Teachers

How schools can help immigrant children to thrive

Jan Germen Janmaat, UCL Institute of Education

In view of the large influx of refugees from Syria and the growing concern about their integration in European societies, the launch of a new report on immigrant children in education systems could not be more timely.

The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), noted reassuringly that there was no relation between the amount of immigrants in a country’s education system and a decline in education standards. It’s as if the OECD were pre-empting criticism from populist anti-immigrant politicians that the influx of Syrian refugees will be a disruption to western societies, and in particular a drain on schools.

The main focus of the report is actually on the performance gap between children of immigrant background and their non-immigrant peers and what schools can do to close it. Although the achievement gap has closed across the OECD – by a semester between 2003 and 2012 – on average, immigrant students still perform worse than their peers. The OECD gives some quite explicit advice to politicians if they are serious about enhancing the performance of these children: provide additional language instruction, arrange early childhood education, prevent segregation, don’t force them to repeat grades and eliminate the early streaming (also known as tracking) of children into different ability groups.

While the first two recommendations are uncontroversial, the last suggestion is politically sensitive as there are quite a few states who practice and cherish the tracking or streaming of children. In Germany, the Netherlands and Austria, different tracks coincide with different kinds of schools, while in England, ability grouping is organised within schools in what is called setting.

Provocatively the report said: “While ability grouping, grade repetition and tracking are harmful for all students, immigrant students are more likely to be affected by these practices.“ This is likely to raise some eyebrows, particularly among political parties advocating early tracking such as the Christian Democrats in Germany and the Conservatives in the UK.

Many education researchers have stressed that early tracking only reinforces achievement gaps, not only between immigrant and non-immigrant children but also between children of different social backgrounds. As early as 1974, the French sociologist Raymond Boudon noted that the more tracks a system has and the earlier these tracks start to branch out, the greater the inequality in educational performance and the more difficult it will be for children of modest backgrounds, including many immigrants, to do well in school. In this sense the OECD can be said to be a late convert to the cause of late selection – or comprehensive education as it is more widely known.

The report also noted that early tracking on the basis of ability amounts to social and ethnic sorting and so only adds to school social and ethnic segregation, which is an observation widely shared in academia.

Segregation and achievement

Segregation is also mentioned by the OECD as another factor contributing to the performance gap. This is based on the idea that large concentrations of immigrant children give rise to peer influences that reduce performance, irrespective of the individual social and ethnic background of children. In other words, when immigrant children are surrounded by peers of the same background in school, they are doubly disadvantaged, both in terms of their own background and in terms of the backgrounds of their classmates.

Language lessons for refugee children in Germany.
Ole Spata/EPA

In mixed settings, by contrast, they should be able to learn from their more privileged peers. Desegregated schools can thus help to compensate for the effect of family disadvantage. Again this theory is not new. In 1966 a famous report by American sociologist James Coleman noted that it makes a great difference who you go to school with. This report greatly reinforced the desegregation campaign that was set in motion by the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education US Supreme Court ruling declaring that de jure segregation was “inherently unequal” and therefore unconstitutional.

What’s best for immigrant children

There is more controversy among researchers, however, about whether segregation enhances achievement gaps. In 2005, American researchers Russell Rumberger and Gregory Palardy noted that when it comes to student achievement, the social composition of schools matters much more than the racial composition. Taking a closer look at social composition they found that several school characteristics, including teacher expectations of children, the amount of homework that students do, and the number of rigorous courses that students take, explain all of the effect of social composition.

This would imply that in theory immigrant children can perform just as well in segregated schools, provided they are exposed to the very same curriculum and teaching input as their peers in mixed schools. The question, however, is whether equalising these resources across schools can be achieved in practice – as they are so inextricably bound up with the social and ethnic mix of schools.

The OECD report deserves praise for letting the data speak and ignoring possible political pressures to revise the policy messages emanating from its findings on what works to close the achievement gap. It does not deal, however, with two relevant questions of quite a different nature: namely whether the policies it recommends can be adopted in the same way in countries with different educational cultures and whether they will produce the same results across the board. This debate – a hot topic among researchers – so far remains unresolved.

The Conversation

Jan Germen Janmaat, Reader in Comparative Social Science, Department of Lifelong and Comparative Education, UCL Institute of Education

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

Getting the Most Out of Student Teaching Mentorship

Whether an official part of a student teaching internship or a more informal relationship garnered in your work place, mentorship is a great opportunity to learn from someone with experience in the field and to receive advice without worrying about how it will affect your marks or measured performance.

You can get the most out of a relationship with your mentoring teacher when you take responsibility and are proactive in the process. You’ll take responsibility when you do the following:

  • Take the initiative when it comes to having your needs met as a protégé. Soon after being assigned a collaborating/mentoring teacher, find an opportunity to talk about what you’d both like to get out of the mentoring experience. Agree on roles and a schedule for meetings.
  • Take responsibility for your personal well-being. To establish a healthy, safe, and nurturing relationship with your collaborating/mentoring teacher as well as with your students, it helps greatly if you yourself are well centered. As a teacher, it’s helpful to spend time with family and colleagues to talk about mutual ideas and problems

A mentor’s goals for the mentees usually include guiding the intern in:

– developing theoretical knowledge

– practical skills

– adopting positive and professional dispositions

– evaluating the intern’s teaching practice

The collaborating/mentoring teacher is responsible for providing guidance and feedback as necessary, and communicating with your college advisor about your progress and participation. You should try to develop a good working relationship with your collaborating/mentoring teacher. As well as having an influence over your academic performance, he or she is also a valuable source of learning and guidance and can be considered as one of the resources during your teaching education. Your degree of involvement in the classroom activities will be based largely on your relationship with your mentoring teacher.

 

Why children who sleep more get better grades

Dagmara Dimitriou, UCL Institute of Education

Sleep plays a fundamental role in the way we learn. Emerging evidence makes a compelling case for the importance of sleep for language learning, memory, executive function, problem solving and behaviour during childhood.

A new study that my colleagues and I have worked on illustrated how an optimal quantity of sleep leads to more effective learning in terms of knowledge acquisition and memory consolidation. Poor quality of sleep – caused by lots of waking up during the night – has also been reported to be a strong predictor of lower academic performance, reduced capacity for attention, poor executive function and challenging behaviours during the day.

Many adolescents are sleep-deprived as they gain less sleep than the average recommended level – around nine hours for this group. But due to school commitments, teenagers are required to wake up early at a set time even if they have not achieved the optimal number of hours sleep.

Along with these early start times, teenagers also experience pubertal phase delay – meaning pubertal teenagers will sleep even less due to biological factors. Combined with late night activities, this can have a significant negative effect on the quality of sleep and therefore their behaviour during the day.

Insufficient and poor quality of sleep appear to be pervasive during adolescence. These can have various consequences such as an excessive daytime sleepiness, poor diet and in turn impairments in cognitive control, risk-taking behaviour, diminished control of attention and behaviour, as well as poor emotional control.

More sleep versus better sleep

In a recent study involving 48 students between 16 and 19-years-old recruited through an independent sixth form college in central London, my colleagues and I at the Lifespan Learning and Sleep Laboratory at UCL examined the link between sleep, academic performance and environmental factors.

Our results showed that the majority of the teenagers achieved just over seven hours of sleep, with an average bedtime at 11.37pm. Our study showed that a longer amount of sleep and earlier bedtimes – measures of sleep quantity – were most strongly correlated with better academic results obtained by the students on a number of tests taken at school. In contrast, measures that were indicative of sleep quality were mostly linked with students’ performances on verbal reasoning tests and on grade point averages on tests at school.

So it appears from our results that “longer sleep” is more closely related to academic performance, while “good night sleep” is more closely related to overall cognitive processing.

Why teens are getting less and less sleep

Our study also confirms findings from previous research showing that teenagers are getting at least two to three hours less sleep than is needed for their optimal brain development and a healthy lifestyle.

There are several modern lifestyle factors that have shown to impact on sleep. We found that consumption of energy drinks and coffee, and social media use half an hour before habitual bedtime were strongly associated with poorer sleep.

Too much late night snapchat.
CandyBox Images/www.shutterstock.com

Our study has also shown that the negative impact of poor sleep on academic functioning is not always matched by a realisation of this fact by students themselves, therefore they may have little motivation to alter bad sleep habits. Unlike for adults, adolescence is a crucial time because of continual changes in the brain – so sleep is particularly important for a teenager’s health.

Conditions that can impact sleep

There is an added complexity to the sleep patterns of children with developmental disorders, despite the fact that they are more likely to suffer from sleep problems. So far, we have examined sleep, and cognitive and behavioural functioning in children with Down Syndrome, Williams Syndrome and ADHD. All our studies show that sleep has a very important impact on cognitive and daytime functioning of children with these conditions.

When we examined levels of sleep biomarkers – melatonin and cortisol – in children with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, it revealed that they had elevated levels of cortisol and dampened levels of melatonin. High cortisol and low melatonin levels before bedtime were strongly linked with delayed sleep onset – taking around 50 minutes in comparison to the typical 20 minutes to fall asleep.

Since cortisol is often described as a stress hormone, high levels of this hormone before bedtime may potentially cause sleep problems including difficulty in relaxing and falling asleep. This is an important result to consider before a child is prescribed a melatonin supplement – which might not be necessary to help solve their actual sleep problem.

The effects of the sleep disturbances extend beyond the individual. Parents of children with developmental disorders often experience heightened levels of stress and sleep problems because they are kept awake by their children.

All this shows how crucial it is for teenagers to get the right amount of sleep – otherwise it could have long-term impacts on their health and on their grades.

The Conversation

Dagmara Dimitriou, Director, Lifespan Learning & Sleep Lab, Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute of Education

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school?

David Whitebread, University of Cambridge

When are children “ready” for school? There is much debate about when the transition between play-based pre-school and the start of “formal” schooling should begin. The trend in the UK primary school curriculum over recent decades has been towards an earlier start to formal instruction, and an erosion of learning through play.

But the evidence from international comparisons and psychological research of young children’s development all points to the advantages of a later start to formal instruction, particularly in relation to literacy.

Among the earliest in Europe

Children in England are admitted into reception classes in primary schools at age four; in many cases, if their birthdays are in the summer months, when they have only just turned four. This is in stark contrast to the vast majority of other European countries, many of which currently enjoy higher levels of educational achievement. In Europe, the most common school starting age is six, and even seven in some cases such as Finland.

European Commission. EURYDICE and EUROSTAT 2013. * Although education is not compulsory until six in Ireland, approx. 40% of four-year-olds and almost all five-year-olds are in publicly-funded primary schools.

From the moment children in England enter the reception class, the pressure is on for them to learn to read, write and do formal written maths. In many schools, children are identified as “behind” with reading before they would even have started school in many other countries. Now the government is introducing tests for four-year-olds soon after starting school.

There is no research evidence to support claims from government that “earlier is better”. By contrast, a considerable body of evidence clearly indicates the crucial importance of play in young children’s development, the value of an extended period of playful learning before the start of formal schooling, and the damaging consequences of starting the formal learning of literacy and numeracy too young.

Importance of play

A range of anthropological studies of children’s play in hunter-gatherer societies and other evolutionary psychology studies of play in the young of mammals have identified play as an adaptation which evolved in early human social groups, enabling humans to become powerful learners and problem-solvers.

Some neuroscientists’ research has supported this view of play as a central mechanism in learning. One book by Sergio and Vivien Pellis reviewed many other studies to show that playful activity leads to synaptic growth, particularly in the frontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for all the uniquely human, higher mental functions.

A range of experimental psychology studies, including my own work, have consistently demonstrated the superior learning and motivation arising from playful as opposed to instructional approaches to learning in children.

There are two crucial processes which underpin this relationship. First, playful activity has been shown to support children’s early development of representational skills, which is fundamental to language use. One 2006 study by US academics James Christie and Kathleen Roskos, reviewed evidence that a playful approach to language learning offers the most powerful support for the early development of phonological and literacy skills.

Second, through all kinds of physical, social and constructional play, such as building with blocks or making models with household junk, children develop their skills of intellectual and emotional “self-regulation”. This helps them develop awareness of their own mental processes – skills that have been clearly demonstrated to be the key predictors of educational achievement and a range of other positive life outcomes.

Longer-term impacts

Within educational research, a number of longitudinal studies have provided evidence of long-term outcomes of play-based learning. A 2002 US study by Rebecca Marcon, for example, demonstrated that by the end of their sixth year in school, children whose pre-school model had been academically-directed achieved significantly lower marks in comparison to children who had attended child-initiated, play-based pre-school programmes.

A number of other studies have specifically addressed the issue of the length of pre-school play-based experience and the age at which children begin to be formally taught the skills of literacy and numeracy. In a 2004 longitudinal study of 3,000 children funded by the department of education itself, Oxford’s Kathy Sylva and colleagues showed that an extended period of high-quality, play-based pre-school education made a significant difference to academic learning and well-being through the primary school years. They found a particular advantage for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Studies in New Zealand comparing children who began formal literacy instruction at age five or age seven have shown that by the age of 11 there was no difference in reading ability level between the two groups. But the children who started at five developed less positive attitudes to reading, and showed poorer text comprehension than those children who had started later.

This evidence, directly addressing the consequences of the introduction of early formal schooling, combined with the evidence on the positive impact of extended playful experiences, raises important questions about the current direction of travel of early childhood education policy in England.

There is an equally substantial body of evidence concerning the worrying increase in stress and mental health problems among children in England and other countries where early childhood education is being increasingly formalised. It suggests there are strong links between these problems and a loss of playful experiences and increased achievement pressures. In the interests of children’s educational achievements and their emotional well-being, the UK government should take this evidence seriously.


Hard Evidence is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest questions.

The Conversation

David Whitebread, Senior Lecturer in Psychology & Education, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

School metal detectors reduce weapon carrying but not fear

Paul Hirschfield, Rutgers University

The recent horrifying spectacle of a disturbed student fatally stabbing his teacher in front of his classmates in Leeds has spurred a national dialogue about how schools should address violence.

Perhaps the most controversial measure under consideration is expanding the use of knife arches – known in the US as walk-through metal detectors. Given metal detectors’ longevity in some US schools (since 1992 in Chicago’s high schools), the number of studies that have assessed their effectiveness is abysmally low.

In the UK, teacher union leaders and the deputy prime minister have rejected the idea of more knife arches. Their opposition to this expensive technology is understandable given that armed violence is extremely rare in UK schools. Responsible policy-making is driven by patterns and sound cost-benefit analysis rather than the uproar over single tragic incidents.

But such a proposal may resonate in the minority of schools where the risk of violent threats and victimisation are more than remote. Some students in these schools reportedly arm themselves for protection and their next minor altercation could (but rarely does) escalate into serious violence.

In these jurisdictions, police and school officials may employ knife arches in order to signal that safety is a top priority, while raising awareness about the dangers that knives pose. But do knife arches promote the aims that matter most to students, parents, and teachers? Do they make schools safer? Do they alter the school climate in a manner that promotes students learning?

The answer to these questions surely depends, in part, on how the knife arches are employed. Arches, when deployed in the UK, are used sporadically – around one day, gone the next. Confronted with this temporary barrier, most knife-toting students will either ditch the weapon or ditch school (assuming smuggling the knife through a window or side entrance is not a realistic possibility). These potential assailants can be quite confident (and their potential victims reasonably concerned) that no knife arch will impede their next attempt.

Lessons from US schools

Whereas the limited capacity of sporadic knife arches to act as a deterrent seems obvious, you can reasonably predict that more frequent use would substantially enhance this capacity.

In the USA, as in the UK, opposition to metal detectors is intense and largely successful across the socio-economic spectrum. But there are some schools – predictably comprised largely of urban youth of colour – where the lockdown environments feared by campaigners in the UK are a daily reality.

During the 2009-10 school year, 4.8% of American high schools scanned their students daily for weapons (while 12% conducted random checks). In these schools, this ritual of submission is part of a broader effort, administered by full-time school security staff, to ban all forms of contraband such as cell phones and students who are suspended or in violation of strict dress codes. With the Obama administration’s blessing, school districts around the country are rethinking the “zero tolerance” approach.

In 2010, an exhaustive meta-analysis of studies on metal detectors, either deployed alone or combined with other fortification strategies, uncovered no studies that compared student outcomes before and after installation.

Among the five studies that compare student safety measures (all self-reported) in schools with and without metal detectors, only one reflects positively on metal detectors. This 1992 study involved students who attended three sampled New York City high schools that scanned their students at random with hand-held metal detectors approximately once a week. They were 43%-49% less likely than students of twelve other high schools to report carrying weapons inside or en-route to school (even though they were equally likely to carry them at other times).

Fear remains

But reducing weapons possession is of limited benefit unless it translates into reduced violence or fear. Collectively these five studies and a subsequent one from Rutgers University suggest that metal detectors fail to reduce threats, fighting, fear, and perceptions of violence and disorder. Injuries and deaths resulting from smuggled weapons are so uncommon that any benefits are likely to elude statistical detection.

The apparent failure of metal detectors to reduce fear is especially disappointing, because fear reduction is the most promising pathway through which metal detectors may improve academic performance.

Fearful students enjoy school less and often reduce school involvement. In some schools, attendance reportedly worsens on the days when metal detectors are employed. I am not alone in my lack of surprise.

Student perceptions of fairness, trust, and caring all promote safe schools. Metal detectors drive a wedge of distrust between students and their schools while conveying little concern for students’ rights.

Frequent and effective scanning requires a large investment of time and money, and it inevitably widens the net of surveillance. The thousands of hours that students collectively spend waiting in line to be scanned are hours that could have been spent engaging academically.

The money spent on arches and their operation is money that could have been spent on programmes that address the needs, struggles, fears, and hopes that students carry through the school doors, gates, and arches each day.

The Conversation

Paul Hirschfield, Associate Professor of Sociology and Affiliated Professor in the Program in Criminal Justice, Rutgers University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

4 Reasons Why Classrooms Need Diversity Education

School climate and school culture directly impact student success. As a result, it is particularly important for the school culture (and the classroom culture) to reflect, acknowledge, and celebrate diversity. Taking these feel-good ideals and making them a reality can be tough for educators, especially with so many other initiatives on their ever-tighter schedules.

But I think that this is so important that as an educator, you must take the time to do it. How to celebrate diversity in the classroom is another article, but for now, I want you to begin your journey with knowing exactly why it’s important.

1. Because the idea of “diversity” is not even that straightforward. Not only must schools recognize diversity evident among broad racial and ethnic groups (e.g., Asian or Hispanic), but the diversity within these groups must be recognized as well. For example Chinese and Japanese students may share common cultural characteristics as a result of being Asian, but will also have distinctly Chinese and Japanese cultural characteristics that differ from each other. The same is true of Caucasian students who come from vastly different family backgrounds, even from the same neighborhoods. In the interest of treating students equally, giving them equal chances for success, and equal access to the curriculum, teachers and administrators must recognize the uniqueness and individuality of their students.

2. Teachers have a particular responsibility to recognize and structure their lessons to reflect student differences. This encourages students to recognize themselves and others as individuals. It also encourages the appreciation of a diverse school population, and brings a sense of connection between disparate cultural heritages within a single school’s culture. It is certainly in the best interest of students and teachers to focus on the richness of our diversity. Recognizing and acknowledging our differences is part of treating students fairly and equally.

3. So that you can facilitate the process of learning overall. One reason for seeking out and acknowledging cultural differences among students is the idea that learning involves transfer of information from prior knowledge and experiences. To assist in this transfer process, it is important to acknowledge the students’ background, and to validate and incorporate their previous knowledge into the process of acquiring new information. All students begin school with a framework of skills and information based on their home cultures. This may include a rudimentary understanding of the alphabet, numbers, computer functions, some basic knowledge of a second language, or the ability to spell and write their names. It also includes a set of habits, etiquette and social expectations derived from the home.

4. So that you can help students assimilate what they learn with what they already know. If a student cannot relate new information to his own experiences, or connect the new material to a familiar concept, he may perceive the new information as frustrating, difficult or dismiss it completely, believing it to be in conflict with his already tenuous understanding of the world. Teachers have the responsibility to seek out cultural building blocks students already possess, in order to help build a framework for understanding. Some educational pedagogy refers to this process as “scaffolding.” Recognition of a student’s cultural differences provides a positive basis for effective learning, and a “safe” classroom environment. Every group of students will respond differently to curriculum and teachers must constantly adjust to be sure their methods are diverse, both in theory and in practice.

What are some easy ways you’ve found to promote diversity in your classroom? Leave a comment below.

Also, if you’re interested in learning more about how you can celebrate diversity in class, here are some tips I have for you.

Stealth assessment: Reimagining learning and testing for the 21st Century

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish this guest post on stealth assessment as a way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

A guest post by Dr. Gregory Firn

History is replete with examples of innovation and invention that outpaced the necessary shifts in thinking and ingrained habits delaying the full impact of the “new.” It comes as no surprise that education has lagged behind innovation. However, many of the factors underpinning educational lag are beyond the control of the classroom teacher.

Fueled by the proliferation of technology, we are in the early stages of “reimagining” teaching and learning. We have learned the hard way that devices alone will not result in the much-promised transformation of teaching and learning. The presence of devices in education has revealed limitations, constraints, and liabilities in several ways. Chief among these has been the reluctance or outright resistance to necessary shifts in instructional methodology and practices. This is both natural and expected.

Instructional shifts are complicated by the expectation that classroom teachers have the requisite capacities, competencies, and confidences to navigate technology-rich as well as technology-challenged learning environments. Another challenge is the diversity and variance of technology skill, knowledge, and experience of learners.

Other constraints include budget and time, as well as the very real issue of access to reliable broadband connectivity—not to mention bandwidth and device compatibility, availability, and functionality. All of these limitations place teachers in a perplexing and conflicted position. They may indeed want to shift practice, but can’t.

Arguably, the restrictions and adverse impact of narrowly defined accountability models, including the obsession with assessments, will not necessarily go away with the much-heralded reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (otherwise known as the Every Student Succeeds Act). States must now begin the process of figuring out their assessments and assessment schedules. However, the daunting challenges of reimagining teaching and learning in this digital age remain.

I posit that, against this backdrop, teaching and learning cannot and will not be fully reimagined without the awareness, understanding, and application of assessment and instruction congruency. Instruction and assessment cannot be separated or thought to be two independent components of the teaching and learning process. The true promise and application of technology is in its ability to provide feedback in the form of information and insight during the learning process—not just at the end of a learning activity.

Evidence of certain competencies cannot be monitored and measured through traditional assessment practices. Thus, expanding assessment thinking and design are essential to navigating a reimagined version of teaching and learning.

Stealth assessment in the classroom

One method that is slowly gaining momentum is “stealth” assessment. The key to stealth assessment is its unobtrusive nature, which has roots in gaming. The idea is that a player’s choices and strategies are constantly and consistently informing the player of their progress and success. Applied to education, stealth assessment presents a powerful step in minimizing and eventually closing the teaching and learning immediacy loop.

The immediacy of feedback is critical. For far too long, we have focused on the trailing indicators of learning. Technology now affords us the ability to focus on the leading indicators of both teaching and learning. In fact, we can now at best disrupt or at worst interrupt the failure to learn, rather than continuing to remediate failed learning.

Disrupting the failure to learn does not necessarily mean disrupting the learning process. For example, as more teachers adopt project-based learning, their ability to peek inside the learning process by monitoring the collaboration, construction, contribution, and co-authoring of meaning by each learner is critical. Yet the challenge for the educator to be in all places at once has never been more daunting.

As a Superintendent, I have seen that technology can help address this challenge and make stealth assessment possible. For example, the Flexcat system from Lightspeed Learning is a powerful tool to implement  “stealth” assessment. Flexcat gives teachers the ability to listen to any small group on demand, without students knowing. This allows teachers to monitor and assess authentic interactions and collaboration from anywhere in the room—a giant step towards personalized teaching and learning.

Present and future technologies should cause a fundamental shift in instruction due to the stealth assessment concept, not just a minor adjustment. As I mentioned above the teacher and learner are empowered to monitor, provide and receive immediate feedback as well as participate in the thoughts, insights, and observations of learning as it is occurring. Participatory learning and participatory assessing are fundamental to the “student as worker, teacher as guide” mindset in which learners as key architects of their own learning. They co-author, co-construct, and co-produce knowledge, meaning and application. Moreover, critical thinking; examination; and assessing ideas, concepts, and constructs are essential skills in the 21st century.

Technology is a powerful tool that presents the opportunity and access for each learner to design, construct, collaborate, demonstrate, and assess their learning. To ensure this impact, educators must remain vigilant in their own learning to develop the capacity, competence, and confidence to shift instructional practices leveraged by technology to give each learner the best possible chance at success.

Dr. Gregory Firn has served as a Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent, and in several other educational leadership roles in Texas, North Carolina, Connecticut, Washington State, Nevada, and overseas. Dr. Firn twice led systemwide digital transformation initiatives, including the design and implementation of robust human capital development programs. Dr. Firn earned his doctorate from Seattle Pacific University, where his research focused on learner-centered education. 

 Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

How to Help Second-Language Learners Thrive in American Schools

If you’re a teacher helping ELL students succeed in regular education classrooms, there are a few things you must consider.

First, you need to educate yourself about the language acquisition process. You should also contextualize learning so that content is relevant to students’ experiences with their families. And most importantly, don’t allow the language barrier to interfere with a belief that ELL students can learn. You can’t underestimate the power of high expectations when it comes to success with language development (and learning in general). As a teacher, you should be willing to learn about ELL students, their families, and their communities, to structure meaningful learning experiences.

Use technology, including recordings, videos, and presentations, to emphasize language concepts. Students should be allowed to demonstrate their language acquisition through dramatization or video, with subtitles in their native language.

Some programs endorse the use of translation devices or electronic dictionaries in the classroom. However, there is some debate as to whether or not these forms of assistive technology actually defeat the purpose of English language learning.

Another less-considered idea is to include ELL students’ families and communities in the learning process. For example, you can host presentations or entertainment nights so students can show parents what they’ve learned. The community can be included as a means for support by inviting bilingual guests to share their language-learning experiences with students. ELL students will learn that language is a challenge for everyone and that learning a second language becomes a valuable, admirable skill. Cooperative and collaborative learning can also be effective. Many ELL students learn best in small-group discussions where there is less pressure to speak perfectly. Introducing the entire class to a third language might be beneficial, to help instill empathy for the new language learners.

Visual aids also support learning among ELL students. These include nonverbal behavior such as pointing, body language, signals, and gestures, as well as photos, videos, and dramatizations. ELL students should be encouraged to use graphic organizers and to keep picture journals of the words they have learned. Writing journals and learning logs also support learning among ELL students. Also helpful are alternative versions of texts or novels and teacher-provided notes for lectures or presentations.

I hope these tips are useful for taking part in ELL students’ success. Do you have any other tips that will help ELL students learn best in a school setting? Please leave your thoughts below.

6 Ways to Help K-12 Students Fall in Love with Learning

What students desire from their school experience is not necessarily what their parents and members of the larger community want them to learn or experience. Only a small percentage of students come to school with an overwhelming desire to learn. Many attend school on a daily basis because that is simply what they are supposed to do. That doesn’t mean they don’t end up finding subjects they enjoy, but American students do not make the active choice to begin attending school.

So teachers come to the table already behind, in some ways. Not only is it the job of educators to teach, but they must also find ways to make the learning process enjoyable and desirable to students who didn’t make the choice to be in the classroom in the first place. With authentic lessons and inquiry learning, educators can clear this hurdle, though. Here are a few ways how:

1. Seek feedback. To assist in motivating students, schools could put out a survey asking them what they want to learn, what they have already learned, and what the teacher could do to make learning more exciting. With the stress of standardized tests, it might be difficult to take the time out of the day to distribute the survey, but every effort should be made to do so.

2. Create safety. Students are more prone to become engaged in assignments when the teacher has created a safe and inviting learning environment. Students want to work in an educational environment where a teacher’s expectations are explicitly outlined. In order to be successful, students must be given the opportunity to engage in activities just above their abilities.

3. Prioritize learning. It may seem like a smart idea to entertain students to motivate them, but solid learning is always the best path. The teacher also has an obligation to create a teaching environment that promotes learning. This means, for example, that teachers should not embarrass students for a wrong answer or a below-standard test score—nor should they allow other students to make fun of wrong answers and below-standard test scores. We need to make sure that the debate on the quality of American schools focuses on the academic practices directly affecting student learning.

4. Strive for equality. Schools are not only concerned with test scores, but are also concerned with equality. All students should be considered equal, regardless of their age, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and ability levels. If all students feel they are being treated equally, then they will be more motivated to work. Students will feel intrinsically motivated to learn when they feel respected by teachers and the staff, and will work harder to achieve the goals that teachers and schools have outlined.

5. Consider outside support systems. Student-teacher and family-student relationships also influence intrinsic motivation. In order for students to perform well in school, they will need to have the proper support system both in school and at home. Most students are only interested in performing for the people that matter most to them. If these people do not hold education in high regard, then the student will not hold education in high regard either.

When students are in the elementary grades, they will usually perform for their parents and for their teachers with little to no resistance. Once students develop social networks, parents and teachers are quickly replaced by peers. Adolescents are prone to peer pressure and succumb easily to their peers’ suggestions and viewpoints. It is important for high school teachers to create strong student-teacher relationships, in order to more effectively motivate the students to remain engaged in behaviors that lead to positive academic achievement and outcomes.

6. Encourage collaboration. It is also important for teachers to create and support opportunities for students to collaborate with others. Schools and teachers that create the high levels of student engagement understand the possibilities learning group collaboration affords. Teachers can also provide opportunities students to collaborate with students in other countries. Collaboration among students in and outside the classroom will have to be closely facilitated by the teacher. If carried out appropriately, outcomes for this strategy can be very positive for all students concerned.

Why is it so important to have motivated students?

Student engagement is one of the potential indicators of the effectiveness of a school. Educators and administrators have to concentrate their efforts on activities that engage students in order to foster academic achievement. If they do not, they will have a room full of students who are either academically disengaged or who are merely giving the impression that they are academically engaged. Students are less likely to pay attention when they are on board with what is being taught.

If students complete a task they feel is boring, then they do so to comply with the teacher’s directions, and not because they are intrinsically motivated to do so. In too many instances, students operate from a point of extrinsic motivation, sadly to include the motivation to avoid being singled out or to incurring the teacher’s wrath. If school is not fun and exciting, students won’t develop the love of learning—leaving them less likely to move on to higher education.

What do you think are some ways to get students excited to learn? Share your insights and experiences in the comments below.

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Here Are 4 of My Thoughts on Whether Universal Pre-K is Necessary

In his State of the Union address, President Obama brought up the topic of universal Pre-Kindergarten learning and praised the programs already in place in states like Florida, South Carolina and New Jersey. He connected Pre-K initiatives to his Race to the Top program that has the lofty goal of making the U.S. the worldwide leader in college attendees and graduates.

His administration claims that the academic skill sets needed to reach that goal must have their foundation before Kindergarten and that the responsibility for that lies in public funding.

But is this true? Here are my thoughts from an educator’s view.

1. First, it’s no secret that the U.S. lags behind other developed nations, especially when it comes to science and math. To compete as a nation on a global scale, this generation of K-12 (or P-12) students simply need to know more than their parents did as children. This fact has led to some passionate discourse both for and against more stringent academic standards that start in early childhood and extend into the college years.

2. Universal Pre-K programs tend to benefit disadvantaged and at-risk students the most. Children from middle-to-high class socioeconomic backgrounds do not feel the positive effects of preschool as strongly as their low-income and minority peers. In families where at least one parent can be home with children in the early years, and able to do basic learning activities with them, the impact of Pre-K programs are virtually non-existent by the time the child is in mid-elementary school. Children that participate in play-oriented preschool programs but have attentive parents that expose them to minimal learning fare just as well, or better than, peers who attend regimented Pre-K programs.

3. Socialization and preparation are two other reasons for pre-Kindergarteners to attend school. Of course, academics are not the only benefit to Pre-K programs. Socialization and an idea of what to expect when the school years come along are also an integral part of the Pre-K process. Kindergarten used to be an adjustment year for children, but now kids who arrive in these classrooms are expected to know much more.

4. Be aware of how preschool can affect these same children when they reach kindergarten and beyond. As I have said before, being prepared for the next school year is also an important part of the Pre-K process. Kindergarten used to be an adjustment year for children, but now kids who arrive in these classrooms are expected to know much more. Common Core standards exist at the Kindergarten level, with the expectation that these students will know how to read simple sentences competently, do basic addition and subtraction problems and understand basic time concepts. States that already have tax-funded Pre-K programs test Kindergartners and report back to the preschool provider the results. In some cases, future funding rests on whether or not the Pre-K program adequately prepared enough students for the academic rigors of Kindergarten.

So then the question becomes one of impact. Will universal learning at a younger age make a big enough difference long-term to justify the added cost and resources? How much time do children really need to learn what they will need to know to compete globally?

Parents seem to be split on the issue, with one side affirming the need for stronger academic standards and the other side bemoaning the difficulty of material their young children bring home from school. Districts throughout the country have listened to parents’ complaints when it comes to implementation of all-day Kindergarten (versus the traditional half-days) and some parents have even decided to homeschool their children because they so strongly disagree with the academic rigor. Given this cultural climate, I wonder what is to be expected when more states roll out

Pre-K programs? Right now it is voluntary for families – but will that always be the case?

Is universal Pre-K a necessity – and if so, are American educators, parents and young students really ready for it?

Leave a comment—I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts.