Sneakers, Signals, and Systems: A New Era in Education
There’s something in the water at education conferences — sneakers have become the new conference dress code. This shift toward individuality, comfort and practicality is also representative of transformations we’re seeing in education. The 2024 Carnegie Summit marked not just a gathering of minds but a convergence of ideas reshaping the education landscape. Key […]
Podcast: Francisco Guajardo on the Language of Place
In this week’s podcast, Tom is speaking with Dr. Francisco Gaujardo. Francisco is a leading voice in bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural education and a noted expert in place-based education.
Mastery Learning in Action
[…] courses or move to interdisciplinary studies? However, there have been a few resources to support schools in thinking through their choices. Making Mastery Work: A Close-Up View of Competency Education by Priest, Rudenstine, and Weisstein, was the first paper produced in this phase of competency education and drew from multiple schools. Breaking with Tradition by Stack and […]
Support STEM Education Through Student-Centered Challenges
[…] of integrating STEM into curriculum. Research shows that the pandemic emphasized the need for access to STEM resources, with 77% of the world saying that a strong STEM education is crucial. That includes the classroom by putting learning in the hands of students to help them achieve future success. To ensure every student has the chance […]
Elevate Your Craft With Drip-Fed Evidence-Based Practices
[…] what the experts are saying, “the essential ingredients for a data-driven culture have little to do with data itself. The real shift occurs when everyone in the educational community starts to change what they talk about and how they respond to conversational outcomes.” It’s not the numbers or even qualitative data that matters most. […]
Returning Joy to Teaching & Learning
Too many school-based reform efforts continue to have educators implicitly standing with the standards against the students. What does a school where its educators stand with the students against the standards look like?
Beyond Bans: Schools’ Role in a Hard Reset on the ‘Phone-Based Childhood’
Last month, a story by Jonathan Haidt in The Atlantic broke through the firewall that often separates education reform and parenting conversations: people from both my personal and professional network circulated Haidt’s scathing take on the immense costs that smartphones and social media have exacted on children and adolescents. In “End the phone-based childhood […]
An Emphasis on Place: The International School Grounds Alliance
We continue to observe that the challenges of the present will take all of us to confront. In education, this looks like instilling purpose, encouraging play, measuring what matters or ensuring true equity. To others this can look like combating global issues, like those identified by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. We’ve seen […]
How We Can Support Educators and Parents in the Midst of ‘Crisis Schooling’
[…] This is something I know intimately well: I’m a former online teacher and school leader from the ‘early days’ of what was an emerging approach in K-12 education. Back in 2005, I taught high school students remotely. For the past four years, I’ve led Future of School, a national nonprofit that supports educators, students, […]
Developmental Reflective Practices Lead to Learner Ownership, Critical Thinking, and Self-Actualization
[…] intelligence—many educators are recognizing the power of reflective thinking and practices. As with many practices, the social science here is not new. Indeed, the father of modern educational reform John Dewey is famously known for emphasizing that “we do not learn from experience, but rather we learn from reflecting on experience.” If we want […]
