Confronting the Coronavirus Outbreak

This section of the Usable Knowledge website brings together advice for educators during school closures due to COVID-19. Usable Knowledge is an online resource from the Harvard Graduate School of Education that aims to make education research and best practices accessible to educators, policymakers, members of the media, nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs and parents. As such,… Read More ›

Best Practices for Online Teaching

Laurel Springs School, a private K-12 online school focused on personalization for students, created this guide to help teachers delivering courses online. The guide provides simple tips for connecting with students and their families and delivering content. The guide can be helpful to teachers of any grade or subject and features sections specifically tailored for… Read More ›

PeerGrade

This tool lets students conduct peer review online. It allows teachers to set an assignment and select a review rubric from an existing database or create their own. Students can upload their work and review each others. The teacher can view all comments. The tool was designed for college courses, so may be most useful… Read More ›

Digital Promise Product Certifications

This tool was designed to help districts and schools select ed-tech products that are based on solid research on learning science. Digital Promise has developed a set of criteria that can be used to determine whether an ed-tech product is grounded in research, which is one, though not the only, important marker of a high-quality… Read More ›

The Role of School Librarians in OER Curation

Librarians can play an important role in expanding the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) to support student-centered curriculum. This guidebook was created for librarians by the national nonprofit Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education after a study of 15 school districts. The clear overview of OER, outline of the curation process,… Read More ›

20 Collaborative Learning Tips And Strategies For Teachers

This simple list of tips will help teachers implement collaborative learning strategies in the classroom. It includes suggestions for making group work more effective such as creating roles, building trust and norms, considering diversity, focusing on problem-solving and providing scaffolding. It also includes an infographic that teachers may find useful. Source Organization: teachthought Visit the… Read More ›

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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together

This organization was founded in Vermont to increase student voice in decision-making and engagement in learning. Youth and adults participate together in action research to identify areas for growth, share data, and take actions. Teams focus on four areas: rigor, relevance, relationships, and responsibility. The two overview videos provide an excellent introduction to the approach.… Read More ›

Building Support for Student-Centered Learning: A Toolkit

This toolkit provides strategies, resources, and tools for those who would like to build public understanding and engagement around student-centered learning or other education reform efforts. The toolkit is organized around a theory of change that includes three elements: a compelling public story, deep dialogue and conversation, and real youth engagement. The toolkit draws on… Read More ›

Youth Participatory Action Research Hub

This site features a curriculum to empower students to begin Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Through YPAR young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their their communities and the institutions intended to serve them. The YPAR Hub, a partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Peer Resources, houses the… Read More ›