education

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership September 19, 2016

Behavior matters: Fostering a successful mindset

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as 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 Justin Foster

As an elementary school counselor, one of the favorite parts of my job is teaching my guidance lessons. During a guidance lessons a counselor will touch on topics such as citizenship, friendship, anger management, and how to deal with bullying to name just a few. Generally my lessons have a theme for the year and build off the previous lesson. My goal is to conduct one lesson a month for each grade level (my school is K-4).

I am a big proponent of personal responsibility and while that may seem simplistic, something we can all agree upon, base off of stories I have seen recently in the news dealing with young people in schools and bad behavior this is not the case. In my opinion there is an epidemic of violence in schools involving students against each other, and students towards school staff members. This is something that for some reason does not get the attention in the media that it should. This violence impacts the quality of our young people’s education and needs to be address more on a national level. This will no doubt have an impact on the economic well being of many communities and our nation as a whole.

For me teaching students how their behavior affects them and those around them is just as important as teaching manipulatives in math or decoding words. Teaching coping skills and conflict resolution are some of the most important things one will learn in school. One of the issues that I have seen through my career in education is that there are far too many parents who don’t foster and nurture a mindset of school success in their children. School too many times is seen as a necessary evil or something that is just done by going through the motions. Waking up, going to school and coming home is not all there is to receiving the best education possible. School must be looked upon as a vehicle for future advancement and success in society.

Fostering a Mindset

The dictionary defines mindset as a mental attitude or inclination and a fixed state of mind. Working off this definition the attitude that must be taken by all regarding school is that it is for students of school age one of the most important things in their lives. A mindset that views the school experience as one that works best when rules are followed and respect is shown at all times no matter our emotions at a particular moment is critical.

Just in the past three weeks I have seen stories of students assaulting teachers, students refusing to comply with simple school rules and authority. I have watch several YouTube videos showing students fighting each other in school while peers just stand around and in many cases record them. What type of mindset or attitude says it is normal to disobey simple request such as putting away a cell phone in class or that body slamming a principal is appropriate in any form? Who among us really thinks that a school with such chaos and mayhem on a regular basis is an environment that is conducive to learning at an optimum level? Respect, both respect of self and others is one of the most important qualities any school aged student must have in order to reach their full academic and individual life potential.

This has to be instilled at home by parents and caregivers. All the guidance lessons in the world can’t counterbalance parental apathy or parents that do not regularly discuss with their students how important education is and how their attitude towards school will impact their success. No matter how much you may not like your neighborhood school for whatever reasons, it is important to view it as a place that for now is preparing your student for success. Many of us have had bad experiences at the dentist or at a hospital, but we still understand the need for both. Believe it or not most teachers in public education teach because they love the profession.

A certain reverence should come with this role, a reverence that in times gone by was more prevalent, that now sadly is not. Engaging with young people of all races and backgrounds gives most educators tremendous satisfaction. For me as a male educator I love not only teaching my content area but also serving as a role model to students of all races and backgrounds and teaching them the importance of their behavior and why it matters. In order to succeed academically behavior matters!

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Justin A. Foster currently works as a public school counselor in Pennsylvania and has over a decade of experience working with youth and families in both public and private education. Justin is a speaker, author, and educational consultant who enjoys working with students, parents, community leaders and others with a vested interest in being positive influences in the lives of our young people. You can contact him at [email protected] or on twitter @ justincounsels

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, First Year Teachers, Teachers September 15, 2016

3 Keys to Inspiring True Dialogue in Your Classroom

A longtime educator and nonprofit leader shares his blueprint for turning contentious topics into teachable moments that help turn students into global citizens.

By Dr. Ian Jamison

More than any other generation in human history, the students who are in school today will live alongside, work with, and relate to peers with the widest possible range of cultural backgrounds, beliefs, values, and perspectives. To help them thrive in this complex world, it is imperative that we give them the tools they need to build societies that welcome diversity rather than fearing it, that encourage open-mindedness rather cultivating prejudice, and that include rather than exclude.

The alternatives are too terrible to contemplate. Every day we see news reports that indicate what happens as a direct result of people rejecting diversity, celebrating intolerance, and wishing to impose their monolithic vision of reality upon others. With the rapid growth of social media and other forms of online communication, our students are almost certainly already participating in global discussions. At best, young people are being subjected to poor examples of how to interact online, and at worst, we know that a great deal of radicalization into violent extremism takes place online.

Read the rest of the article on The Huffington Post.

Matthew Lynch published in International Education September 15, 2016

Malala: Education, not drones, is key to fighting terrorism

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafza has a message for President Obama: stop fighting terrorism with more violence, and invest those resources in education.

Speaking to a crowd at the Forbes Under 30 summit in New York City, the 17-year-old Pakistani young woman said that she believes attacks against terrorists through drone technology and other ground violence only further the problem. Killing a few terrorists will not squelch the larger problem — only education can do that. She said she had expressed those very sentiments to President Obama in a private meeting.

She did not outline his response to her thoughts, but merely said that he had “political” answers to her concerns.

The sentiments that Malala holds are actually pretty American in scope. In policy and practice, we believe that educating our children is a better use of energy than the futility of changing the minds of those already entrenched in one belief system or another. There seems to be a paradox though in how we behave here in the States, and how we act when dealing with issues outside the country. Instead of looking for a long-term solution to issues like terrorism, like the education Malala is emphasizing, we handle the immediate problem (that seems to return again with even greater fury).

Perhaps the “political” answers that the President gave to Malala are the necessary ones in order to keep us safe. But perhaps Malala’s suggestions should still be taken seriously, as a simultaneous initiative that could lead to long-term peace.

Do you think higher levels of education can really combat the terrorist mindset?

Matthew Lynch published in International Education September 10, 2016

Why U.S. Education Must Evolve to Stay Ahead

A guest post by Jim Milton

In my travels abroad last year to visit some international higher education clients, I was very encouraged by the progress that many of them have made in raising the quality and accessibility of higher education through technology. It was also clear to me that the U.S. higher education system remains the gold standard for the rest of the world. There is no more respected or admired system, even as we face growing challenges domestically.

From São Paulo to Mumbai, these institutions look not only to our most venerated Ivy League schools and research institutions as the touchstones for their own growth and success, but they also recognize the sheer number of choices in the United States – from career schools to community colleges to faith-based institutions – along with the diversity of students across income levels and backgrounds.

Back home, though, we see a superstorm of challenges that could threaten our standing as the beacon for higher learning throughout the world. Not only are skyrocketing tuition and student-loan debt posing a threat to an otherwise inclusive and diverse higher education landscape, there are now widening skills gaps in the job market that threaten the continued growth and success of our economy.

This is particularly true of “mid-skills” jobs, which require some post-secondary education but less than a four-year degree (e.g., systems and network specialists, healthcare workers, paralegals, mechanics, welders, retail and manufacturing workers). According to a survey of more than 800 human resources executives throughout the country by Accenture, 69 percent of employers say that their inability to attract and retain mid-skills talent frequently affected the performance of their companies¹.

One reason for the mid-skills gap has to be today’s deeply ingrained mindset that the bachelor’s degree is the only viable path to productive, successful lives. Many of us wisely establish prepaid tuition plans for our children when they are very young, but typically with four-year institutions in mind. It’s what William Symonds, Director of the Global Pathways Institute at Arizona State University, calls the “one road to heaven” approach². But even if 80 percent of U.S. high school students graduate and go on to four-year institutions, and 50 percent of those students drop out of college, the road comes up short for 60 percent of students in our system.

To use my own family as an example, all three of my children were on the path to traditional colleges from an early age, including my son, who went straight from high school to Drexel University in Philadelphia—clearly a great school. But he left after a year and then completed a few additional classes at a community college. Ultimately, he was drawn to the restaurant business. After attending a brief restaurant management training program through his company, he now manages one of the locations, earning a good salary with profit sharing and plenty of opportunity for career growth. How much sooner would he have landed on the right career path if we had guided him to other education options early on? Why not a culinary or restaurant management program? What could the high school counselor have suggested to him?

Decades ago, high schools in this country offered both vocational and college preparatory tracks, but today, vocational programs are either nonexistent or stigmatized as a last resort. Instead, high schools push students en masse toward four-year institutions, eliminating a key way that young people are introduced to these kinds of careers.

While community colleges continue to add more career-oriented programs, the fact remains that they are doing double and triple duty on limited budgets. They prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions and provide remedial education to students who are lacking certain academic fundamentals, as well as offer career programs that quickly fill up from the demand.

This brings us to proprietary career schools. Sometimes lost in the negative news around this sector is that many of these schools provide the best path to those critical mid-skill careers. These colleges produce 51 percent of associate degrees in computer science and information technology, including mid-skill positions – such as network administrators and programmers – that are so critical to our economy³. What’s more, a study by Northwestern University economist Jonathan Guryan observes that only 18 percent of associate-degree students and 12 percent of students who are enrolled in certificate programs at for-profit institutions have nonprofit alternatives in the same fields of study nearby⁴.

Career schools also play a critical role in continuing education. Mid-skill workers who have already completed postsecondary programs can gain new skills and credentials based on industry needs. Take cybersecurity, for example. Whether it’s healthcare, IT or business, there is an incredible need for those with baseline occupational expertise to gain additional training in cybersecurity. Career schools adapt quickly to workforce demands like these.

In comparing one system or approach to another, we often get lost in the fact that they have different but equally important missions in our economy. Traditional four-year institutions provide the foundation for future leaders and innovators across industries. Community colleges remain an important link and partner to those four-year institutions. Career schools, with their emphasis on mid-skill careers and highly focused, flexible and affordable programs, will continue to be an indispensable part of that higher education mosaic. Diversity remains our strength.

Technology’s Role in this Evolution

The solutions to our challenges in higher education aren’t limited to filling the mid-skills gap or embracing any one model. Containing costs and student loan debt, increasing student retention and improving outcomes are top priorities for public, private and proprietary institutions alike.

What’s encouraging to see both here in the United States and abroad is that more traditional schools are embracing new technology and delivery models (and, dare I say it, business practices) to improve results. They are reaching more diverse candidates through enabling technologies and offering them more ways to succeed, including online learning, flexible terms and hybrid delivery models.

Traditional institutions are becoming as adept at serving the single mother of two who’s pursuing her nursing degree part time as they are the student right out of high school. They are offering competency-based programs, stackable credentials and other nontraditional alternatives to help students to achieve their goals faster and more cost-effectively.

Each new innovation or academic model will have its challenges. Institutions, as well as state and federal agencies, are still trying to create uniform standards for competency-based education, for example. What’s important is to keep encouraging new ideas, keep the ball rolling on them and have a flexible enough foundation to adapt and change with the needs of our economy—this is how our higher education system will continue to be the envy of the world.

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Jim Milton is CEO of Campus Management Corp., a global solutions provider to higher education.

References:

Finding the Middle. How businesses can manage the talent pipeline to close the middle-skills employment gap. Accenture. 2014. accenture.com

Reimagining the Road to Career Development, William Symonds, Director, Global Pathways Institute. July 1, 2015. http://globalpathwaysinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2Global-Pathways- Institute_July01_2015.pdf

The For Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators? Harvard University Research. 2012. http://capseecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ForProfit_Nimble-Critters_Feb-2012.pdf

Report on the Proposed Gainful Employment Regulation. Jonathan Guryan, Ph.D., Northwestern University. Charles River Associates. May 2014. http://www.career.org/news-and-media/press-releases/upload/Guryan-CRA-Public-Comment2.pdf

Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform September 5, 2016

Is education killing imagination?

By Judith A. Yates

As a criminal justice instructor in a career college, I gave my students an assignment that relied on 75% imagination and 25% research. They were so lost that I was shocked. “What are we supposed to do!” They were frantic. “How are we supposed to work this?” I wondered why they had no idea how to use imagination, or what creativity encompassed.

Later, I taught criminal justice in high school, and again was dismayed at my student’s lack of imagination. I began to study the system requirements and noted the curriculum we utilized did not require the students to use inventiveness or creativity, unless it was a music or arts class. Even then, the music and art projects were determined beforehand; students were taught to follow the lesson. If I made a suggestion for change, my supervisor would look at me in horror. “I am going to take them outside one day,” I told her, “and we’re going to sit on the bleachers and use the environment for the lesson.” She thought I was crazy; the idea was extinguished.

Instructors obviously cannot have students run amok in the class in a fit of anarchy, but with guidelines set in place, they could give the students free rein to complete the task, as the student sees fit. This would work well in a group project, where each individual could both show and discover their strengths and learn from their weaknesses. The instructor would give “helpful hints” along the way, but allow the students to think and solve on their own. This is how the real world works. According to a 2010 Newsweek article, “a recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 ‘leadership competency’ of the future.”

The education system is not preparing students for the real world by stifling imagination. Every workplace, every profession, relies on creativity, problem solving, and exploration of ideas. Professional athletes, architects, journalists, and accountants will go no further than the initial job interview if they say, “I need someone to tell me how to do everything all the time.”

Stifling creativity leads to problems in the classroom. Bored students stop learning: they act out, drift off, or shut down. But “getting up and doing” creates positive change. In a study conducted by Howell Wechsler, director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “physical activity breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes in the classroom can improve attention span, classroom behavior and achievement tests scores.” Less that 20% of high school students are meeting this goal of such activity breaks.

A creative assignment does not have to be elaborate. For example, rather than lecture on the affects of alcohol on the body, the brain, and physical activity, I split the class into three groups. Each group had a large sheet of butcher paper, their textbooks, and free pamphlets I ordered from Alcoholics Anonymous. They traced a fellow student onto the paper, drew in the corresponding “part” (i.e. the brain) they were assigned, and then presented on the affects of alcohol on each. For example, with arrows drawn to hands and feet, the words “motor skills” were written. With arrows drawn to certain internal organs, that group listed affects alcohol had on each organ. The students kept the pamphlets, and some gave them to family members and friends they felt needed the information. We did a follow-up and they could answer all questions, and the students did well on the test.

Within “teach for the test,” learning by memorization, and standardized curriculum, we have lost imagination and creativity. Students have learned to follow by rote and perform rather than ask and explore. Getting creative does not have to cost money or much time. Creativity is not going to take away from what we are paid to do. In the end, it will pay off, with happier students who are actually learning in a healthy environment.

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Judith A. Yates is currently completing a PhD in Criminal Justice. She has taught at several schools, within the field of law enforcement; has worked as trainer, attended classes across the country, and has been a mentor in several programs. Her website can be found at judithayates.com.

Matthew Lynch published in Equity, International Education September 5, 2016

Male graduates earn more than female graduates: study

Alexandra Hansen, The Conversation

Male university graduates earn more than their female counterparts and the pay gap will likely increase with the more time spent in the workforce, according to new research.

A study by Graduate Careers Australia found an aggregate gender wage gap of 9.4% in favour of male graduates, which decreased to 4.4% when allowances were made for controls such as the courses studied by males and females.

This means more males enrol in courses with higher earnings such as engineering, whereas humanities, which provide less monetary return, are studied mainly by women.

However, the 4.4% gender wage gap couldn’t be explained by these factors, and is potentially due to inequalities in workplaces.

When looking at specific occupations, the study found male graduate nurses and primary school teachers earned more than their female counterparts.

Statistics from 2013 show the gender wage gap across the board in Australia is 17.5%, leading to the conclusion that the pay gap increases with time in the workforce.

Author of the study Edwina Lindsay said this greater figure examines the aggregate gap within the broader Australian labour market, and does not control for vital determinants which may mediate the gap, such as age and career breaks in employment which stem from family responsibilities.

However, she said many studies have shown the pay gap widens with age.

Ms Lindsay said females need to be given more information about career choices and should be encouraged to consider training for occupations that are often traditionally thought of as male roles.

“Implementing education campaigns and programs that encourage the participation of women in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) during secondary schooling could see the aggregate wage gap in favour of males reduced for future generations,” she said.

Currently, field of education choices of men and women can be influenced by gender stereotypes socialised at a young age, she said.

“This may help to explain the notable differences in the fields of education studied by young men and women in Australia.”

Eva Cox, Professorial Fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the debate shouldn’t be how to get women in to these higher paying jobs, but rather why jobs dominated by males are better paid than jobs dominated by females.

“The question here ignored is whether salaries are higher because of more intrinsic value in a STEM degree, or whether the gender composition of the workforce influences the way it is valued,” she said.

“On that basis one can question whether the differences between fields of education pay levels are in themselves gender biased. Why is engineering of so much more value than social work?”

Ms Cox said rather than thinking of ways to get more women in higher paid areas, we need to raise pay rates in feminised occupations.

Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Leadership for Women Dr Diann Rodgers-Healey said the wage gap had remained unchanged for almost 20 years.

To remedy the gap, we need to address gender-based direct and indirect discrimination so assumptions aren’t made about the industries, careers, positions and job assignments for women, she said.

Alexandra Hansen, Editor, The Conversation

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

Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education September 3, 2016

4 important life skills college students need from the start

A guest column by Brooke Chaplin

College is a time of great change for students who are used to living under their parents’ rules and protection. While some will commute and still live at home, a majority of students live on campus, and first-timers may be in for a rude awakening. These are just a few challenges students may encounter as they adjust to college life.

Time Management
Students just getting to college may not be accustomed to taking responsibility for their own schedule. They may have always had parents waking them up in the morning and nagging them to do their homework. Now, it’s up to you to get up for class and be diligent about completing assignments. Organizational aids can be a big help if you learn to use them right; a solid day planner is of great use for keeping track of what needs to be done and when. Schools are great to provide most schedules and assignment due dates in disclosures and websites, but for your own aid, make sure you put them all in one schedule or planner you can update and check yourself.

Eating Healthy
Eating properly can be problematic in college. If you don’t have a built-in plan for food, you may be tempted to just skip as many meals as possible in order to save money and time. If you don’t eat enough, you won’t have the energy you need for good study habits or optimum physical health, and if you do have a meal plan, you might be tempted to overeat, since food is so freely available. Pay attention to your food intake so you can try to avoid that dreaded Freshman 15. What’s more, if you do eat an especially large meal, try to make up for it with an extra-long walk around campus. College life can be very conducive to exercise, so if you are diligent, it should even out.

Avoiding Drugs
If you’ve never been exposed to drugs or alcohol before, college can be a very dangerous time. Make sure you are always aware of what you are putting into your body and resist the temptation to experiment with illegal substances since the dangers far outweigh any potential benefits. Trying new things can always be fun and is part of the college experience, but make sure you do so safely and legally and with people you’re comfortable with. If you find yourself getting hooked, don’t be afraid to go to a professional for help. Or if you have a friend suffering the ill effects of drugs or alcohol abuse, gather some friends and stage an alcohol intervention to encourage them to find help. What is an intervention? If you’re not sure, you might need to seek out a service that can get you the right information on who should be there and what to say.

Staying Debt-Free
Chances are, you’re already paying student loans or taking them out for the first time, but you don’t want to add credit cards into the mix. Credit card companies prey on college students with enticing introductory offers. Before you know it, you’re thousands of dollars in debt as you spend money you don’t really have. Do yourself a favor and stick with cash and savings during your college career.

These are just a few tips that will help to make your college experience more enjoyable. College is full of important lessons, and many do not occur in the classroom. Stay safe and smart, and your education will be worth the ride.

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Brooke Chaplan is a freelance writer and blogger. She lives and works out of her home in Los Lunas, New Mexico. She loves the outdoors and spends most her time hiking, biking and gardening. For more information on getting help with drugs, or if you have a friend suffering the ill effects of drugs or alcohol abuse, gather some friends and stage an alcohol intervention to encourage them to find help. What is an intervention? If you’re not sure, you might need to seek out a service that can get you the right information on who should be there and what to say

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation August 22, 2016

Technology has the Power to Equalize Personalized Learning

Technology has the power to greatly improve equality in learning opportunities in K-12 classrooms. Not every school can afford the latest high-priced learning management software, but what if all you needed was internet access?

I recently had the opportunity to demo the personalized learning platform Kiddom and learned about a lot of cutting-edge features that are streamlining teaching.

Kiddom was co-developed by serial entrepreneur Ahsan Rizvi, former alternative educator Abbas Manjee, and growth engineer Jordan Feldstein. Manjee is a teacher by trade who once worked with at-risk students in the South Bronx. During his 6 years as a public school teacher Manjee used the technology available to him (not much, and not very advanced) to figure out ways to better teach to the individual student. His system worked but wasn’t as streamlined as he knew it could be. Manjee also knew from talking with other teachers that their own students could benefit from a streamlined system and with the added expertise of Rizvi and Feldstein, that hunch became a reality.

Today, tens of thousands K-12 teachers use Kiddom, some just for the gradebook feature and others for the full-platform experience.

See, what Kiddom creators got right is this: most teachers are haphazardly using multiple resources, aggregating on their own, and using a less-than-stellar grade book option because it’s all they have at their disposal. All of that takes up too much time and can frankly lead to some understandable frustration. Kiddom cuts right to the heart of that conundrum by consolidating resources and placing everything a teacher needs for lesson planning, grading, classroom organization, student tracking, and assessments in a central, easy-to-use hub.

Kiddom contains standards for all 50 states and updates its offerings when those standards change, making it easy for teachers to lesson plan and write assessments. In addition to classroom teachers, homeschool parents and groups have also signed on with Kiddom as a way to create lessons, track progress, and monitor state academic standards.

The end goal of Kiddom tools is not to simply automate assessments, though. It’s to create richer, more engaging projects by providing more time (and accessible content) for teachers. It’s amazing what educators can develop for students when they aren’t being overburdened with constant quick-fire assessment creation, grading, prepping for high stakes tests, and related tasks. Kiddom frees up that bandwidth so teachers can provide better learning experiences for students.

Teacher Influence

Teacher input is important to growth of the Kiddom platform, so the company has a team of advisors called the “brain trust” that use the platform and offer insight and feedback. Anyone can apply to be part of the brain trust group, and there are also less formal teacher message boards and forums that give teachers access to answers right away.

Some of the unique features of Kiddom include:

A teacher’s control center, with detailed reports on student progress that inform next-step instructional details.
Content library, with material for assignments, quizzes, videos, games and more. Some of the content partners include Khan Academy, CK-12, IXL, and CommonLit.
Third-party integration, so teachers can sync with other classroom management tools they already use, like Google Drive.
Direct teacher-student feedback.
Concise rubrics for students that guide them on what they should be doing and when.
Easy setup, with one-click student roster setup from Excel, Google or Clever.
Student access to real-time reports on what they’ve accomplished, what is still assigned, and where they need improvement.
Alignment and sharing ability for assessment material based on Common Core, state, or custom requirements.
The Kiddom mobile app, giving students and teachers all the classroom resources on-the-go.

The affordability of Kiddom (it’s free for teachers and students) makes it a smart tool for classroom management. Providing equity in resources is so important in our at-risk student populations and I’m so impressed that this message is at the heart of what Kiddom offers. I like that a public school teacher is part of Kiddom’s leadership team and that classroom teachers continue to drive improvements on the platform.

To sign up for Kiddom for free and request a demo, head to Kiddom.co.

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation August 19, 2016

How to Save Time Lesson Planning, Grading This School Year

Teachers: if you could have one additional thing to help in your classrooms this school year, what would it be? More technology? Better behaved students? Less paperwork?

How about more TIME?

When all things are equally weighed, you’d probably spring for the time component (even though a few more iPads might be nice). Teachers spend 95 minutes per weekday outside the classroom on preparation and grading and the typical teacher workday is actually 10 hours and 40 minutes according to a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation survey. Early mornings, nights, weekends – you name it, and teachers are working during it. Teachers can’t just show up before the bell and leave when it sounds at the end of the day and expect to succeed. There is a lot of work that happens when students are not in their seats and it’s necessary work to support students.

What if those additional 95 daily minutes of prep and grading could be cut in half? Or even by 75 or 85 percent?

Teacher Prep goes High-Tech

I recently had the chance to demo Ogment, an educational content curation tool that “clips” relevant information online and saves it for teachers to use in lesson planning and execution. Unlike other systems that simply allow you to save links to reference later, Ogment actually “scrapes” the content so you have all the details, including images and videos, when you are ready to piece it together for a lesson. Ogment allows teachers grab content off the web and strip out the extraneous muck, align the content to standards, cite, format and enhance the content with other technology. In short, Ogment makes lesson creation much easier and less time consuming.

Ogment offers The Stream – a treasure trove of content that teachers can search to find materials on the lesson at hand. Teachers can also collaborate inside The Stream and share content. Teachers can even add their own content to complete lesson plans. And all of the organized content is searchable.

Teachers can project the content in their Ogment accounts for students and also manage assignments within the tool. A live curriculum mapping tool keeps both students and teachers on track, too. Customized lesson planning is possible based on student progress tracking within the tool, making it easy to modify lessons for students or student groups.

The technology behind Ogment is so cutting-edge that it actually won a SIIA CODiE award, an AAP Revere award, and three Bessie awards when it was still in pilot program testing. It’s now officially rolled out to the public with the benefit of feedback from actual teachers and administrators in how the platform best works.

Ogment’s Relevancy in Today’s Classrooms

When I was a public teacher, I would have LOVED to have a curation tool like this so I had more time and energy to devote to my actual students. I know the digital native teachers-in-training in our colleges today can make an even bigger impact with the type of technology streaming that Ogment provides, too. By freeing up some of that time traditionally weighed down by research and compilation for lesson planning, teachers have more energy to inject into what actually matters: supporting student progress.

Want to start this school year off with better organization? Try a free 30-day trial with Ogment.

Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education August 17, 2016

Report: Nearly 90% of college freshmen receive a tuition discount

It’s no secret that college tuition is expensive and that rising student debt is a real economic problem. Not everyone is paying full price for a college education, though. In fact, a vast majority are paying below the advertised price.

By way of NPR.org, the National Association of College and University Business Officers conducted a study “of tuition discounts at private, nonprofit, four-year colleges and universities.”

The information released in the survey suggests that all colleges that were surveyed offered some sort of discounts to its students.

“They estimate 89 percent of first-time, full-year freshmen received some kind of discount in 2014-2015. Of those students, the average grant they received is estimated to cover 54.3 percent of tuition and fees.”

That’s at least half off of student fees and maybe tuition.

Still–even with the steep discounts, it’s not enough to curb the rising rate of students who carry too much debt. At least this survey doesn’t go into detail as to how these discounts may offset the full cost of college or how it impacts the load of debt that students carry post graduation.

While the study is a brief overture into how some schools attend to the full cost of college, it also shows just how expensive some schools are if nearly 90 percent of freshmen are able to utilize discounts. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a college system that was just plain affordable for all students, without the trappings of all these discounts and needing to spend so much time tracking down the money to attend?

Behavior matters: Fostering a successful mindset

Fostering a Mindset

3 Keys to Inspiring True Dialogue in Your Classroom

Malala: Education, not drones, is key to fighting terrorism