The biggest changes in reading instruction in the coming year center on embedding literacy across all subjects a student studies during the school day. Engineering concepts, for example, can be used to break down the plots of stories and analyze characters. And ESL specialists should collaborate with subject teachers to align instruction so students are […]
Principals shifting their roles from building manager to instructional leader need more extensive PD to ensure top performance from teachers and students, according to a new policy brief from ASCD. Race to the Top's requirements linking teacher evaluations to student test scores is largely responsible for the change in the principal's responsibilities, says Susan Race, […]
Close reading is a popular term today in elementary literacy classrooms and a requirement in the Common Core ELA standards in order to ensure students are college- and career- ready. It enables students to independently comprehend increasingly challenging texts. Students need to develop the habits of mind and the skills necessary to unpack the deep, […]
With many assessment mandates rolled out by Ohio in recent years, the 6,000-student Plain Local School District ended up in a challenging situation. “Like others in the state, each time a mandate came out, we fulfilled it with a new assessment,” says Cassandra Sponseller, Director of Teaching and Learning and Director of Gifted Programs for […]
New York City students are getting a taste of carpentry and other trades through a partnership with the National Park Service (NPS) focused on refurbishing historical buildings. Former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar challenged NPS' New York regional department about five years ago to gather ideas to increase involvement with local communities that […]
While blended learning has become a common topic of discussion and an increasingly common district-level strategy for driving student achievement, strategies for successfully making the transition to this new model of learning are often ignored. In this web seminar, originally broadcast on March 17, 2015, presenters explored best practices and lessons learned from blended learning […]
Big data and analytics now offer districts some clues about which teacher candidates will be the most effective in the classroom. These programs are designed to accurately gauge the impact teacher candidates will have on student test scores. Analytics companies such as TeacherMatch and Hanover Research are working with hundreds of districts nationwide to aid […]
A cadre of students trained in IT support are providing teachers with Johnny-on-the-spot resources and bolstering the responsiveness of districts' lean tech staffs for routine requests. The eager students provide districts with an inexpensive and much-needed tech resource; and the students gain experience, new skills, and confidence, districts say. On any given day, teachers are […]
Teach students math procedures if you want them to solve equations. Instill a deep conceptual understanding of mathematics and get them thinking like mathematicians, and you've prepared your students to meet the challenges of the 21st century. That's a message presenters will send at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conference, which will be […]
Are teacher prep programs giving out A's and honors distinctions too easily? That these programs tend to be relatively easy is something many have long suspected. The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) recently documented this phenomenon in a study, "Training Our Future Teachers: Easy A's and What's Behind Them." This research examined the proportion […]
