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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 we developed a personalized PBL model for STEM

How can schools and districts prepare students for college and careers in STEM? Is it by asking them to passively read a textbook or listen to a teacher lecture? Or is it by challenging them to actively engage in projects that attempt to solve real-world problems?

In Harmony Public Schools in Texas, we want students to become active learners, problem solvers, and STEM advocates. We want to increase their knowledge, skills, and interest in STEM, and balance student-centered teaching with state and national standards. To do this, we developed a personalized project based learning (PBL) model called STEM Students on the Stage (SOS)™.

STEM SOS, which was developed with a $30 million Race to the Top grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education, is a rigorous, interdisciplinary, standards-focused method of STEM education that encourages students to develop and share their STEM knowledge and investigations. We now incorporate this personalized PBL model into all of our STEM courses.…Read More

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Report: Race to the Top isn’t delivering big results

The Obama administration’s signature education initiative, Race to the Top, can’t deliver much educational improvement in America’s public schools because there is a huge mismatch in its mandates and what is actually possible to accomplish with the provided funding and requirements, according to a new report released Thursday. The title of the report precisely explains what it is about: “Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement.”

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How the government can drive school innovation

The federal government should support, and even offer incentives to, states that move toward competency-based learning systems, Horn writes.

The opportunity to transform the nation’s education system from its factory-model roots to a student-centric version has never been greater.

Online education is growing rapidly in full-time virtual schools, and even more so in blended-learning environments. This is the future of our education system. Now, America must embrace this change to create alternative learning models that maximize every student’s learning potential and improve the outlook of the country’s global competitiveness.

Although this critical issue is a national challenge and opportunity, it does not mean the best way to drive innovative change in education is through the federal government. Most of the funding and decision-making around education in this country occur at the state and local levels. The federal government has limited ability to effect change. That said, what the federal government can do is create the conditions for the type of changes to emerge that put the focus on each individual student.…Read More

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Strike highlights division on teacher evaluation

Critics note there is little, if any, evidence that basing evaluations on test scores will improve student achievement, and they argue it is being implemented at a large scale too quickly.

One of the key disagreements driving Chicago teachers to the picket lines this week is also a central component of President Barack Obama’s education policy: evaluating instructors in part on how much their students improve.

Through its $4 billion Race to the Top competition and No Child Left Behind waivers, the Obama administration has encouraged states to change how teachers are assessed and include data on student growth as a component. That policy has hit a nerve in the education community, and not just among the unions.

Critics note there is little, if any, evidence that basing evaluations on test scores will improve student achievement, and they argue it is being implemented at a large scale too quickly. Those in support of the revamped evaluations argue that far too many teachers are retained and given above-average reviews without any real assessment.…Read More

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Nearly 900 districts to apply for Race to the Top funding

The Race to the Top District competition requires applicants to design personalized learning environments using digital tools—but critics say education funding shouldn’t be turned into a competition.

Nearly 900 school districts across the nation intend to apply for a slice of close to $400 million in grants that the U.S. Education Department will distribute in support of local initiatives that help close achievement gaps and prepare students for college and a career.

The department announced Aug. 31 that 893 applicants are slated to participate in the Race to the Top-District competition.

“I believe the best ideas come from leaders at the local level,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.…Read More

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Duncan discusses education reform, back-to-school changes

Duncan said making sure children in disadvantaged communities have access to technology will be critical. (Albert H. Teich / Shutterstock.com)

A more well-rounded curriculum with less focus on a single test. Higher academic standards and more difficult classwork. Continued cuts to extracurricular and other activities because of the tough economy: Education Secretary Arne Duncan says these are some of the changes and challenges that children could notice as they start the new school year.

Several significant reforms have taken place over the past three years. Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core standards, a set of uniform benchmarks for math and reading. Thirty-two states and D.C. have been granted waivers from important parts of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law. Billions in federal dollars have gone out to improve low-performing schools, tie teacher evaluations to student growth, and encourage states to expand the number of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Duncan said he believes students will see the concrete effects of those changes when they head back to class this school year.…Read More

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District ‘Race to the Top’ rules spur mixed reaction

School groups criticized RTT-D for creating 'winners' and 'losers.'

Proposed guidelines for school districts to vie for $400 million in new federal grants have elicited mixed reaction from education groups—from concern among ed-tech groups over how “personalized learning” will be defined, to arguments that the grants will exclude smaller districts from competing.

With an eye toward expanding the Obama administration’s signature “Race to the Top” (RTT) competition to the district level, the federal Education Department (ED) recently issued a draft outlining competition guidelines and invited responses from stakeholders.

RTT, which previously targeted only states, has triggered a flurry of education reforms as states scrambled to win billions in funds. Now, the creation of the Race to the Top-District Program (RTT-D) gives individual school districts a shot at winning a slice of $400 million in grants.…Read More

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Feds float guidelines for school-based Race to the Top grants

The Education Department is accepting public comment on the criteria and will release the application in July.

Following a wave of state education reforms spurred by its Race to the Top competition, the federal Education Department (ED) said May 22 that individual school districts will be able to compete for $400 million in grants to bring the initiative to the classroom level.

School districts with at least 2,500 students—40 percent or more of whom must qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a key indicator of poverty—will be eligible to receive up to $25 million to create plans targeting specific groups of students with the aim of closing the achievement gap.

“We need to take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said.…Read More

Universal Design for Learning: The next big thing in school reform?

Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. has seen an 11-percent increase in the number of students with disabilities passing standardized tests since implementing UDL two years ago.

As educators brace for new reforms, what will these changes look like? How will assessments and curriculum differ from previous versions? How can all students get the best education possible? The answer, some experts believe, lies partially in Universal Design for Learning (UDL)—a framework that’s quickly gaining momentum across the U.S.

A new report indicates that many states and school districts have implemented UDL with support from Race to the Top monies or federal stimulus funds as they move forward with their education reform efforts. The report was discussed during a May 15 webinar held by the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and the National Center on Universal Design for Learning.

UDL, according to CAST, is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences.…Read More

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States struggle over how to evaluate special-ed teachers

Measuring success based on student growth on standardized tests is considerably more complicated for special-ed teachers.

Since the first day of class this school year, Bev Campbell has been teaching her students how to say their names.

Some of the children in her class have autism. Others have Down syndrome or other disabilities. “People don’t understand where they’ve come from,” she says. “It’s slow.”

Just one has learned how to say his name. Still, the South Florida teacher sees signs of growth in the nine kindergarten to second-grade students in her class.…Read More

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