Teacher quality is crucial to the success of schooling, yet the teacher-hiring process is sometimes rushed and ad hoc. A late-summer flurry of activity in which subjective factorsÁ'from where a candidate went to high school to how many resumes an exhausted principal has already reviewedÁ'can weigh as heavily as meaningful evidence of academic achievement or […]
District leaders across the country are broadening and personalizing their approaches to attendance because the old way of sending truants and their families to court often fails to bring students back to school. “It’s important to get to the root of why students aren’t coming to school and be able to align the solution with […]
A National Council onTeacherQuality report citing a lack of rigor and grade inflation in teacher preparation courses is being disputed by the organization that represents college and university education programs. The November report, "Easy A's and What's Behind Them"Á'which is based on graduation data from 500 institutions surveyedÁ'found that students graduate with honors from teaching […]
Student-centered CIOs must now focus more on the user experience than onjust keeping networks and machines functioning. "To be successful you have to dedicate 80 percent of your resources toward the service side of IT, and 20 percent to keeping the boxes working," says Jason Saltmarsh, an education technology consultant and former district technology director. […]
By integrating technology into mathematics classrooms to complement face-to-face instruction, educators can provide uniquely individualized learning for all students. This web seminar, originally broadcast on August 28, 2014, featured administrators and a blended learning expert, who shared successful approaches for implementing this technique, including strategies, tips for modeling blended learning for elementary mathematics, and as […]
The increasing shift to online learning and collaboration has created new concerns around student privacy. Keeping data as secure in the cloud as it would be in a locked file cabinet requires communication, diligence and strong policies. “Privacy is not a new issue but it certainly has risen to the top in part because so […]
For the 21,000 students of Federal Way Public Schools near Seattle, the goal of the district's administrators is to involve as much interactive technology in learning as possible. "With the Common Core State Standards and national science standards, there's a lot going on right now that's new for us to address," says Dawn Moye, blended […]
A collaboration between educators and a national software-and-services company-one that emphasizes the relationship between school attendance and lifelong achievement-is helping turn a Sacramento school district into a real-time lab for getting parents, principals and students on the same bluebook page. Twin Rivers Unified School District-whose name was often preceded in the media with the word […]
At the 27,000-student Richland School District Two in South Carolina, goals and strategies focus on fostering learning, character, community and joy. To meet those objectives, a 1-to-1 environment was implemented for students in grades 3 through 12. “When we purchased the devices in 2012, we brought in an outcomes team from the University of South […]
Computing devices embedded in jewelry and glasses. Microchips tattooed into skin and sewn into clothing. In one form or another, devices that gather data without any help from the user will slowly infiltrate districts in 2015. In fact, the number of people with a wearable computing device will more than triple this year, according to […]
