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.

How educators can navigate AI-driven plagiarism

Key points:

  • The explosion of AI tools has introduced interesting questions for educators
  • Students who learn to use AI responsibly will develop a useful skill for learning and working
  • See related article: Education in the age of AI and smart technology

From the very beginning of its meteoric rise, generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools seemed to stir a universal reaction: How will students use it to cheat? However, students engaged in cheating well before tools like ChatGPT became household names. According to a survey, as many as 58 percent of high school students have plagiarized work, and 95 percent admitted to some form of cheating.

There are countless past innovations, from handheld calculators to Wikipedia, that have prompted similar classroom concerns. In each of these cases, teachers evolved, adopting new strategies and tools to keep students learning. As AI matures, educators will need to do the same. Many teachers already are rethinking assessments and assignments to shift the question from how students will use AI to cheat, to how students can learn to use AI responsibly.…Read More

15 questions to ask when evaluating communications platforms

Key points:

  • Home-school communications systems help to build trust and establish consistency in a school community
  • Districts must be clear in their communications, and to do so, they must select the right platform
  • See related article: Your top 5 school-home communication challenges, solved

The importance of effective home-school communications has never been higher. Families expect to be kept informed of their child’s activities, academic progress, and expectations. However, confusion and frustration often ensue when messaging is not centralized or when individual messages contradict each other.

In today’s educational environment, it is vital the school or district have a clear message with leaders understanding exactly what is to be communicated. It is equally important that families trust the authenticity of the communications.…Read More

Dear parents: 3 ways AI will show up in your child’s classroom this year

Key points:

  • Parents may have concerns about AI, but it’s important to know that AI is already in use in classrooms
  • AI helps teachers personalize learning for students, and also frees teachers from tedious tasks so they can devote more time to direct instruction
  • See related article: Taking a measured look at AI in the classroom

As teachers, we know that the back to school season is a time full of excitement and big emotions about what the year ahead will bring. And we’re not just speaking to our own experiences. We understand that students and families are often just as concerned about what the school year will be like, what will be going on inside our classrooms, and what and how their students will be learning. And this year, we have a hunch that a lot of those questions are going to be focused on a topic showing up all over the news: AI in education.

AI has been capturing headlines across the country, with questions about how it is being used in classrooms, how students are interacting with this new technology, and what it ultimately means for learning. While all of these questions are valid, there’s also something to be said for making sure parents understand that AI has already been quietly in thousands of America’s classrooms–recent data shows that over 60 percent of teachers are using AI on the job–and the impact on teachers and students has been largely positive.…Read More

5 ways AI can help teachers in the classroom

Key points:

  • As AI tools like ChatGPT grow in popularity, there’s no avoiding them in the classroom
  • Using AI to teach students about AI helps students approach it with the respect it deserves and emphasizes its use as a learning tool
  • See related article: Debunking common myths about AI in education

If you’ve spent any time tinkering with AI like I have, you’ve discovered what a powerful and versatile tool it can be for teachers in the classroom. Sometimes, it almost feels like AI gives us superpowers. Simply by using a collection of prompts, I can direct AI to write, draw, code, and perform any number of difficult tasks in ways I otherwise couldn’t. The only limit is your imagination!

This brings up some pressing questions, though, and as with any new technology, it will take time before we reach definitive answers. In the meantime, however, finding positive ways of integrating AI into education can give us a better understanding of its full potential, and maybe point us in the right direction for its future use. Here are just 5 ways AI can help teachers in classroom:…Read More

Number crunch: Edtech data you can use right now

The 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report launched last week at an event in Montevideo, Uruguay, hosted by UNESCO, the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay and Ceibal Foundation with 18 ministers of education from around the world. It proposes four questions that policymakers and educational stakeholders should reflect upon as technology is being deployed in education:

Is it appropriate?

Using technology can improve some types of learning in some contexts. The report cites evidence showing that learning benefits disappear if technology is used in excess or in the absence of a qualified teacher. For example, distributing computers to students does not improve learning if teachers are not involved in the pedagogical experience. Smartphones in schools have also proven to be a distraction to learning, yet fewer than a quarter of countries ban their use in schools.…Read More

5 fun STEM videos for hard-to-engage students

Key points:

  • STEM education can be challenging, but engaging tools can help
  • Explore these videos on various STEM topics, found on TED-Ed Lessons

STEM education is a critical topic for all students, but it’s also notoriously difficult to engage students in STEM topics–particularly as the content becomes more challenging. But with a few fun STEM videos, students might be a bit more interested in learning.

The videos below are all found on the TED-Ed platform. Educators can build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk, or YouTube video. Once you find the video you want to use, you can use the TED-Ed Lessons editor to add questions, discussion prompts, and additional resources.…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

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

Cool! 6 TED-Ed lessons about the cold

It’s January, and in many places, that means cold weather–and possibly some snow. It may be hard to capture students’ attention now that most winter breaks are over.

Creating a video-based lesson that explores different concepts around cold weather is one fun way to boost student engagement.

These TED-Ed Lessons cover snowflakes, the coldest place on Earth, myths about the cold, and more.…Read More