Are the days of banning phones in the classroom a thing of the past? There’s a growing movement toward innovative learning models in K-12, where educators are starting to embrace smartphones and mobile devices, seeing them more than just a distraction in the learning environment. In recent years, researchers found that most American students between the ages of 13 and 17 own smartphones and are using them at school (as high as 71 percent in certain districts). The prevalence of mobile devices is true everywhere, even in schools that ban them entirely. So many teachers have to grapple with the question…
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The K-12 Mobile Classroom: 4 Tough Tech Choices
This Week: Top Headlines in Education
After months of speculation, educators and activists are starting to get a clearer picture of what and how the Trump administration will do about education this year. As anticipated in previous months, they are putting their faith in moving to school vouchers. In President Trump’s first school visit since he took office, he talked about his plan to promote vouchers, which critics fear may take funding away from the public school system. Also in this week’s feature in Education Week, education experts examine some of the potential problems that the national budget plan may present in K-12. Read more from…
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5 Things You Can Do to Support English Language Learners
A limited proficiency in English still remains a major barrier to educational success for millions in public schools, and many schools are under-resourced and teachers are under-prepared to support English language learners (ELL). A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends that schools need to devote more resources to help English learners. Most importantly, the report dispels the idea that English learners need to discard their native language to learn English. So what aren’t teachers doing now, and what will be able to help these students overcome the language barrier? We look at a few…
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The Student Life Cycle: What K-12 Can Learn from Higher Ed
On the college campus, educators frequently toss around the buzz phrase “student life cycle.” What exactly is it? This approach helps academic leaders analyze, anticipate, and seek ways to improve a freshman student’s success in their first year of college. The life cycle model suggests looking at a student’s first year in a well-rounded way, taking into consideration a variety of factors that could either positively or negatively contribute to a student’s persistence and achievement through the rest of their college years: the state of the student-teacher relationship, physical environment, student participation, vocational interest or direction, personal development, and academic…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education
After the long-fought battle against her confirmation on Capitol Hill, Secretary Betsy DeVos has been stirring things up in her first few weeks on the job. Among other things, she has attacked public school teachers, bashed protesters, did not participate in the first Twitter chat her department had for teachers on Feb. 21, added more confusion on Common Core Standards, and made it clear her priority will be pushing for school choice. This week, we offer up some of the latest insights on potential policy challenges and changes to expect in education this year and other top stories on ed…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education
It’s a critical time particularly for states, as leaders are scrambling to finalize the ESSA accountability plans for their state. This year, there’s a particularly large number of new policymakers coming on board, which has many advocates and district leaders on edge. In prior years state policymakers had some room to get up to speed, but on the first day of their jobs last month, they had an extraordinary set of challenges in how to turn around their lowest-performing schools, allocate funding, retool evaluation systems. Read Education Week’s feature on this year’s freshman class of state leaders and the rest…
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Technology and the At-Risk Student: 3 Ways to Change Their Learning Outcomes
Students who are labeled “at risk” face a unique set of learning challenges than their peers. They run a wide variety: ones who belong to ethnic minorities, those who are academically disadvantaged, those who are disabled, those with a probationary status, and those from low-income or poverty-stricken households. For example, for the 16 million students who live below the poverty line in the U.S., many do not own computers or have Internet access. In high-poverty schools, only 3 percent of teachers agreed that students had the digital tools they needed to complete assignments at home. For students coming from a single-parent…
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The Future of Assessments: 4 Valuable Lessons for Educators
The global education market, particularly in higher education, is experiencing a rising need for formative assessment technologies and services. In a research report by Technavio, there are three emerging trends in assessment through social media platforms, cloud-based assessment platforms, and analytical apps. For K-12 and higher ed, this means the world of testing and assessments is expanding at a fast pace. There’s been a huge movement of students, teachers, and parents against standardized testing in recent years, so ESSA was a welcome change in that aspect. ESSA forced state education decision-makers to look beyond traditional metrics such as test scores…
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This Week: Top Headlines in Education
There are rising concerns about science education, particularly as colleges and universities report significant drops in student interest and enrollment within the first year. Recently, the National Board on Science Education brought together practicing scientists and members to discuss ways they could improve awareness and understanding of STEM fields through partnering with K-12 schools. Read more about how scientists are prioritizing K-12 education and the rest of this week’s education stories. Scientists Take on New Roles in K-12 Classrooms The grim truth about the increasing dropouts in college science is causing practicing scientists to rethink how they can improve interest…
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Video and Mobile Learning: What the Research Says
Digital learning is getting a major boost – great news for education. A 2017 report from the Fosway Group, one of Europe’s top HR and learning analyzers, pointed out that there are fast-growing investments in digital learning platforms and content. Of the learning and development professionals surveyed, the biggest demands they are seeing in new technologies have been focused in video learning (77 percent) and mobile learning (76 percent). Today, video and mobile are dominating as optimal ways that people consume content and learn. They’ve have been on the rise for a few years, becoming much more than passing trends. Let’s…
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