Swing Education Surpasses One Million Hours of Classroom Substitute Teaching

SAN MATEO, Calif. Substitute teachers sourced via  Swing Education, a tech-enabled staffing marketplace that matches schools with qualified substitute teachers,  have filled more than one million hours of classroom instruction in the 2022-23 school year. 

Though Swing has been helping schools fill classroom vacancies since 2015, this is the first time the company has crossed the one million instructional hour mark in a single school year. 

“We never had an explicit goal to reach a million teaching hours, but knew we were going to get there and it kind of snuck up on us, to be honest,” said Mike Teng, CEO of Swing Education. “Reaching this number is significant and it feels extraordinary, especially as it lands during teacher appreciation week, which is this week. It also validates the real service we’re providing to schools and students since having a stable pool of substitutes is critical for maintaining instructional consistency and quality.”…Read More

3 ways ChatGPT can reduce teachers’ workloads

Everybody’s talking about ChatGPT and how it’s going to impact K-12–and generally not in positive terms!

Granted, ChatGPT might make writing that 11th-grade essay on symbolism in “The Great Gatsby” a whole lot easier (which, to be fair, does make grading a whole lot harder). Aside from that, there are real positives to our new AI pal, and overworked teachers can embrace it as the gift that it is: a free personal teaching aide. The one who sketches out the lesson plans and assessments, finds source materials, and just generally carries out the grunt work.

In other words, ChatGPT can save teachers a whole lot of time.…Read More

4 simple strategies to help students ace standardized tests

Standardized tests can be hard on students. Many of us still remember the frustration and anxiety we experienced when we were younger and sat down for our first round of testing. To make matters worse, it’s fairly common for students who are doing well academically to find themselves stymied by a single bad testing experience.

This “Know-Show Gap” can prevent teachers and schools from being able to represent the good work they do for the public. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case–so long as both teachers and students plan accordingly.

By helping students prepare for tests mentally and physically, teachers can help them overcome even the trickiest of obstacles. These following strategies have been proven to help minimize the Know-Show Gap so students can prove what they really can do: …Read More

Pay isn’t the only reason for the teacher shortage–it’s time to rethink the classroom

As dust from the pandemic settles, students across America are facing another disruption to quality education. This crisis, however, shouldn’t be a surprise. It is two centuries in the making.

The most recent legislation introduced in Congress, which would see a minimum salary base of $60,000 for public school teachers, is certainly a welcome step in the right direction. However, it still misdiagnoses the problem; burnout will still occur, regardless of the paycheck. That’s why we need to fundamentally reimagine the role of a teacher in the modern classroom.

The teacher job description crafted in the 1800s by the Common School Movement led by Horace Mann served a one-adult-room-full-of-kids model with the goal of civilizing American children. Hopefully, in the year 2023, we can aspire beyond assimilation as the goal of education and aim for creating learning spaces that value diversity and support every student in reaching their full, authentic potential.…Read More

What the F? Grading strategies for early career teachers

According to a recent study, grading is one of the least stressful activities early career teachers have to complete. Grading is time consuming, however, and more grading-related questions are popping up in the news these days. For instance, are teachers allowed to reduce grades for late work? Are students allowed to retake tests on which they did not do well? It is essential that teachers have a clear and supportive grading system in place to address the scrutiny of today’s students, parents, and other stakeholders.

Setting up a grading system requires more than a calculator. A philosophical foundation is important to how a teacher grades. Having a philosophical basis for grading helps instructors explain grades, their meaning, and their value to students, who may then see the grade as less arbitrary.Two common approaches to further mitigate this arbitrary nature include normative-based grading and criterion- or standards-based grading. To build a strong, meaningful grading policy, instructors must choose the approach that best fits the course design and student learning outcomes.

Instructors who choose a normative approach will grade based upon relative performance. A teacher’s fallback practice may be to grade on a curve; however, curved grading is philosophically flawed in most course level applications. Effective instructional design models and psychometrics generally anticipate that students can master an end-of-course exam with a 70 to 80 percent score. Exams that do not reflect that criteria may have been poorly designed. Otherwise, instructional challenges or lack of student engagement could be to blame. Some college courses simply provide a curved score for students to lower the failure rate or to stratify student performance. This, however, does not evidence how students understood the content. Curved grades only show how students performed in relation to other students instead of reflecting students’ mastery of the materials.…Read More

How administrators can support teachers with chronic health needs

The world needs its mentors and educators. Teachers are the ones who equip the generations to come with the tools necessary to excel. It’s as simple as the relationship between cause and effect. Without them, society would dwindle, and the forward progress of everything would slow down to a snail’s pace. After all, education is one of the pillars that make up a thriving society, making teachers essential.

Teachers are also human beings. They have a life worth living and carry similar struggles as everyone else. The degree of those struggles may vary, but today, we’re going to hone our focus specifically on teachers who either have a disability or some form of chronic illness.

There are a lot of stressors that are one teacher in today’s world, and to have to deal with physical, mental, and/or emotional issues only stands to make it more difficult to maintain a sustainable well-being. Let’s explore the ways we can provide relief and support for teachers with disabilities.…Read More

How to stave off teacher burnout with PD

Survey after survey confirms teachers feel stressed and burned out. Nearly 75 percent of teachers experience frequent job-related stress, compared to just a third of working adults. More than half of teachers have considered leaving the profession earlier than originally planned.

Exhausted and frustrated teachers face a growing list of adversities, including:

  • Insufficient funding
  • Overwhelming administrative work
  • Demanding parents
  • Hostile communities

Dire staffing shortages have added to an unprecedented level of strain. When educators pick up the slack from unfilled positions, their work obligations increase. But their plates merely grow more full — nothing is ever removed. Districts can’t afford to lose more teachers and must take steps to assist them.…Read More

Engaging Presidents’ Day videos for students

Though schools are closed on Presidents’ Day, discussing topics related to the holiday is a great way to engage students in their learning, taking historical processes and events and linking them to the present.

Use these short videos from TED-Ed Lessons to introduce concepts and activities related to the presidency–and the history and process behind it.

Teachers can use TED-Ed Lessons to liven up long days and highlight students’ different personal interests. On the TED-Ed platform, educators can build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk, or YouTube video.…Read More