Digital teaching and learning in the smartphone era

For much of the past two decades, educators have commonly referred to millennials as “digital natives.” Given that they are the first generation to grow up with access to personal computers, the descriptor seemed apt at the time. But today’s students–the emerging Generation Z–are demonstrating what it really means to be a true digital native.

Not only are these students growing up with widespread access to computers and the internet, they are surrounded by smartphones and other mobile devices with impressive computing power.

Related content: 10 findings about K-12 digital learning…Read More

How to balance work and study as a teacher

According to LinkedIn’s 2018 Workforce Learning Report, 93 per cent of employees would stay at a company longer if their employers invested in their careers. Continued professional development (CPD) is something that a lot of employees, including teachers, are keen to invest their time and energy into.

CPD opportunities for teachers might include: :

  • Workshops, seminars and conferences
  • Online learning
  • Professional reading
  • Mentoring others
  • Formal study.

Going back to study while teaching can not only be fulfilling, but add sought-after skills and qualifications to your CV. Despite this, one challenge for those considering further study is the delicate work and study balance. To maintain this balance, there are some tips you can employ to ensure both your classroom work and study to thrive.…Read More

4 ways school leadership encourages proficient readers

At a time when schools are held accountable to the highest level of standards, strong school leadership is critical for success.

Fortunately, researchers have been exploring the school leadership factors that enable schools to successfully provide interventions to struggling readers, even in the face of complicating factors (e.g., a high percentage of the student population qualifying for free and reduced lunch).

Related content: 10 ways to use technology to promote reading…Read More

5 new strategies to integrate digital content into classroom instruction

For the past decade of my career, I’ve worked to empower and inspire educators in their use of digital content and technology. From teaching educators in graduate level courses and delivering school level professional development to producing digital learning content and designing educational products and services, my career has had one common purpose: to learn how to best support educators’ use of digital content.

This work has been informed by hours interviewing, surveying, observing, and conversing with educators in all roles, grade-levels, and subject areas. Throughout this process, I have observed time and again that when we give educators practical strategies to use digital content, they are more effective at teaching with that content and engaging students in the learning process.

Following are five new strategies educators at any level can use to more effectively use digital content to jumpstart classroom learning.…Read More

7 strategies to navigate a tech upgrade

Several school district officials have told us they want to embrace our philosophy of empowering students and teachers through technology innovation, but lack the right infrastructure to support this vision. After our district completed a three-year, district-wide technology refresh cycle, we wanted to share our top takeaways to help our peers get more educational benefits from your network infrastructure.

Lesson #1: Organizational structure matters

Like many districts, in the past our IT department delivered products and services as a separate entity from our curriculum and instructional development staff. Now we’re all organized under the same leadership and our joint team is headed by a chief learning officer.…Read More

3 keys to cultivating the maker mindset

When we dreamed of starting construction on a space where teachers and students alike could cultivate a maker mindset, our goals went beyond creating a dedicated makerspace. We wanted to empower our community, assure students that they were valued as individuals, and offer them opportunities to develop empathy and agency as problem-finders and creative problem-solvers.

We knew we could accomplish this with a designated space that celebrated creativity, emphasized process over product, and highlighted the importance of reflection. We set out to design a space where students could not only develop a design thinking philosophy, but integrate this maker mindset into their core studies.

Related content: 9 ways schools can create better makerspaces…Read More

3 ways to combine trauma-informed teaching with SEL

When trauma goes unacknowledged by caring adults, students can feel suffocated by the burden of their experience. Research shows that traumatic experiences can drastically hinder students’ academic development, and that “children who have three or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are three times more likely to experience academic failure, five times more likely to have attendance problems, and six times more likely to have behavioral problems than those with no ACEs.“

These findings, coupled with the fact that almost half of the students in the U.S. have experienced at least one or more traumatic experiences presents a significant barrier to academic success for a large population of students.

Related content: 3 ways our school is fighting back against trauma…Read More

What Is Good Leadership in Schools?

A recent study found that not one school (of 180 surveyed) was able to improve student achievement records without effective school leadership. This research  shows a clear connection between skilled school leadership and positive student learning outcomes. It’s proof that good leadership in schools makes a direct impact on students’ experience and performance.

Good leadership in schools is the practice of encouraging and enabling school-wide teaching expertise in order to achieve a strong rate of progress for all learners. This leadership can be driven by principals and executive staff in traditional leadership roles, as well as by school leaders and teachers without defined leadership roles.

For teaching staff and future leaders in the education sector, it’s important to understand what the benchmark is for good leadership in schools, and how it can be used to drive lasting change.…Read More

Ensuring accessible content for all students

This summer, many faculty will work on developing or revising curricular content for their courses. One of the keys in developing new digital materials is verifying that those materials offer accessible content for all students.

Today, most learning management systems (LMS) and software programs offer some level of accessibility compliance checking. However, they are not always thorough or error-free.

Related Content: 5 steps to ensure accessibility…Read More

Rigor and joy: SEL and academics go hand-in-hand

Demographics

McMinnville School District serves 6,800 students across 9 schools

Biggest challenge

We are a Title 1 school in rural Oregon with over 60 percent of our students experiencing poverty and our best estimate tells us that 36 percent have also experienced some sort of childhood trauma. These obstacles create barriers for our students coming to school ready to learn and thrive both academically and social emotionally. Our teaching staff was struggling with knowing how to meet both of these needs simultaneously, focusing on both SEL and academics. In our field, there is a false dichotomy that educators should focus on either SEL or academics, hence the unending pendulum swing in education. The truth is our kids need and deserve both simultaneously. We needed to foster a growth culture that fostered high expectations and support for the whole child.

Solutions

The transformational growth that we took on in our building could not have happened without growth mindset. The foundational belief that intelligence is malleable and that each child’s “true potential is unknown and unknowable.” (Dweck, 2006). We began this work by starting with the adults. We examined our own tendencies toward growth mindset messages and fixed mindset messages. We recognized that our systems often reflect past practice and can sometimes be obstacles to growth. We challenged one another to ask deep, difficult questions and foster each other’s learning as we tried new things. We sought to understand growth mindset not as a fad in education, but as ethical responsibility to understand and teach in ways that support brain development for our students.…Read More

Using your LMS for teaching and professional learning

Picture this: You roll out a new learning management system (LMS) for students, but all of your professional learning is either hosted on a different platform or conducted in person with notes shared via email afterward. Sound familiar?

It’s more common than you think, but separating the educator professional learning (PL) experience from the student learning experience can actually have a negative impact on both parties’ experiences in the long run.

Related: 3 reasons elementary schools should adopt an LMS…Read More