Pedagogue Blog

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Virtual reality is one of the hottest edtech trends. Not only are students allowed the opportunity to emerge themselves into a subject but can travel the world from their desk chairs. While not readily available in every classroom, programs such as Google Cardboard aim to make VR headsets cheap and accessible. The majority of students in the USA own a cell phone, and with many of these educational apps available on both iOs and the iTunes-enabled devices, they are becoming more accessible to more students. Educationally, these VR apps allow students to visualize concepts that were confined to the pictures in a textbook. Below are 20 Virtual Reality Apps that are changing education.

1. Star Chart – with over 20 million users this app brings the universe a little closer. Students can learn about constellations by aiming their phones at the night sky. There are additional features that allow students to interact with facts about planets and space discovery.
2. Google Translate – while conventional Google Translate may not sound like a VR app, its new camera feature students can translate 30 languages by aiming their camera at a Students can watch in real time as the text is translated. This additional feature is great for language student
3. Cleanopolis– Fighting climate change becomes interactive with this app. Students learn about CO₂ and battle along with Captain Clean to save the world. Not only is this a fun game but the educational quality would make it great in any science classroom.
4. Public Speaking VR – practice the skills of public speaking with this immersive VR experience. With photorealistic environments, students can prepare for a job interview of a class presentation.
5. Quiver – Watch colored in creations come to life with Quiver. Though VR technology, 2D images become 3D and “walk “ off the page. Ideal for younger students.
6. Boulevard – Art classes can now be supplemented with visits to some of the world’s best art museums. Students can tour six art museums, interact with famous artworks and learn about the art, all thanks to the advancements of VR technology
7. Unimersiv – History comes alive with the apps developed by Unimersiv. Students can explore ancient Greece, the Titanic or the Egyptian Mysteries.
8. InMind– Neurons and brain tissue have never looked more realistic. Travel into the brain and learn about anatomy with this great app.
9. Apollo 11 VR – Be part of one of the most significant space expeditions. Though VR technology, students can have a front seat in this documentary style app. This award winning app is pushing the possibilities of VR as an educational tool
10. Earth AR – See the globe from new unseen angles. Motion detection and zooming capabilities will make geography more interactive.
11. Cospaces– creating virtual realities is not as impossible as it sounds. Students are actively involved in the creation and creative process that goes into building a VR world
12. TiltBrush – Creating 3D paintings is every artist’s dream, and now with TiltBrush, it is a reality. Painting Is done using a handheld “paintbrush,” and the creation possibilities will be awe inspiring for any creative student.
13. Anatomy 4D – study the human body with clear images that come to life. Ideal for biology students or anyone with interest in the inner workings of the body.
14. Sites in VR– explore famous landmarks in all their splendor. With an emphasis on Islamic temples, tombs, and ancient cities, students will get to see sites that otherwise would be inaccessible
15. King Tut VR – Explore the tomb of the legendary Egyptian king and get lost in the secret chambers full of hieroglyphics and treasures
16. Flashcards- Animal Alphabet – Made for younger students, this immersive flashcard game teaches students words while bringing it all together with some colorful animal friends
17. Imag-n-o-tron– Stories jump off the page with Imag-n-o-tron. Downloadable content makes this app suitable for any age. Students improve their reading while engaging with complimentary images making the VR world an educational space
18. EON Experience – This collection of VR lessons encapsulates everything from physics to history. Students or teachers can create their VR lessons from preloaded content.
19. Titans of Space – This guided tour of space is both informative as it is breathtaking. With voice overs, facts and scored music it is a cutting edge VR product.
20. Discovery VR Discovery TV channel compiled all the content for this app. Students can explore exotic natural locations and interact with our planet in a futuristic way.

Virtual reality allows students to engage with educational content in a whole new way. They can travel, create art and dissect a frog. The inclusion of VR into the curriculum will also allow teachers to supplement their talents with that of engineers and pioneers of virtual technology.

Since as early as the 1800’s, fears of robots taking over human jobs has been a reality. As we enter the true age of robotics, those concerns are resurfacing, and educators are unsure about what jobs their students will be competing for. For example, IT jobs will grow by 22% through 2020 and jobs in STEM are said to see similar growth. Educators are expected to equip their students with skills that will translate into careers and yet they have no idea what these skills should be. While timeless skills such as critical thinking, languages and mathematics aid in every career they do not provide the specialized skills that “jobs of the future” may require. So, what are the jobs of the future and how can be best prepare students for them?

Programming jobs are growing 50 percent faster than the market overall. With such a rapidly growing market, it is important to note that not all coding jobs fall within the technology sector. Health care, manufacturing, and finance are in need of coders as is the tech industry. If current K12 students are to fill these positions, they need to be engaging with STEM subjects from a young age. Coding products and “beginner guides” are being marketed to children as young as three, in the hopes of encouraging a coding passion.

Coding is the backbone of many technologies, and in the future, it will be an important tool for entrepreneurs and innovators. However, only one in 10 U.S. schools teach children to code, and so companies look to cheaper (foreign) coders for positions available in the USA. If schools are to align themselves with the future job prospects of their students, it is vital that coding is a skill rather than just an aspect touched on in computer class.

Robotics is another career field that will set to see exponential growth. The global competition to create artificial intelligence (AI) is aggressive, and robotics engineers are pioneered as the jobs of the future. As with coding, the need for robotics is across job sectors and is not solely focused on creating IA. In 2015, the robotics industry saw a 15% increase in sales, which goes to show that people are making and buying more robots than ever.

The Robot Academy and other organization, have realized the lack of robotics in traditional school curriculums and aimed to provide resources for both teachers and students. STEM subjects are vital for future careers in the robotics sector, and if students are not offered the opportunity to create, program and think of robotics, there will be a shortage of these skills in the future.

However, not all “jobs of the future” have their roots in technology. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, these are some of the “Top 30 Fasted Growing Jobs by 2020.”

• Veterinarians
• Mental Health Counselors
• Meeting, convention, and event planning
• Home health aids

What is particularly interesting about these jobs is that they have a very “human “aspect to them. So while coding and robotics may seem at the forefront, there is still a need for care and humanity; virtues that need to be instilled along with coding and STEM principals. This is reassuring for humanities students who may feel threatened by the future looking geared to those with mathematical abilities.

As educators, it is important to teach skills that will be invaluable. Fostering a love of learning, a commitment to innovation and ethics are fundamental to any position. By understanding the jobs of the future, educators can better prepare themselves and ensure that the curriculum is in line with the expectations and job openings that will be available. On a side note, these articles were not written by a robot.

Exclusive partnership provides daily multimedia news articles for K–8 students in many languages and at a range of Lexile^® levels

(Minneapolis, MN) March 6, 2017 — myON, the leading provider of personalized literacy solutions in the K–12 marketplace, today introduced myON News Powered by News-O-Matic. The digital multimedia platform will serve as an interactive and fun introduction to daily news and current events for kids. myON News will engage K–8 students to help them become informed global citizens and connected to digital fiction and nonfiction books—a first-of-its-kind feature for classrooms.

myON News publishes five original news articles designed for students every weekday, 52 weeks a year. All articles are available at three personalized reading levels, in English and Spanish, and are approved by education experts and child psychologists. In addition, myON News allows educators to assign articles, monitor student activity, and leverage real-time reporting and usage reports to guide and evaluate their students’ progress every step of the way. A daily Teacher’s Guide provides additional tools to help educators seamlessly integrate the texts into their classrooms.

While other providers aggregate news for adults and use a computer algorithm to simplify, myON News creates news specifically for kids. Its team of experts manually levels the texts using the Lexile^® Framework for Reading. Additional supports include audio narration (by real people!), high-quality photos and videos, facts and calls to action, and interactive maps showing where the stories take place. The addition of myON News to the Literacy Ecosystem™ creates the first literacy solution to combine the power of published books with up-to-the-minute daily news articles—a breakthrough model for all students.

“Establishing an interest in world news is crucial to our children’s future,” said Todd Brekhus, the President of myON. “Today, everyone is trying to decipher the differences between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ news, and educating our students on what is ‘real’ is critical to knowing how global headlines will impact them. With myON News, we create a safe, relevant, and personalized learning environment that allows students to become empowered global citizens and fosters their natural curiosity for learning.”

“With more than 3 million students already reading News-O-Matic, it is clear that our passion for creating news for students is resonating,” said Chief Content Officer Russell Kahn. “We will continue to create rich multimedia stories on a daily basis to inspire young readers to become lifelong readers who can think critically about their world.”

Kahn explained what makes this product so revolutionary. “myON News is not simplified grown-up news; it is a flipped news experience for young readers. Rather than generating fear and anxiety, it inspires empowerment, engagement, and citizenship in an age-appropriate, relatable, and informative manner.”

Marc-Henri Magdelenat, the Founder and CEO of Press4Kids, the parent company of News-O-Matic, commented, “News-O-Matic has already created a groundswell of interest to enhance students’ interests in the news. Rebranding News-O-Matic to myON News will significantly help us reach a larger audience of young readers than ever before. Thanks to myON’s vast and growing network of K–12 schools, more students will get the opportunity to read current events and learn about their world on a daily basis. These are the children who will someday grow up to become active, empathetic, and conscientious adults.”

By adding myON News, myON continues to fulfill its mission of instilling a love of reading and learning, creating unique literacy experiences by putting digital books—and now digital articles—in the hands of children worldwide, regardless of their geographic, demographic, or socio-economic status. For more information about myON News or to request a free trial for your school, please visit myONnews.com.

About myON
myON develops personalized literacy solutions that create collaborative learning opportunities for students worldwide. myON expands the classroom for teachers and students by providing unlimited access to a collection of more than 13,000 enhanced digital books with multimedia supports, daily news articles, real-time assessments, and close reading tools. myON empowers students and teachers with real-time, actionable data—number and type of books and articles opened and read, time spent reading, results of regular benchmark assessments, and more—based on embedded Lexile® assessments that measure student reading growth and engagement. With myON, every student experiences the benefits of personalized literacy instruction. For more information, please visit myON.com.

About News-O-Matic
News-O-Matic is the Daily News Just for Kids. It is used at home and at school by millions of children (3.5 million+ downloads from 150 countries). News-O-Matic is an exciting and engaging nonfiction experience, giving young readers a window into the world—and a reason to love reading on a daily basis. The tool allows students to make connections in meaningful ways and gives them a voice to communicate with peers across the planet. News-O-Matic is published by Press4Kids.

Press Contact:
Jacob Hanson
PR with Panache!
[email protected]

Educational resources offer strategies, lesson plans and effective models for increasing critical thinking skills by applying concepts across multiple disciplines

(NEW YORK, NY) March 1, 2017 – Kids Discover, a leading provider of dynamic, engaging science and social studies curriculum, today announced the release of their Cross-Curricular Professional Learning Resources, including an infographic and two ebooks; “Improving Student Engagement and Outcomes with Cross-Curricular Application,” and “Creating a Cross-Curricular Learning Environment with Digital Curriculum.” These resources will detail the importance of cross-curricular lessons for educators and offer administrators models for integration into schools.

“Kids Discover has committed to increasing cross-curricular learning in every school across the country,” said Ted Levine, the president and CEO of Kids Discover. “Cross-curricular lessons give learning context, develop students’ critical thinking skills, and increase interest in STEM fields. With the growing adoption of technology in the classroom, creating customized cross-curricular lessons is easier than ever.”

The infographic and ebooks demonstrate just how effective cross-curricular models are at increasing student understanding, concept mastery, and critical thinking. These resources include reflections from industry thought leaders such as Dr. Lauren Madden, Michio Kaku, and Heidi Hayes Jacobs. The ebooks include practical steps educators can take to incorporate these kinds of lessons into their classrooms as well as how school and district leaders can create and foster a culture of cross-curricular learning. Additionally, free cross-curricular lesson plans are available on Kids Discover’s website.

The lesson plans, created during Kids Discover’s recent Cross-Curricular Lesson Plan Contest, include lessons built for grades 3–8 by educators who merged two or more disciplines in a meaningful way for their students.

“Cross-curricular lessons have been shown to increase science vocabulary and reading comprehension, increase mathematic scores, and improve student performance,” said Levine. “Educators who use cross-curricular lessons notice their students have higher critical thinking skills, more motivation to learn, and greater creativity in problem-solving than students who are not enrolled in cross-curricular learning. The benefits are clear, and Kids Discover wants to help educators give their students the best education possible.”

For more information and to download the resources, please visit KidsDiscover.com/cross-curricular-resources.

About Kids Discover
For more than 25 years, Kids Discover has been creating beautifully crafted nonfiction products for kids. With a specialty in science and social studies, the team of talented writers, award-winning designers and illustrators, and subject experts from leading institutions is committed to a single mission: to get children excited about reading and learning. For information, please visit KidsDiscover.com.

Press Contact:
Jacob Hanson
PR with Panache!
[email protected]
(970) 560-0856

By Ruth Schoenbach and Cynthia Greenleaf

Every day, middle and high school teachers ask their students to read and understand complex texts in disciplines such as history, literature, biology, or economics. Such reading is foundational to student success in school, the workplace, and in civic life. Yet, national tests results and our own eyes tell us that the majority of high school students aren’t getting it.

How can teachers and administrators create classrooms where students routinely engage with challenging material, think critically about texts, synthesize information from multiple sources, and effectively communicate what they have learned? And how can we spread and sustain innovative practices beyond a few classrooms?

Tackling adolescent literacy challenges is no easy lift for schools. For one thing, subject-area teachers have their plates full with the demands of covering and assessing large amounts of subject-matter content. Many teachers see any request to “teach reading in your subject area” as beyond their responsibility—and skill set. That’s understandable given how little time there is for teacher collaboration and learning.

But hundreds of middle and high schools, districts, and colleges (especially open-admissions institutions) have taken up the challenge—and have been able to create cultures of literacy. They have classrooms where teachers and students work together to identify comprehension problems, tap and elicit critical dispositions known to support learning (like curiosity, courage, stamina, and persistence), and use an array of evidence-based instructional approaches and discourse routines to collaboratively make sense of complex disciplinary texts.

Our new book, Leading for Literacy: A Reading Apprenticeship Approach, and an open webinar we are offering on March 8, show how they’ve done it. The book is based on what we’ve learned from 25 years of implementing Reading Apprenticeship, a framework for helping schools and districts transform how literacy is taught.

The Reading Apprenticeship framework builds on teachers’ existing knowledge and expertise and provides structured opportunities for them to explore their own reading and comprehension processes as they, themselves, struggle with challenging texts. The insights they gain—through training and participating in ongoing learning communities—broadens their mindsets about what students are capable of doing and provides the foundation for apprenticing students to reading, writing, thinking, and speaking in the different disciplines.

Teachers build a culture of inquiry in their classrooms by teaching students how to work individually and as a group to conduct metacognitive conversations that help them take on rigorous texts, regardless of the subject matter. The goal is to have students learn to take control of their learning.

This approach is effective at the school and college classroom levels and as scaled across institutions and systems. The evidence of federally funded randomized controlled studies, shows positive, statistically significant effects for students whose teachers participated in Reading Apprenticeship professional development.

Ultimately, the success of the program depends on leadership from teachers, principals, and advocates for students, for whom creating a culture of literacy requires:

• political cover on the part of site and district administrators to protect teams and their time from external challenges;
• new structures, such as dedicated literacy teams and communities of practice;
• dedicated time—and more of it—to engage in high-quality professional learning, professional collaboration, and problem solving with colleagues;
• a focus on inquiry, which encourages and supports sharing and exploring questions and observations as a group;
• community partnerships, to build support for more time spent on reading and literacy development in the schools; and
• teacher-led advocacy that is strength based and solution driven.

Leading for Literacy presents portraits, case studies, research findings, and key insights from scores of practitioners, and details how to get started, build momentum, assess progress, generate partnerships, and sustain networks across schools, districts, college campuses, and regions. It is more important than ever for schools to advance better approaches to literacy instruction. Why not rewrite the script at your school?

Ruth Schoenbach and Cynthia Greenleaf are co-directors of the WestEd Strategic Literacy Initiative, and, Lynn Murphy, co-authors of Leading for Literacy: A Reading Apprenticeship Approach (Wiley/Jossey-Bass, December 2016).

New website provides K-12 administrators with up-to-date, actionable information on financial reporting changes

(Baltimore, MD) March 1, 2017 — Allovue, a pioneering education finance technology company, today launched ESSA Ready – a web site to support K-12 school leaders as they prepare their financial reports for compliance under the new regulations of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Created for district and school-level leaders, the site is a guide for meeting the new financial reporting requirements in the statute. Under ESSA, school districts must now demonstrate greater transparency with their financial data, including showing per-pupil expenditures by school based on actual expenses.

“The new financial regulations in ESSA have created uncertainty for many K-12 administrators,” said Jess Gartner, the CEO and founder of Allovue. “Allovue works with school and district leaders to alleviate their concerns around additional financial transparency and to reduce the administrative burden of producing per-pupil expenditure data. We’re eager to share our knowledge and shine a light on the changes and challenges to come.”

Chris Rinkus, formerly a senior official with the District of Columbia Public Schools, now serves as Allovue’s point person on ESSA. “School districts have an opportunity to educate parents and the community about how resources are being used,” said Rinkus. “The districts that embrace this opportunity will discover that when the public is better informed about effective school spending, it is more likely to be supportive of the district’s vision.”

ESSA Ready features both original content penned by Allovue’s team and links to useful resources. The new site will help K-12 administrators understand the new financial requirements and direct them to resources that help them alter existing or develop new practices to meet these requirements.

“This is a whole new world for many school districts in terms of their financial data,” said Gartner. “ESSA will require supplying the public with a clear view of school-level equity like never before. It’s important than ever to have the right information and the right partnerships in place. ”

Allovue’s software platform, Balance, integrates seamlessly with K-12 districts’ existing accounting systems and other data systems to help financial managers budget, monitor, and evaluate spending. Balance and Allovue’s professional services help support financial preparation and analysis needed to comply with ESSA.

About Allovue
Allovue is a pioneering education finance technology company that empowers educators to strategically and equitably allocate resources to best support the needs of students. Their signature software platform, Balance, helps educators budget, manage, and evaluate spending. Allovue also supports district financial strategy through research, training, and equity analysis. To learn more, please visit allovue.com.

Media Contact:
Jacob Hanson
PR with Panache!
[email protected]
(970) 560-0856

I love looking at the cellular data network coverage maps showing where your phone will be able to connect to the Internet. Every carrier has their own version, spangled in the company colors so you know who to thank. But in a way, these maps aren’t just advertorial: they show the edge of modern civilization.

After all, mobile data is quickly becoming the new standard for Internet access; smart devices are the preferred platform for everyone from doctors and nurses to college students and presidents. It is like a systemic paraphrasing of The Lion King: “Everything the data map covers is our kingdom.”

The kingdom, in the 21st century, means relevance, engagement, access to knowledge and news, having a voice. For students and schools outside the kingdom, opportunity can seem out of reach.

Needs, Dreams, and Rights

While access to the Internet is by no means a guarantee of outcomes, achievements, or even learning, the absence of this access is effectively punitive for students, teachers, and school.

By Obama’s reckoning, “The Internet is not a luxury, but a necessity,” and key to realizing the modern American Dream. In Canada, a similar spirit informed plans to get every citizen connected to high speed internet, officially designating the service as an essential telecommunications service, thereby affording it greater protections and subjecting it to different regulations. The United Nations went even further with its finding that Internet access constitutes a new human right.

But they weren’t all talking about the same Internet.

Mobile data–the stuff of cellular plans as well as ambitious projects out of Silicon Valley to make coverage maps irrelevant–doesn’t provide the exact same connectivity as dedicated high-speed cable or fiber optic lines. Indeed, the very brands working to make global connectivity a reality would also be gatekeepers choosing which sites, services, and data their users accessed. One may safely assume that free global internet provided by Facebook would send users by default to Facebook as a homepage.

But mobile data is easier and cheaper to push out across greater areas, and to upgrade as the technology improves. This is especially true for poor, rural, or extremely remote regions–those few spots on the map devoid of color and coverage. With branded Internet filling the gaps, the range and type of content users see could well become something akin to a class-based feature.

So even as access itself is championed as the sine qua non of modern living (and schooling), different types of access–to different versions and degrees of the Internet–is further complicating the question of how much data is enough.

What Do We Mean by “Internet” ?

Schools don’t necessarily need access to the full unfiltered Internet anyway.

Nearly one quarter of all mobile searches is for porn, and some 90 percent of teenagers today will encounter some form of porn online before they reach adulthood. That is hardly part of the academic mission schools pursue by securing Internet access. But “porn” itself, not unlike “literally,” has undergone a change of definition in the Internet era away from its original, specific meaning to a term of emphasis or hyperbole.

Social media has popularized various hobbies and interest groups as pornography–just search Instagram for “food porn” and take an the epicurean journey around the world; or, to satisfy your wanderlust, find any of the hundreds of “travel porn” blogs to witness entirely lust-free accounts of vacations, road trips, and cruises. And just as each subgroup has its own, personalized version of “porn,” the world has been steadily realigning itself online into isolated pockets of alternative facts.

Long before Kellyanne Conway used the term, politicos and casual browsers alike self-sorted into ideological bubble communities, where challenging ideas and interpretations of science itself were cut off from one another. To go online today is to choose a camp and stay there, insulated from contradiction or contest.

Porn isn’t porn, facts aren’t facts, the Internet isn’t the Internet, and literally is now figurative–so is data really access?

The next shift in what the Internet itself really is may hold answers.

Data, Things, and People

Were Yakov Smirnoff to apply his classic Russian Reversal joke to today’s online culture, he might say, “In Soviet Russia, the Internet uses you!” Except he wouldn’t be wrong–and this role reversal isn’t limited to one place.

The Internet of Things is already making itself known around the world. Rather than users navigating the Internet through user-friendly browsers and screen-based interfaces, smart devices are taking responsibility for creating, exchanging, and accessing information. Wearables ranging from step-tracking fitness bracelets to implantable heart monitors are gaining in both popularity and functionality. In the classroom, silent monitoring systems gauge engagement, performance, and comprehension to automatically alert teachers to individual student needs and opportunities–or simply adjust tests and assignments responsively on their behalf.

In short, people don’t just use passive technology–the technology is active, autonomous, and capable of “making” its own Internet, sharing data among a network of devices, rather than between human users. In the Internet of Things, the devices do in fact use us.

Before universal Internet access even became a reality, the nature of the Internet, and data, and access have all been thrown into confusion. More critical thinking than ever is needed to navigate the world’s online troves of knowledge, in order to distinguish fact from opinion, reliable from unreliable sources, even real people from chat bots.

For all the importance we’ve come to place on getting schools and students connected, the most important skills of all remain social, interpersonal, and based in the real, rather than digital, world. Internet access remains a worthy goal, but equally important is ensuring that future generations of students and their instructors are equipped to navigate the web, given the opportunity.

An ELL educator shares her best practices for helping her students develop a passion for reading.

By Korah Deanne Winn

I have taught English to non-native speakers since graduating from college in 2006. I took my first teaching position at Lincoln School in Guadalajara, Mexico. I learned something then that has stuck with me and guided my approach to language arts instruction ever since: the best way to help students learn to read, regardless of the language, is to begin with an interest in reading itself. Achieving this with elementary students who come from a variety of different cultural backgrounds and linguistic influences requires a shared approach to learning through visual engagement and phonics.

At my current school, Rock Island Academy, nearly a quarter of our K-6 students do not speak English as their first language. I have the pleasure of working with English language learners (ELLs). Many of my students come to me speaking an assortment of languages before learning English. With the younger ones, it is easier when they can start from the beginning and learn to read English as part of their normal language arts development. For some of my older kids who have already learned to read and write in an entirely different language, however, asking them to then master a second language can be tricky. I have found that no matter the age, success with reading starts by inspiring students to learn and then by providing them with the tools they need to do so. I try to teach them how to decode the language of the text — vocabulary and comprehension often come in fully later.

I was learning Spanish while I was teaching English at my first school in Mexico. In fact, I am still learning new languages today as I work with some of my students who speak Swahili and Arabic. This has really helped me approach teaching from a learner’s perspective. With that mindset, I began researching structured curricula that included the tools my students need to become successful readers and writers. When I landed on Reading Horizons, something clicked. An essential element was the online program they offer for teacher instruction. I recommend it to my practicum students and volunteers who, by taking the short preliminary workshop beforehand, can then have a stronger base themselves to help teach students to read. The program has been a wonderful way to cover all aspects of reading instruction.

Reading Horizons has organized everything very systematically so that my classes and I can easily follow the skills progression required for older students who are learning to read. With my 3rd-6th grade ELLs, I have found that phonics is one of the best ways to help my students get a foundation with the English language. This program uses instruction and practice that includes repetition so that students can really maintain what they have learned. Within the lessons, there are interactive and instructive audio options, along with vocabulary and a library of 285 reading passages. My students can highlight any section of text and have it read to them, in English or in Spanish, which helps to form essential visual and vocal associations with the letters and words on the screen.

The method covers every important skill for learning the English language, so once the structure of that system was in place, my paraprofessional and I had the time to provide more small group and one-on-one intervention. Having the proper tools in place opens the door for teachers to move beyond basic literacy and focus more on instilling a love of reading. That is especially the case with older students who may approach reading and writing in English as a chore. Finding a way to make it enjoyable and fun is essential.

I have found that when it comes to encouraging students to read, you have to make it visual. With Reading Horizons, my students make markings on difficult words they come to as they read. They get the opportunity to apply the skills they have learned to “prove” the words. In this way, the program has been like a life preserver because the very process of marking words is so helpful for them. Using the online software allows them to type, mark, and identify the English words on the screen and then to transfer those skills to reading and writing on their own. If they can decode a language as complex as English, they will be in a much better place on their journey to understanding it.

I try to inspire my students’ passion to read in any way I can. When you see the light in their eyes as they are starting to succeed at reading, it is so rewarding. I get to help kids transition to this new culture and language. When I see the sense of achievement my older students feel when they learn how to read and write English—and how it makes them want to read more—I know that encouraging our students to want to read is the first and most important thing.

Korah Deanne Winn is an English Language Learner teacher at Rock Island Academy in the Rock Island Milan School District 41, located in Rock Island, Illinois. She can be reached at [email protected]

Teachers have been telling stories for as long as teachers have taught others. Students are still learning from the stories of our greatest teachers thousands of years later like Plato, Confucius, and Jesus, as examples. But that makes story sound like a classic “old school” pedagogical method, and that is not the characterization I think we should promote.

Narrative is our primary tool for understanding the world around us, and it is a fundamental tool in our ability to processes information.

Yet despite our cultural belief in the importance of story as a teaching tool we really don’t use it much anymore. We all have our students read stories, and most of us still carve out time to read aloud to our students, but few of us use stories as a tool to explain or highlight concepts outside of those to platforms.

I spend a great deal of my research time looking for ways to integrate lessons. I do this because I believe – one, that the real world is integrated and education should follow suit, and two, that it is the only way to meet the growing list of demands on teaching time.

I have come to believe that one of the strongest threads tying all our curricula together is story.

Our focus on data, the science of pedagogy and the hard Common Core push into nonfiction, have left us with sharp, versatile tools, and little desire to use them. Those things do make a difference but they are not the difference.  The difference is our ability to add to our student’s story. I think we have forgotten the importance of story.

Wait, DON’T STOP READING…. NOT yet, give me at least one maybe even two more paragraphs before you drop this as a rambling rant.

An example: A couple of years ago a fifth grade science class I was working with was struggling with the concept of mass.

We expected some of them to get stuck on this as mass is tricky. Weight is easy enough, but the difference between mass and weight is still shaky in most of student’s heads. To be honest most teachers gloss over it because it’s shaky for them as well. So I shared the story of Archimedes and the King’s crown.

Archimedes, brings the concept of mass alive with a “Eureka” moment and a naked street dance that no 5^th grader will easily forget.

Another example: Using my new idea to teach with a story I prepared and then set a trap in math class.  And when the complaints and questions about the practicality of our lesson came up, I shared the story of Abraham Wald, who saved hundreds of American pilots in WW2 and explained math is about interrogating the questions asked and the information available to get answers.

Just one more: Oxygen and the elements in general are not truly abstract, but for most if not all of our students they can be. Asking, or even expecting them to jump into STEM classes without seeding their curiosity with story can be a tough sell.

But having them listen to how and why Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen offers insight, understanding and examples of how difficult and how important understanding the unseen can be.

Great teaching has always been centered on giving the student a reason to be curious and teaching them how to explore. I’m convinced stories are where the best seeds of curiosity come from.

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In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Does social promotion really help students, or is it an easy way out for educators?

Social promotion is the practice of promoting a child to the next grade level, regardless of skill mastery, in the belief that it will promote self-esteem by allowing the student to “keep up” with their peers. Despite criticisms and problems with social promotion policies, the practice remains common, even today.

Previously marginalized groups, including African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, women, and students with disabilities began to demand that schools stop labeling children as “defective,” advocating for the better adaption of schools and the education system as a whole, to meet the learning needs of children. By the 1980s, in fact, the practice of homogeneous grouping and the associated practice of tracking were also under fire, with the criticism that not only did ability grouping reflect class- and race-based inequalities, but that such practices perpetuated them.

While there was heavy criticism of the justification schools used to support social promotions as an alternative for certain categories of children, criticism from other sectors were levied against the practice of social promotion across the nation. In 1983, A Nation at Risk – a report on the status of education in the United States written by the National Commission on Excellence in Education – stated that the nation was in peril due to the mediocrity of its public schools. The nation, the report suggested, was at a disadvantage when competing economically with Japan and West Germany, largely due to the poor state of education. A Nation at Risk called for reforms that would increase academic standards, improve teacher quality, and reform the curriculum. Education based on standards of what all children should know and be able to do would, critics argued, reduce the practice of social promotion that contributed to the poor quality of education in the nation.

A Nation at Risk caught the attention of the American public, and by the mid-1980s most Americans believed that promotion should be based on students’ mastery of grade-appropriate content and knowledge. By 1998, the Clinton Administration was overtly calling for the end to social promotion. In the era of No Child Left Behind that followed, many states passed legislation that explicitly prohibited promotion of children who did not reach specific levels of performance on state-mandated assessments.

The practices of retention and social promotion evolved over time, as a substantial number of children did not fit easily into the rigidly organized age-grade system of schooling. Reformers have focused on structuring an efficient system of public education without really considering the relationship between efficiency and quality. Their decisions and actions have often resulted in a focus on ways to sort and separate students to enhance a regimented efficiency for schooling in a largely test-focused way.

The idea of common education persists today, however, in the form of standards that all children should know and be able to do throughout the various stages of their education. The goal of this effort would minimize social promotion, although social promotion and retention continue to exist.

Education reformers and stakeholders will continue to explore contemporary iterations of retention and promotion practices and their impact on students. The ultimate goal being that children continue to learn and progress efficiently, over the span of their public education career.

Does social promotion have a place in contemporary public schools?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Where did social promotion start? Why did the practice begin and should it even be applicable to education today?

Social promotion has been attributed to Progressives who were interested in the social and emotional development of children. Others have proposed that there were multiple reasons for the concept of social promotion at its inception in the late 19th century and its continued consideration into the 20th and 21st centuries. Failing children from certain families, based on status and position, was not popular.

Parents with influence and those who were angry, or who in other ways could make life difficult for educators, demonstrated the potential to pressure school personnel into passing their children in the latter part of the 1800s. Other reasons for promoting children who had not passed the required exams were more practical. School leaders often needed the space, particularly in the lower grades, for the increased numbers of students entering school. Having children repeat grades was also costly. By 1922, some Progressives were becoming concerned about the use of tests to sort students into categories and as a means to address the retention problem.

John Dewey entered the education scene in the midst of conflicting ideas. A brilliant student, Dewey entered the University of Vermont at age fifteen, graduating near the top of his class. At University, he was drawn to philosophy and went on to earn his doctorate in the field. Over time, he became a leading voice of progressive educational reform.

Dewey and other Progressives of the same era reacted to possible solutions for the outrageously high failure rate devised by school leaders and reformers who were invested in the science of education. Many districts adopted ability groups and semiannual promotion schedules as a remedy for the elevated retention rates, although the success of these initiatives was not particularly effective.

Ability groups allowed for the separation of children into high, average, and low achieving classes. In the case of the latter, standards were lowered so that rather than being retained, low achieving students could be passed on to the next graded level with a lower demand placed upon them. Their knowledge and skill levels for the next grade level were often dubious at best, but certainly not parallel to that of the average and high achieving students who experienced the same promotion.

School leaders engaged in the systematic use of intelligence tests to determine the placement of children into high, medium, or low ability groups. The children then went into classrooms, based on ability. School leaders were convinced that this was a democratic way to proceed with schooling, and each child would be able to work up to his or her capability level. The curriculum and instruction would be adapted, too: customized to fit the child’s ability level and allow for flexible promotion. The use of tests to determine innate ability would also aid educators with vocational guidance, provide an avenue for identifying unusually capable, and help diagnose learning problems.

The classrooms came under attack, with critics particularly decrying the folly of relying on a single test to track a child’s time while in school. There was also concern about using one test to set the trajectory for a vocation beyond school. Those who believed in the science of education would not relent on these points, but reliance on tests for classroom placement continued anyway.

Eventually, promotion led to the separation of children by social class, with many children living in poverty receiving placements in the low classrooms. Studies began to emerge that labeled children from various racial and ethnic groups as innately deficient, based on their performance on intelligence tests.

School leaders believed they had found a solution to issues that threatened to disrupt the age-grade schooling process. The ability to promote children unable to pass exams geared toward “normal” children, would alleviate the horrendous failure rate and the costly and disruptive crowding of students at the lower grades. No one considered the long-term implications of this strategy, however, and educators simply grouped the “abnormal” students together in an informal way. They were allowed to move through the school system with a consistently substandard education offered to them, without an active effort to teach materials in such a way as might engage these students. We now recognize that many of those students were atypical learners who had behavioral or cognitive needs.

This is how social promotion first came to fruition. It is more of a solution to logistical issues, and less about doing what was necessarily in the best interest of the child.

Do you think social promotion is a helpful or harmful practice in modern education?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

How did we go from one-room schoolhouses to hyper-segmented classrooms?

In the 19^th century, one-room schools were the norm. Some evidence does support the view of one-room schools as effectively collaborative and cooperative, with children learning both moral and academic lessons. However, there were also immense issues. One of the biggest, of course, was that racially segregated schools existed in many states.

Horace Mann was an education pioneer who tested his methods in his home state of Massachusetts, where intermediate schools emerged as early as 1838. These intermediate schools offered segregated instruction and a differentiated curriculum to children who education authorities or teachers deemed unsuitable for the regular classroom. Student characteristics such as age, cultural or linguistic background, and socioeconomic status served to separate children from the common, or regular, learning environment. Intellectual and behavioral abnormality would later be used as a basis for segregation as well.

A serious dichotomy would also emerge in education in the 20^th century in secondary schools with the sometimes-conflicting goals to instill classical academic skills as well as offer a broader range of practical life skills.

Pressing for a broad but rigorous curriculum, including comprehensive coverage of fundamental academic skills, but also the study of Latin, Greek, English, modern languages, mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, and social studies. In contrast to this, it was also proposed that there should be a dilution of academic learning to provide more of a focus on life-skills, such as how to achieve wholesome relations between men and women, as well as forms of vocational training. Both approaches to public education are still apparent in contemporary classrooms as the debate between intellectual and practical learning is ongoing.

The problem of the age-graded classroom was another challenge the American education system faced in the 20^th century. Despite Mann’s enthusiasm for the heterogeneous one-room school, the potential to classify children by any number of characteristics made the shift to eight age-grade classrooms in elementary schools much more plausible and practical. Quincy School, the first school with graded classrooms, opened in Boston in 1848. Although the class size was still relatively large by today’s standards (classrooms could hold up to fifty-six students), students were classified by age and each group was headed by a separate teacher.

A uniform course of study followed, and just as children from rural one-room schools had to pass an exam to enter high school, children’s promotion to the next grade, at all levels of the elementary school, now depended on their examination performance.

Uniform course of study meant that children in each age-grade learned specific items in each subject area. It was part of a move to standardization: organizing what the children learned, when they learned, and how they learned. Written achievement tests served to determine whether the children had learned enough to be promoted to the next grade, and proved integral to this new vision for schools.

The eight-grade school structure emerged in urban settings and decentralized one-room school units were eventually consolidated. The graded classroom system contrasted with the ungraded in some key respects, however, and the transition was not always smooth. For example, children who missed days in the graded classrooms now experienced a distinct disadvantage regarding learning the required material. Absences were also judged to be disruptive to the learning of all children in the classroom, with teachers having to interrupt the pace of learning for the rest of the class to help a child catch up on learning material he or she had missed.

More often than not, teachers moved forward, while the truant child struggled to learn material for which he or she lacked the foundational knowledge. As most parents will appreciate, though, absences during the year are inevitable. Schools have always served as breeding grounds for illness, which can set a child back for several days at a time. Even a couple of days’ absence during the year can become problematic. And what about those students who are ahead of the game with their learning? With their advancements, they can be just as disruptive to the operations of such a standardized classroom.

Just as parents and teachers were grappling with disruptive absences, they were forced to face the challenges of testing as well. Teachers adhered closely to the textbook material, and that material would appear at the end of year promotion exams. Teachers also came to perceive student test performances as a reflection of their effectiveness. In some instances, teachers would attempt to isolate or remove children (by encouraging them to drop out or having them suspended) if they believed they would not do well on exams.

Suddenly, test results began to take center stage, above the importance of a child’s academic success. This is where the retention and social promotion discussion takes a dark turn for many students — one we’ll explore more in forthcoming posts from this series.