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.PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP
How to lead with positivity
Edutopia
In today's fast-paced, rapidly changing educational atmosphere, leaders and districts need to create positive work environments. Although this is challenging for every leader, it's critical to navigate these uncharted waters with care. Positive leadership is not a topic of conversation just because of COVID-19, but the drastic shifts we're all facing due to the pandemic are reminders of just how important positive leadership strategies are.
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Tracking how the coronavirus is impacting school districts
K-12 DIVE
The nation's public school districts faced unprecedented disruption to the school year as the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down buildings and forced learning online, to the extent educators were able to do so. Shutdowns forced districts and policymakers alike to make strides in addressing the "homework gap" resulting from a lack of home internet and device access that already adversely affected many students prior to shutdowns.
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What educators need to know about the COVID-19 vaccine
EdSurge
The news of a safe, effective vaccine has been a rare bright spot during the yearlong fight against the coronavirus. Two pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and Moderna, are racing toward emergency authorization for their vaccines, both of which boast an efficacy rate of more than 94%. That authorization could come as soon as a few days from now, and the first vaccinations could begin later this month.
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Are you protecting health data amid COVID-19 testing and tracking?
eSchool News
There's no point mincing words: School districts and administrators have had a heck of a year. Not only have you been under immense pressure from parents and state officials to reopen schools safely, but your teachers are also understandably concerned about virus transmission. What's more, your plans keep changing and you're being forced to adapt.
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Promoted By
Erlab
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Promoted By
Apothepack
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'Our kids are the sacrifices': Parents push schools to open
The Associated Press
The activism of Jennifer Dale began when she watched her third grade daughter struggle with distance learning, kicking and screaming through her online classes. The mother of three initially sent emails to her local school officials with videos of the disastrous school days for her middle daughter, Lizzie, who has Down syndrome. Over time, she connected with other parents and joined several protests calling for school buildings to reopen.
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5 things we've learned about virtual school in 2020
NPR
Deborah Rosenthal starts her virtual kindergarten class on Zoom every morning with a song — today, it's the Spanish version of "If You're Happy and You Know It." Her students clap along. There's a greeting from the class mascot (a dragon), yoga, meditation and then some practice with letter sounds: "Oso, oso, O, O, O." Rosenthal teaches Spanish immersion in a public school in San Francisco's Mission District. Most of the families are low-income, and many are now affected by job losses related to COVID-19. She has taught kindergarten for 15 years, and she loves how "hands-on," "tactile" and "cozy" it is to work with 5-year-olds.
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3 recommendations from research on COVID learning loss
eSchool News
While students have made some learning gains in reading and math since the beginning of COVID, average math gains were lower on average in fall 2020 than prior years–meaning more students are falling behind relative to their prior standing and raising concerns about COVID learning loss, according to new research from NWEA, a nonprofit assessment provider. Average scores for math were between 5 and 10 percentile points lower for students this year as compared to same-grade students last year.
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Schools confront 'off the rails' numbers of failing grades
The Associated Press
The first report cards of the school year are arriving with many more Fs than usual in a dismal sign of the struggles students are experiencing with distance learning. School districts from coast to coast have reported the number of students failing classes has risen by as many as two or three times — with English language learners and disabled and disadvantaged students suffering the most.
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Quick surveys can help us teach and lead
MiddleWeb
Creating homemade surveys is a great way to help us become a better teachers and leaders. Surveys are simple to make, easy to administer and can offer tons of useful information that you can use to make your classroom or school even more effective than they already are. For the purposes of this post, we'll define surveys as tools used to help us understand others' perspectives on issues that impact teaching and learning.
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Is the pandemic our chance to reimagine education for students with disabilities?
The Hechinger Report
Single mom Nicole Vaughn has spent the better part of her adult life advocating for her five adopted children with disabilities. But when schools shuttered for the coronavirus last spring, Vaughn gained a slew of new responsibilities, like helping her kids access virtual classrooms and coordinating the special education services they receive.
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• Empower and engage students with instant feedback
• Solve for digital access issues
• Use for in-person, virtual, and seamless hybrid learning
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An overview of the teacher alternative certification sector outside of higher education
Center for American Progress
Teachers have a greater impact on student achievement and even long-term outcomes such as college attendance and future salaries than any other in-school factor. Despite the importance of teachers, the preparation programs intended to train them and provide them with the foundational skills they need to grow into high-quality educators vary in format, curriculum offered, quality, and more.
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School closings threaten gains of students with disabilities
The Associated Press
Without any in-school special education services for months, 14-year-old Joshua Nazzaro's normally sweet demeanor has sometimes given way to aggressive meltdowns that had been under control before the pandemic. The teenager, who has autism and is nonverbal, often wanted no part of his online group speech therapy sessions, and when he did participate, he needed constant hands-on guidance from aides hired by his family. He briefly returned to his private Denville, New Jersey, school for two days a week, but surging coronavirus infections quickly pushed learning back online through at least Dec. 10.
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4 questions every leader needs to be prepared to answer in 2021
Fast Company (commentary)
Beth Castle, a contributor for Fast Company, writes: "This year has been one of uncertainty and has brought unprecedented change to our work and home lives — or what many of us now call our work-from-home lives. For the organization I work for, InHerSight, which boasts the largest database of women-rated companies, this turbulent year has presented a unique opportunity. Although we've always regularly collected proprietary data, we've never been able to poll women employees and job seekers in such a rapidly evolving environment, all with the knowledge that how we all work has likely changed forever."
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3 things that separate positive leaders from negative bosses
Inc.
What separates the most positive leaders from those stuck in negativity? In a few words: a growth mindset. In Stanford professor Carol Dweck's famous research, Dweck found that people with a growth mindset believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Brains and talent are just the starting point. "This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment," states Dweck.
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4 ways to cultivate inclusion and compassion in the workplace
Entrepreneur
In the times we're living in, more and more people are experiencing stress, unhappiness and anxiety in the workplace. The combination of a health crisis, political elections, and pervasive racial inequities have put many people on edge at work. It turns out 53% of adults are experiencing higher levels of stress and worry because of current events. It's easy to blame the various global phenomena happening right now, but issues of stress and anxiety in the workplace are nothing new — especially among women, people of color and other marginalized groups.
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Covid-19 spreads indoors via microscopic droplets in the air. Therefore, increasing the rate of ventilation in your classrooms is critical.
But how do you know if your ventilation is sufficient? Aranet4 – an easy to use CO2 monitoring device lets you know the rate of air exchange is good!
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Want to win someone over? Talk like they do.
Harvard Business Review
Whether you're pitching a big client, presenting to an executive, or attempting to win over a judge, a strong preexisting relationship with the person who's evaluating you is likely to make you much more effective. Why is that? In our recent research, forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly, we found that preexisting relationships give people greater insight into how their evaluators think, reason, interpret and process evidence, helping them tailor their messages with a process we call linguistic mirroring.
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7 things my imperfect boss did right and you can too
Leadership Freak
You can do many things wrong if you do a few things right. The boss you don't want to be: The paranoid boss that fears what others are saying about her. She turns co-workers and team members into adversaries and enemies. The political boss that can't make tough decisions. You can't go all-in on half-way decisions. The loudmouth boss that intimidates everyone. It's her way or the highway. You conform but don’t bring your best. The talkative boss that adores his own voice. He never listens so he never learns.
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.EDUCATION POLICY
Former teachers union chief vying for education secretary
The Associated Press
The former president of the nation's largest teachers union has received endorsements from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and dozens of national Hispanic organizations as she pursues the top job at the U.S. Education Department in the Biden administration. Lily Eskelsen García, who was president of the National Education Association until September, has been calling members of Congress to build support for her candidacy. She has been courting Democrats and some Republicans, including Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is chairman of the Senate education committee and a former education secretary.
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.SCHOOL TECHNOLOGY
Cybersecurity training still lacking in schools, some IT leaders say
District Administration Magazine
More than 50% of information technology leaders recently surveyed said no one at their schools received new training in cybersecurity before the start of the 2020-2021 school year, according to a study released by security protection provider Malwarebytes. The report "Lessons in Cybersecurity: How education coped in the shift to distance learning" highlighted the struggles of districts to cope with embracing the idea of cybersecurity despite the push to add new software and devices for teachers and students.
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Do teachers have too many ed tech tools?
eSchool News
Educators already face insurmountable challenges, and distance learning has compounded those obstacles. From maintaining student engagement and personalizing learning with edtech tools, to managing student interactions in an attempt to keep some kind of normalcy for young scholars, teachers are now being required to add tech support to their already long list of daily responsibilities.
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Google launches Code Next Connect
THE Journal
Google's free computer science education program, Code Next, is adding a virtual component and expanding into more states. The launch of the virtual component of the program, called Code Next Connect, was announced as part of Google's Computer Science Education Week activities.
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 A child’s first few years of educational experiences set the stage for how they will learn for the rest of their lives. The Bank Street Early Childhood Leadership Advanced Certificate Program is designed for mission-driven educators seeking to advance their professional opportunities and fill the need for exceptional leadership in early childhood education. Areas of study within the program include curriculum and development, social justice, systems thinking, progressive education and law.
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How much broadband speed do students need?
District Administration Magazine
With many school districts across the country likely to start 2021 online, experts say it's clear that smartphones do not provide sufficient connectivity for online learning, homework or other educational activities. And several months into the pandemic, rural areas and low-income also do not have adequate connectivity, says Johannes M. Bauer, chair for media and information policy and director of Michigan State University's James H. and Mary B. Quello Center.
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Report: There's more to come for AI in education
THE Journal
The biggest uses for artificial intelligence in education have not been invented yet. But whatever they end up being, people working on AI applications need to keep educators and education policy makers well informed "early and deeply." That's the conclusion of a new report recently issued by the Center for Integrative Research in Computing and Learning Sciences.
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5 cybersecurity life skills to teach all year
eSchool News
f a student from your school had someone knock on their front door, ask for personal information and offer to give them a treat in exchange for that information, what would happen? It depends on the child, but what you know for certain is that your district or school has been teaching stranger danger since that child was in kindergarten, so the odds are good that the interaction would raise a red flag for the student.
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| Promoted by
McGraw-Hill |
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Identify and Address Individual Learning Gaps
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Many students will experience learning losses and have gaps in their knowledge and skills.
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With Rise, long-term learning loss doesn’t have to be one of the consequences.
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An adaptive math and ELA supplemental solution for grades 3-8 with over 1,100 learning objectives
- Rise can be used as independent practice work for progress monitoring, request a sample
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.PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
5 ways to do robotics remotely
THE Journal
Think about how many uses besides the obvious ones you can come up with for these objects: a sheet of paper, a marble and a straw. How about these applications? Using the straw to suck air out of a food bag before freezing, or converting marbles into wheels and a sheet of paper into a paper boat. During a recent ISTE 20 Live session, Colleen Larionoff explained that she likes to give students divergent thinking exercises like this one, sharing responses via Padlet, to show them how there are many different ways they can answer a question and solve a problem.
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Teaching is not customer service
We Are Teachers
Your student's family is going on a vacation to Hawaii two weeks before winter break, and you get an email the night before they leave asking you to make copies of all of his work and drop it off at their house. Sound familiar? If you're a teacher who feels like you have to please your students (all 100 of them!), and their families, you aren't alone. These days, teaching is starting to feel a lot like customer service. But what happens when "the customer isn't always right?" What's the cost if we listen attentively and let them vent? Apologize even if we don't agree? This isn't what we signed up for.
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Fostering empathy and equity in the remote classroom
EdTech Magazine
The 4-year-old in the photo is wearing a tan suit with a complementary tie. His broad smile shows a full set of teeth. And now, the man who was that child says the photograph still makes him smile as well. "The suit, the smile, it lights up my face every time I see it," said Quentin J. Lee, principal of Childersburg Middle School in Alabama.
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Moving from crisis to connections with kids
Teaching Channel (commentary)
"About one month into e-learning this fall, I was exploring with my 9th-grade humanities class the construct of the American dream in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. The play centers on the experience of a Black family living on the Southside of Chicago after WWII, who strive to achieve their American dream in the face of racism and poverty."
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Student trauma in 2020 and how we can help
MiddleWeb (commentary)
Stephanie Filio, a contributor for MiddleWeb, writes: "We all know that the middle years come with their own set of challenges. The hormones, the emotions, the pressures, those nagging adults — oh my! My own counseling students will often come to my middle school-based office upset and actually say, 'I have no idea why I'm crying! I'm not even sad! This is crazy!' And I just sit back, let them cry, and tell them, 'yep, sounds about right.' It's tough, and each day is likely to serve up a new crisis."
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Connecting SEL to academic outcomes
Edutopia
Social and emotional learning is sometimes perceived as being just one more thing heaped on educators' plates, but it's truly valuable — in small, frequent doses, it helps bring about many valued outcomes. Let's take a look at four subjects — visual and performing arts, social studies, health and English language arts — to see how SEL skills are connected to desired outcomes in these subjects.
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PCS Edventures is awarding 8 winners, $12,000 in STEM curriculum & materials. Hurry, the entry period ends on December 7th, 2020. Enter sweepstakes at: https://contest.edventures.com
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Thousands of industry professionals subscribe to association news briefs, which allows your company to push messaging directly to their inboxes and take advantage of the association's brand affinity.
Connect with Highly Defined Buyers and Maximize Your Brand Exposure
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Tips, tricks and lesson ideas for winter outdoor learning
We Are Teachers
The benefits of time outside are well-documented at this point, and added incentives during COVID times have prompted even more schools to take learning outdoors when they can. But what about when the temperature drops and the snow flies? You don't have to teach in a forest school or have a yurt to get out there. With flexible expectations, strategic planning — and definitely some warm additions to your teacher wardrobe — winter outdoor learning is possible. We've pulled together a helpful list of tips and lesson ideas to get you started.
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.EDUCATION RESEARCH
Study: Children with ADHD more likely to bully — And to be bullied
Additude Magazine
School-aged children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder demonstrated a significant risk (3 to 17 times greater than that of their neurotypical peers) for being a bully, being a victim of bullying, or both, according to a study from the Journal of Attention Disorders. The link between increased rates of bullying and neurodevelopmental disorders has been previously observed among children with autism spectrum disorder and learning disabilities.
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Almost 75% of teens report exposure to loud sounds at school
Healio
Nearly three in four American teenagers reported exposure to loud sounds at school for more than 15 minutes per day, according to results published in MMWR. John Eichwald, MA, chief of the CDC's Child Development and Disability Branch, and Franco Scinicariello, MD, a health scientist at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, surveyed 817 youths aged 12 to 17 years.
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Military family students face extra transition obstacles beyond COVID hurdles
THE Journal
If the typical American student has had to face turmoil in education this year, students who are the children of military parents face it throughout their young lives. More than three-quarters (77%) have moved twice or more during grades K-5, four in 10 (42%) have moved just as often in grades 6-8. And a quarter have done the same as high schoolers. A recent survey reported that the military family students take between one and three months to adjust to a new school. The hardest grade for adjustment? Ninth.
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.IN THE STATES
How to implement long-term remote learning in a rural area
Tech & Learning
When the pandemic hit last February, the leaders at Casa Blanca Community School in the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona did what very few districts did: Adopt a long-term approach in the face of uncertainty. Located about 30 minutes south of the Phoenix metropolitan area, Gila River Indian Community is a rural, agricultural community and home to the Keli Akimel O'odham or "River People," also known as the Pima and the Maricopa or Piipaash.
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Advocates say hunger, food anxiety grow during pandemic
The Washington Times
Anti-hunger advocates warn that an unprecedented food crisis awaits the U.S. this winter because COVID-19 has depleted pantries and joblessness remains high entering the colder months. Most heartbreaking, observers say, is that the nation's children had faced historically low levels of food anxiety before the pandemic. "Before COVID hit, we were on a pathway to end childhood hunger," Lisa Davis, senior vice president of the D.C.-based nonprofit No Kid Hungry, said in phone briefing. "All of which was undone in just a matter of months."
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Appeals court: Mississippi school lawsuit may go forward
The Associated Press
A federal appeals court has affirmed that Mississippi parents may pursue a lawsuit that says the state allows grave disparities in funding between predominantly Black and predominantly white schools. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 9-8 Monday to support a ruling that three of its own judges handed down in April. In 2019, U.S. District Judge William H. Barbour dismissed the lawsuit filed against state officials by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The three-judge panel revived the lawsuit in April.
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.ASSOCIATION NEWS
Learning standards for black children
NAESP
Created by culturally homogeneous teams of experts and publishers, the learning standards that have long governed schools and classrooms are often far removed from the culturally diverse realities of real children in real classrooms. Standards dictate high stakes, and bias-tinted state assessments haven't traditionally captured the full potential — or genius — of every student.
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Register for webinar on supporting early literacy instruction pre-k to 3
NAESP
Join Jill Pentimonti, Ph.D., and Aleksandra Holod, Ph.D. as they overview the TeacherRead Program and key considerations for literacy learning in preschool/early childhood contexts that set a strong basis for later language learning and academic success, including promoting oral language, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Lana Santoro, Ph.D., will provide a brief overview of a seven-year, federally funded project to promote teacher read alouds for enhancing narrative and expository comprehension, vocabulary, and language development of children in grades K-2.
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7701 Las Colinas Ridge, Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063
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