Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Open LMS Partners With Copyleaks, Adding Advanced AI-Driven Plagiarism and AI Content Detection

Raleigh, N.C. — Open LMS, a leading global provider of open-source learning management systems (LMSs), today announces its new partnership with  Copyleaks, the leading AI-based text analysis, plagiarism identification, and AI-content detection platform. This partnership comes at a critical time when AI-generated content is becoming more prevalent in all industries, particularly academia.

Copyleaks uses advanced AI to detect AI-generated content, including outputs from cutting-edge AI tools such as ChatGPT-4. It also detects various forms of plagiarism while accounting for a wide range of common detection-evasion tactics such as hidden characters, paraphrasing, and even image-based text plagiarism. Through these methods, the tool provides institutions and organizations with a deeper understanding of the composition of submitted content while exposing attempts to deceive detection software.

Open LMS and Copyleaks’ partnership adds a powerful tool to clients’ arsenals as conversations around AI-generated content intensify.…Read More

Outsourcing student assessments can revitalize teaching

Key points:

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?…Read More

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How did the pandemic impact students’ social capital?

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.…Read More

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How our district improved a 5 percent attendance rate

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. …Read More

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4 simple strategies to help students ace standardized tests

Standardized tests can be hard on students. Many of us still remember the frustration and anxiety we experienced when we were younger and sat down for our first round of testing. To make matters worse, it’s fairly common for students who are doing well academically to find themselves stymied by a single bad testing experience.

This “Know-Show Gap” can prevent teachers and schools from being able to represent the good work they do for the public. Thankfully, this doesn’t have to be the case–so long as both teachers and students plan accordingly.

By helping students prepare for tests mentally and physically, teachers can help them overcome even the trickiest of obstacles. These following strategies have been proven to help minimize the Know-Show Gap so students can prove what they really can do: …Read More

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7 ways to make homework easier for students with autism

Homework can be challenging for all children, but for students with autism, it can be challenging. It is common for children with autism to have difficulties with executive functioning abilities, including planning, organization, and prioritization.

In addition, they may have issues with focus, language, and social skills, all of which can make homework time challenging for both the youngster and their parents. For those of you who are raising a neurodivergent child, here are some strategies to implement when assisting them with homework:

Create a Routine…Read More

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Balancing high expectations with relationship building to boost engagement

Teachers are constantly challenged with improving student engagement, something they know directly impacts student learning outcomes. A USC Rossier School of Education Center EDGE survey this year queried 1,400 teachers about the engagement strategies they use most often in their classrooms and those they think will hold most value next year. For 2022, the most common response was building relationships with students. In 2023, educators anticipate establishing high expectations for students. 

The prioritization of these two practices alongside each other begs the question of how teachers can balance these two strategies — one of which relies on kindness and compassion, and the other which lends itself to more serious goal-setting and intense conversations. The key is approaching high expectations as an integral part of building strong relationships.

Raising the bar for learners …Read More

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New Nationwide Data Shows Significant Increase in Alerts on Self-Harm, Harm to Others and the Presence of Weapons on K–12 Campuses

RICHFIELD, OHIO (PRWEB) — Navigate360, the nation’s leader in K–12 student wellness and physical safety solutions, announces significant increases in alerts on self-harm, harm to others and the presence of weapons on K–12 campuses. Across more than 33 million online school and social media alerts, Navigate360’s all-new data show alerts related to self-harm are up 51 percent year-over-year, compared to the 25 percent increase year-over-year in alerts related to weapons and harm to others. Additionally, more than 4,000 anonymous tips per week are coming into school tip lines, with the most common tips related to self-harm and weapons.

These statistics reinforce the larger, underlying issues behind recent national headlines related to bullying, self-harm and violent critical incidents on school campuses. Just last week, there were reports of coordinated swatting and hoax efforts in Vermont and Michigan, as well as a tragic bullying-related suicide in New Jersey.

“Every day brings another use case of what we’re trying to prevent and change,” said JP Guilbault, Chief Executive Officer at Navigate360. “How can we use the data we have to further the collective understanding of what is happening nationwide—where are we seeing concerning behaviors, where are we seeing spikes? Then, how can we use that data to prevent these occurrences—to identify supports and interventions that need to take place?”…Read More

Is now a good time for a reset?

At this time of year, I hear a common refrain from school leaders I know: 1) This work is challenging, 2) We have a plan for student success, and yet 3) There is a lot more we need in order to deliver on our promise of a high-quality, equitable education for every student. These leaders launched the year with an inspiring vision for creating vibrant schools where all students are engaged in meaningful learning, feel loved, and want to come to school each day. There may have been times where this vision came close to reality.

As we head into the middle of the year, however, gaps often emerge. Student culture may become strained, faculty and staff may feel tired and frustrated, lessons aren’t as strong as they had hoped, and/or the highest needs students aren’t getting the support they need. Which raises the question: What do I do right now? 

In my role as the Vice President of Innovation and Impact at Relay Graduate School of Education, the best part of my job is the opportunity to find, study, and share what is working in schools across our country. One of the moves that we see our most effective leaders do at this moment of the year is lead a strategic reset on a key area of the school that – if improved – will have a significant positive impact on student learning and experience right now.  …Read More