What does engagement sound like? Allowing students to have a say in their work is not enough to build engagement. Adam Fletcher writes a great blog on engagement, including this entry: voice and engagement are not the same. In the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom (described in my books, Students Taking Charge), engagement refers to the state […]
The Power of Play: Building Brains, Behavior, and Belonging
The Road to Academic Success and Social, Emotional, and Mental Wellness Well, that subtitle sums up many of the goals of schools these days. Who knew you could accomplish it all through play? The reality is that the more schools are concerned about academic achievement, the more they double down on lessons – probably the […]
Extended Day, Extended Impact: Rethinking After-School Learning
If you owned an auto factory and the conveyor belt kept delivering cars that had no doors, or had faulty headlights, would you run the factory for a few more hours a day? Of course not! You’d redesign the system to address the root cause. When students attend school all day long and are not […]
Strategies for Professional Learning to Cultivate Teacher Efficacy
The Student Achievement – Teacher Professional Learning Connection There’s a domino game getting set up in schools today: Through the years, the research points to high-quality teachers as the most influential aspect of student achievement. If schools continue to lose high-quality teachers, hire less-than-qualified teachers, and fail to retain them, what hope is there for […]
Teachers and AI and ELLs, Oh My!
Having experienced the pathways and trends in education since the 1950s, I can confidently proclaim . . . this is a time like no other. We are at a crossroads that is both daunting and exhilarating. COVID, AI, and globalization, to name a few, are changing the landscape of students, parents, and teachers. Schools must […]