Links for Leaders - April 2018

Here are this month’s best articles, analyses, and stories in education from across the web! This month you’ll learn about strategies to redeploy funding so you can amplify your best teachers’ instruction, a number of schools that are implementing futuristic project-based learning, and how Google is installing Wi-Fi on school buses. And to cap it off, you’ll also see how New Orleans students are sharing their poetry on pizza boxes! Enjoy!

A Guide To Design Thinking Resources For STEM with Andrew Goodin (Thriving Schools)

What you’ll learn: “Andrew provides us with all the resources a school (or teacher) would need to start their own makerspace, the best STEM resources to support such a program, and numerous ideas to encourage more student tinkering.”

Personalized Teaching: 4 Funding Strategies to Amplify Teacher Impact (Christensen Institute)

What you’ll learn: “Expanding the reach of great teachers is easier said than done – especially when it comes to budget concerns. But a few pioneering schools are strategizing funding for rethinking staffing arrangements and how to organize classes and teaching teams in order to accomplish that.”

What Happens When Teachers Take Creative Risks? (John Spencer)

What you’ll learn: “When I observe classrooms where students are becoming problem-solvers and creative thinkers, there is always a common element with the teachers. They take risks. They experiment. They know that creative risk-taking is exactly that: a risk.”

Building Skills Outside the Classroom With New Ways of Learning (New York Times)

What you’ll learn: “We believe all students – beginning at a young age – need access to real-world, applied learning experiences that empower them to gain the skills they need to thrive in college, career, and beyond.”

13 Standards For A Near-Future School (Teach Though)

What you’ll learn: “Just as there is a standard today – that is school is “progressing” as measured by standardized tests, leaving no demographic behind, and provides some kind of documented support for every student regardless of their need – within 10 years, there will be a new standard, and it will almost certainly be realized through educational technology.”

Rolling Study Halls: Turning Bus Time Into Learning Time (Google Education)

What you’ll learn: “The effects were immediate – almost too immediate for some bus drivers who were shocked (and a little confused) when their commutes became so quiet. Students were engaged. They were learning. And after a few months, there were more real results: School officials saw students do better in school. It was working.”

Support Students With Chronic Trauma (Edutopia)

What you’ll learn: “De-escalation strategies can help prevent students’ emotional outbursts, and aid them and their peers in finding calm after one.”

Working with Special Needs Students: What Do All Teachers Need to Know (Getting Smart)

What you’ll learn: “There are an estimated 6.6 million special needs students in our schools today, making up 13% of our school population. How can we make sure that all teachers are prepared to teach them?”

Making Teacher Leadership a Success (Hendy Avenue)

What you’ll learn: “We break down three suggestions for launching a new teacher leadership initiative as well as criteria to measure success and common pitfalls to avoid.”

Here’s What Happens When Every Student Gets a Personalized Learning Plan (EdSurge)

What you’ll learn: “In 2013, the state of Vermont committed itself to the value and promise that personalized learning holds for its students by passing Act 77, often referred to as the Flexible Pathways Initiative. The initiative requires every student in grades 7-12 to have a personalized learning plan – a document that guides each learner through a meaningful learning experience that leads to college and/or career readiness.”

Research: Learning a Little About Something (Harvard Business Review)

What you’ll learn: “Absolute beginners can be perfectly conscious and cautious about what they don’t know; the unconscious incompetence is instead something they grow into. A little experience replaces their caution with a false sense of competence.”

Delivering Poetry With Pizza In New Orleans (Teach for America)

What you’ll learn: “On Pizza Poetry Day, New Orleans pizza arrives hot, with a fresh poem written by local youth.”

New Report:

Lost in the Crowd (Ed Navigator)

What you’ll learn: “You’ll hear the stories of five talented students whose families are working hard to ensure they get a good education – and facing an intimidating array of obstacles along the way.”