Project-based learning is an inquiry-based and applied learning approach incorporating authenticity, student ownership, reflection, revision and public work. It is one of the leading instructional pedagogies to address today's learning. In recent years, thousands of teachers have participated in PBL professional development. It is pervasive in today's professional learning. However, little has been done to […]
Every spring, Graham Local Schools fourth- and fifth-graders hatch and release trout during a unit that covers aquaponics, hydroponics and conservation. Older students raise corn and soybeans on a sustainable farm operated by the rural district in southwest Ohio. Teachers in the Jim Thorpe Area School District in Pennsylvania have incorporated software such as GarageBand […]
An externship program run by the Oklahoma State Department of Education expanded this summer, allowing K12 teachers to gain professional STEM experiences they can bring back to the classroom. During the pilot last year, teachers tested soil samples and worked in a concrete-making lab, among other activities, during a paid two-week externship at an Oklahoma […]
Ware County School District in Georgia has downsized its inventory of assistive technology. Thanks to a slew of technological advances, many of the specialized tools their special education students had used to communicate and learn are now redundant. "We don't need portable keyboards or word processors anymore" says Barbara Sonnier, the district's assistive technology coordinator. […]
Peter DeWitt is a professional development coach and the creator of Collaborative Leadership, a PD service that combines transformational and instructional leadership, and that includes ways to engage the school community with a focus on learning. Collaborative Leadership is a series of one to four workshops focusing on research-based influences that can foster a supportive […]
How do you go from a career in telecoms and airport security to chief innovation officer for one of the largest school districts in Washington state? According to Derrick Brown, the man who's done it: Be a lifelong learner. "For anyone in technology, or anyone really, who thrives and doesn't like to be complacent, you […]
Looking to illustrate an abstract concept from a novel she'd read, an Oklahoma high school student turned to her building-level school librarian. Then, with the school librarian's encouragement to tinker in the makerspace, the girl sculpted a clay model of a kneeling woman balancing a 3D-printed replica of the earth on her back. "She was […]
Today's education leaders increasingly take it upon themselves to tackle the external challenges their students and teachers confront beyond school hours. These varied solutions also stretch back into classrooms to enhance instruction and increase achievement. The 45 schools and systems recognized by this year's District of Distinction program have created homegrown initiatives to support students' […]
NMSI's mantra is that education empowers opportunity. How have you experienced that? During speeches, I say, "As I stand before you, I stand as a physician, as an astronaut and as a businessman. All of that was empowered by education." When I was 13, I saw Neil and Buzz land on the moon. It became […]
