Key points:

• To improve student engagement, strive to create a positive learning environment
• Offer multiple means of engagement using technology inspired by UDL such as voice/screen capture or different ways to present a project

While schools have largely returned to normal classroom instruction, some ripple effects of the pandemic remain. Educators are searching for a spark to re-engage students in the learning process. According to a recent survey, 38 percent of students reported decreased motivation to excel in school. In comparison, 80 percent of educators feel the pandemic made students less motivated.

In some cases, children traumatized by the pandemic struggle with mental health issues. In most cases, teachers may only need to provide different opportunities and multiple means of engagement to increase participation.

Motivating students starts with building a positive learning environment. The first steps require educators to create a physically and emotionally safe classroom where each student is valued and respected. Fostering student connections, encouraging voice and choice, adding relevance to lessons, and nurturing student ownership results in a supportive community where students feel comfortable as active participants in their learning.

Each student approaches learning uniquely. Prior knowledge, interests, learning styles, language skills, and physical abilities affect a child’s aptitude for learning and achievement. Meeting children where they are and differentiating instruction can mean the difference between a fully engaged learner and a passive learner who tunes out.

Key points:

• Adopting collaborative edtech tools creates a dynamic classroom environment
• Students often are more engaged when teachers take on a guiding role rather than a purely instructive one

What’s been lacking in education up to now? From secondary schools to master’s degrees, educators often adopt a unidirectional approach, where information flows solely from teacher to student. However, it is imperative for students to actively become part of the teaching process, and teachers must cultivate an environment conducive to peer-to-peer learning.

Edtech tools for teachers made mainstream during the pandemic have undeniably enhanced student collaboration and facilitated the creation of more modern learning classrooms. The projected growth of the edtech industry to $605.8 billion by 2027 is a testament to that.

But I’m not referring to Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, quizzes, or virtual breakout rooms. The discussion extends far beyond these well-known online learning tools. There are some emerging peer-learning and social-learning edtech tools that can further transform every facet of the classroom experience, particularly heightening engagement. Let’s see how.

What is student engagement?

Student engagement refers to learners’ level of involvement, motivation, and commitment. And high levels of active participation directly correlate with positive academic outcomes.

Key points:

• There are several reasons it can be problematic for teachers to be assessors
• New staffing models could create more balanced assessments and grading
• See related story: 8 questions for educators as they use assessments to support student learning

As a restaurant manager, how would you feel if you were suddenly tasked with inspecting the food in your own kitchen? Or as a gymnastics coach, how would you react if you were asked to score your own team’s performances in a competition? It’s clear that when one person is both a manager or coach and an evaluator, conflicts of interest can arise. Yet, in the field of education, it’s common for teachers to both instruct their students and grade their academic achievements.

In conventional K-12 education, teachers are expected to wear many hats. They must design and deliver effective lessons, assess student learning, manage classroom behavior, and build relationships with students and families. But what if we could unbundle the role of the teacher and distribute these responsibilities across a team of experts?

It may be time to rethink the role of the teacher as an assessor and separate the two responsibilities.

Highlighting the need for change

Here are four reasons why it’s problematic for teachers to also be assessors:

1. Inaccurate grading. Developing a reliable and objective grading system is a complex process that requires expertise in psychometrics. Teachers simply don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to this endeavor. As a result, they may resort to creating their own assessments, which may not be scientifically sound and can lead to inaccurate grading.

Key points:

• Assessment discussions are examining how AI like ChatGPT might play a role
• Individualized assessment offers a fair and equitable option to meet varying students’ needs
• See related article: Strategies for using alternative assessments in the classroom

The National Council on Measurement in Education’s (NCME) annual meeting has always offered an opportunity to learn about innovative research and new trends in student assessment. It is a chance to get hints of where the field is moving and what will be available to school districts, teachers, and students.

This year did not disappoint. There were three notable topics at the conference that signal new directions in assessment: through-year assessment, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and individualized assessment.

1. Through-Year Assessment

Through-year assessment is a type of assessment that has several different versions. In general, through-year assessment refers to testing that takes place throughout the school year to provide feedback on student progress and ultimately make a proficiency determination. At least three different sessions at NCME’s annual meeting dealt with through-year, and each one focused on a different version of it.

In one version, through-year assessment blends interim and summative assessment together. The interim assessment is given in the fall and winter, while the summative test is given in the spring, to make a proficiency determination. A second version of through-year makes proficiency determinations for specific curriculum standards as they are taught. Another version of through-year assessment is somewhat a blend of the prior two. It uses an interim assessment during the school year, but test content is cumulative, and the proficiency determination is made in the spring.

Key points:

• Online literacy programs help educators differentiate instruction
• Engaging literacy solutions help students absorb learning material

When we started using a new literacy program 10 years ago, our reading scores were mediocre. Within a few years we had moved up to being a Level 1+ school, which is one of the highest rankings for Chicago Public Schools’ rating system (which is currently being replaced with a new system). We’re using the literacy program as a main component for grades K-5 in addition to another program for fifth graders.

We really like how both online literacy programs differentiate instruction for students, identify learning gaps and place students at the right levels for their individual needs. This functionality also lets teachers know when to pool students for the offline Skill Builders to help move past specific challenges students are facing. Additionally, the data that we get from the platforms is invaluable; we’ve become so used to looking at it and then using it to help inform our instruction.

5 reasons to be in it for the long haul

Here are five long-term benefits that we’ve seen from using our literacy program for the last 10 years:

1. Teachers decide how they want to break it down and implement it within their 90-minute reading blocks. We leave it up to the reading teachers to decide how they want to use the programs. Some teachers assign it for homework and others build it right into their classroom time. Other teachers set up different stations or centers throughout their classrooms and have students rotate through the literacy platform that way. I feel like if we just told teachers they had to use it or otherwise mandated it, they wouldn’t have been so quick to embrace the online literacy platforms. Instead, they see the power in the programs, and how they can use them with their students, plus the data that they can get out of the software.

Key points:

• For tutoring to work, students have to show up
• Finding a curriculum designed for tutoring is important to program success

As educators continue to work to accelerate learning for students following the pandemic, many are turning to tutoring to provide support. Tutoring is one of the most effective math interventions available for students, but the quality of tutoring varies widely.

Here are six keys to ensuring your students are receiving the best tutoring available.

1. Get students to show up.

The primary challenge with tutoring is attendance. Just getting students to show up to sessions is difficult. The most reliable way to ensure students who need extra support show up for tutoring is to offer it during the school day.

Think of it like inpatient versus outpatient medical therapy. Outpatient therapy is hit or miss based on the motivation of the patient. Even with the most engaging material and a charismatic tutor, how many students really want to be in a tutoring session?

There are different ways to get students into tutoring while they are at school. Perhaps they go to an intervention classroom and a teacher or another educator (or even a parent) is there simply to facilitate as students meet with tutors online, either in small groups or individually. Schools could also have students visit with tutors immediately before or after school.

Key points:

• Students can’t learn if they’re having trouble listening
• Tech tools and sound amplification can help combat classroom noise pollution

Learning depends on listening. But classroom noise pollution is making hearing in the classroom harder. Finding simple and effective ways to dial down classroom noise levels can help increase focus and stamina.

The World Health Organization recommends classroom sound levels of no more than 35 decibels. The average volume of a classroom, however, rings in at more than twice that level. At 77 decibels, the average classroom produces the same level of noise as freeway traffic or other “annoyingly loud” sounds.

What’s causing all this noise? Changes in the classroom that brought many advantages, such as interactive technologies, more small group work, and flexible classrooms, have contributed to noise levels. Some schools may also experience environmental noise such as city traffic, construction, or noise from ventilation systems.

The result is classroom noise pollution that causes distraction and discomfort for students and teachers. From learning loss and lower standardized test scores to student distraction and teachers losing their voices, noise has significant impacts in the classroom. Research reveals that 40 percent of students say they can’t understand their teacher due to background noise. Meanwhile, three-quarters of teachers say their jobs make their voices hoarse or strained.

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.”

Ensuring that children are developmentally ready for school on day one of kindergarten is critical. The better prepared children are for kindergarten, the more successful they are likely to be in their school experience.

Kindergarten readiness involves more than just a child’s age and academic abilities. It also encompasses social-emotional competencies, including whether children can follow directions, regulate their own emotions, and get along well with others.

As a former principal for a large urban school district who has opened an early childhood center with more than 400 children, I have extensive experience in preparing children for kindergarten and working with parents to do the same. Here are three key steps that school systems can take to ensure that all children have the solid foundation they need to start kindergarten ready to learn with their peers.

1. Implement a prekindergarten curriculum that addresses all of the developmental domains required for success

Adopting a Pre-K curriculum that encompasses all the domains of early learning is crucial for getting children ready for kindergarten.

Schools today are facing a harsh reality: there is a chronic shortage of qualified speech-language pathologists (SLPs). As an SLP and clinical director who has worked with school districts across the country, I’ve watched this problem grow over the years. This, compounded with large amounts of paperwork and high caseloads, makes it difficult for SLPs to manage their workload, contributing to many students not getting the services they need.

Despite long-term efforts made by school administrators to help students and SLPs surmount service barriers, it’s clear that in-school speech-language therapy initiatives could still use a boost.

Here are three things administrators can do to improve student access to speech-language therapy.

Support ongoing SLP training

While the scope of practice for school-based SLPs is technically quite broad, SLPs may be assigned students who require highly-specialized therapeutic approaches. However, districts often don’t have the bandwidth or budget for the additional training required.

The U.S. has a two-pronged labor market problem: a labor shortage and a skills gap. If every unemployed individual in the U.S. found a job right now, there would still be 4 million open jobs. Furthermore, a National Federation of Independent Business survey found that 54 percent of business owners struggle to hire qualified workers. As it becomes increasingly evident that schools are not providing students with the requisite skills to succeed in the labor market, the root of the persistent labor shortage and skills gap in the U.S. can be traced back to the K-12 education system.

However, career and technical education (CTE) programs have shown great promise in addressing this issue. The Department of Education (ED) notes that students who focus on CTE courses in high school have higher median annual earnings, graduation rates, and employment rates than non-CTE students. Despite the proven efficacy of CTE programs, inadequate federal investment remains a primary barrier to implementing successful programs nationwide.

It’s essential to adopt new funding methods and policies to mitigate this barrier, expand CTE programs in K-12 schools, and encourage widespread adoption of these programs to bridge the skills gap and foster student success. Like most education programs, CTE programs are primarily funded by state and local resources. Accordingly, increasing the implementation rates will be predicated on encouraging outside funding sources, such as private-sector partnerships and philanthropic organizations, to bridge the gap in federal funding and support the growth of CTE programs.

Additionally, refining the federal funding model to focus on equity grants and improved metrics, such as the number of program completers and certifications issued by a school district, can help incentivize schools to implement and expand CTE programs. Furthermore, reducing the stigma around CTE programs and promoting their value as viable pathways to success will encourage more students to participate and benefit from these opportunities, ultimately contributing to a better-prepared workforce and a more robust economy.

My second-grade teacher made me love Ramona Quimby.
I’ve never forgotten my multiplication tables, thanks to my fourth-grade teacher.
My fifth-grade teacher taught me to confidently project my voice (much to my husband’s chagrin when I’m on video calls!).
My sixth-grade teacher inspired me to be a fast typist and gave me independent reading time so I could accomplish my goal of finishing Gone with the Wind.
My high school Algebra II teacher made me believe I was, in fact, really good at math.
My English literature teacher inspired me to write a book.
My Humanities teachers inspired me to travel the world.

Just seven days a year to celebrate teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week is hardly sufficient.  After all, they celebrate our students’ wins and teach them lessons through their mistakes every day of the school year. Let’s reflect on 10 reasons we love teachers…

1. A Lifetime of Influence

Growing up in a small town and attending a school with approximately 25 classmates from pre-school through eighth grade, I had a couple of teachers twice and interacted with all the teachers in the building regularly. Whatever the length of interaction, it can go a long way for students, like artist Dean Thompson. Dean shared his teacher’s valuable guidance: “Robert Dominiak was an art teacher who was a mentor to me. He taught me how to look at things with a different perspective, and he helped me put together a portfolio when I applied to the Art Institute of Chicago. With his help I received my degree from there, and I’m still in contact with him to this day.”

Everybody’s talking about ChatGPT and how it’s going to impact K-12–and generally not in positive terms!

Granted, ChatGPT might make writing that 11th-grade essay on symbolism in “The Great Gatsby” a whole lot easier (which, to be fair, does make grading a whole lot harder). Aside from that, there are real positives to our new AI pal, and overworked teachers can embrace it as the gift that it is: a free personal teaching aide. The one who sketches out the lesson plans and assessments, finds source materials, and just generally carries out the grunt work.

In other words, ChatGPT can save teachers a whole lot of time.

1.     ChatGPT Helps with Writing Lesson Plans

Teachers can use ChatGPT to get a jump on lesson-planning.

Let’s say I’m teaching symbolism in literature. First, I’m going to ask ChatGPT for five creative ideas for teaching symbolism in “The Great Gatsby.” One of the amazing things about ChatGPT is that we’re actually chatting – we’re in dialogue together. I want to include some additional primary resources along with the teaching activity. So, my next question is: What are some primary sources I could teach along with those suggestions? ChatGPT suggests some great resources, but who has time to go digging those up?! Oh yeah! ChatGPT does. I ask it for links for each of the resources it suggested.

Ask me what technology I’d most like to see implemented in every single K–12 classroom and I’d say instructional audio. As a long-time audiologist, I’m admittedly biased. But research bears out the benefits and I’ve seen the results firsthand in my 27 years (and counting!) working in public schools.

Here are some of the ways we know instructional audio technology helps build students’ confidence and benefits all student groups—as well as a few suggestions on how to get started.

Amplifying students’ voices

Did you know a fear of public speaking affects an estimated 73 percent of the population? Unfortunately, that stress and fear can start in the classroom at a young age. Whether presenting a project, raising a hand to answer a question, or reading a passage out loud in front of others, students are often hesitant to put themselves out there.

At Rio Rancho Public Schools in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, we’ve seen how some students can be reluctant to participate and engage in the classroom. However, we’ve found that microphones can help boost confidence and classroom participation. Students often struggle to hear their soft-spoken classmates, someone with an unfamiliar accent, or someone talking from the opposite side of the room. Audio clarity particularly impacts the ability of non-native English speakers to follow discussions.

During the spring of 2020, the global education community faced tremendous disruption as it transitioned to emergency remote teaching in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfamiliar with the challenges of integrating edtech into instruction within a remote environment, elementary science teachers struggled to apply best practices—such as three-dimensional instruction, collaborative learning, and hands-on experimentation—into instruction.

While teachers in my region have traditionally met technology integration with trepidation, during the pandemic they embraced edtech and learned to rely on it as a mechanism to engage students in the learning process. Today, edtech is as much a part of the fabric of instruction as pencils and paper.

During emergency teaching, the innovative educators I work with sought to implement any edtech tool that purported to help keep students engaged in learning. But, as the pandemic recedes into the rearview mirror, educators have become choosier about the edtech they use. 

More edtech is not the answer.  In fact, adding a technological feature to a lesson simply for the sake of using technology can be counterproductive regarding student comprehension of the essential learning objectives. When integrating technology programs, teachers must consider the students’ working memory and the role of cognitive load to avoid pitfalls that could impede the learning of the desired content.

As the principal of a brand new “pathways in technology early college high school” (P-TECH), I’ve had to become comfortable with the idea of building a program even as students are enrolled in it. Fortunately, my leadership team and I understand what our school will look like when everything is in place.

We have a blueprint that we’re implementing one year at a time, so we don’t have to do everything at once. We also have a partner, the Ulster Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), that has successfully run a similar program for eight years providing guidance and support. Here’s how it’s working so far and why it’s so important to our students and our community.

Building the plane as we fly—with excellent mechanics aboard

I became principal in July 2022, after the first year of the Ellenville P-TECH Academy’s existence. One of the first things I did was to reach out to Ulster BOCES and the State University of New York (SUNY) Ulster. These are important partners for us. Ulster BOCES helped to write the grant that secured funding to launch our school and has served as a model for us. Our students, like theirs, will take classes at SUNY Ulster and some will even take classes at Ulster BOCES itself.

With the Hudson Valley Pathways Academy at Ulster BOCES serving as a model both in its own operation and in its relationship with SUNY Ulster, we were fortunate to not be starting from scratch, but working to adapt a successful model to meet our own community’s needs. It was important to me to understand what role those institutions play and what expectations they would have of me and my students.

This month, hundreds of thousands of graduating high school seniors are weighing their college options. For many, it’s an intensely stressful time as they are rejected or waitlisted by schools they aspired to attend and decide where they will spend the next four years of their lives. Unfortunately, most will base those decisions on criteria that don’t actually determine the quality of their education and ignore the criteria that do.

Choosing a college to attend is not like choosing a product to purchase, though students often approach the decision with a consumer’s mindset. There is no Consumer Reports to rely on, leaving students and their parents unduly influenced by a school’s reputation, the glitziness of the admissions materials, the amenities in the student housing, the impressiveness of the recreational facilities, and the quality of the campus tour. None of these bears any relation to the quality of the instruction you will receive as a student.

Even sampling a class or two while visiting a school tells you virtually nothing meaningful.  As any teacher knows, there are good days and bad days in every course.  What you experience is not generalizable to the course as a whole, much less to the entire school.

The much-followed US News and World Report ratings are misleading at best.  They base their rankings on data that may not be reported consistently and on the subjective impressions of college presidents and senior administrators.  More fundamentally, the rankings falsely suggest that a single assessment scale is equally applicable to all, whereas students have a range of priorities and values.  The selection tool recently introduced by the New York Times, which allows students to search schools by criteria they choose and rank, is far more useful.

But there are metrics that matter, and it’s worth knowing what they are. 

Untreated hearing loss can have lasting effects on students’ academic achievement, social relationships, and self-esteem. The Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) reports that even mild hearing loss can cause a child to miss as much as 50 percent of classroom discussion. Without appropriate management and support, children with mild to moderate hearing loss achieve one to four grade levels lower, on average, than students with typical hearing, according to American Speech Language Hearing Association.

The CDC reports that nearly 15 percent of children ages 6 to 19 have low- or high-frequency hearing loss of at least 16-decibel hearing level in one or both ears. Noise-induced hearing loss also is on the rise among young people. This is largely attributed to listening to music through earbuds at high volume. And hearing loss isn’t just affecting students. Nearly 48 million American adults have hearing loss. Assistive listening technology can help everyone in school environments, with and without hearing loss, hear more clearly.

An assistive listening system (ALS) is a wireless system with a transmitter and one or more receivers that send audio – from a teacher’s microphone, TV, or other sound sources – directly to headphones, hearing aids, or cochlear implants without amplifying ambient noise. Assistive listening systems provide a vastly improved experience for those with hearing loss.

Assistive listening systems can also help solve frustrating but common sound issues caused by distance, ambient noise, or poor room acoustics, which can challenge comprehension–even for those without hearing loss.  

Key points:

• Inquiry-based learning helps students become independent learners and develop critical durable skills
• This approach will ensure students can use tools such as ChatGPT, which will have a role in the future workforce

The rise of ChatGPT promises to bring simplicity to the more mundane tasks of human existence and has also revived with new fervor an enduring question of our education system: how do we adequately prepare students to thrive in the real world? How do we design worthy learning tasks, when artificial intelligence (AI) tools can do the work of a student in a fraction of the time and nearly none of the effort?

While some call for a ban of ChatGPT in schools, I suggest something entirely different. Instead of blocking ChatGPT and tools like it, consider incorporating them into classrooms through an inquiry-based learning framework.

Inquiry-based learning focuses on developing critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and creativity. This type of active learning encourages students to ask questions, analyze information, and draw their own conclusions rather than just accepting information at face value. Due to the nature of inquiry, students in inquiry-based classrooms become independent learners who are able to think for themselves while testing and verifying the answers to their own questions.

School districts are increasingly focused on preparing students to be successful in their post-academic careers. And ChatGPT—along with other technologies like it—will be a force that leaves no industry untouched. With AI capabilities advancing at breakneck speed, developing skills beyond rote memorization and formulaic response will be the key to success in an increasingly automated world. In order to prepare our students to thrive in the future, we must prepare them to understand tools like ChatGPT and use them judiciously.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Before the pandemic, U.S. history teacher Travis Malekpour hesitated assigning his students work in the classroom that required a computer. He knew not every student had a laptop or tablet.

Three years later, Malekpour, who teaches in Queens, doesn’t think twice about assigning and grading in-class work that requires a device. 

After COVID shuttered campuses in March 2020, forcing schools to pivot to remote learning, the city spent more than $360 million to buy 725,000 iPads and Chromebooks. That seismic shift made devices more accessible to students than ever before — and has now pushed some teachers to fold technology more often into their lesson plans. 

“Having students who now have tablets and laptops they bring to school definitely changes the game a little bit,” Malekpour said. 

The city’s education department has embraced some virtual education models, including a hybrid high school program that mixes virtual instruction with in-person activities. They’ve also used federal relief dollars to fund virtual courses for students at small schools that can’t provide such classes. More recently, schools began using computer programs to prepare students for upcoming state English and math tests, angering some educators and families who want children to be interacting directly with instructors, Gothamist reported.