Six things I learned bringing online learning to international schools

For the last 15 years, I’ve been introducing schools all around the world to the value of online learning. It started at the Colegio Internacional de Caracas in Venezuela, when I first discovered the courses from global nonprofit VHS Learning.

We began offering online courses to our students for enrichment. As a relatively small international school, we liked the opportunities that the platform offered us and the fact that our kids could take part in courses that we couldn’t offer.

Related content: 4 ways online learning leads to physical equity…Read More

Why should schools change?

The transformation of our schools–from the outdated model that focuses on rote learning of content and short-term preparation for tests, to one of deeper learning that prepares students for success in a rapidly evolving future–is, finally, inevitable.

At a 30,000-foot level, our broad community of education stakeholders—learners, parents, practitioners, administrators, and community builders—is faced with three big questions: “Why” should schools change? “What” does that change look like? And, “how” do we make those changes?

Why should schools change?

During this new millennium of radically increased dynamism in the world around us, our basic system of education has stayed remarkably static.…Read More

The 14 most innovative SEL districts, part 2

[Editor’s Note: This article was first published on the Move This World blog on November 1, 2018.]

Make sure you read “The 14 most innovative SEL districts, part 1.”

In this article, we will be highlighting districts that have shown tremendous commitment to the well being of their students and staff. These 14 districts are being recognized for their efforts in social emotional learning (SEL) and their dedication to creating safe learning environments where individuals feel empowered to express themselves, and where effective teaching and learning can occur.…Read More

The 14 Most Innovative SEL Districts, Part 1

[Editor’s Note: This article was first published on the Move This World blog on November 1, 2018. Come back tomorrow for part 2.]

In this article, we will be highlighting districts that have shown tremendous commitment to the well being of their students and staff. These 14 districts are being recognized for their efforts in social emotional learning (SEL) and their dedication to creating safe learning environments where individuals feel empowered to express themselves, and where effective teaching and learning can occur.

What is SEL? As defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social emotional learning is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.…Read More

How Wearables, AR, and VR Help Students Develop SEL Skills (Part 1)

In her post, “Now is the Time to Redefine Readiness,” my colleague Katherine Prince detailed how the world of work is changing, creating an urgent need to redefine what it means to be ready, and proposed a new foundation for readiness that prioritizes:

  • Deep self-knowledge will help people develop visions for our lives and continue to discover their own personal and professional strengths, weaknesses, passions, and emotional patterns.
  • Individual awareness will help people recognize and regulate our emotions; understand the triggers that spark them; and shift to more desired, productive emotional states when needed.
  • Social awareness will help people recognize others’ emotions and perspectives, enabling us to build relationships in support of learning, collaboration, and innovation and foster inclusive work environments.

The exponential advances of digital technologies are one of the main drivers of change reshaping work and creating the need to redefine readiness, but they may also help educators support young people’s development of key future readiness skills. Three digital technologies in particular–wearables, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR)–show great promise in helping to cultivate social-emotional skills such as those in the new foundation for readiness:…Read More

3 ways to promote grit via literacy instruction

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” –Japanese Proverb

J.K. Rowling. Bill Gates. Oprah Winfrey. These are no doubt names that most students recognize as successful. But what often goes overlooked is the perseverance needed to achieve success, and that successful people—including these household names—often overcome great obstacles. To that end, the conversation in schools has shifted to resilience and grit, recognizing that people who demonstrate determination often end up being movers and shakers in today’s world.

Thanks to pioneering work by Carol Dweck, Martin Seligman, and Angela Duckworth, we now know that the ability to cope and persevere through setbacks and adversity can be learned and taught. In a related movement, educators across the country are leading the charge to implement social-emotional learning (SEL) programs and teach the core SEL competencies they’ve always known to be immensely valuable. By teaching skills ranging from self-management to responsible decision-making, educators hope to instill students with the positive mindsets, resilience, and grit they need to succeed in school and life.…Read More

Girls and STEM: A female engineer shares her path

Many people leave Disney World dreaming of becoming a princess, but when I experienced Disney for the first time as a three-year-old, I left the parks with a different dream: to become an engineer. I was enamored by the rides and became obsessed with learning how everything—from the roller coasters to the teacups—fit together and worked.

While I knew I wanted to be an engineer, I didn’t know which type of engineer I wanted to be. Fortunately, my parents handled my interest in engineering in the same way they handled other extracurricular activities: by finding every opportunity for me to learn about and experience engineering. Over the next decade, I learned about engineering by interviewing current engineers, going to summer camps, and absorbing information online.

When I was 13, I read a paragraph-long description about industrial engineering and knew what I wanted to do with my life. Today, I’m a senior industrial engineering student at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, and I couldn’t be happier with the decision I made in my teens.…Read More

6 questions to ask when selecting your district’s AV equipment

Audiovisual (AV) technology is at the center of many classroom initiatives. Whether students are watching videos in a one-to-one classroom setting or English language learners are working on speaking and listening activities, AV lets them connect with media during classroom time.

While innovations are certainly taking place in the world of classroom AV, it’s convenient that some edtech staples are still functional and effective. For example, as long as a classroom’s current headphones are comfortable, durable, and safe, they won’t likely need to be updated.

As you review your AV needs for the 2018-19 school year, keep this checklist of priorities in mind.…Read More

A student’s perspective on the promise of technology

To be a young adult in 2018 means to have gone through school during a very revolutionary time, technologically speaking. Throughout the 2000s, classrooms in America saw everything from basic overhead projectors and boomboxes to state-of-the-art computer labs and virtual reality headsets. The implementation of technology in schools alters the fundamental teaching structure in ways that can render significant improvements in productivity. We should be careful to not allow these new methods to overpower traditional teaching techniques, but rather find ways to use technology to enhance the world of education, given its ability to stimulate the developing brain in ways that traditional education cannot.

Only a few decades ago, education consisted solely of a flock of diverse students being taught one singular way, by one teacher, in one room, on one platform. Until lately, there was not much opportunity to customize learning for different types of students, who possess different learning styles. The use of technology in classrooms over the years has increasingly provided more and more opportunities for each type of student to learn at the pace they require to reach their fullest potential. For example, many schools now offer curriculums entirely online to be completed in the students’ own time, allowing each of them to progress at their own pace. This can help them achieve a more well-rounded understanding of the material by being able to spend more time on subjects they struggle with, and less time on topics they may already know enough about.

With current cell phones possessing more computing power than NASA in 1969, it’s no surprise that technology has made access to learning much easier. The internet alone yields vast amounts of information—although one must still be able to sift through fact from fiction. Sites like JSTOR.org and other digital libraries full of academic journals, books, and primary sources make hunting down valuable content a breeze. In addition, finding ways to incorporate social media into the classroom can help bring a “real world” feel to teaching lessons. Whether it be forming a class Facebook group, using Pinterest to brainstorm ideas, requiring students to blog, or creating a class hashtag on Twitter, students will thrive off of this familiarity and if anything, it will help convert social media into a tool rather than a distraction.…Read More

Everyone has a role to play in education today

As we enter a new year, education is a topic that continues to resonate well beyond the classroom into the core aspects of daily life, from home and family to the halls of politics and the corporate world. Since launching SXSW EDU several years ago with the aspiration to become the world’s largest and most inclusive learning festival in the world, it’s been exciting to see the event grow and evolve. As past speakers including philanthropist Bill Gates and Teacher’s College, Columbia University professor Christopher Emdin both observed from the keynote stage, the growth of the event is a direct reflection of the public’s deep passion and interest with teaching and learning—no surprise, when we acknowledge that education is the foundation on which everything is built!

More than the growth of SXSW EDU, though, what’s been most interesting to observe is the evolution of the topics that the community wants to address, as reflected through our crowd-sourced program. Each year, the community proposes thousands of suggestions for sessions and workshops and speakers. As such, the SXSW EDU community’s conversation about teaching and learning continues to become richer and more diverse, spanning the complete life cycle of learning, from early childhood, to and through college, career, and beyond.

While past programs for SXSW EDU focused largely on the standards and structures of schooling, today the program has grown to additionally address the intersection of culture and learning. Stated another way, beyond exploring the 4- or 8- or 12-year curriculums associated with the traditional classifications of elementary, secondary, and post- secondary education, it’s been fascinating to see the program enriched with discussions about lifelong learning in the real world, against the backdrop of rapidly changing expectations to prepare learners for a future that will look far different than today.…Read More