Expertise: Advocacy

Why Giving Kids a Roadmap to Their Brain Can Make Learning Easier

This article discusses the work of Imagine Scholar, a youth and educational development initiative in South Africa, to help students understand the science of learning. Throughout the four year program, students learn about growth mindset, memory, neuroplasticity, and how the adolescent brain works. They are also taught and given opportunities to practice many metacognitive strategies to… Read More ›

Developing a Cyberbullying Prevention Program

This webinar aims to provide educators and school leaders an opportunity to discuss how Millburn Township Public Schools in New Jersey provides teachers with the resources and support they need to confidently address cyberbullying and other online safety topics with their students. Participants will gain insight and hear best practices to develop an online safety… Read More ›

EdTech Connect Venture Cafe

Venture Cafe’s Ed-Tech mini-conference, “Innovation in Education & Educational  Services” takes place on August 30th, 2018. This special ‘conference night’ event seeks to bring together the brightest minds who are building, funding, and innovating in the Greater Boston area’s Education Community. This event will provide opportunities not only hear the best ideas and see the latest… Read More ›

Let Student Voices Ring—In and Out of School

Imagine building a bonfire in a local park—legally, of course. You start throwing in file folders filled with papers, and somehow your laptop ends up in there too. Before you know it, everything you’ve collected, catalogued, and annotated is burning in the fire. When faced with the concept of student-led classrooms, many educators visualize something… Read More ›

2018 Youth Leadership Institute

The Youth Leadership Institute is designed by youth for you. It is an annual gathering of youth and adult advocates from Nellie Mae Education Foundation’s grantee organizations who are committed to youth leadership, voice, and organizing in building system-level change that is student-centered and grounded in equity. The Youth Leadership Institute seeks to: Promote student-centered learning… Read More ›

Visioning Toolkit: Laying the Groundwork for a Community-Wide Vision for Personalized Learning

This toolkit was designed to help districts include the larger learning community in the development of a vision for personalized learning. It can help district’s take the first, important step of crafting and sustaining a community-wide vision for personalized, competency-based learning. In particular it includes: Guidance on crafting a system-wide vision for personalized learning, incorporating diverse stakeholder… Read More ›

How Immigration Enforcement Policies Are Impacting Students and Teachers Nationwide

As immigration enforcement intensifies around the country, schools see the impacts firsthand on a variety of stakeholders – students, families, educators, and communities. While many of these impacts have been documented anecdotally through the news media and on social media, researchers at University of California, Los Angeles have recently published a series of papers with detailed… Read More ›

The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy

The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy addresses the “fake news” problem by evaluating the successes and failures of recent media literacy efforts. Contemporary media literacy programs–commonly organized around the five main themes of youth participation, teacher training and curricular resources, parental support, policy initiatives, and evidence base construction–have demonstrated positive outcomes, particularly in… Read More ›

Separating the Facts from the Myths in the Competency-Based High School Transcript

This article discusses many misconceptions about competency-based transcripts. As more schools and districts move towards mastery-based assessment systems, transcripts must capture student learning in a fuller way. However, many families, students, and members of the community have concerns that these new transcripts will be hard to read or hurt students’ chances of getting into college.… Read More ›

MisEducation

In this podcast, eight student interns report stories from inside New York City’s segregated high school system. From the extreme lack of diversity in specialized high schools to racial disparities in sports access, the team is looking into the policies that maintain a dual system. This episode, the introduction to Season 2 features two students… Read More ›

School Counselors: An Integral Part of School Change

If students are the heart of education, then school counselors are undoubtedly the ears. Counselors listen to students and work to empower them. This means counselors are core to helping students understand their agency in life and in learning, as well as developing their social and emotional skills. As schools plan for student-centered shifts in… Read More ›