With its deep roots in education, Earth Day provides a great opportunity to integrate environmental science and social activism into your classroom. We’ve rounded up five videos you can show in class to kick off your Earth Day lessons and get your students thinking about how they can make a difference in saving the planet, whether they’re…
Still, teachers can staunch boredom. Mehta and Fine (read sidebar) discovered that even in underperforming schools where boredom was near universal, “there were individual teachers who were creating classrooms where students were really engaged and motivated.” These teachers trusted students to sometime control the class. They tried to learn from their students as much as they…
As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public – and viral – new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system. In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively…
It sounds like a paradox. How can you teach computer programming without a screen? Computer programming is a term synonymous with coding, after all. Text, letters, syntax, arranged in meaningful sequences that give machines instructions. We code with our keyboards and we see code on our screens. But there is a clear distinction between coding…
As anyone who has tried to pursue even a little bit of academic research can attest, publishers charge an arm-and-a-leg to access studies if you are not part of an institution that subscribes to their journals. And the authors of those studies don’t even get any of that money! Source: “Unpaywall” Is New Tool For…
The growth of this kind of stubborn ignorance in the midst of the Information Age cannot be explained away as merely the result of rank ignorance. Many of the people who campaign against established knowledge are otherwise adept and successful in their daily lives. In some ways, it is all worse than ignorance: it is unfounded arrogance,…
A 2015 study found that 65% of student licenses for education technology products go unused, and you don’t have to look far to find examples of technology implementation disasters. EdTech purchases going to waste is often the result of multiple factors, and the consequences impact all stakeholders: school systems that waste precious budgets, EdTech companies that…
As a professional corporate trainer, I take the same care and attention when I prepare the room for a train-the-trainer workshop. I want my participants to feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed—just as if I were welcoming them into my own home. Depending on the workshop I’m delivering, we may be spending anywhere from one to five days together,…
“This is nice, it tickles me,” Kaspar the social robot tells four-year-old Finn as they play together at an autism school north of London. Kaspar, developed by the University of Hertfordshire, also sings song, imitates eating, plays the tambourine and combs his hair during their sessions aimed at helping Finn with his social interaction and…
Now, thanks to education technology, scavenger hunts have been given a whole new makeover – here are 5 updated ideas for how to implement them in the 21st century classroom! Source: 5 Brilliant Ideas for #EdTech Scavenger Hunts Some great links to ideas on running a scavenger hunt, two of which doesn’t require the teacher…