Black Lives Matter at School Teaching Materials

As part of the Black Lives Matter at School Action Week, this webpage lists resources which align with the Black Lives Matter guiding principles and focus on improving the school experience for students of color. Resources include the Black Lives Matter at School 2020 Curriculum Resource Guide as well as resource compilations created for this… Read More ›

Bringing a Culturally Responsive Lens to Math Class

This article describes how a 7th-grade math teacher created a 3-week unit project to connect math to a real-world issue identified by students. The author outlines a simple 4 step process any math teacher could use to design a similar unit to build student engagement, including tips to ensure all students can demonstrate mastery through… Read More ›

Teaching Tolerance

This website is full of resources to promote diversity and inclusion, including classroom activities and lesson plans, as well as professional development activities and readings. The well organized site includes a section on classroom resources which are aligned with common core standards as well as Teaching Tolerance’s Social Justice Standards. This section includes a large database… Read More ›

4 Questions to Ask About Multimedia Content

This short article provides advice on selecting the best multimedia resources. To ensure they will lead to deeper learning experiences, teachers can select multimedia resources with their end goals for the activity or project in mind. Building on interactions with hundreds of educators, the author suggests 4 probing questions teachers of any subject can use… Read More ›

Tapping Students’ Interests to Develop Literary Analysis Skills

This article introduces a strategy for increasing student voice in English Language Arts (ELA) classes. A veteran teacher shares how passion blogging on topics of their choice helped students develop key analytical skills such as argument design, and use of evidence. This exercise provided scaffolding before moving on to analysis of complex literary texts, while… Read More ›

How Systems of Assessments Aligned with Competency-Based Education Can Support Equity

This report from the Aurora Institute and Center for Assessment looks at ways in which state leaders can build balanced assessment systems that support mastery-based education. In assessment systems aligned with competency education, assessments are coherently linked to target competencies and learning progressions, provide a range of evidence for each student, and monitor progress over… Read More ›

6 Strategies to Support the Development of Self-Directed Learners

This article explores several strategies to help students build the skills needed to be self-directed learners. The author, an experienced teacher, explores the importance of helping students develop skills in 3 categories: executive functioning, metacognition, and social-emotional learning. Teachers in any subject can try out the concrete classroom activities suggested here. Source Organization: Education Reimagined… Read More ›

Advancing Equity by Building Development Relationships

This story looks at the importance of building developmental relationships in which adults and youth share power, especially for students from traditionally underserved communities. Developmental relationships are are purposeful relationships built on trust, designed to help young people: Discover who they are Cultivate the abilities needed for them to shape their own lives Learn how… Read More ›

Teaching Students to Think About Thinking

The articles in this issue of ASCDExpress explore metacognition, the ability to understand ones own mental processes and to monitor and influence them. The authors provide both general suggestions for promoting metacognitive awareness and regulation, as well as specific ideas tailored to particular subject areas. Read as a whole this collection of articles offers many… Read More ›

Pittsburgh-Area Students Tackle Community Challenges in Learn and Earn Program

This article describes a summer learning program in the Pittsburg, PA area. Through the Learn and Earn Program, students conducted research projects in about 15 neighborhoods across the city. They surveyed residents on issues of importance to the community, such as factors contributing to crime rate, feelings about local businesses, and trash problems. Students had… Read More ›

Hearing Youth Voices

This group is a youth-led, action research group where students learn about the different oppressions they face every day and find out why things happen the way they do. Students are free to express themselves; they can sing, rap, do spoken word, dance, draw, and make skits. Hearing Youth Voices creates workshops for youth to… Read More ›

Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)

CAST is a nonprofit research and development organization that works to expand learning opportunities for all individuals, especially those with disabilities, through Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Developed by CAST, UDL is a widely recognized framework to guide the design of learning experiences to proactively meet the needs of all learners. The organization conducts research… Read More ›