Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Seven steps to implementing critical student skills

Stakeholder buy-in is critical when it comes to achieving desired student outcomes and policy changes.

Administrators and educators know they must integrate higher-order thinking skills into teaching and learning if today’s students are to compete on a global scale. But school leaders sometimes struggle with exactly how to weave such skills into the curriculum.

Now, steps for successful integration of four key skills are outlined in a new book by Ken Kay and Valerie Greenhill, both of EdLeader21, a professional learning community for 21st-century educators.

Dubbed the “4Cs,” the four skills—critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity—are skills that will help every student prepare for and succeed in “the citizenship and economic challenges of the 21st century,” Kay and Greenhill say.…Read More

Panelists: Digital tools expand learning opportunities

Access to digital learning opportunities is critical for U.S. students' success, panelists said.
Access to digital learning opportunities is critical for U.S. students' success, panelists said.

The nation’s director of education technology called on schools to replace textbooks with mobile learning devices, and the head of the Federal Communications Commission said his agency would be voting this week on whether to lift some restrictions on the use of federal e-Rate funds to help deliver broadband access to more students, during a Sept. 21 panel discussion about the implications of digital-age learning.

Investments in broadband access and mobile learning devices are essential to helping students learn the skills they’ll need to compete on a global scale, said panelists during “Back to School: Learning and Growing in a Digital Age,” hosted by Common Sense Media, the Children’s Partnership, PBS Kids, and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.

“In some ways, this country is in a serious crisis when it comes to education and the underinvestment in our kids over the last 30 years,” said Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, during his opening remarks.…Read More