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.

4 keys for unlocking student curiosity and critical thinking

Key points:

As an educator, I have always been fascinated by my students’ innate curiosity. From an early age, they have an insatiable desire to learn. Anyone who spends time around young children will find themselves peppered with questions, questions, questions! “Why is the sky blue?”, “Why do my fingers get wrinkly in the water?”, “Why do dogs wag their tails?” This natural inquiry can be a powerful force for education. So, it’s a little disappointing when modern teaching tools and strategies ignore–or subvert–this incredible curiosity.      

Education doesn’t have to be guided by rigid definitions and practices. We can make a transition from linear, hierarchical teaching into a richer, more experiential way of learning.…Read More

3 keys to successful summer reading (regardless of the languages students speak)

Key points:

When I began teaching English as a second language (ESL), I had anywhere from seven to 13 different languages in my classroom because our district was in an area with a lot of recent immigration. It was an entry point for me to begin thinking about what a rich profession teaching is, along with how students develop their early reading skills, especially when they are learning multiple languages at once.

Today, I am the director of Literacy First, a program that the University of Texas launched almost 30 years ago with the mission of teaching students to read in the early grades. Literacy First fulfills its mission by offering a variety of support services, with a particular focus on achieving successful outcomes for growing readers, including one-to-one literacy interventions, teacher and staff training, instructional coaching, data-centered advising, and bilingual and culturally sustaining reading resources and interventions. One of the things I’ve learned a great deal about along the way is how to run an effective summer reading program for emergent bilingual students.…Read More

6 keys to effective tutoring

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.…Read More

Seven keys to effective teacher development

(Editor’s note: This article is the third in a three-part series about how school systems can build on the progress and leverage the investments they’ve made in technology during the pandemic to achieve true digital transformation. Part 1 looks at how K-12 leaders can develop an effective blueprint for redesigning education in a way that’s more equitable, meaningful, and learner-centered, and Part 2 explores how leaders can obtain stakeholder buy-in and support for their vision.)

Building on the changes that school systems have made during the pandemic to achieve true digital transformation requires an adaptive approach to K-12 leadership, as well as a focus on successful change management. These are adjustments that have to take place at the administrative level. But real transformation won’t occur unless it reaches the classroom as well, with teachers embracing change and trying out new approaches to instruction.

For this to happen, teachers not only have to buy in to what their school systems are looking to accomplish; they also need effective professional learning.…Read More

Redesigning education for post-pandemic success

(Editor’s note: This article is the first in a three-part series about how school systems can build on the progress and leverage the investments they’ve made in technology during the pandemic to achieve true digital transformation. Part 1 looks at how K-12 leaders can build an effective blueprint for redesigning education in a way that’s more equitable, meaningful, and learner-centered. Part 2 will explore how leaders can obtain stakeholder buy-in and support for their vision, and Part 3 will examine what professional development should look like to turn this vision into action.)

COVID-19 arguably produced the biggest shift in education since the invention of the printing press. Nearly overnight, teaching and learning moved from classrooms to online environments. School systems invested thousands of dollars in Chromebooks, Wi-Fi hotspots, and other technologies. Educators spent countless hours working to ensure that students could learn from home uninterrupted.

Yet, aside from where the learning occurred, what else actually changed?…Read More

6 tips to give students a skills refresh

Have you heard the adage, “If you don’t use it, you lose it?” If you stop playing the piano, you become a little rusty on the keys. If you stop running, you lose the muscles and lung capacity you had developed. And if you don’t use all that calculus you labored over in high school, the next time your child asks you for help on their calculus homework, you might be a little out of your league.

We’re starting to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students have been learning remotely–or may have been learning in-person, but the structure of the day was far from normal. Without a doubt, many students have lost some of their social and motor skills. If you don’t use it, you lose it, right?

What do we do to help our students regain these “educational muscles?” Here are six sure-fire ideas to re-ignite learning:…Read More

3 keys to protecting student data and privacy

When the sixth-largest school district in the United States announced in early April that hackers were holding its data ransom for $40 million, administrators everywhere paid attention.

The Fort Lauderdale-area district has 232 schools and a budget of $2.6 billion for the 2020-21 school year—seemingly, the district has plenty of resources to protect against cyberattacks. It also has thousands of students and staff who use hundreds of applications and technologies each day.

How do educators ensure that they keep students’ data, records, and personal information private and secure? And, on the flip side, how do they ensure that the integration with other systems remains seamless, so student data is always up to date, accurate, and accessible to teachers, students, parents, and district officials?…Read More

7 keys to effective online learning

Online learning’s reputation has taken a hit in recent years amid reports of poor academic performance and concerns over lax regulation. While there is certainly some cause for concern, many of the problems center on for-profit providers who manage full-time virtual schools. The truth is that not all online learning experiences are of suspect quality.

When done well, online learning can be highly successful—opening the door to numerous learning opportunities that students otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to, while providing very rich and rigorous instruction. In fact, students who take online Advanced Placement courses from VHS Learning consistently outperform national passing rate averages on AP exams.

Related content: 10 things to help students during the COVID-19 outbreak…Read More