ISTELive 23 lands in Philadelphia on June 25, and the annual conference promises to be packed with content for administrators, curriculum directors, classroom teachers, and everyone in between.

This year’s conference theme, “Discover Your Next,” celebrates the ideas, partnerships, teaching strategies, and edtech tools that can take learning to its next iteration. Register here, for in-person or virtual access.

With more than 900 sessions, it’s hard to choose a handful to highlight—but here are five sessions that caught our eye:

1. Class Visits: A PD Model for Teachers Growing Teachers

Instructional coaches are frequently asked, “What is everyone else doing in their classrooms?” Learn how our school created a successful PD system for teachers to learn and be empowered by each other by participating in a virtual class visit. Caty Carmendy, the Instructional Coach of Mooresville High School, leads the session.

Key points:

• With cyberattacks on the rise across schools, IBM Education Security Grants have already benefited more than 350,000 students globally
• Now in its third year, grants are expanding to offer students and teachers access to cyber and AI skills through IBM SkillsBuild

In response to the growing threat of ransomware attacks against schools around the world, IBM will provide in-kind grants valued at $5 million to help address cybersecurity resiliency in schools.

Since its creation in 2021, the IBM Education Security Grants program has expanded globally, and this year will also include enhanced offerings from IBM SkillsBuild on topics including AI and cybersecurity. 

Ransomware is unfolding faster than ever, with attackers managing to cut down the time required to deploy ransomware attacks from over two months to just under four days between 2019 and 2021, according to IBM’s X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023. In fact, the share of cybersecurity incidents observed in the education sector more than doubled in 2022 compared to the year prior, experiencing the largest increase year over year than any other industry.

“Time and time again attackers go after the education sector, yet many of these institutions remain constrained in their security resources,” said Andy Piazza, Global Head of Threat Intelligence, IBM Security X-Force.  “To date this program has helped more than 350,000 students across schools in the US and abroad, with IBM Service Corps helping them recover from ransomware attacks, strengthen their security posture against future attacks, and prevent further disruption.”

After a slow start in allocating federal ESSER funds, most states have found ways to spend their COVID relief dollars. In Montana, the Office of Public Instruction (OPI) is directing its ESSER money to digital learning resources.

OPI Superintendent Elsie Arntzen announced a new partnership with Discovery Education, a provider of state-of-the-art digital resources that support instruction wherever it takes place. Through this multi-year partnership, OPI is providing all 496 public school districts statewide access to a curated collection of high-quality, grade level appropriate, digital content aligned to Montana’s rigorous K-12 Content Standards.

The partnership–which is funded through ESSER–supports core instruction across Montana. In addition, the collaboration supports the state’s workforce readiness, rural education, Native American tribal history and culture, and parent and family engagement initiatives. Montana School Superintendents can activate their school district’s Discovery Education account by visiting this website.

“This partnership grows student learning both in and out of the classroom,” said Superintendent Elsie Arntzen. “The parental and family engagement aspect of Discovery Education will strengthen our Montana students’ success. I encourage all of our schools to take advantage of this great teaching and learning opportunity.”

The partnership is also ensuring that students in rural areas, which often lack high-speed internet connections and the resources that come with those connections, will have access to digital learning resources. “Many of Montana’s rural are part of a rural cooperative. Discovery Education will allow all our students the ability to access the content provided. Learning together has always promoted education in our frontier state, this is just another tool for lead teachers,” Arntzen said.

Key points:

• STEM education can be challenging, but engaging tools can help
• Explore these videos on various STEM topics, found on TED-Ed Lessons

STEM education is a critical topic for all students, but it’s also notoriously difficult to engage students in STEM topics–particularly as the content becomes more challenging. But with a few fun STEM videos, students might be a bit more interested in learning.

The videos below are all found on the TED-Ed platform. Educators can build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk, or YouTube video. Once you find the video you want to use, you can use the TED-Ed Lessons editor to add questions, discussion prompts, and additional resources.

These TED-Ed Lessons cover weather, space mysteries, the human body, and more.

1. The year without summer: In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted and its emissions spread across the globe, blotting out the sun for almost an entire year. This wreaked havoc on agriculture, leading to famines all across the Northern hemisphere. It was the year without summer— one of the darkest periods in human history. So why are some modern researchers considering repeating it? David Biello digs into geoengineering.

Key points:

• Most teachers would not choose a teaching career again
• Nearly half of teachers say poor mental health is impacting their work

Only 46 percent of current public K-12 educators would be “fairly” or “very likely” to advise their younger selves to choose teaching again, according to a new survey that shines a spotlight on a pressing crisis facing U.S. education.

More than one-third (35 percent) of educators are considering leaving the profession altogether. This is according to the 2023 Merrimack College Teacher Survey, which was conducted by the Winston School of Education and Social Policy at Merrimack College.

While the survey paints a dark picture overall for American public K-12 education, there are areas that have seen notable improvements since last year’s study. The percentage of teachers who are very satisfied with their jobs has nearly doubled to 20 percent, and the percentage of teachers considering leaving the profession within the next two years has dropped from 44 percent to 35 percent. Additionally, more teachers now report feeling respected by the public and being treated as professionals than in last year’s study.

Despite these positive trends, most teachers still would not advise their younger selves to pursue the profession, and measures of teacher autonomy remain stagnant. The survey highlights the ongoing impact of the pandemic on mental health, with 42 percent of teachers reporting their mental health and wellness negatively affects their work.

“While this should serve as a flashing red light to educational policymakers, the survey also provides insights into strategies that educational administrators and policymakers can employ to address this,” said Dean Deborah Margolis. “By prioritizing teacher mental health and wellbeing, and taking steps to build teacher morale, academic leaders can help create a healthier and happier school environment and retain more of their teachers.”

The survey provides clear guidance about how these learnings can be incorporated into teacher and school administrative programs. According to the study, “about 1 in 3 teachers say their principals provide some or a lot of concrete support for teacher mental health and wellness. But just 1 in 10 teachers whose mental health is having a very negative impact on their work say the same.”

The study specifically surveyed teachers on steps that schools or districts could take to support their mental well-being. The most frequently cited responses were:

• A pay raise or bonus to reduce financial stress (67%)
• Smaller class sizes (62%)
• More/better support for student discipline-related issues (62%)
• Fewer administrative burdens associated with meetings and paperwork (57%)
• More acknowledgement of good work/hard work/successes (54%)

“This study has given districts the kind of concrete insights that they can use to support their teachers and improve their retention,” said Associate Dean Russell Olwell. “With this survey, we wanted to go beyond just highlighting the challenges, and start looking at how we can leverage this work to support educators and educational leaders.” He added: “As a result of what we are seeing in K-12 schools, Merrimack College has launched several new programs to address teacher and student wellness, including coursework in mental health first aid, social emotional learning for educators, and a wellness professional development series through the Merrimack Institute for New Teacher Support.”

The survey, which was administered between January 15-25 of this year, collected responses from 1,178 K-12 public school teachers in the United States, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3% at a 95% confidence level.

This press release originally appeared online.

Related:
5 ways to help educators experience more joy
How administrators can support teachers with chronic health needs

Key points:

• AI tools can greatly personalize and individualize tutoring
• ChatGPT brings new perspectives to old problems and helps students think outside of the box

As the layers of post-pandemic classrooms are peeled back and learning losses become more evident, schools are searching for effective means to improve student achievement. Tutoring plays a major role in these efforts–and now, advances in AI are taking tutoring to a new level.

As the NAEP results made clear, students lost an alarming amount of progress in reading and mathematics. Already-overburdened teachers are scrambling to play catch-up and fit entire months of lost learning into their instruction.

Many parents are turning to tutoring solutions to help fill the gaps created by pandemic-related learning loss. As AI tools like ChatGPT become more sophisticated, online and in-home tutoring can become much more personalized for individual students, says Frank Milner, president of Tutor Doctor, which offers one-to-one private tutoring.

“A big part of what makes tutoring effective is the connection and mentorship between tutors and students,” said Milner. “While the tutor-student relationship is inherently human, the developments in AI and the ways it can augment learning are truly exciting. The industry is only scratching the surface in terms of its potential, but we’re constantly hearing from tutors who are using generative AI to go above and beyond to help students learn from developing study questions and brainstorming creative lesson plans to finding educational resources that match students’ individual interests.”  

A whopping 97 percent of respondents in a recent survey say they ‘frequently’ or ‘sometimes’ use ChatGPT to write lesson plans. Likewise, 93 percent of teachers say they use the AI platform to grade and provide feedback for students, 91 percent say to write emails, and 89 percent say to write letters of recommendation.

A survey of 1,000 high school, undergraduate, and graduate educators who are aware of ChatGPT, from online degree ranking and higher-ed planning site Intelligent.com, examines the prevalence of ChatGPT usage among both students and educators.

Among the top reasons for using the tool, 42 percent of teachers say it saves them time, 41 percent say it provides good suggestions, and 17 percent say it helps them understand ChatGPT’s capabilities.

“There’s no denying that while teaching can be a fulfilling and empowering profession, a great deal of time is used for developing lesson plans, creating assignments, reviewing homework, and much more,” said Blanca Villagomez, Intelligent.com’s education advisor. “Using ChatGPT for lesson planning can help teachers create lesson plans faster and more efficiently.”

Students’ access to opportunities in life largely depends on their access to diverse, supportive relationships. Now, updated Christensen Institute research illustrates the impact students’ connections and relationships have on their ability to achieve success in adulthood–and underscores the need for schools to track this data as they measure students’ progress.

The updated report augments ongoing research and provides education leaders with the tools, knowledge, and sample survey items to make important strides toward measuring students’ networks in more equitable, meaningful, and actionable ways.

Emerging research from other organizations has strengthened the need to understand just how important relationships and resources are to students, particularly as opportunity gaps grow even wider.

In 2021, nonprofit think tank Brookings Institution published “How We Rise,” which analyzes findings from a survey developed by research partner Econometrica to assess how individuals’ education, job, and housing networks impacted their chances of economic mobility.

A similar research collaboration between Strada, a national social impact organization, and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) evaluated undergraduate students’ engagement in career preparation activities, including surveying students about their participation in various social capital-building opportunities and their confidence tapping into alumni and professional networks.

eSchool News is celebrating 25 years in 2023, and during a March contest, 25 winners took home Amazon gift cards, with one additional grand prize winner receiving an Apple iPad.

Winners in the Celebrate 25! contest included curriculum coordinators, school office managers, classroom teachers, principals, technology directors, and school library professionals.

From being among the first new outlets to bring awareness to edtech initiatives such as one-to-one device programs in K-12 schools, to covering the myriad ways the COVID-19 pandemic has changed what education looks like, eSchool News continues to bring new developments, ideas, and innovations to its audience of K-12 decision makers, IT leaders, and classroom educators.

Here’s what some of our winners had to say:

Grand prize Apple iPad winner Talita Pilart, the office manager at William Logan Stephens Middle School, said: “eSchool News is an essential resource for educators, providing valuable digital content on integrating tech in education to maximize instruction and transform learning experiences.”

Here at Eagle Pass Independent School District, we’re right on the border of the United States and Mexico. Approximately 95 percent of our students are Hispanic, and most of them speak Spanish. Ours is a tight-knit community where many people live next door to family members, which is wonderful, but it also brought some challenges during the pandemic.

COVID just kept cycling through the community over and over again, and it was common to hear people talking about how they’d had it a half dozen times. The number of people who died in our community was heartbreaking, and it scared a lot of people. The New York Times even published a story in August of 2020 about the high rate of new infections here.

When we returned to completely in-person schooling, families didn’t want to send their students back to school. They were scared, and they didn’t understand why we couldn’t do another year of virtual school.

Before the pandemic we had excellent attendance. We’re a Title I district, so many students counted on the free breakfast and lunch they’d receive for attending. But during the pandemic, our attendance was frighteningly low. At its lowest point, attendance was approximately 5 percent, which put our funding in jeopardy. Even after our schools reopened, attendance only reached the 70-73 percent range.

Escape rooms are engaging for people of all ages—they require durable skills such as creativity, critical thinking, determination, and the ability to work in groups to solve challenges. It makes sense that educators would craft their lessons around the concept of an escape room—and that’s just what high school educator Lynn Thomas has done.

In this Q&A with eSchool News, Thomas details how she found inspiration to create escape room learning opportunities and the benefits she sees for her students–and she offers a look at a new ChatGPT challenge she’s created.

eSN: What gave you the idea to structure learning activities in an escape room-style challenge? 

LT: I was inspired to utilize this fun and challenging activity in my classes upon attending workshops and reading about the benefits and ways to gamify learning, as well as a specific Brightspace workshop about creating an Escape Room through the platform.

What do these challenges look like for students? What do students like best about them and what feedback have you received? 

In my particular case, I opted to create an around-the-world adventure. The narrative begins as follows: “You have been hired by a mysterious organization to complete a series of challenges. The details are all very vague, but you are very intrigued. All you know is that your problem-solving skills are going to be challenged and that you will have to learn along the way because, apparently, it also involves traveling around the world!”

Educators participating in a recent survey overwhelmingly believe that the Covid pandemic has increased student mental health needs–and in many instances, mental health issues are the biggest obstacle to school safety.

These latest statistics are found in the 2023 School Safety Survey from Raptor Technologies and the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO). Through the survey, Raptor gathered insight into a wide range of school safety and student wellness challenges school safety decision-makers face today. 

The survey surfaced critical data and insight on obstacles related to school safety and security processes, such as physical security, safety drills and procedures, and emergency response planning. In addition to 60 percent of respondents citing “mental health issues” as the greatest school safety obstacle they are encountering, 78 percent of respondents indicated the mental health needs of their student population have increased since returning post-Covid.

Mental health affects how children handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Early intervention is the most important and effective way to support a student who may be experiencing mental wellbeing issues they are not equipped to manage. However, over 50 percent of respondents indicated they aren’t fully equipped to assist with the mental health-related needs of their students.

With math scores falling globally, top high school math students point to academic burnout as a key factor. Among their recommended solutions to boost math performance? Tackle the root cause of burnout, get diversion through non-academic activities, and make STEM classes more applicable to everyday life.

That’s the finding of a survey of 16- to 18-year-olds in the U.S. and U.K. conducted in March by Philadelphia-based Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The survey gathered responses from 1,000 11th and 12th grade students from across the U.S. and sixth form students in England and Wales, as well as some of their teachers, to get their insights on the impact events of the last three years have had on math performance. The students queried are participants in this year’s MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge), an annual internet-based, intensive math modeling contest organized by SIAM.

“The poll shows that even top students have been struggling with school-related pressures, with 83 percent saying that they have experienced or somewhat experienced academic burnout in the last two years, and 32 percent saying their anxiety over math has increased,” said Dr. Karen Bliss, Senior Manager of Education and Outreach at SIAM. “Yet, rather than following the downward math performance trend, the majority still did well in math, with 35 percent landing even better math grades than previous years and 55 percent maintaining their average.”

Bliss explained that by exploring the motivation and practices behind the survey participants’ academic success, the SIAM study may help other students boost their math scores.

Survey results

According to the survey, the majority (57 percent) of students queried said that motivation to get into a good college or university is what helped sustain their interest in math over the last few years. For 35 percent of respondents, getting a scholarship or a good-paying job was a motivating factor.

Educators frequently turn to their colleagues and peers for best practices, inspiration, and new approaches to stubborn problems. After all, who better to offer insight than others who have experienced the same challenges?

Be it making tricky IT decisions, trying to engage underrepresented students in STEM learning, or how to perfect grading policies and practices, all educators can use some help from their colleagues.

Here are some tips, lessons learned, and inspiring wisdom from educators across the nation.

1. Three guiding principles can serve as the driving force and framework behind every IT decision: equity, efficiency, and excellence. In my role as Chief Technology Officer at one of the nation’s largest school districts, Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), being accountable and ensuring we are making prudent financial decisions is a top priority for my team. Striking a balance between innovation and sustainability is a challenge most school districts are facing. At HCPS, we have adopted three guiding principles that serve as the driving force and framework behind every IT decision—equity, efficiency, and excellence.

ChatGPT has commanded the world’s attention in recent weeks, and it has educators and policymakers discussing its implications for education, academic honesty, accessibility, and more.

OpenAI’s chatbot can compose poems, can write an essay about global warming as a Taylor Swift song, and can call up HTML code instantly–the possibilities are nearly endless.

ChatGPT is not the only AI-powered chatbot available to students and educators (0ther options include Google’s Bard and the latest version of Microsoft’s Bing), but it certainly seems to be the most discussed.

Chatbots raise specific concerns in education–will students use them to cheat? Where is the line between research and plagiarism? What role do chatbots play in creating more accessible educational tools for students with diverse needs? Here are five things to ponder as tools such as ChatGPT become more prominent in learning:

1. ChatGPT has rapidly begun to infiltrate K-12 classrooms nationwide. A recent survey by study.com found that nearly 90 percent of students admitted to using OpenAI’s chatbot in some home-related capacity, and more than 25 percent of teachers have already caught a student cheating using the chatbot. The propensity for students to use ChatGPT to cheat has raised concern amongst educators and even prompted several school districts, ranging from New York City Public Schools to the Los Angeles Unified School District, to issue a ban of the chatbot. However, cheating with ChatGPT is just a symptom of a larger problem in education: a focus on rote memorization and regurgitation of information.

North Dakota has become the first state to require computer science and cybersecurity education for all K-12 students.

Gov. Doug Burgum and North Dakota School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler celebrated the governor’s signing of HB1398, which requires the teaching of computer science and cybersecurity and the integration of these content standards into school coursework from kindergarten through 12th grade. Baesler said North Dakota is the first state in the nation to approve legislation requiring cybersecurity education.

“Today is the culmination of years of work by stakeholders from all sectors to recognize and promote the importance of cybersecurity and computer science education in our elementary, middle and high schools,” Baesler said at the bill’s signing ceremony on March 24.

“Our vision is to integrate and underscore the importance of computer science and cybersecurity instruction into the classes our students take as they move through our K-12 system,” Baesler said. “Under this bill, the information and knowledge our students need will be part of every grade level, which is appropriate when you consider the role that technology plays in our everyday lives.”

EduTech, a division of North Dakota Information Technology that provides information technology support and professional development for K-12 educators, will develop examples of cybersecurity and computer science education integration plans that may be used to assist local schools develop their own plans.

STEM education is a critical part of a comprehensive K-12 education–it helps students build and improve critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and it teaches students to be persistent when presented with a challenge.

And while STEM education is essential, it’s not always accessible–underrepresented groups, including female students and minority students–often lose interest in STEM subjects as the subjects grow more challenging and as they move through school.

Representation is another obstacle to more ubiquitous STEM participation. When students don’t see STEM professionals who look like them represented in advertising, on TV and in movies, or in classroom resources, they have a harder time envisioning themselves in STEM careers.

But with the right engagement and approach to STEM subjects, which do become more challenging as students progress, students can become lifelong STEM learners. Here are five great insights about STEM education:

1. Female middle and high school students have a high aptitude fit with, but low interest in, STEM careers, such as technology, manufacturing, and architecture, among others, according to the 2023 Female Student and STEM Career Exposure Gap Report from YouScience. Based on nationwide data, key findings show that female students have more than 11 times the aptitude for advanced manufacturing careers than interest and 8 times more aptitude for computers and technology careers than interest.

K-12 schools are facing a host of new challenges coming out of the pandemic, but many educators and school leaders believe technology holds the key to solving even the most entrenched problems, according to new data from Promethean.

The annual State of Technology in Education report, a survey of 1,700 U.S. educators, offers a snapshot of current trends, as well as a glimpse at what the future holds.

According to survey findings, educators put social-emotional learning (SEL) as one of their school’s top priorities, likely due to students still dealing with the fallout from pandemic disruptions. Two-thirds of respondents said their school is implementing SEL measures to tackle these issues, and 70 percent said technology is a good tool for providing the experiential learning and connections that students need to thrive.

The report also sheds light on the growing problem of staff shortages, which have plagued many schools as teachers quit, retire, or decide to change careers.

As school district leaders continue to worry about students’ college and career readiness, a new survey finds that less than half of students from traditionally underserved populations believe education after high school is necessary.

The new survey conducted by ECMC Group, in partnership with VICE Media Group, surveyed more than 1,000 high school students ages 14-18 from low-income, first-generation and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) backgrounds and found that only 45 percent believe education after high school is necessary, compared to 52 percent of all high schoolers.

In addition, only 8 percent feel fully prepared to make the decision of what to do after high school.

This study is the latest in a series of national surveys conducted since February 2020 to uncover insights from high schoolers about their academic and career plans after high school. The previous five surveys gathered information from a cross-section of more than 5,000 students from across the country.

The latest survey, conducted in October 2022, focused specifically on gathering insights from historically underserved high school student populations. The data is part of ECMC Group’s Question The Quo campaign, designed to empower Gen Z teens to take the education and career path that is right for them.

“This latest round of data provides a clearer picture of the issues and barriers faced by our most under-resourced students as they seek to determine their future trajectory,” said Dan Fisher, president and CEO of ECMC Group. “With this information, we have an opportunity to not only hear the concerns but develop solutions that will enable these students to persist and thrive in the future.” 

The survey also found that 83 percent of students surveyed feel pressure—often self-directed—to pursue a four-year degree, but more than half (53 percent) are open to a path other than four-year college, and nearly 60 percent believe they can be successful without a four-year degree.

As they ponder their future, most would like their high school to provide guidance on questions about finances (62 percent), support for their mental and physical health (48 percent), identifying postsecondary education options (46 percent), and managing future debt (37 percent) or handling unexpected costs (37 percent).

States with formal policies around gifted and talented programs tend to identify more English learners and students with disabilities for those programs, according to a new study from NWEA, a not-for-profit research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

The study uses data from the 2017-2018 Civil Rights Data Collection, the Stanford Education Data Archive, and the researchers’ own coding of individual states’ policies toward gifted and talented education.

A number of key themes emerged:

• The study confirms that English learners and students with disabilities are identified at rates that are 1/8 to 1/6 of their representation in the overall student population.
• State mandates for schools to offer services, requirements for formal gifted education plans, and regular audits for compliance are correlated with much higher rates of gifted service availability and equity for English learners and students with disabilities.
• The top 5 percent of schools with the highest equity of English learners identified as gifted were relatively lower achieving and had higher enrollments of students from low-income families.
• The top 5 percent of schools with the highest equity of students with disabilities identified as gifted were similar in size, achievement, and SES to the overall sample, but were smaller than the average school in the sample and had smaller, if more equitable, gifted and talented enrollment.