Expertise: Practice

Women’s History Month Lessons, Activities, Background Reading, and More

The National Education Association (NEA) has assembled a list of lessons and other resources for grades 9-12 to celebrate March 2017 National Women’s History Month “Honoring Trailblazing Women in Labor and Business”. Resources were gathered from a variety of organizations such as Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute and the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History. They… Read More ›

Elevating the Educator’s Voice: Personalized Learning for Teachers

How can teachers be expected to personalize learning for students when their own learning is delivered in a one-size-fits-all model? In this webinar, Kate Bean, Executive Director of Aveson Charter Schools, challenges the way educators learn and provides a basis for developing Personalized Mastery Learning (PML) experiences that will transform educators’ views about their own… Read More ›

ASCD Empower17

The ASCD Empower17 conference has been redesigned by educators, for educators. It will bring together teachers, principals, instructional coaches, superintendents, and other educators. The conference has been set up to empower participants to create their own personalized professional learning experience. Content will focus on supporting the whole child. Keynote and special session speeches, interactive panel… Read More ›

EdWeek Leaders To Learn From

At this all day event, Education Week will recognize bold school-system leaders who will share how they brought about change in their districts. Every year, Education Week identifies some of the nation’s most exceptional school district leaders, and shines a spotlight on their impact in a “Leaders to Learn From” special report. Through registration for video… Read More ›

2017 STEM + Entrepreneurship Conference

The 2017 STEM + Entrepreneurship Conference is a student-organized, online event which will feature keynote speakers and crowd-sourced presentations by students in grades 6-12 and college.  The online conference provides an international forum for the presentation, discussion, and sharing of best practices in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and entrepreneurship in schools and other academic settings, including: Fostering a better understanding… Read More ›

Maker Ed

The mission of Maker Ed is to provide educators and institutions with the training, resources, and community of support they need to create engaging, inclusive, and motivating learning experiences through maker-centered education, particularly in under-served communities. Maker-centered education encourages students to create, take apart, fix, and tinker. It encourages creativity and a type of thinking… Read More ›

How to Create Higher Performing, Happier Classrooms in 7 Moves: A Playbook for Teachers

This guide, written by Heather Staker, Adjunct Fellow at the Christensen Institute, draws on findings from a pilot study of 7 student-centered practices. Researchers from the Christensen Institute first studied the management principles of companies ranked as great places to work, then translated them into classroom practices that might motivate students. Teachers from three California schools… Read More ›

How to Address Executive Function Skills in the Classroom—and Why You Should

This article, written from a teacher’s perspective, explores the idea that increasing student achievement may lie in teachers awareness of the cognitive processes that enable students to manage information and complete tasks. She asserts that sometimes the best way to approach an instructional challenge is to take a step back to consider how the brain functions… Read More ›

If You’re Serious About Designing Edtech Solutions, Start with the Learners

This article, written from the perspective of a Learning, Design, and Technology graduate student, details a five-step human-centered design process for classroom technology implementation or creation.  The author believes this approach could ensure that technology makes learning more equitable, engaging, and relevant for learners of all ages and backgrounds. She asserts that a human-centered design process (where… Read More ›

Making Students Partners Rather Than Pawns in the Change Process

What if we had a window into the thoughts and beliefs of students experiencing the transition to a student-centered model?  How would the insights inform our strategies to support young people through this paradigm shift?  How might students, themselves, be advocates for these changes? Some believe that it is the adults who are reluctant to… Read More ›

Deeper Learning—for Teachers

This article discusses project-based learning for teacher professional development. It details the PD project conducted by teachers and coaching teams at Puxi Middle School in Shanghai, China. Together they worked to develop a shared curriculum and better align content with standards. The author shares how they developed protocols to improve units, projects, and performance tasks in their… Read More ›