Universal Design Technology
John F. O’Sullivan is a Librarian, an Assistive Technology Specialist at Chelmsford High School, and an author of several books on educational technology. This resource is a detailed catalog of educational and assistive technology divided by categories. These include apps and other resources to support: Note-Taking Memory Special Education Occupational Therapy Speech and Language Augmentative… Read More ›
10 Game-Changing Ideas in Education
In this article, editors at EdWeek have compiled 10 commentaries that outline exciting ideas in the field of education. For example: In The Secret to Student Engagement authors Chip & Dan Heath assert that “peak moments”, events that represent the culmination of students’ work are remembered long after the event and can create engagement and motivation… Read More ›
Model Schools, Districts, Networks and States for Competency-Based Education
This article catalogues successful competency education models on many scales. It provides links to schools, both district-based and charter; districts; learning networks; and states implementing competency-based learning. The list of state’s implementing wider scale mastery-based systems include links to documents detailing lessons learned. Local and state education leaders, researchers, and policy-makers could use these lists… Read More ›
Bringing Students Into Professional Development
This article looks at the importance of including student voice in professional development for teachers. The author promotes this approach both as a way to improve PD and to empower students and strengthen relationships. He suggests inviting students to PD events or collecting feedback in advance. PD providers and educator leaders can use the included… Read More ›
Quality Counts 2018
Every year, Education Week releases a Quality Counts report which examines state-level efforts to improve public education and pulls together a large number of statistics to create a picture of progress in each state. To provide a more in-depth look, Education Week will now provide this data in three reports rolled out over the course of the year. The first,… Read More ›
Civic Preparedness in an Era Characterized by its Discord More than its Dialogue
Political discord is as old as politics. However, disagreement between people with different political perspectives has become entrenched, and often rancorous, in our era. Many choose only to listen to viewpoints similar to their own and opportunities for conversation across political differences are shrinking. Research indicates that people are (increasingly?) choosing a self-selection of news… Read More ›
Teaching with Technology
This report looks at how teachers are integrating new technology and tools into their classroom practice. It identifies common benefits and challenges in the collective experience of educators throughout the country. The report draws on a survey of teachers in 38 states, interviews with teachers and administrators, and school and classroom observations. This research included… Read More ›
Key Teaching and Learning Shifts for Personalized Learning: Preparing for Success
This webinar recording focuses on the key teaching and learning shifts that occur in successful personalized learning settings over time from the perspective of students, teachers, and district and building leaders. It includes a discussion of the specific skills teachers and students use in many personalized learning settings, the key shifts in instructional planning and… Read More ›
Writing Commentaries: The Power of Youth Voice
This video shows a producer from Youth Radio in Oakland, CA working with students to produce their own commentaries. It discusses why commentaries can be powerful tools to spark discussion and stimulate civic engagement. It includes prompts to help students uncover a meaningful story they want to share, components of good commentaries, and tips for… Read More ›
The Six Secrets to More Successful Partnership Between Students and Teachers
Educators work on behalf of their students every day, but some of the richest learning opportunities arise when educators take it a step further and actually partner with students to address a local issue. Drawn from decades of experience studying and leading youth-adult partnerships, Students at the Center Distinguished Fellow Dana Mitra provides six secrets educators can… Read More ›
Visible Thinking Resources
This article, When Kids Have Structure for Thinking, Better Learning Emerges, looks deeply at how to best teach students about metacognition. It underscores the importance of thinking structures which, with continued use, provide concrete strategies to build thinking skills while deepening content learning. The article discusses work done by the Harvard Graduate School of Education Project Zero, which conducts… Read More ›
Fit for Purpose: Taking the Long View on Systems Change and Policy to Support Competency Education
This paper explores the issues state policy needs to address to support a transformation of K-12 education toward personalized, competency-based systems. It introduces four ‘threshold concepts’ that need to be considered for long-term success, including: certifying learning, assessment literacy, pedagogical innovations based on learning sciences, and meeting students where they are. This publication was written… Read More ›