Being a teacher is a tough job. So much so, many new teachers end up leaving the field within their first three years. To ensure that the next generation of students have qualified teachers, we must nip this phenomenon in the bud. In this episode, we will discuss 8 ways that digital age teachers avoid burning out.
One of the questions that I am frequently asked is, what does a good teacher look like? I respond by mentioning my 10th-grade Biology teacher, Mrs. Minor, and listing the attributes that made her the archetype of a great teacher.
Building a culturally responsive classroom is hard. To help you along your journey, here is your guide to exploring and respecting the cultural backgrounds of your students while also using diversity as an asset. If you you listen to this episode of the podcast, and take my advice, you will have a culturally responsive classroom in no time.
References
Culturally responsive teaching is a theory of instruction that was developed by Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings and has been written about by many other scholars since then. To read more of her work on culturally responsive teaching and other topics, click here to visit her Amazon.com page.
It seems that every year around this time, school districts around the country report not being able to fill all of their open teacher vacancies. Why do these cyclical teacher shortages occur? In this episode of the podcast, we will explore this topic in-depth.
If you’re familiar with the story of Tyler Magill, you know that he was the University of Virginia alum and employee who confronted white nationalist Jason Kessler at the white nationalist riot August 11, 2017. Magill suffered a stroke as a result of the assault.
In a letter to the university president Teresa Sullivan, Magill explains how the University of Virginia enabled the white nationalist rioters.
Similarly, universities around the country are creating white nationalists in three ways. First, schools are terrified of First Amendment free speech rights violations. Colleges are failing to maintain campus safety. Finally, university leadership may be demonstrating a lack of leadership and integrity.
First Amendment free speech rights
A free speech violation is a serious concern for universities.
When the University of Auburn denied white nationalists the opportunity to protest on the campus at a Richard Spencer-sponsored event, the protestors took the school to court and won their lawsuit. Since then, other universities became concerned about the legality of blocking alt-right speakers and events at their schools.
Universities must uphold First Amendment rights, regardless of the message. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center have insisted that free speech be protected.
White nationalists have taken advantage of free speech rights to promote themselves at universities around the country.
Campus safety
The threat of imminent danger requires an immediate response from campus leadership.
No university can allow for pandemonium to break out. The University of Berkeley paid $600,000 for additional security at a speech given by Ben Shapiro. It would have been cheaper to cancel the speech, but the school could not cancel because the event may turn violent.
As a result, campus leadership has been forced into taking one of two positions out of fear for campus safety: either spend large sums of money to provide ample security or ignore the situation in the hopes that nothing violent will happen.
At the University of Virginia, the president took the second position, which caused injury and death. Ignoring a potentially volatile situation can never be a solution.
Leadership and integrity
According to the Association of Governing Boards, university leadership must preserve academic freedom. Doing so will require consistent integrity and leadership.
Leaders in higher education must understand First Amendment rights and implications as they apply to free speech.
School presidents must make decisions that are aligned with the values of the university as well as with constitutional rights to neutralize aggressions from white nationalists. The must be allowed and encouraged to speak out against hate speech. The University of Virginia president failed to do this.
In upholding free speech and maintaining campus safety, universities have been forced to compromise their beliefs and thus white nationalists are created.
As summer reaches its peak, and fall gears up to make its arrival, students, parents, teachers, and administrators are all preparing for the beginning of a new academic year. So many gains were made last year, and they are eager to build upon that success. When we talk about education stakeholders who are concerned with starting the school year off right, we rarely, if ever, talk about edtech companies. They too are an integral part of the school community, as they provide a valuable service.
So how do edtech companies stay on their “A” games to begin the new school year? Not to worry, we have you covered.
Hello, my name is Dr. Matthew Lynch and welcome to the second episode of The Edvocate Podcast. Today, we will discuss back to school tips that will help your edtech company get off to a running start and sustain that momentum until summer break comes around again.
Over the years, the practice of tuition discounting has become increasingly commonplace.
The concept is simple, but the influences and effects are quite complex. Colleges provide discounted tuition to select students in the form of grant money and scholarships, allowing them to attend at a cheaper rate than the sticker price. In theory, such discounts can increase enrollment, leading to an overall increase in total tuition revenue for the university. In this context, tuition discounting appears to benefit all concerned: deserving, low-income students have access to a pricey college education, while the colleges are able to fill their classes with the kind of students that they desire and need.
But recently, as discounted tuition increasingly becomes the norm at universities, analysts have uncovered some potential problems with this practice in terms of the financial health of the institution.
A Numbers Game
In offering tuition discounts, universities take a gamble that their enrollment will increase. If enrollment decreases or stays the same, tuition discounting can lead to an overall loss of revenue. That’s because tuition discounts decrease the net tuition revenue per student, meaning that colleges must enroll more students to make it worthwhile.
Unfortunately, it often doesn’t work out that way. Over time, institutions lose money by giving steep discounts to students. The more students they enroll under these terms, the greater the loss. These losses can really add up after a while, especially if enrollment doesn’t meet expectations.
Factors Affecting Financial Impact of Tuition Discounting
Of course, not all universities are the same. Each of them is affected differently by the growing phenomenon of tuition discounting, and some can ride out the wave much better than others. Schools that have significant endowments already earmarked for financial aid do not need to employ tuition discounting to the same extent as colleges that aren’t so lucky. They can provide grants to needy and deserving students without as much effect on their bottom line, whereas other schools have no choice but to take the cost of discounted tuition out of the tuition revenue.
Additionally, schools at which a high number of minority and low-income students enroll have more access to Pell grants, making it much easier to invite such students to attend without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, schools with a high sticker price suffer because most of these students are easily scared away by that high sticker price.
Tuition discounting is one of many creative methods in which higher education institutions are trying to combat the rising costs of college tuition. But they may need to find other solutions that are not quite so damaging to their overall financial stability.
Every day, technology innovations transform the way people learn and how educators teach. In the last few years, the edtech field has attracted a lot of talented people, all with excellent knowledge bases and ideas. Though the edtech industry has been around for a few decades now, the last few years, in particular, have seen a surge in investment from both school districts and investors.
The education market is currently worth around $5 trillion globally, and it is forecasted that edtech investment alone will reach $252 billion by the year 2020. This growing investment into edtech start-ups has created some exciting changes in the world of education. Naturally, with increasing capital, the number of edtech companies, products, and thought leaders is also growing. In that spirit of change and innovation, we present the Tech Edvocate Awards.
After 4 months of hard work, we’ve narrowed down the year’s top edtech companies, products, people and more. We solicited nominees from readers in June/July and held online voting from June 1, 2018 – August 21, 2018. The nominee’s performance during the online voting period was used to gauge their popularity, but in no way signaled that they would become a finalist or walk away with an award. The finalists and winners were ultimately selected by a panel comprised of two edtech thought leaders, two PreK-12 teachers, one college professor, two K-12 administrators, one college administrator and two PreK-12 parents. Here are our winners and finalists for 2018. Winners and finalists can access their award seals by clicking here.
Best Lesson Planning App or Tool
Winner: ClassFlow
Finalists:
Best Assessment App or Tool
Winner: MobyMax
Finalists:
Evo Social/Emotional by Aperture Education
Best Early Childhood Education App or Tool
Winner: HeadSprout
Finalists:
KIBO – The STEAM Robot Kit for Children 4 – 7
Canticos Los Pollitos (Little Chickies) App
Best Literacy App or Tool
Winner: Lexia Core5 Reading
Finalists:
Best Math App or Tool
Winner: MATHia
Finalists:
ExploreLearning Reflex
Best STEM/STEAM Education App or Tool
Winner: Vernier Go Direct® Sensors with Graphical Analysis™ 4 @VernierST
Finalists:
FlinnSTEM Powered by IMSA Fusion
Best Language Learning App or Tool
Winner: Sprig Learning
Finalists:
Best Virtual or Augmented Reality App or Tool
Winner: HoloLAB Champions
Finalists:
Best Personalized/Adaptive Learning App or Tool
Winner: Nearpod
Finalists:
AVer CP3Series Interactive Flat Panel
Curriculum Associates i-Ready Mathematics and Reading
Best Coding App or Tool
Winner: CoderZ by Intelitek
Finalists:
Best Gamification App or Tool
Winner: Kahoot!
Finalists:
Best Learning Management System
Winner: NEO LMS
Finalists:
Best Blended/Flipped Learning App or Tool
Winner: FlinnPREP
Finalists:
Best Assistive Technology App or Tool
Winner: Robots4Autism
Finalists:
Best Parent-Teacher/School Communication App or Tool
Winner: Bloomz
Finalists:
Best Collaboration App or Tool
Winner: Boxlight MimioSpace
Finalists:
ADVANCEfeedback by Insight ADVANCE
Snowflake MultiTeach® (NUITEQ®)
Best Tutoring/Test Prep App or Tool
Winner: GradeSlam
Finalists:
Best Classroom/Behavior Management App or Tool
Winner: NetSupport School
Finalists:
Best Classroom Audio-Visual App or Tool
Winner: ActivPanel
Finalists:
Epson BrightLink 710Ui Interactive Laser Display
Best Higher Education Solution
Winner: Study.com
Finalists:
Best Learning Analytics/Data Mining App or Tool
Winner: Otus
Finalists:
Best Professional Development App or Tool
Winner: ADVANCEfeedback by Insight ADVANCE
Finalists:
Best Student Information System (SIS) App or Tool
Winner: Alma
Finalists:
Best Global EdTech Leader
Winner: Dr. Edward Tse
Finalists:
Best Global EdTech Company
Winner: MobyMax
Finalists:
Best Global EdTech Startup
Winner: Learnamic
Finalists:
Best K-12 School Leader
Winner: Dr. Adam Hartley, Fenton Area Public Schools, Genesee County, Michigan
Finalists:
Yvonne Mackey-Boyd, River Roads Lutheran School, St. Louis, MO
Shawn Wigg, Director of Mathematics, Duval County Public Schools
Best Higher Education Leader
Winner: Nichole Pinkard, Professor, Depaul University, Chicago, IL
Finalists:
Anant Agarwal, edx, Cambridge, MA
Best School District Technology Coordinator/Director
Finalists:
John Martin, Inter-Lakes School District, Meredith, NH
Best K-12 Teacher
Winner: Crystal Avila, Socorro High School, El Paso Texas
Finalists:
Cathy Haskett Morrison, Peel District School Board, Canada
Best College/University Professor
Winner: David J. Malan, Harvard University
Finalists:
Nicole Kraft, Ohio State University
Best EdTech PR Firm
Winner: PR With Pananche
Finalists:
J Harrison Public Relations Group
Conclusion
As you can see, there is no shortage of award winners in edtech. With these innovative edtech companies, products and people in mind, it becomes clear that the landscape of education is vast and technology is carving a new path for present and future educators. Well, that does it for the 2nd Annual Tech Edvocate Awards. We will be back, bigger and better in 2019.
Regardless of where you go in the world, teachers are the backbone of the education system. Without quality teachers, school districts cannot provide students with the skills that they need to be successful academically. Without teachers, the next generation will not be able to compete in the global economy. These are sureties, and you will find few people who would disagree.
If you have been studying the field of education closely, as we have, you know that it is undergoing a metamorphosis. Students no longer respond to the teacher-centered pedagogy that our forefathers did. No, today’s students are immersed in a technologically advanced world and possess attention spans that last only a few seconds.
Because of this, today’s teacher needs to add a new skill set to their repertoire to be successful. In this today’s podcast, we will discuss the 8 key attributes that successful digital age teachers possess.
Higher education has been charged with a two-pronged approach to equipping students with the tools for future success. Universities must get students ready for employment today and prepare them for a future we can’t see.
How successful are they?
Getting ready for employment today
Real world success depends on whether or not you are prepared for employment after you complete your education. You expect to have obtained a specific set of skills that make you marketable as well as integral in today’s business world.
Businesses expect graduates who not only have developed excellent problem-solving skills and developed an area of expertise but can also work as a collaborative team member who demonstrates competent communication skills.
Universities have it within their power to equip students with the skills they need to compete in the workplace, and they can do it with three things: technology, professors who are competent in their field of study, and a relevant curriculum.
Preparing for a future we can’t see
In addition to teaching university students higher-order thinking skills, most colleges are trying to be relevant not only in today’s world but also in the future. Higher education institutions have been charged with preparing students for a future that has not arrived.
This future will likely include automation and artificial intelligence, but it’s difficult to gauge what that means for all industries and businesses.
Game on
The University of Sydney is already reaching for the future by requiring hands-on projects, studies in cultural awareness and learning language for improved communication. The additional requirements are lengthening the time it takes to complete an undergraduate degree, but the school is hoping that any drawbacks will be outnumbered by potential benefits.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County has implemented many innovative strategies designed to be responsive to student need. It focuses on producing T-shaped employees, which it calls “those with deep technical knowledge and broad business and people skills.” To meet this challenge, the school has redesigned courses and increase Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) requirements.
Harvey Mudd University, the private liberal arts college with a STEM focus, considers itself a visionary when it comes to preparing students for their careers, and so do the businesses that hire them. Students sharpen their critical thinking skills and undertake programs requiring deep study. Harvey Mudd may be one of the best schools for preparing students for an unseen future.
These aren’t the only colleges and universities that are preparing students for not only today’s jobs but also a workforce of the future. Many more schools are making significant changes to their programs.
Are universities actually equipping students with the tools for future success?
Yes!
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