7 tips and ideas to make the eclipse engaging for students

This article originally appeared on Vernier’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible over the United States, starting in Texas. This upcoming eclipse event is an exciting opportunity to incorporate phenomenon-based learning into your instruction and engage your students through inquiry.

Here are some tips for making the most out of this rare occasion as you study it with your students.…Read More

Math is not a universal language—but it can be a universal thread

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Say what you will about the universality of numbers and symbols; I’d politely argue that it does not follow that mathematics is a universal language. The problem for many struggling math students is that often those “universal” numbers and symbols hide in surrounding contexts of unfamiliar vocabulary, settings, and narratives.

As math educators, we can help those students by finding ways to relate their classroom learning to more recognizable cultural frames of reference that are authentic to the range of experiences in the room. In the process, math can actually become a universal thread to connect many types of content and learners. Number sense and quantities are some of the very few things that tie us together in a common experience.…Read More

Student mental health is still suffering–how should we address it?

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Between March 2020 and March 2021, K-12 schools in the U.S. saw an unprecedented influx in federal government aid, totaling nearly $190 billion. This funding aimed to help students recover both academically and emotionally from the pandemic. School districts across the country utilized these grants to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other care providers. In theory, this should have been transformative; however, the available workforce wasn’t large enough to meet the demand, and traditionally underserved and rural districts faced the brunt of this shortage.

Subsequent follow-up funding has been deployed by the federal government in a necessary step to increase the workforce of care providers. As these funding opportunities come to a close, many districts are still left struggling to adequately address their students’ mental health needs.…Read More

Reflecting on the Parkland tragedy, its lasting impacts, and work still to be done

Written by Jen Easterly, Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Last month marks six years since 17 students and faculty senselessly lost their lives and 17 others were injured when a mass murderer entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and started shooting. Since that horrific day, 124 more Americans have been killed and 331 injured on campuses across the country in 189 separate school shootings—almost 3 shootings a month since Parkland. This is simply unacceptable, and it must stop.

Last month, I joined Education Secretary Cardona to not only remember, but also to walk in the shoes of those who lost their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building 1200. I had the privilege of talking with the parents of Alex Schachter, Gina Montalto, Luke Hoyer, Jaime Guttenberg, and Alyssa Alhadeff, beautiful students with the brightest of futures ahead of them, and Debbi Hixon, the wife of Athletic Director Chris Hixon, who gave his life rushing into the building to save hundreds of students that day.…Read More

Years after pandemic closures, we’re seeing their effects inside our schools

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Since school buildings reopened after COVID closures, I’ve heard teachers say, again and again, that the older elementary children in their classrooms are just not the same.

I lead a small network of schools, and many of our current fourth graders remain dependent on adults’ opinions and find it hard to move from one problem to the next without reassurance. Our fifth graders can solve a basic math problem but often struggle to explain how to answer a word problem. Across fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, we’re seeing students have trouble with sharing, taking turns, and working with others — symptoms of the developmental milestones many children missed in recent years.…Read More

3 keys to successful summer reading (regardless of the languages students speak)

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When I began teaching English as a second language (ESL), I had anywhere from seven to 13 different languages in my classroom because our district was in an area with a lot of recent immigration. It was an entry point for me to begin thinking about what a rich profession teaching is, along with how students develop their early reading skills, especially when they are learning multiple languages at once.

Today, I am the director of Literacy First, a program that the University of Texas launched almost 30 years ago with the mission of teaching students to read in the early grades. Literacy First fulfills its mission by offering a variety of support services, with a particular focus on achieving successful outcomes for growing readers, including one-to-one literacy interventions, teacher and staff training, instructional coaching, data-centered advising, and bilingual and culturally sustaining reading resources and interventions. One of the things I’ve learned a great deal about along the way is how to run an effective summer reading program for emergent bilingual students.…Read More

Savvas Learning Company Named to the 2024 GSV 150 of Top-Growth Companies

PARAMUS, N.J./PRNewswire/ — Savvas Learning Company, a next-generation K-12 learning solutions leader, is excited to announce that it has been named to the 2024 edition of the GSV 150, an annual list of the top 150 private companies transforming digital learning and workforce skills. This is the second year in a row that Savvas has been named to the GSV 150.

“At Savvas, we are committed to developing innovative learning solutions that are powered by the most advanced technology to help educators meet the needs of all students,” said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “Savvas is honored to be recognized among the exceptional companies on the GSV 150 who are champions of educational technology — including new AI-enabled systems — to make for a richer, more personalized teaching and learning experience for all.”

GSV is a global community and investment platform singularly focused on elevating the scope and scale of innovation in the $7 trillion education and workforce sector. It estimates that together these 150 companies reach roughly 3 billion people — almost half of the global population — and generate approximately $23 billion in revenue.

Savvas was chosen from more than 2,000+ global companies revolutionizing the world of education technology, from Pre-K-12 to workforce learning. GSV Ventures evaluated these companies on five criteria — revenue scale, revenue growth, active learner reach, international reach, and margin profile — to determine the global GSV 150 list.

With an innovation mindset and a focus on technology to personalize instruction at scale, Savvas empowers educators and engages students with high-quality, interactive PreK-12 learning solutions. It recently acquired Outlier.org and its portfolio of online, asynchronous college-level courses that combine cinematic videos and charismatic professors, enabling high school students to earn dual credit while never having to leave their school building. The acquisition will allow Savvas to offer an immersive, engaging college learning experience to millions of high school students and increase educational equity, access, and opportunity.

In 2023, Savvas acquired Whooo’s Reading and its cutting-edge AI-driven technology, which Savvas is thoughtfully integrating into its digital ecosystem of innovative learning solutions. Savvas believes that AI’s game-changing capabilities have the potential to take personalized learning to new heights while providing teachers time-saving tools to make their jobs easier, enabling them to spend more time interacting with students.

“The world is adapting to seismic shifts from generative AI,” said Luben Pampoulov, partner at GSV Ventures. “AI co-pilots, AI tutors, AI content generators — AI is ubiquitous, and differentiation is increasingly critical. The GSV 150 is an impressive group of edtech companies that are leveraging AI and driving positive outcomes for learners and society.”

Visit GSV 150 for the full list of 2024 winners.

In addition to Savvas being selected for inclusion on the GSV 150 list, Forsa has also been chosen to speak at the ASU+GSV Summit 2024 in San Diego, in panel discussions focusing on the AI Revolution in Digital Education as well as K-12 schools and content.

ABOUT SAVVAS LEARNING COMPANY
At Savvas, we believe learning should inspire. By combining new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of interacting, we design engaging, next-generation K-12 learning solutions that give all students the best opportunity to succeed. Our award-winning, high-quality instructional materials span every grade level and discipline, from evidence-based, standards-aligned core curricula to supplemental and intervention programs to state-of-the art assessment tools — all designed to meet the needs of every learner. Savvas products are used by millions of students and educators in more than 90 percent of the 13,000+ public school districts across all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, as well as globally in more than 125 countries. To learn more, visit Savvas Learning Company. Savvas Learning Company’s products are also available for sale in Canada through its subsidiary, Rubicon.…Read More

The journey to digital sustainability: A CIO’s perspective

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I recently had the privilege of co-presenting a session on digital sustainability with UDT at FETC this past January. Meeting with other education technology and instructional leaders affirmed how multi-faceted and critical digital sustainability is for school districts right now.

My unique path to serving as Chief Information Officer for Orange County Public Schools has enabled me to experience our district’s digital transformation from multiple perspectives. I began at OCPS as a first-grade teacher before joining the district’s teaching and learning team, where I helped plan our five-year 1:1 device rollout for 280k students. In August 2023, I transitioned from teaching and learning to IT.…Read More

K-12 schools aren’t ready for AI’s risks or benefits

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Almost all school superintendents (97 percent) say that schools have an obligation to teach students how to use AI effectively and responsibly. Still, only 37 percent have a plan for incorporating AI instruction in the classroom, according to the 2024 Voice of the Superintendent Survey released by education company EAB at the School Superintendent Association (AASA) National Conference on Education.

Eighty-four percent say teachers in their districts are concerned about students using generative AI to cheat and take shortcuts.…Read More

Personalizing history for more impactful student learning

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It is no accident that the new National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) definition of social studies is focused on “human experiences and the spaces in which we interact as humans.” The culture and climate of the social studies classroom has changed, and the way teachers teach social studies has to change with it. The modern social studies classroom should now be a classroom full of student inquiry and choice. Students should be learning the contextual background of a subject and working on the skills they need to critically analyze social studies content.

Personalized paths, oral histories, and local histories are strategies that resonate with the NCSS definition to bring the human experience into the K-12 classroom, because these strategies allow  students to determine how their life fits into the story of history and to discover why the past matters to them.…Read More

Big Deals: Edtech industry news from HMH, Pearson, and Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS)

Learning technology company HMH announced it has acquired award-winning software company Writable, building on a longstanding partnership between the organizations that includes the integration of Writable’s research-backed writing assessment and practice solution with HMH’s core ELA offerings for grades 3-12.

With the acquisition of Writable, HMH will also establish HMH Labs, a new incubation team focused on the development and customer experience of emerging technologies, including generative AI, in support of HMH’s high-tech, high-touch vision for K-12 learning. Led by Writable CEO and co-founder Andrew Goldman, who will become Executive Vice President of HMH Labs, the group will expand upon and support HMH’s focus on innovative technology and continue to develop Writable.

“HMH is excited to welcome the talented team from Writable into the HMH community,” said HMH CEO and President, Jack Lynch. “We have already seen the transformative power of Writable and are excited to harness the agile development capabilities of Andrew and team through HMH Labs in service of empowering educators and deepening the connection between teacher and student.”…Read More