Recently in the ASCD blog, Bryan Goodwin published an interesting article in which he identified six “zombie” ideas in education, those ideas that “keep returning to life, despite researchers’ best efforts to put them six feet under.” Below are excerpts from this piece: (Un)dead idea #1: Students have different learning Read more
Instructional time policy is critical to education service delivery because it sets minimum, and sometimes maximum, requirements for learning time. Each state defines instructional time differently, and states have varying requirements in policy. Education Commission of the States (ECS) has released three papers that provide an easy reference for top-level Read more
Edutopia reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and has highlighted 10 that they believe are the most significant—covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests. Selected studies include the following: To teach vocabulary, let kids be thespians. Neuroscientists defend the value of Read more
Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Doug Lederman reported on the best practices that were incorporated in virtual classes that students rated most highly. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Professors and students alike viewed their remote learning experience most favorably this spring when their courses incorporated more “best practices.” That’s Read more
Recently in Inside Higher Ed, Doug Lederman reviewed a new model that many campuses are considering for the fall: the HyFlex Option. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Brian Beatty and his colleagues at San Francisco State are widely credited with conceiving the Hybrid-Flexible format in the mid-2000s as they Read more
Writing for The Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay recently reviewed research on how to guide students in productive discussions and group work. Excerpts from the piece appear below: A team of U.K. researchers collected all the studies they could find on peer interaction, in which children are either discussing or collaborating Read more
Recently in Fordham’s Flypaper, Robert Pondiscio reflected a new direction for education reform: a focus on instructional practice. He writes: Shifting ed reform’s focus to improving practice is an acknowledgment that underperformance is not a failure of will, but a lack of capacity. It’s a talent-development and human capital-strategy, not Read more
How can schools better align their practices with what science says about human learning? A new video series of 20+ videos from Edutopia, featuring Linda Darling-Hammond, president and CEO of Learning Policy Institute, and Pamela Cantor, MD, founder and senior science advisor of Turnaround for Children, pairs research insights with Read more
Learning Forward has released a special open-access issue of The Learning Professional. It builds on a vital topic for educators: the use of high-quality instructional materials. All students deserve access to high-quality content, and all teachers deserve support to implement it well. The message from research is straightforward: instructional materials Read more
One-on-one teacher coaching generates meaningful improvements to both classroom instruction and student achievement, according to a newly published meta-analysis of existing research. But there’s a tricky caveat: Efforts to expand coaching programs on a wider scale might only dilute their value, the authors find. Key takeaways from this study include Read more
A new report by Ross Wiener and Susan Pimentel of the Aspen Institute makes the case for integrating curriculum into professional learning so teachers can focus on creating engaging learning environments, responding to the needs of their students, and continuously improving their craft. Practice What You Teach: Connecting Curriculum and Read more
Ruth Neild of the American Youth Policy Forum recently provided advice on what types of interventions educators should be looking for when they strive to meet the ESSA evidence standards. Her explanation encompasses programs, models, policies, practices, and products. Excerpts of her piece appear below: “Invest in what works, and Read more
Teachers in the U.S. spend far more time engaged in active instruction than their peers in other parts of the world. Yet some of teachers’ most important responsibilities–such as planning and collaborating with peers–require non-instructional time. Fortunately, there are several promising models schools have used for creative scheduling to provide Read more
The Getting Smart team has released Preparing Teachers for a Project-Based World, a publication exploring how teacher preparation and professional learning can align to–and be modeled after–the types of deeper learning environments we seek to create for students. This publication is part of Getting Smart’s year long It’s a Project-Based Read more
There is a new movement in education called the Agile Schools Movement. The approach models classroom instruction and school reform itself on the principles of Agile software development and related methods like Lean, Kanban, and Scrum. Agile in Education is not about the use of technology products and services. Instead, Read more
The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) has released a new report focused on parents’ perceptions of assessments: their development, administration, and the use of the resulting data. In For Every Child, Multiple Measures: What Parents and Educators Want from K-12 Assessments, the researchers found that parents, teachers and district administrators hold Read more