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.

Balancing high expectations with relationship building to boost engagement

Teachers are constantly challenged with improving student engagement, something they know directly impacts student learning outcomes. A USC Rossier School of Education Center EDGE survey this year queried 1,400 teachers about the engagement strategies they use most often in their classrooms and those they think will hold most value next year. For 2022, the most common response was building relationships with students. In 2023, educators anticipate establishing high expectations for students. 

The prioritization of these two practices alongside each other begs the question of how teachers can balance these two strategies — one of which relies on kindness and compassion, and the other which lends itself to more serious goal-setting and intense conversations. The key is approaching high expectations as an integral part of building strong relationships.

Raising the bar for learners …Read More

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New Nationwide Data Shows Significant Increase in Alerts on Self-Harm, Harm to Others and the Presence of Weapons on K–12 Campuses

RICHFIELD, OHIO (PRWEB) — Navigate360, the nation’s leader in K–12 student wellness and physical safety solutions, announces significant increases in alerts on self-harm, harm to others and the presence of weapons on K–12 campuses. Across more than 33 million online school and social media alerts, Navigate360’s all-new data show alerts related to self-harm are up 51 percent year-over-year, compared to the 25 percent increase year-over-year in alerts related to weapons and harm to others. Additionally, more than 4,000 anonymous tips per week are coming into school tip lines, with the most common tips related to self-harm and weapons.

These statistics reinforce the larger, underlying issues behind recent national headlines related to bullying, self-harm and violent critical incidents on school campuses. Just last week, there were reports of coordinated swatting and hoax efforts in Vermont and Michigan, as well as a tragic bullying-related suicide in New Jersey.

“Every day brings another use case of what we’re trying to prevent and change,” said JP Guilbault, Chief Executive Officer at Navigate360. “How can we use the data we have to further the collective understanding of what is happening nationwide—where are we seeing concerning behaviors, where are we seeing spikes? Then, how can we use that data to prevent these occurrences—to identify supports and interventions that need to take place?”…Read More

Is now a good time for a reset?

At this time of year, I hear a common refrain from school leaders I know: 1) This work is challenging, 2) We have a plan for student success, and yet 3) There is a lot more we need in order to deliver on our promise of a high-quality, equitable education for every student. These leaders launched the year with an inspiring vision for creating vibrant schools where all students are engaged in meaningful learning, feel loved, and want to come to school each day. There may have been times where this vision came close to reality.

As we head into the middle of the year, however, gaps often emerge. Student culture may become strained, faculty and staff may feel tired and frustrated, lessons aren’t as strong as they had hoped, and/or the highest needs students aren’t getting the support they need. Which raises the question: What do I do right now? 

In my role as the Vice President of Innovation and Impact at Relay Graduate School of Education, the best part of my job is the opportunity to find, study, and share what is working in schools across our country. One of the moves that we see our most effective leaders do at this moment of the year is lead a strategic reset on a key area of the school that – if improved – will have a significant positive impact on student learning and experience right now.  …Read More

How K-12 IT leaders can protect schools from ransomware

Cyberattacks on public schools are becoming more common and more severe every year. Between 2020 and 2021, more than 56 percent of K-12 education organizations suffered ransomware attacks with an average cost of $268,000.

Most recently, an attack on the LA Unified School District in September 2022 conducted by the Russian hacking group Vice Society shut down access to emails, computer systems, and applications for more than half a million users. Before that, a ransomware attack on the school system in Buffalo, NY cost the state more than $10 million in damages.

How can these K-12 school districts defend themselves from these ransomware attacks? And why are they being targeted so frequently?…Read More

Does 4 equal 5? Research on impacts of 4-day school weeks

Four-day weeks are becoming more common in school districts, particularly in rural areas of the U.S. Many districts are finding students and families like the shorter school weeks. In fact, in a survey of schools with four-day week policies, 85 percent of parents and 95 percent of students said they would choose to remain on the schedule rather than switch back to a five-day week. While these shorter weeks are popular with stakeholders, might there be unintended consequences of four-day school weeks? Are there certain ways to implement the schedule that lead to better outcomes for students?

Most of what is known about these questions has come from research conducted in the last five years. My colleagues and I have studied the four-day week using quantitative and qualitative data from state departments of education, school districts, and the NWEA MAP Growth research database. These projects and other recent research on four-day weeks have shed some light on questions about the implementation and outcomes of four-day school weeks. The research analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to compare students’ experiences and outcomes on four-day and five-day school weeks. We find that there are both benefits and drawbacks to the shorter school week, and these tradeoffs can vary based on the characteristics of the school district and how they implement the four-day week in practice.

Benefits: What Supporters of the Four-Day School Week Are Saying…Read More

Growing Number of Schools Turn to MiEN Company to Create Spaces that Support Learning and Collaboration

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Jan. 4, 2023 – Twelve schools and one district-wide project are a few of the most recent educational institutions to make MiEN Company their furnishing and design partner in creating or upgrading spaces within their school campuses. MiEN helped its new partners to renovate spaces for cafés, esports, teacher lounges, student unions, common areas, makerspaces, and even an entire school building.

The categories of projects and the participating schools are listed below:

Café Space Projects…Read More

Prioritizing teacher well-being can help schools retain talent

As a school administrator, you’re faced with a range of challenges every day. One of the most common at the moment is mitigating the negative impacts of teacher shortages. After all, without a consistent and functional faculty, the quality of students’ education is likely to suffer.

Therefore, it’s important to examine the elements that affect teacher retention. Some of the key influencers here tend to be those related to educators’ wellness. Teachers often report experiencing extremely stressful conditions–not to mention that various pressures of their careers often see them on the road to burnout.

It’s no wonder, then, that establishing methods to prioritize teacher well-being can help your school retain talent. Let’s take a closer look at some key areas of focus in this regard.…Read More

5 tips to help students master foundational skills

English language arts (ELA) standards identify a set of foundational skills students must master in their progression to becoming skilled readers. These skills include alphabet recognition, concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, high-frequency words, and fluency.

To effectively teach foundational skills within the classroom, educators need access to engaging materials that offer the right level of challenge for students and provide ease of usability. Unfortunately, only 7 percent of K-5 teachers use one or more high-quality ELA material for their classroom instruction due to common roadblocks like long adoption cycles and costs associated with the materials. But that statistic may soon change.

The pandemic left a lasting, negative impact on the American education system. K-5 student test scores plummeted in math and reading nationwide this year, erasing two decades of progress. Now, many teachers, schools, and districts want to reassess their foundational skills instruction.…Read More

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Don’t wait: The importance of early dyslexia intervention

A learning disorder that can impact a child’s ability to read or interpret words, letters, and other symbols—but that doesn’t affect general intelligence—dyslexia often goes unnoticed until a student displays significant struggles with reading and/or writing. The most common of all neuro-cognitive disorders, dyslexia impacts about 20 percent of the US population and represents 80-90 percent percent of all individuals who have learning disabilities.

In some cases, a dyslexia diagnosis doesn’t happen until a student is in second grade, with some cases going unnoticed until the learner is already in high school. With research showing that interventions are the most effective when they are done in kindergarten and first grade, the earlier the intervention the better.

To avoid an even bigger learning gap, we need to take a closer look at early identification, the early warning signs to look for, and what steps to take if you suspect dyslexia. …Read More

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With Rising Concerns About Dyslexia in Young Learners, Riverside Insights Introduces First-of-its Kind Playbook to Streamline Evaluations

ITASCA, Ill. – Riverside Insights®, a leading developer of research-based assessments and analytics, today debuted a new Assessment Playbook focused on streamlining the evaluation of dyslexia, the most common learning disability, affecting 20% of the population. The new playbook makes assessments more effective and efficient by providing a recommended process for selective testing and a specific test list for querying the most salient features of dyslexia.

“The pandemic disrupted teaching and learning, and has led to a dramatic increase in the number of students who are referred for dyslexia evaluations by their teachers and/or parents. Consequently, evaluators must determine if a student’s reading difficulties are primarily a reflection of this disruption or an indication of a true reading disability,” said dyslexia expert Dr. Nancy Mather, a professor in the  College of Education, Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona. “To address this issue and the increase in assessment referrals, evaluators need effective and efficient assessment tools to ensure that all students are accurately identified and get the help they need. In this way, children can be provided with systematic interventions prior to experiencing chronic reading difficulties.”

In the 2021-2022 school year, more than 20 states – including California, Florida, Texas and Connecticut – updated their dyslexia legislation, passing new codes and statutes to support more effective identification and intervention practices to address the increasing dyslexia referrals.…Read More