Andrew Smith, chief strategy officer in North Carolina's Rowan-Salisbury School System, is leading a digital-first initiative that three years ago aimed to give an iPad or a MacBook Air to all students—and their teachers—from grades 3 through 12. Rowan-Salisbury became 1-to-1 by the 2014-15 school year. Three years into a digital-first initiative, Andrew Smith, chief strategy […]
Albemarle County, Virginia—A snake bit Pam Moran in front of her class on her first day of teaching 40 years ago. Moran, now a superintendent in Virginia, had no one to blame but herself on that fateful day in 1975. Thinking it would be an unconventional way to introduce herself, Moran had brought a garter […]
Patricia Baltzley Board chair, Gardiner School District (Mont.) "The way high schools are currently designed—both with architecture and teaching and learning—needs to be revisioned in all high schools, not just those considered innovative. Instructional needs of the students are different and will continue to be different. We need to get out of the Industrial Age […]
The ever-increasing pace and variety of technological developments continues to be a challenge for K12 assistive technology products. As education content becomes available in more digital forms—videos, software programs and apps—adapting platforms for student use is critical to help those with special needs access information as easily as do their classmates. In addition, with more […]
Making Teachers Better, Not Bitter: Balancing Evaluation, Supervision, and Reflection for Professional Growth ASCD Tony Frontier, an educational consultant and educator, and Paul Mielke, a public school superintendent, use their personal experiences to address the importance of encouraging and supporting PD when assessing teacher competence. The authors provide nearly three dozen step-by-step protocols (and actual […]
District leaders in 2017 will focus heavily on adopting new assessment strategies and instructional technology when it comes to classroom instruction, according to a DA survey of K12 leaders. In the 2015 survey, about 50 percent of respondents say that new testing techniques will be a top priority, compared to only 40 percent in the […]
K12 educators increasingly embrace life skills curricula that promote social-emotional learning, mindfulness, problem-solving and other soft skills. Many districts no longer view such programs as "nice to have" but as essential components of overall instruction. The growing emphasis on life skills is making an impact. In schools where students demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional […]
In 1896, researcher H.E. Krazt asked 2,400 students in grades 2 through 8 to describe the attributes of an effective teacher. Krazt believed that by identifying the desirable characteristics of a teacher, he could establish a benchmark upon which teachers could be evaluated. With qualities of "helpfulness" and "physical appearance" topping the list, the results […]
Why is there such an emphasis on personalized learning today for K12? Educators want to work with students the way they learn best, and we know that one-on-one or small-group instruction is effective. But for the sake of efficiency, schools often employ the "factory" model to teach large numbers of students in a classroom, assuming […]
