Culturally diverse learning environments benefit teachers

Education finance changes coming with new administration taking over D.C.?

Educators finding new methods to engage students with Google Doc approach

FreshGrade becoming prominent in education assessment

administrators aren’t doing them simply to follow compliance exercises and they don’t want to dismiss teachers.

It’s clear that teaching a strengths-based version of SEL into schools won’t succeed by putting more posters on the walls of classrooms.

As school systems become more globally competent and teachers become more knowledgeable and gain comfort with infusing global competence into the classrooms, students are expected to expand their knowledge incrementally as well.

Our schools similarly need to light fires on the water and invite schools across the world in to share in learning starting from their own communities outward. These fires that burn on the water are a clarion call to see the local as global and to more deeply spark imagination, nourish learning, and build the innovation, action, and creativity young people need to face the problems they will one day inherit.

I fondly remember the day I received my first driver’s license—and the newly found sense of independence it offered. But I also recall the realization that my freedom came with a trade-off: the huge liability of operating a vehicle. The weight of that responsibility was felt as I paid my insurance premiums, navigated a near-miss with another car in a parking lot, and of course, minded the speed limit.

I

Dr. Thomas Armstrong,  ASCD author of The Power of the Adolescent Brain: Strategies for Teaching Middle and High School Students, as well as, numerous other publications, sat down to discuss the intersection of education with mental health and the effects of teaching methods on the adolescent brain. Dr. Armstrong stresses the need for a better-balanced approach to education that concentrates on both the emotional brain and the reasoning mind.

As teachers, administrators and students take their first steps through the front doors of their schools we can’t help but reflect on the endless professional development which took place this summer.

We caught up with regular edCircuit contributor, Howard Pitler, at the ASCD annual conference to discuss what is and is not formative assessment in education.

Zack Gilbert is currently teaching 6th grade social studies and language arts at Parkside Junior High School in Normal, IL. Zack is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University with a B.A. in History with a secondary teacher certificate and has an M.S. in Instructional Technology and Design from Illinois State University. His master’s research looked at the impact of educational games and how the knowledge gained through these games is stored into long term memory.

Sherry Gick is the Library Fanatic and proudly shares how she entered the profession, how the community has given back to her and what she and other librarians are doing to impact ISTE 2016. 

Leslie Fisher travels the country sharing her perspective on resources to educators. Fisher’s unique approach refutes the social media ed-celeb craze relying on her passion, word-of-mouth recommendations and keen eye to scope out those technologies education audiences clamor for.