvers, and leaders. Elementary school years mark a critical phase in a child’s cognitive development. It is during this period that introducing STEM education thus becomes paramount so as to establish a solid foundation of fundamental concepts and problem-solving skills. These foundational years offer a unique opportunity to spark curiosity and creativity, thereby providing the basis for more advanced learning in later grades and beyond. Dive into Dr. Verma’s argument for elementary-level STEM.

Data can empower districts to align teaching with student needs. Teachers can model responsible decision making, positive relationship building and other important SEL skills in everyday interactions, says Dr. Michael Mallery Jr., District Administrator for Social Emotional Learning with Windsor Public Schools. Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the district’s SEL program is its use of data to understand the impact of SEL efforts and inform change that enables district leaders to make efforts more effective. The district implemented Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), a nationally standardized, strength-based behavior rating scale for social and emotional competence. Data generated by this brief questionnaire helps educators screen, assess, guide intervention planning, monitor progress and evaluate outcomes related to SEL. Learn more about Dr. Mallery’s use of data in guiding SEL efforts.

It’s possible to build student engagement in STEM classrooms. With the push to build STEM literacy and get more students–especially girls–into STEM fields, engagement is needed across science disciplines, notes Steve Millam, a physics and astrophysics teacher at Chaparral High School. It’s critically important to continue to find new ways to keep students inspired and engaged in STEM learning. The same is true–and arguably more important–for students who are less interested in science and STEM fields. Engagement, after all, is a critical contributing factor to students pursuing a STEM pathway in college and in the workforce. Here are 3 strategies Millam uses to build STEM engagement.

Key points:

• Educators can use students’ innate desire to learn for deeper classroom engagement
• Friday 5: Strategies to promote student success
• Insights from educators: Priorities for 2023-2024
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

As an educator, I have always been fascinated by my students’ innate curiosity. From an early age, they have an insatiable desire to learn. Anyone who spends time around young children will find themselves peppered with questions, questions, questions! “Why is the sky blue?”, “Why do my fingers get wrinkly in the water?”, “Why do dogs wag their tails?” This natural inquiry can be a powerful force for education. So, it’s a little disappointing when modern teaching tools and strategies ignore–or subvert–this incredible curiosity.      

Education doesn’t have to be guided by rigid definitions and practices. We can make a transition from linear, hierarchical teaching into a richer, more experiential way of learning.

It all begins by making four simple shifts towards deeper inquiry:

1. Curiosity: If we want to foster student curiosity, teachers will first need to step away from the idea that our job is to tell students how they are “supposed” to do something. Instead, we want to encourage students to be thinkers and problem solvers. One simple way to make this happen is with the Mystery Learning Targets strategy. Post learning targets on the wall — but hide a few key words. Students will engage more acutely when they need to figure out what the exact target might be, and you’ll be able to preserve an element of mystery!
   
2. Choice: When we open up choice to students, we allow them to determine which path they want to follow and how they’ll figure things out as they go. One useful strategy for introducing choice into lessons is with Choice Boards or Learning Menus. These increase student ownership by providing students with a bingo board or learning menu filled with intellectually rich activities. Simply allow students to choose which activities to complete to fill out their boards.       
   
3. Explanation: We want students to construct their understanding by explaining their thinking, and we want to encourage that explanation in innovative, creative ways. One way to do this is by having students make a mascot that represents something you’re learning about. Have students explain the symbolism behind their mascot as a way of probing their understanding of the subject. This encourages them to dig down into their learning and consider the information from multiple angles.
   
4. Cognitive Load: Cognitive Load is about shifting the majority of thinking to our students. We don’t want to overwhelm them, but we do want to encourage them to start investing in their own learning. A good strategy for accomplishing this is to have students record or create lessons that could be used to teach the same content to next year’s students. Not only can this provide you with useful assets to help other students learn, but it reinforces the learning students have when they think about how to teach it to others.

When we recognize the potential of inquiry learning to cultivate and capitalize on student curiosity, it opens an entirely new horizon of possibilities on the landscape of education. Let’s not let this precious resource go to waste. Let’s build classrooms where students can embrace their innate curiosity and creativity. In doing so, we create a world where the promise of discovery lies around every corner.

Key points:

• Collaboration and critical thinking skills will be vital once students move beyond the classroom
• PBL isn’t used enough–let’s change that
• Insights from educators: Priorities for 2023-2024
• For more news on PBL, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

Project-based learning (PBL) helps prepare students for college and beyond by actively engaging them in meaningful, relevant projects. In many situations, students will work on these projects for weeks or months at a time, which helps them develop deeper content knowledge when attempting to answer complex questions and resolve real-world problems.

With advances in digital tools, many teachers are finding that using edtech tools in PBL enhances projects by providing direct access to greater sources of information and by allowing students to collaborate more easily. Some believe that leveraging the right technology is one of the best ways to support students during PBL activities.

Using technology, students can communicate and collaborate in so many new ways. Edtech tools also enable students to learn beyond the four walls of the classroom, providing them with so many more opportunities to enhance their critical thinking skills and understand real-world situations.

Collaboration in PBL

Collaboration is an essential element in PBL. In the real world, students will often be required to collaborate with others to achieve their personal and professional goals. It’s important to teach students the art of effective collaboration when using the PBL approach.

Some refer to this as supporting a project learning community (PLC). When students work together, they foster a shared sense of responsibility that better supports their achievement. With a PLC, students can learn how to listen better, they can learn how to be a team player and share in each other’s success, and they learn how to hold themselves and others accountable. These are all important skills to have when moving beyond the classroom and into the real world.

Edtech tools to enhance critical thinking and collaboration in PBL

The best way to support PLCs when using the PBL approach is to invest in the right classroom tools. This will help you maximize the effectiveness of the PBL method by enabling students to work better together in harmony.

Below are some edtech tools to use when engaging students in PBL:

PBL Project Designer

PBLWorks, one of the leaders in the development of high-quality project-based learning, has created a tool to assist teachers when planning PBL projects. The PBL Project Designer walks teachers through each step when designing a project, offering them tips, instructional ideas, and links to resources.

Collaboration Tools

Collaboration tools are perhaps the most important when utilizing PBL. These tools can significantly improve project outcomes by enhancing communication, critical thinking, and innovations. Some useful team collaboration tools include:

• Asana
• Slack
• Wrike
• Lucidspark
• Microsoft Teams
• InVision

These tools offer something unique, whether it’s helping with project management, communication, visual creation, or whiteboarding. These are some of the best tools available today and are already used by some of the top companies across various industries to help their teams collaborate. 

Google

The Google platform also offers numerous project-based learning tools that work well in the classroom setting when students are working together on projects. For example, Google Classroom can be used to create project materials. Google Docs and the Explore feature make it easy for students to create documents for their projects and easily cite their work.

In Google Sheets, the Explore feature can also be used to analyze data for projects using machine learning technology. Google Earth and Google MyMaps are great features to help students when they are working on projects where they need to explore geographical or even environmental data.

Google Meet is an excellent collaboration tool that allows students to easily connect through secure messaging and video conferencing.

Translating PBL into real-world solutions

Another benefit of using edtech in the classroom with PBL is that it can also inspire and enable students to turn their project experiences into real-world solutions, such as coming up with their own ideas for a tech startup.

With so much technology and innovation at the tip of their fingers, many students have gone on to develop their own startups. Some of the most successful technology companies began at home or in a garage, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

Wrapping up

PBL is a powerful teaching method that can help better prepare students for their future. With so many new tools and technologies available today, there are countless ways teachers can enhance the PBL experience, fostering greater collaboration and critical thinking skills that will be vital to success once students move beyond the classroom.

This post originally appeared on the Christensen Institute’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Key points:

• Teaching trends will impact K-12 learning in myriad ways this year
• Student engagement requires more than edtech tools
• Insights from educators: Priorities for 2023-2024
• For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching hub

As we move through the beginning of 2024, parent power, rethinking assessments, and career and technical education (CTE) for every student are some of the trends rippling through K-12 education.

Here are six top trends for educators, parents, and policymakers to understand.

1. The rise of homeschooling

It’s not new to note that homeschooling has grown significantly over the last few years since the start of the pandemic and diversified even more. Even mainstream media has picked up on the trend and called it the fastest-growing segment of schooling. My read is slightly different. The news should be that the growth in homeschooling from the pandemic is proving much stickier than people originally expected it to be. But the breakneck growth has slowed. It may even be declining.

2. Parent power

The bigger trend is that parents are feeling much more empowered to make choices about their children’s education. Not only are they choosing homeschooling, but more families are also choosing other alternative forms of schooling, such as private schools, charter schools, virtual schools, microschools, and a variety of hybrid homeschooling arrangements in which parents are stitching together their child’s schooling from a range of options.

Parents are also exerting themselves within schools by advocating for changes in curriculum and instruction—whether that’s to move to reading instruction in line with the evidence of how students become good readers, or in the way the books in a school library reflect a community’s values.

But broadly speaking, this parent-power movement is creating a flourish of different schooling arrangements as parents want to ensure their children make progress in their development. A big question for this movement will be the sustainability of the supply of microschools and other educational options. Many of the microschools that have popped up are small co-ops that a single teacher, who is disaffected with their public school, decided to create. Will these communities be sustainable in the long run? It’s unclear at best. For-profit and nonprofit companies are also continuing to grow to fuel the microschool movement—from Wildflower School’s Montessori microschools to Acton Academy and Kaipod Learning.

3. Education savings accounts

Related to the parent-power trend is the growth of education savings accounts (ESAs)—with 13 states now having such policies. ESAs are not vouchers. They are a much deeper form of supporting educational choice in which the state funds a savings account, and a family is allowed to spend the dollars in that account on a wide range of educational goods and services. That’s different from a voucher, which is essentially a ticket for one kind of educational service—a school—and you either use it or lose it. With an ESA, there is an incentive for a family to shop for value and save money until they find the right service for their child—they can spend the dollars across school tuition, piano lessons, online courses, equine therapy, and more. ESAs are popular among people with different political beliefs. But they have largely been passed in right-leaning states to this point. There is an ongoing discussion about the accountability for these dollars, with some arguing that parents making choices is the ultimate accountability, whereas others want to see more traditional measures of accountability put in place.

4. Challenges for traditional school districts

Many traditional school districts are continuing to struggle given this context. They’ve lost students, particularly in urban and high-poverty districts, to other schools. They’ve shrunk because there are fewer students thanks to a broader demographic decline in new births that began in 2008 and hasn’t changed. They’ve struggled with chronic absenteeism.

What’s behind many of these struggles is a one-size-fits-all mindset that clashes with education pluralism and parents’ more active desires for customized support and schooling models to ensure that their children make progress. Moreover, a compliance mindset that pervades many districts has further hindered them. That mindset can be seen in many districts’ immediate action to ban generative artificial intelligence, not explore how it could help them achieve their goals for each student.

What should schools do? That’s the topic of my book, From Reopen to Reinvent. But the shorthand is they should be creating autonomous educational offerings where they can lean into the drive for customization and rethink schooling.

5. Portrait of a graduate and rethinking assessment

An increasing number of states have moved to create portraits of a graduate—what they believe students should know and be able to do upon graduation. These measures are much broader than just the standards underlying required graduation requirements. But they are also, to this point, largely aspirational. They aren’t backed by assessments that verify a student has mastered the competencies underlying such portraits. That’s part of what’s creating a window for rethinking assessment more broadly. The Carnegie Foundation in partnership with ETS, New Meridian, Schoolhouse.world, and others are seeking to take advantage. I hope that this movement will open a larger window for mastery-based, or competency-based, learning, such that we prioritize the success of every single child, not just the few who can keep up with the lockstep pace of schooling.

6. CTE for all

There is a growing realization that the “college-for-all” movement of the last several decades has not served all students well. Many students who start bachelor’s degree programs do not complete them. When they leave college with student debt, the outcomes are horrendous. There is a growing recognition that we need to bring back career and technical education, but that it must not repeat the mistakes of vocational education, which was often a tracked system based on race. Instead, the path forward should be to make sure all students experience meaningful work-based learning as part of their middle and high school experiences. These experiences can help them start to learn about different career options; build their sense of what they like and dislike about them; understand what it takes to do certain careers—the path, the time, the money; and build social capital so they can go out and seize the opportunities that speak to them. As dual enrollment increasingly blurs the lines between high school and college, we should also make sure that meaningful work-based learning experiences become part of middle and high school for all students—and that they can then make informed choices about their post-high school pathway.

Key points:

• Student success can improve with the right instruction and intervention
• Innovative ideas for school libraries
• Flexible, hybrid learning is key to student success
• For more news on student achievement, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Student success is at the top of every educator’s mind–particularly as research is still emerging about the pandemic’s impact on learning loss.

Here are five strategies to explore as your school, district, or state focuses on boosting success for all children.

What are the main factors of student success?

Teachers must build strong, trusting, and collaborative relationships with their students in order to ensure student engagement increases and to boost their student success rate. Student engagement has long been an indicator of growth and progress, and in the wake of the pandemic, it will prove essential for academic and social-emotional recovery. Recent insights pulled from a survey of more than 2,000 identifies instructional practices that enable student engagement, no matter the learning environment. Using qualitative and quantitative survey data, here are five instructional practices for driving engagement.

Why is student success important?

The recent development of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has opened entirely new possibilities for the design and implementation of computer-based tutors with the potential to help students succeed. While the underlying models like GPT-4 are more expensive to create than an intelligent tutoring system, they can span a wide range of domains of knowledge (from psychology to music history to computer programming to Spanish) once trained. They can also be “programmed” to mimic the interaction patterns of highly effective tutors in a number of ways, including lightweight techniques like prompt engineering and more resource-intensive techniques like fine-tuning. Healthy tutoring patterns in K-12 could contribute to student success in higher education. Learn more about how AI could advance computer-based tutors.

What creates student success?

Teachers want nothing more than to find success for struggling students–to do this, they need a deep understanding of their state learning standards. Assessments, by design, should show a stair step of understanding toward mastery of state-approved learning standards. But assessments also need to provide a clear picture of student understanding within those skills so teachers can take that information and fill in the gaps. While it creates an uncomfortable feeling for teachers to be thrown into the pond with assessment creation, it is also one of the most important steps educators can take to help accelerate student learning. This district is among student success examples–learn how a new look at assessments helped boost success.

What drives student success?

Last fall, ChatGPT, an AI-powered language model, became the subject of widespread discussion, from lighthearted memes about robots taking over to genuine confusion about the capabilities and implications of AI. While we have come to understand this technology better, there still remains hesitancy and caution surrounding AI and its integration into education. A prime example was the New York City School System, which had prohibited students and teachers from accessing ChatGPT’s website on school computers. However, it is essential for educators and instructional coaches to embrace emerging technologies like AI, as doing otherwise would mean doing our students a disservice. By integrating AI into the classroom, we have the opportunity to enhance teaching practices, coaching conversations, and ultimately support student success in innovative and meaningful ways. Discover how AI instructional coaching can be used in K-12 student achievement (and it has applications for student success in higher education, too).

What is your student success strategy?

Shrewsbury High School has been using online learning since the mid-1990s, says Nga Huynh, the school’s assistant principal. Since then, the school has expanded its use of the program and involved more students. Here are four tips for student success that school leaders learned along the way, and that other schools can use to get the most out of their online learning partners.

Key points:

• Edtech for edtech’s sake won’t work–engagement requires meaningful use
• 4 ways edtech tools drive student engagement and build classroom culture
• How we can improve literacy through student engagement
• For more news on student engagement, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

Student engagement is critical to academic achievement, but it can often be a struggle to engage students in meaningful and relevant ways. During a session at FETC 2024, Tom Murray, Director of Innovation for Future Ready Schools, dove into just what, exactly, makes for the effective use of edtech in supporting student engagement.

“Just because it’s digital doesn’t mean it’s any good,” Murray said. “We could be 100 percent digital and also at 100 percent low-level learning.”

Simply incorporating a device into the classroom doesn’t mean students will automatically engage with their learning.

“A Chromebook can be a digital worksheet storage hub, but it also can be a pathway to unleash genius,” because the level of student engagement comes from how a device is used – the device itself is neutral, Murray said.

There are three components involved in finding edtech tools that work and support student engagement:

1. Interactive learning: Consider how much interaction the student has while using the tool

2. Use of tech to explore, design, and create–not a digital drill and kill: Evaluate the levels of learning. Leveraging technology for low level tasks leads to time invested in low-level learning.

3. The right blend of teachers and technology: What’s right for one student may be different than what’s right for another.

The Department of Education’s newly-updated National Educational Technology Plan introduces a component Murray said is critical for the nation–not just the digital divide, but the digital use divide. Closing the digital use divide ensures that all students understand how to use technology as a tool to engage in creative and productive learning, he noted.

“The more time we invest in passive use, the more time we are investing in low-level learning. So how do we focus on the interactive piece?” he asked. Active use includes media production, global connections, peer collaboration, and immersive simulation. To that end, Murray linked session attendees to a Google Doc with tech tools for student engagement. Resources in that document include instructional tools, digital content, assessment tools, tools for efficiency and management, communication tools, and more.

Citing his 2019 book, Personal & Authentic, Murray said: “In the classroom, teachers can be amazingly innovative with little to no technology, and extremely traditional with all possible tech tools at their fingertips.”

Key points:

• Improving student learning is critical–here are some recent learning trends
• See article: 65 predictions about edtech trends in 2024
• See article: Innovative ideas for school libraries
• For more news on student learning, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

It goes without saying that improving student learning and helping students achieve their learning goals have always been priorities for classroom teachers and educators.

Today, pandemic-related learning loss is still a very real concern for educators, and student learning is one of education’s biggest priorities as the nation strives to move further away from the pandemic’s impact on education.

Let’s take a look at some important resources to help classroom strategies support student learning goals:

Why is it important to involve students in learning?

Learner-centered education collaborates with learners to design learning experiences and pathways tailored to their interests and needs. Learner-centered education and its teaching methods can play a critical role in reshaping education systems, offering a more holistic approach to meeting learners’ needs and helping students find fulfillment in their academic accomplishments. K-12 Value Networks: The Hidden Forces That Help or Hinder Learner-Centered Education, a report from the Clayton Christensen Institute, offers insight into understanding why schools struggle to change their instructional models, along with 5 models that prioritize learner-centered education.

What is the most effective method of teaching?

Can learning centers that put student motivation at the heart of learning reliably lead children to successful careers and life opportunities regardless of their family background and home circumstances? Probably not. But these centers don’t purport to be one-size-fits-all models of education. Their aim is to provide learning experiences that can and do work exceptionally well for many kids but aren’t available in most schools. Rather than viewing models like these with skepticism until they prove that they can guarantee post-secondary success for all learners, maybe it’s time to expand our concept of education. Education doesn’t have to mean students do all of their important learning in classrooms. Education could be an ecosystem of interwoven teaching practices and experiences that occur in various settings and contexts. It’s worth exploring how student motivation can reframe education.

How do you ensure student learning in your classroom?

Student engagement is critical in ensuring–and boosting–student achievement. At its heart, student engagement is about tapping into students’ innate curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking skills. A lesson with student engagement at its core can make for the best learning experience as a student. Every teacher hopes to ignite, empower, and engage the students who walk through their classroom door. Ample research has shown that student engagement is crucial to overall learning and long-term success. Still, implementing this is easier said than done. To better ignite student curiosity and interest, teachers should consider trying one of these five strategies that help make student engagement second nature.

What does student learning look like?

In education, a big challenge is how to teach students what do to do when they don’t know what to do. What systems are needed for productive struggle to take place in classrooms and schools? How do students learn to struggle so they can eventually problem solve for themselves? Research in neuroscience tells us our brains grow new neuro-pathways when we are at the edge of challenge. It’s often called “The Goldilocks Principle” of learning – it can’t be too easy or too hard, learning activities and strategies must be just right. The term “productive struggle” is used a lot in education, but what does that really mean for teaching and learning? Educators can explore key ways to help build positive relationships while supporting productive struggle in classrooms and across schools.

What are positive learning experiences?

Learning should be positive for students, and often, students equate a positive experience with having fun. Here’s where purposeful play comes in. Many teachers feel they can’t easily incorporate purposeful play into the classroom–but doing so is surprisingly easy. A new survey of K-8 teachers and students from LEGO Education found that nearly all (98 percent) of students say purposeful play helps them learn and the majority (96 percent) of teachers believe it’s more effective than traditional methods like lectures or textbooks. Fun activities for students in the classroom are important. On top of that, almost 80 percent of students want more playful learning experiences in the classroom. Learn more about purposeful play’s rightful place in the classroom–and how to incorporate it into your own teaching.

Key points:

• Great classrooms are great because of the teachers in them
• See article: 5 ways to use edtech to engage shy students
• See article: Innovative ideas for school libraries
• For more news on teaching strategies, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

All classrooms are different and require different teaching strategies to address various concerns, goals, and learning trends. Plus, it takes a dedicated teacher to employ the right teaching strategies for desired outcomes.

What teaching strategy is the best?

Various types of learning strategies are needed to boost student engagement and bring it to its highest levels.

According to the Van Andel Institute for Education, every teacher hopes to ignite, empower, and engage the students who walk through their classroom door. Ample research has shown that student engagement is crucial to overall learning and long-term success. However, implementing this is easier said than done. To better ignite student curiosity and interest, teachers should consider trying at least one of these five strategies that help make student engagement second nature.

What is the most effective method of teaching?

Effective teaching strategies for gamification are possible–when implemented correctly and when learning goals are prioritized.

Students don’t have to be video game fanatics to appreciate a gamified classroom lesson. When teachers turn a lesson or tough-to-teach concept into a motivational gamed or use a fun competition to teach new concepts, students become immersed in their learning and are often more engaged–meaning they’re more likely to retain information. Still, there’s an art to gamifying a lesson and ensuring that students are actually learning instead of just playing a game for points.

Here’s how educators across the country are using tools–from Minecraft: Education Edition to Roblox and easy-to-access online resources–to gamify their lessons and help students engage with learning.

What is an example of a good classroom strategy?

A deeper look into teaching methods and strategies driving high academic growth has revealed 10 instructional strategies that use small changes to teaching practices leading toward growth outcomes for students.

The findings come from a new study from K-12 assessment and research organization NWEA. The strategies fall into three main categories: optimizing instructional time, exposing students to more content, and empowering students.

What is the most effective strategy for teaching?

A one-size-fits-all approach to instruction doesn’t work when you want to empower everyone to succeed in the classroom, according to Samsung education industry experts. Many educators were forced to rethink how to keep students engaged, and pandemic-era learning has only further highlighted the importance of differentiated instruction.

The forced disruption was also the catalyst for students and teachers to quickly acquire digital skills that are ripe to be amplified, taking them from consuming skills to creating skills. As teachers integrate technology into their lesson plans, they’re discovering various teaching methods and classroom tools effective in reaching and enriching the minds of all types of students—from visual and auditory to kinesthetic learners.

Which teaching strategy would be most helpful?

When it comes to special education classrooms, effective teaching methods can make all the difference. Two-thirds of schools with staffing shortages said special education is the hardest area to staff, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The demands on special education teachers are unlike any other position in schools, and because of shortages, you may be asked to tackle a bigger role than expected when you start.

Still, there are five strategies that can help first-year special education teachers achieve success.

Key points:

• Music education offers benefits far beyond musical ability, including leadership experience
• See article: 10 online music education tools
• See article: How a former music teacher approaches leadership and learning
• For more on music education, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

At its core, music is about self-expression and creativity. Music education also gives students a chance to reflect on their inner thoughts and helps struggling children build their confidence in a safe space.

When used correctly, music can even uplift entire communities and help folks overcome hardships. Inspirational scores make a real difference to individuals who are down on their luck and lonely students can bond around a shared love of music.

A robust musical education goes beyond the walls of the classroom, too. Musical programs can partner with community groups to bring joy and fulfillment to folks who live in the area. These types of programs can help students gain experience as volunteers and foster a sense of social responsibility in schoolchildren.

The value of musical education

Today, only 10.1 percent of young adults can play a musical instrument. This exposes a major flaw in our current education system. Being able to play an instrument increases the brain’s neuroplasticity, reduces stress, and improves memory and coordination. Folks who participate in musical education benefit from improved listening and reading skills, too.

This sentiment is echoed by Nina Kraus, professor of communication sciences, neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University. Kraus explains that playing music offers “an unlimited capacity for improvement,” as great musicians know that they can always strive for “greater nuance, defter technique, and better synchrony with their ensemble.”

This kind of robust practice triggers broader cognitive and sensory changes within students. Folks who have a musical education are able to process subtle acoustic differences. This gives students a head start when trying to learn a new language.

But the benefits don’t stop there. Kraus continues to explain that musical education has intangible benefits like improved focus and discipline, increased social engagement, and deeper friendships that have been formed while rehearsing with friends. These benefits can be supercharged when going beyond the classroom, as students will be exposed to a greater range of people with a host of different backgrounds and insights.

Music and leadership

Most people associate scholastic leadership with student presidents, peer mentoring, or captaining a sports club. However, music provides the perfect space for would-be student leaders to practice their ability to work with a team and guide their peers toward better performances. 

This approach is championed by Crystal Hernandez, who sees the school system as synonymous with an orchestra. As a musician, Hernandez gained vital leadership skills while learning to meld with the larger symphony. This kind of experience serves her well as a principal, where she uses her musical experience to ensure that her followers are all humming along to the same tune.

Students who have the opportunity to mentor budding musicians outside of the school system gain hands-on experience with community engagement, too. This is pivotal if you want to run the kind of educational program that produces civic minded, socially responsible students.

Community opportunities

Connecting with the wider musical community is easier today than ever before. This is largely thanks to the hard work of organizations like The National Association for Music Education, which puts learners in contact with community music groups.

Working with NAME can help your school address important concerns related to musical education and community engagement. NAME addresses concerns that talented musicians are put in touch with music groups in an equitable, fair way. This doesn’t just improve the synchrony of the symphony; it ensures that students are given access to a diverse range of experiences when working with community-based musical groups.

That said, community-based musical opportunities require serious buy-in from students, educators, and community leaders alike. Increasing buy-in improves creativity by encouraging folks to take risks and push their boundaries when working together on a musical score. Sincere buy-in from all stakeholders also helps balance out the strengths and weaknesses of a musical group meaning all participants are put in a position to succeed.

Musical programs don’t have to feature large ensembles and orchestral scores, either. Community-based musical programs like Mallet Madness teach kids how to play xylophones, glockenspiels, marimbas, and metallophones while building developmental skills.

Working with the wider musical community can give students a better understanding of social responsibility, too. Students can leverage their access to online music education tools to help mentor would-be musicians and raise the overall standard of the group. This is empowering for students and community musicians alike, as both benefit from student buy-in.

Similarly, students who engage with community bands are almost certain to improve their skills. This kind of equitable exchange of experience teaches students the value of community outreach and shows young musicians that they can always find help to refine their talents.

Conclusion

A robust musical education goes beyond the classroom and teaches learners that they can use their musical skills to connect with their community. Community-based programs, like NAFME, help spread the talent in your school equitably around different music groups, too. This ensures that every student has access to a group that suits their skill level and authentically benefits from their presence.

Key points:

• Anomalies in a theory allow researchers to find “what else” is going on in a given situation
• See: Insights from educators: Priorities for 2023-2024
• See: 3 ways teachers can drive student growth
• For more news on growth mindset, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

This article originally appeared on the Christensen Institute’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

All too often, education research falls short of giving educators on-the-ground actionable advice. However, a recent controversy around Carol Dweck’s well-known growth mindset gives me hope that we can move forward with research that can better inform and support practitioners and students.

Over the last couple of decades, education research has, thankfully, moved to embracing randomized control trial (RCT) when possible. Yet even if it gets to an RCT, education research still tends to stop there—at a stage where all a researcher can declare is that some intervention correlates with a desired outcome.

Research stuck in this stage can only tell us what works on average—what people call “best practices.” Yet what works on average often doesn’t work for a specific individual in a specific circumstance. It’s only by moving to more nuanced statements of what works for whom under what circumstance that allows researchers to offer actionable insights that educators can reliably and predictably use.

So how do we do that? The key is to move beyond inductive research that looks for on-average correlations among large N-sizes to deductive research in which we hunt for anomalies—specific circumstances where the outcome we see isn’t what the RCT or large dataset of correlations and studies would have predicted.

Researchers often bemoan finding a failure in their theory. But anomalies are actually good news because they allow researchers to say, “There’s something else going on here.” And that is what leads to better understanding.

What often happens, instead, in education research is that one set of scholars does a study that shows a positive correlation between one set of recommended actions and a desired outcome, and another set of scholars does another study showing something different. Yet almost always in these large datasets or RCTs there are anomalies—a particular student or class or school for which a given intervention didn’t produce the desired outcome—lurking.

When researchers avoid acknowledging the anomalies and instead simply attack each other’s opposing theories, all we get is a giant game of “my correlations are better than yours”—but nothing that helps people on the ground.

A recent controversy over Dweck’s famous growth mindset findings that Melinda Moyer covered in “Is Growth Mindset a Sham?” captures the point.

Growth mindset is the belief that one can improve one’s abilities through effort, learning, and persistence. The on-average claim has historically been that those individuals who have a growth mindset tend to achieve better than they otherwise would, and are able to work through challenges.

But as Moyer wrote, one recent meta-analysis (a review of several independent studies on the same phenomenon) by Case Western University psychologist Brooke MacNamara and Georgia Tech psychologist Alexander Burgoyne in Psychological Bullet “concluded that ‘the apparent effects of growth mindset interventions on academic achievement are likely attributable to inadequate study design, reporting flaws, and bias’—in other words, the science on growth mindset is flawed, and the approach doesn’t actually boost kids’ grades.”

This feels a lot like the classic case of pitting one set of correlations against another. Your classic “on average” food fight that doesn’t help people on the ground. As Moyer wrote, “Their goal was to figure out if, on average, growth mindset interventions improved academic achievement.” To do this, they lumped students together regardless of circumstance.

Moyer then profiles another meta-analysis, published in the same journal issue by several researchers, which came to a more nuanced conclusion, as it “found positive effects on academic outcomes, mental health, and social functioning, especially when interventions are delivered to people expected to benefit the most.”

According to Moyer: “The other meta-analysis, on the other hand, tried to figure out when and where growth mindset interventions worked, and when and where they did not, using a slightly different data set. In essence, they did the (sic) opposite of lumping all the students together. These researchers found that growth mindset interventions worked in some groups and not in others and that it helped struggling students the most — which, if you think about it, makes a lot of sense. When kids are already getting straight A’s, growth mindset interventions aren’t as important or helpful, since students are already performing well. But when students struggle in school, the researchers found, growth mindset interventions may help.”

Interestingly enough, the meta-analysis criticizing growth mindset also found some evidence of the same varied effects, Moyer wrote. “When they broke down the various studies and looked specifically at how growth mindset affected students who got low grades, they found that the interventions did have some beneficial effects.”

And even more interesting: “After those two meta-analyses were conducted, Elizabeth Tipton, a statistician at Northwestern University, and her colleagues learned about them and decided to conduct yet another meta-analysis of the growth mindset data. They looked at the same studies included in the “growth mindsets don’t work” analysis, but instead of lumping the data together, they teased the various effects apart more. They concluded that “there was a meaningful, significant effect of growth mindset in focal (at-risk) groups.” In other words, again, growth mindset did seem to help kids who weren’t doing well in school.”

Another way to state all this is that there’s an anomaly. Growth mindset doesn’t seem to work as well for those who are already performing well. I suspect Dweck might push back and say something like, “That’s true, but when and if work gets hard down the road and they experience a struggle, having a growth mindset will serve them well.” That’s certainly the implication of a bunch of Dweck’s stories on stars like John McEnroe in her book “Mindset” (debatable as it might be to analyze a star that one doesn’t know).

But leaving that aside, Tipton then makes the case for improving research by hunting for anomalies and boundary circumstances. As Tipton told Moyer, “There’s often a real focus on the effect of an intervention, as if there’s only one effect for everyone,” she said. She argued to me that it’s better to try to figure out “what works for whom under what conditions.” I agree with her. But not all researchers do, which strikes me as unfortunate for those on the ground trying to transcend supposed best practices to do what will work in their specific circumstances and with their specific students.

Even more to the point, I’ve long heard from researchers that there are other anomalies where growth mindset alone doesn’t make sense. Moyer writes about this as well: “Some researchers, including Luke Wood at San Diego State University, have argued that focusing solely on effort could be detrimental for children of color, who may benefit from being praised both for ability and intelligence. (Here’s a great article by journalist Gail Cornwall that delves into Wood’s concerns and recommendations in more detail.)”

We ultimately need more anomaly-seeking to continue to strengthen the theory of growth mindset. And it would be amazing if Dweck would lead this movement. That might give the findings of limitations to the theory more airtime—but also help educators on the ground know how, where, and when to put growth mindset into action.

Because ultimately, whenever growth mindset fails to produce the outcomes it purports to produce, we aren’t undermining the overall theory. We instead have an opportunity to grow it.