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.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of today’s online testing

How three different districts fared as they conducted PARCC testing for the first time

testing-parccWhen teachers, students, and administrators at Sheridan School District No. 2 met earlier this month to kick off The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing, they had felt pretty sure of themselves. After all, the Denver-based district of 1,600 students and five schools had worked hard to prep itself for the computer-based K–12 assessments in English language arts and math. “We spent a lot of time and money on preparation,” says Superintendent Michael Clough.

But it all fell apart pretty quickly.

Within just a few hours of the first test being administered, it became clear that the district wasn’t as ready as it thought it was. “The first day of testing can be described as nothing short of a disaster,” says Clough. “Now that the first round of testing is complete, we’ll have to start unpacking things and figure out exactly what went wrong.”…Read More

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How can students be successful in a high stakes world?

When asking an audience of parents what attributes they value, Stanford educator and author Denise Pope heard things like critical thinking, creativity, and well-being. Most parents indicated they did not value popularity, acceptance to a prestigious college, or being good at an extracurricular activity, Mind/Shift reports. Yet those are the very qualities that the students Pope studied most often listed as the keys to success. “The disconnect that we’re seeing means we’re not necessarily agreeing with the community’s values, but we are part of the community,” said Pope. In researching her book Doing School: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students, Pope shadowed students at elite schools to try and understand their lives and the pressures they face. She found that students value extrinsic qualities like grades much more highly than their parents. The students perceive the education system as a game to be played. Many said they were “doing school” in order to get to college, not necessarily to learn…

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