K-12

Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, Trending Topics

Pass or Fail: The Indirect Cost of Social Promotion and Retention May Surprise You 

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

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

Students who experience social promotion or retention aren’t the only individuals impacted. Put yourself in the shoes of the students who actually passed and the teachers. If you were one of these people, how would you view the student being socially promoted or retained? How is the education system as a whole altered by social promotion and retention?

Passing Students

Students directly affected by retention and social promotion are not the only ones impacted in America’s public schools. Passing students also pay a price for the implementation of social promotion and retention policies. The potential for retention or social promotion is certainly a cause of anxiety. Beyond this cost, however, there are several clearly identified and well-documented costs for “passing” students that relate to the quality of teaching provided when there is a need to support retained or socially promoted students.

Strained relationships between retained students and their non-retained peers are common. Passing and retained students experience significant struggles when trying to socialize together. Although this is not entirely conclusive or indicative of the underlying causes for social withdrawal from retained students, we can infer that there is a risk associated with having a retained student in a classroom. The situation can confuse social experiences for non-retained students and go largely unaddressed by school support systems including counselors, teachers, and administrators.

Teachers

Another obvious cost of retention is to educators. Some teachers feel the concentration on standardized testing of students can serve as a means of “testing” teachers. This places pressure on teachers to instruct in a particular way, to teach to tests, and the like.

The effect standardized testing and graded approaches have on teachers is significant. This method doesn’t target state education agency or middle-level managers in the state bureaucracy, rather standardized testing affects only the educators. Education reform that brought about the pass-or-fail focus included systems of “testing teachers” and evaluating classroom performance. However, assessment was only possible by also prescribing the curriculum and emphasizing the testing of students.

The cost of all this is the quality of education overall and the scope that teachers have to manifest the elements of that quality. When they are impacted by retention and social promotion, teachers are essentially forced to undermine their skills, trivializing and reducing the value of the curriculum content and encouraging the distancing of children from the very purpose of schooling

The Education System

Regardless of the point at which retention occurs, there are direct financial costs associated with retaining a student in the same grade. The average cost of a typical developing and progressing student was approximately $10,700 in 2009–2010. The direct cost to retain approximately 2.3 percent is more than $12 billion per year for the number of students retained. Note that this estimate excludes the costs of any remedial services provided to the students repeating a grade, such as any learning support or specialized services, as well as earnings foregone by retained students due to their delayed entry into the labor market.

Social promotion costs are, of course, much more difficult to track. Having students of varying abilities within a single classroom undermines the ability of teachers to address the needs of all students equally unless they have other specific supports in the classroom. Both retention and social promotion policies cost our education system in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The quality of education received by children in the United States will remain low so long as the policies of retention and social promotion remain consistent for states and school districts.

A retained child is expected to only make small advances in their educational progress. They are not likely to be that much better off academically, and may fall behind in their general education and overall academic development. Many of these issues can be traced to a loss of confidence in the entire education system as a whole.

Socially promoted students face similar problems, although from a different perspective: they already struggle academically, their schools promote them nevertheless. They not only have to apply skills and knowledge they may not have mastered from the previous year; they’re also expected to follow through and pick up a series of new skills and new knowledge sets at a more advanced level.

Social promotion and retention practices undermine the experiences of all students, teachers and negatively impact the education system overall. With this in mind, how can anyone continue to support these policies?

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, The Tech Edvocate

Pass or Fail: Retention Has Long-Term Effects on Students

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

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

It has been said that one single choice or event can alter the course of a person’s entire life. How would you feel if this decision was made for you based on completely misguided principles?

The long-term impact of retention has been studied extensively. Students overwhelming state that they consider retention to be a life-changing experience. Students often indicate that they experience a dramatic increase in stress and an even more pronounced dislike of school. Supporting an overwhelming amount of research, this signifies that the education system sometimes uses student retention as an intervention strategy for identification of a learning disability.

An assessment was made to identify low self-esteem signals for students in a research study conducted by Jessica Fanguy and Richard D. Mathis. Five of eight student participants and five of the eight parents commented that low self-esteem was an issue following the retention. One student’s father specifically indicated that they felt their child had low self-esteem and another parent indicated that their child clearly “felt bad about herself,” largely as a result of their retention experience. Two parents also reported that their children were giving up too easily and not believing in themselves, especially at school, in academic areas. One of the parents described how their child had called herself “stupid,” and one of the students indicated that they were aware that they did not set goals too high because they felt they could not achieve them. The student did not believe there was any point in setting challenging goals.

The researchers came to the conclusion that the students might well have had fewer self-esteem issues (and a greater inclination to set challenging goals) if they had not experienced retention and if it had not proved such a negative experience. Other students stated that the teachers had mistreated them, adding to the feelings of failure, but also making the students angry. They expressed their frustration at having to repeat a year. One student described dropping out of school to escape the resentment and sense of failure, as well as the victimization by teachers. According to Fanguy and Mathis, only two of the students interviewed demonstrated any signs of positive self-concepts; describing themselves in a positive light and feeling optimistic about their abilities.

Indicative of other studies that have assessed retention among students, Fanguy and Mathis clearly demonstrated that retention is destructive to a student’s development on many fronts. Although not all retained students are likely to experience such debilitating self-esteem issues, anger at retention, or oppression as the students in the study, the findings suggest that a range of problems apply, and often leave students with a sense of failure.

Socially promoted students experienced similar problems, including poor self-esteem, poor sense of self-worth, issues with peers, anger, and resentment toward teachers and school administrators, and general apathy toward school. In fact, some studies suggest that peer isolation or bullying is sometimes even more extreme for socially promoted students than for those who are retained. Without reasonable self-esteem, adolescents can prove unable to resolve the crisis of the identity during development. Thus, any experience debilitating to self-esteem is likely to leave students at a serious disadvantage.

In a relevant study, it was concluded that academic ability was one of the many factors used by adolescents to evaluate themselves. Failure at school can certainly compromise self-esteem and many students identify failure to pass a grade, the experience of retention, or even social promotion, as distinct evidence of academic failure.

Issues in the home can also factor into retention and social promotion problems, too, and several of the students featured in the study by Fanguy and Mathis cited lack of parental support as problematic. Two students even went so far as to say that they might have done better in school and potentially avoided retention completely, had they received more help from parents. The perceptions belong to students; whose own identity and conception of schoolwork undoubtedly play some role in the outcome of their academic efforts. There was, at least, a perceived need for students to have better, more extensive supports. The students believed their failing grades were at least partly due to inadequate support in school or at home. The discrepancy of perceived versus actual need is worth further investigation, particularly with regard to students’ lack of accomplishment.

Fanguy and Mathis also conclude that many of the students in the study lacked the skills to advocate for themselves. This potentially identifies another non-academic cost of retention, that affected students may already be reluctant to ask for help from school representatives or family when they need it.

If the decision to retain a student has been made, how much do you personally feel this choice will impact them both in the short and long term?

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, Trending Topics

Pass or Fail: The Psychological Effects of Social Promotion and Retention

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

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

How impressionable were you growing up? Do you think what your teachers and peers thought of you mattered? As an adult, you likely don’t feel the weight of other peoples’ opinions the way you did as a child. Children have yet to establish their own identity, though, so outside factors easily influence their sense of self.

Often, studies concentrate on the obvious issues regarding grade retention, yet researchers Jessica Fanguy and Richard D. Mathis consider these effects to only be the tip of the psychosocial iceberg. Although grade retention has significantly reduced student numbers in schools, consideration of the cause of this is perhaps more relevant and indicative of the true underlying cost. Furthermore, the psychosocial delays that lead to the dropping out of retained students are more likely to be long-lasting, and often time permanent.

Erik Erikson stages of identity development and his research, which has ready application to retention and social promotion policies, sheds considerable light on these issues. Erikson specifically noted that having a high level of self-esteem was critical to identity development for adolescents. When young adults feel good about themselves, they develop a positive identity. Those who do not possess a pleasant self-image, tend to struggle with their identity and can acquire maladaptive or dysfunctional behaviors.

As Fanguy and Mathis point out, Erikson’s theory regarding identity development focuses on individual psychological growth, including how it pertains to adolescent life, and isolates social components of development that include family, school, and peers. In their study, Fanguy and Mathis specifically apply this theory to demonstrate the damaging psychosocial fallout for grade-retained students.

In student and parent interviews, Fanguy and Mathis noted that the most common cause for retention was environmental stress, apathy towards school, insufficient preparation for the following grade level and poor behavior patterns. These were the causes the interview subjects, both students and parents, identified as ultimately leading to retention. Whether these were the actual root, and whether or not they might have been something more abstract (such as the quality of teaching or the nature of the testing), could not be easily gauged from the student or parent perspective.

Fanguy and Mathis performed an in-depth study using eight students who had been retained in eighth grade, five white and three black students of five boys and three girls. All except one were middle class, with the remaining student in a lower income bracket. In a series of interviews with the students and their parents, Fanguy and Mathis discovered several factors that led to their retention.

Three of the students cited environmental factors. These encompassed being sick for a portion of the year, one’s mother had been sick, and one lived in a “bad” neighborhood with ongoing struggles due to drug transactions and the accompanying violence. Other issues included poor behavior patterns and lack of preparedness. Three of the students noted that severe apathy set in after they were retained. For two of these students, their apathy was directly related to the inability to perform their schoolwork.

Hopelessness in the face of difficult assignments led them to give up, both inside and outside of the classroom. Several children expressed extreme distress once they discovered they had been retained, with others noting they became angry and withdrawn. Two female students, reported a heartbreaking sense of loss after their friends had moved on and that friendships were completely severed.

An enormous issue experienced by five of the eight students was relentless bullying by peers. Names such as “stupid” and “dumb,” were used to tease the retained students. Two male study participants got into fights with other students as a result of the harassment. Interestingly, most of the parents were unaware their children were being bullied. The prominence of psychosocial issues tracing back to retention were profound. The overwhelmingly negative reaction from retained students suggests there’s both strong and detrimental impact on their self-esteem.

Think back on your childhood. How would you have responded if you were retained in school? What lasting impact would retention have had on your relationships, motivation level and identity development as a child?

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, Trending Topics

Pass or Fail: The Real Cost to the Individual

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

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

What do you see as the main positives of retention and social promotion in American schools? How about the drawbacks? Are these practices actually helping students or do they only work in theory?

Edmond Shoat, a nineteen-year-old Chicago dropout who had been held back a year, left high school just two weeks before graduation. By any estimate, he has had a hard life. He grew up in the Cabrini-Green project, notorious for its gang violence. His uncle, who wasn’t much older than he, was murdered near their apartment – Edmond heard the shots, and rushed out to find his uncle dead.

Following that experience, the family tried to get themselves into a better situation. “I’d say about a month later, my whole family moved out of the projects,” says Edmond. “My mom, she worked at a nursing home. And you know, sometimes she’d either quit the job, or we’d have to move. We couldn’t pay the rent. Or we’d find another job and move somewhere else. We did a lot of moving around.”

Edmond wound up at Senn High School, one of the worst-performing schools in an area known for particularly terrible schools. He didn’t do badly, however, and got on the football team. But one day he got into a fight, which escalated and eventually landed him in jail for a week, on a charge of illegally possessing a weapon (a pocketknife he’d forgotten about, which wasn’t used in the fight). Around the same time, he became a father: his three-year-old son, Rajan, now lives with the child’s mother in Atlanta.

A chemistry teacher at Senn, Antonio San Agustin, tried to help Edmond stay on track with his studies while the teen was in jail and working his way through the court system. “He was a good kid,” Agustin remembers. “And he came to class, always looking to make up his assignments because he was absent quite a bit. I didn’t have problems with him making up the assignments.”

But even the intervention of concerned teachers couldn’t keep Edmond in school. He flunked his first attempt at the GED and now has a low-paying job. He dreams of being able to move to live closer to his son, and of eventually becoming an actor. Yet, the statistics are not on his side.

Do the pros of social promotion and retention outweigh the cons? Assessing the costs of retention on an individual is difficult, but attempts have been made. A study by Thompson and Cunningham concluded that retention basically discourages students whose motivation and confidence are already shaky. Findings indicate that promoted students gain an opportunity to advance through next year’s curriculum, while retained students go over the same ground and thus fall further behind their advancing peers.

Several other studies identify a high correlation between student retention and student dropout rates. Goldschmidt and Wang, for instance, applied the National Longitudinal Study (NELS) to examine student and school factors associated with students dropping out in different grades. Their findings showed that consistent with previous research, being held back is the single strongest predictor of dropping out and that its effect is consistent for both early and late dropouts. Retention can destroy self-esteem and otherwise undermine social and personal adjustments. With retention typically occurring during the most formative and impressionable years, the impact can be overwhelming.

Retained students have increased risks in health-related areas such as stress, low social confidence, substance abuse, and violent behaviors. Several studies have demonstrated that students view retention as being more degrading and stressful than losing a parent or going blind, which is clearly indicative of a tremendous cost personally and socially. Highly negative development changes, including below average self-esteem, higher instances of social isolation from peers, shame regarding grade retention and being older than classmates, resentment of teachers and administrators and an overall diminished quality of life. Without feeling confident in their education setting and lacking meaningful, positive relationships with peers, teachers, and administrators, a student’s academic potential is undermined.

Could retention have played a primary role in Edmond dropping out of school? What could have gone differently to help him succeed? Would Edmond be living out his dreams as an involved father and working actor if retention hadn’t been in play?

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, Trending Topics

Pass or Fail: The Real Cost of Student Retention

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

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

Retention affects more than just students. What do you think is the cost of retention to schools, educators, communities and society as a whole?

Research on the impact of retention dates back to the initiation of the practice – the point when educators and policymakers believed it to be an effective means for managing student non-achievement. A recent evaluation of retention research, however, suggests that the lack of accounting for differences in social, emotional, and academic characteristics between promoted students and their retained peer, allows for any number of “vulnerabilities.”

Numerous and hard to track, these vulnerabilities may be the cause of negative post-retention outcomes, rather than retention itself. Using higher levels of quality controls for pre-retention characteristics of promoted and retained students also tends to indicate less negative effects. Even so, enough evidence exists to make student retention a questionable practice.

Cost of Retention to Students

In the wealth of research about the costs of retention, it is the cost of retention to students that researchers most often discuss. Not surprisingly, retention often leads students to have negative feelings about school, as well as a sense of low self-esteem when it comes to the ability to perform well academically. Some children find the fact that they have been retained embarrassing and may feel ashamed about being separated from their age-grade peers.

Retained students may become unmotivated and disengaged in school. They may also develop behavior problems (particularly at school) and become involved in bullying, either as a perpetrator or as a victim. Children often feel stigmatized by retention, and there is an increased possibility that retained students will end up dropping out, their long-term trajectory totally undermined.

Research shows that a retained child does not generally “catch up” academically to his or her grade-level peers. While there is some indication that achievement among children retained in elementary school does improve, for older children there appear to be no significant benefits.

Cost of Retention to Schools

In addition to the negative influences of retention on children, school systems struggle a great deal when their retention rates are high. They may end up with large numbers of children in retention checkpoint grades and thus also experience difficulty to manage them. When schools find themselves retaining the same children repeatedly, they may also end up with substantial numbers of over-aged students in certain grades. This is another obvious problem, of course, regarding retention consequences, but one that has long escaped true attention from educators at the policy level.

With specific grades established as retention points, it’s not uncommon for students to essentially create something of a backlog. In practical terms, this creates an imbalance in maturity and a potentially irregular experience for teachers and students in the grade level as a whole. At the very least, students who are beyond the typical age for elementary or middle school present a very particular challenge for school districts regarding placement and services. Should established policies place these students with typical-aged elementary and middle school students? Should separate policies apply to students who have reached a certain age within either elementary or middle school systems – who have aged out, as it were?

Retention strains school district and state financial resources, particularly when a large number of students are retained. The additional costs of educating grade-repeating students are evident when you multiply the average annual cost per pupil by the number of students retained in any given year. Texas, for example, spent more than $2 billion to educate the 202,099 students retained during the 2006–07 school year. With budget cuts prevalent across the nation, the problems of continuing these sorts of difficulties indefinitely are readily apparent.

Cost of Retention to Society

The social cost of retention is directly influenced by the increased number of dropouts. Students who leave school prior to receiving a diploma tend to have lower earnings over their lifetime, which means they will pay fewer taxes, and may even be more dependent on social services. A significantly high number of incarnated individuals are dropouts, as are those who tend to commit certain crimes. The cost of retention for society clearly has an impact.

When examining the impact and cost of student retention, do you feel it is even worth considering as a sound education policy?

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Retention & Social Promotion Series, Trending Topics

Pass or Fail: Who are the Students at Risk for Retention?

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

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

As an educator, how should potentially “at risk” students be identified? Is there a sector of the student population that should receive more attention based solely on their disadvantages or lack of support?

Fundamentally, both social promotion and retention work on the principle that typical children should master certain material according to an age-grade classroom structure. In other words, both policies assume there is such a thing as a typical child, and that most children are typical.

They also assume there is a ready way to gauge how typical children develop. While this last contention is fairly reasonable and is foundational to a whole range of developmental research, the merits of the other two are debatable. Are they reasonable enough to be a foundation for education? For an entire institution of public education?

We can at least agree that the emphasis on what is “typical” is an obvious limitation of both policies. Is it logical to base an education policy on this notion? At best, there is an applicable range for developmental trends and abilities. Those trends and ranges serve to help parents, educators, and even health practitioners garner a basic idea of how a child should be developing. But there is always a scale, and there’s seldom the expectation that every child will meet the same developmental criteria at the same time. That is, in any area except education.

Retention often takes place in earlier grades, with most retention occurring in grades K–3. The vast majority of these retentions take place in kindergarten or first grade, which is consistent with the focus of state-level retention policies. Children with certain background characteristics are at a higher risk for retention, inevitably creating a public policy issue for the public education system.

Perhaps most strikingly, we see that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children of color are more likely to be at risk for retention. Research shows that boys are more likely to find themselves retained than girls. Children with attention issues, behavior issues, or delayed development are also more at risk for retention, as are students whose families tend to be more mobile. Children from single parent homes, or homes where parents have low educational attainment, are also at higher risk for retention.

Children who are young for their grade level and children are who are small for their age seem to have a higher risk of retention, although the evidence for this is inconsistent. The increasing population of English Language Learners constitutes yet another group of children at risk for failure. For children with multiple at-risk characteristics, the incidence of retention increases.

Because of the varying strategies for addressing learning issues by state, students are also at a relatively higher risk for retention in certain states. Those states employing more regular and rigorous assessments by age tend to create a greater risk for retention for students. These assessments are interventions in their ways, though, further clouding the actual benefits or disadvantages inherent to retention.

Given that retention is so often based on testing, there are inevitable risks based on whether students are good exam takers. Some exceptional students just do not perform well under exam conditions. In addition to this, we see some disparity in terms of subject testing, since there are different assessment types and methodologies depending on the knowledge area or skills under examination. Subjectivity comes into play to some degree, with written assessments and even non-test-based assessments, for which retention policies rarely make allowance.

In the states that administer high school exit exams, there are pass rates between 70-90 percent. For states that report disaggregated data, a substantial gap exists between pass rates for white students and students of color. For example, there are gaps ranging from 13-36 percentage points between white and African American students on mathematics tests, and 8-19 percentage points on tests of English Language Arts.

The differences between white and Hispanic students range between 2-23 percentage points, and 9-19 percentage points, respectively, for mathematics and English Language Arts. High school exit exams leave no time for improvement, however. Poor performance on state high school exit exams often leave students discouraged, and many end up dropping out of school rather than opting to retake the exam. The obvious problem being that students may be permanently set back as a result of a single test or because of a single area of struggle.

How do you feel educators can impact at risk students best? Should different instructional methods be utilized for various at risk student groups? Further, how does one determine which instruction techniques will be best suited for the particular group of students needing intervention?

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters TH-Y

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best education blogs, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters TE and in this one, I will discuss letters TH-Y.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

The Innovative Educator

Lisa Nielsen’s daily blog posts focus on ways to make education more relevant for students by embracing technology and channeling their passions. Recent topics include how to teach students to evaluate the accuracy of the news, and how to tell if your students are digital learners.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 19.5, Helpfulness 22.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 85

Twitter: @InnovativeEdu

The Nerdy Teacher

Nicholas Provenzano shares his ideas about being a connected educator. Recent articles outline how to create a meaningful Makerspace program.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 91.9

Twitter: @thenerdyteacher

Email: [email protected]

The Educator

This is another UK site, but it’s worth mentioning as it covers some fresh topics, such as finding out what refugee camp teachers go through, teachers’ work life balance, and what you can learn from a classroom in Singapore.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 17, Helpfulness 17, Authority 17

Total Score: 68

Twitter: @TheEducator_UK

The College Puzzle

Geared more towards students, this blog focuses on how to adapt and thrive in college. They post regularly, making it a site to bookmark for regular perusal.

Score:  Active 25, Original 19, Help 18, Authority 16

Total: 78

Twitter: @Michael_Kirst

The Cornerstone for Teachers

This blog by Angela Watson is interesting because it focuses on teachers and managing yourself, as well as your classroom. There are also plenty of resources, courses, etc. available from Angela on the page.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21, Authority 20

Total Score: 82

Twitter: @Angela_Watson

The Curriculum Corner

In this blog, founded by two teachers, you will find lesson plans, activities to do in the classroom, etc. targeted toward busy teachers who want to access information fast. Unlike so many other blogs these days the focus here is old fashioned games and activities. The activities are aimed to meet national state standards.

Score: Activity 17.6, Originality 17, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 70.6

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @curriculumcornr

The Innovative Educator

Lisa Nielsen got angry because she found education boring so she decided to do something about it. On her blog she shares innovative tips for educators.

Score: Activity 23, Originality 22, Helpfulness 20, Authority 23

Total Score: 88

Twitter: @InnovativeEdu

The Learning Spy

David Didau likes exploring psychology and learning which he talks about on his blog, setting out with the idea that possibly everything you ever knew about education might be wrong. He is based in the UK, but his thoughts are as relevant for teachers in the US. If you want to find out what techniques you’re using in the classroom that have actually been examined to work and which are just presumed to work, then this blog is for you.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 23

Total Score: 89

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @DavidDidau

The Jose Vilson

A math teacher turned teaching activist promoting social justice in education, Jose Vilson shares his thoughts on the latest happenings in education, offers support to minorities in teaching and talks about teaching students of low income households. The blog has been listed on several “top blog” lists.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 24, Helpfulness 18, Authority 23

Total Score: 84

Twitter: @thejlv

The Learning Network

This is the New York Times Learning Network, which is a great network to tap into if you’re looking for lesson plans centered around news stories. There are also news quizzes, a film and picture club and various contests that your students can get involved in.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 20, Helpfulness 17, Authority 19

Total Score: 80

Twitter: @nytimes

The Organized Classroom

This blog by Charity Preston mixes hands on classroom DIY with technology tips, classroom management tips, etc. There are plenty of video workshops too.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 17, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18.3

Total Score: 70.3

Twitter: @theOCblog

The PE Geek

It sounds somewhat contradictory to introduce edtech to PE, but it’s not. And here you’ll learn why. From time to time there are also other topics related to edtech and teaching covered, so even if you don’t teach PE, you might want to stop by.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 23, Helpfulness 19.5, Authority 20

Total Score: 84.5

Twitter: @mrrobbo

The Power of Educational Innovation

School administrator Liz Davis chronicles her adventures in leading technology innovation in her school and her region. Her recent posts tell a story of inspiring students to lead through an Edcamp program.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 22, Helpfulness 21, Authority 21.5

Total Score: 82

The Teaching Palette

They may not post often, but their posts related to teaching art are incredibly helpful if you are indeed teaching art!

Score: Activity 19, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 20

Total Score: 75

Twitter: @TchingPalette

The Theory Blog

This blog looks at some of the most entrenched ideas in higher education and questions them. It is thought provoking, even if you do not always agree, making it well worth a monthly check for updates.

Score:  Active 15, Original 25, Help 18.5, Authority 19

Total: 77.5

Twitter: @BonStewart

Think Inclusive

This blog is for anyone teaching in an inclusive classroom. Here you will find tips from other educators that you can implement.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 20.5, Helpfulness 20, Authority 22

Total Score: 79.5

Twitter: @think_inclusive

Times Higher Education

A higher education blog staple, Times Higher Education takes in the news and events about and on campus on a daily basis. It is a great way to start the day catching up on events that you may have missed or to prepare for tomorrow.

Score:  Active 25, Original 18.5, Helpfulness 23, Authority 20.9

Total: 86.9

Twitter: @TimesHigherEd

Top Hat Blog

Top Hat strives to keep students and professors working together. They cover a good bit of news and assessments about higher education edtech too.

Score:  Active 23, Original 21, Helpfulness 20, Authority 22

Total: 86

Twitter: @TopHat

Top Performers

If you are interested in the policies and practices of countries that have the best educational systems, this is a blog that will give you insight. It will make you question what’s good and what’s bad in the American system and possibly leave you with ideas for how to make your personal teaching better.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 21, Helpfulness 15, Authority 23

Total Score: 80

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @educationweek

Totally Rewired

The tagline for the site says it all – “…education, technology and random stuff.” The site is a great source of information about higher education, and a bit of random news and trending topics to keep you entertained as well as informed.

Score:  Active 12, Original 22, Help 18, Authority 16

Total: 68

Twitter: @Chri5Rowell

Udacity

The primary focus is on data and technology, but there is also a heavy emphasis in how they change higher education. It is an interesting blog to track for those who are interested in technology or who want to see where edtech could take higher education in a few years.

Score:  Active 19, Original 21, Help 18.3, Authority 20

Total: 78.3

Twitter: @Udacity

UnCollege

This is a blog aimed at a very specific niche in higher education – student taking a year off of going to school. Since the point is to take a break, the blog gives you ideas and advice about how to make that year both productive and enjoyable so that you are ready to go back and finish your degree with enthusiasm.

Score:  Active 20, Original 25, Help 15, Authority 18.6

Total: 78.6

Twitter: @UnCollege

University Business

If you are in administration, this is a must follow blog to keep you informed and help you plan for the future. With multiple blogs posted daily, there is always something new for your to learn or consider.

Score:  Active 25, Original 17, Help 20, Authority 18.5

Total: 80.5

Twitter: @UniversityBusiness

User Generated Education

If you are looking for extraordinary activities for elementary school kids, then this blog by Jackie Gerstein Ed.D is for you! Here you will find activities that far surpass the normal range and help both teachers and kids think outside the box.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 24, Helpfulness 22, Authority 20

Total Score: 85

Twitter: @jackiegerstein

Web 2.0 Classroom

Renowned for his insightful tweets and retweets, Steve Anderson blogs about powerful ways to use technology in the classroom. Most recently, he posted about the power of TED talks and how to teach kids to evaluate news sources.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 24.5, Authority 25

Total Score: 97.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @web20classroom

Will Richardson

If you want a thought provoking blog that takes on random subjects, this one does not disappoint. While other blogs tend to repeat each other, this one is utterly unique and enjoyable when you want to cogitate about something different.

Score:  Active 22, Original 25, Help 17, Authority 15.5

Total: 79.5

Twitter: @WillRich45

Yes, Tech!

A technology instructional coach, Pam Shoemaker, blogs about the ways in which technology is changing the face of education. She will inspire you to take on challenges such as learning to code or becoming a Google trainer.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 19.5, Helpfulness 17, Authority 14.5

Total Score: 72

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @shoemap

Conclusion

As you can see, there is no shortage of great education blogs to choose from! Subscribe to those that meet your needs best, and watch your knowledge of education expand in no time.

 

 

 

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters S-TC

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best blogs in education, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters M-Q and in this one, I will discuss letters S-TC.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Science Cheerleader

This blog scores top points for originality – it’s a blog by cheerleaders who work in science. The blog features interviews with different cheerleaders, which serves to inspire more girls to join the field of science. It’s not exactly the kind of blog you’d use to implement new classroom strategies, but you might want to share it with students to show that women who work in science have diverse interests. Most people don’t think Harvard grads and women working on the forefront of science do cheerleading.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 17, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18.6

Total Score: 69.6

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @TheSciCheers

Shake Up Learning

This blog is a lot about creating a Google classroom, which the author, Kasey Bell, has written an entire book about. This isn’t so surprising given she’s a certified Google educator, innovator and trainer. The posts are regular and contain useful information for anyone who wants to run a digital classroom.

Score: Activity 22.5, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 24

Total Score: 86.5

Twitter: @ShakeUpLearning

SmartBrief Education

They claim to connect education professionals with industry news, insights, resources and trends, which they do. It’s all curated.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 20, Helpfulness 23.5, Authority 21

Total Score: 86.5

Twitter: @smartbrief

Smart Classroom Management

Smart Classroom Management is Michael Linsin’s take on classroom management and offers weekly blogs on the topic. The blog has over 100,000 subscribers which says something about the usefulness of the topics covered and Michael has taught every grade level from K-12. It’s, of course, his biased take on classroom management, but it’s a take well worth considering.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 17, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18.3

Total Score: 69.3

Email: [email protected]

Speed of Creativity

Wesley Fryer documents his work with students and educators around the globe in the creative use of multimedia. Recently he offered a digital literacy challenge to create an information filter bot.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 20.5, Helpfulness 20.5, Authority 22

Total Score: 87

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @wfryer

Start With a Question

Digital learning specialist Kerry Gallagher shares tips for safe and ethical use of technology in the classroom. Recent provocative topics include the spread of fake news and the prevalence of “sexting” among teens.

Score: Activity 16, Originality 20, Helpfulness 21, Authority 21

Total Score: 78

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @kerryhawk02

Steve Hargadon

A pioneer in the field of educational technology, Steve Hargadon offers timely suggestions for things like turning PCs into Chromebooks and even has the occasional fun giveaway. Articles focus on edtech as a vehicle to drive meaningful learning.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 17.5, Helpfulness 21, Authority 20.5

Total Score: 84

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @stevehargadon

Student Affairs & Technology Leadership

Take a look at higher education through the eyes of Joe Sabado. His blogs cover many of the challenges he has faced and experiences that have enriched him on his road to becoming the CIO of Student Affairs in Santa Barbara, CA. It is well worth the read if you aspire to become a higher education administrator, or simply want to improve in areas like public speaking and communicating across different departments.

Score:  Active 15, Original 21, Help 19, Authority 17

Total: 72

Twitter: @JoeSabado

Tammy’s Technology Tips for Teachers

Tammy Worcester works independently as an instructional technology specialist and curates hundreds of tools, tips, and ideas on her website. She is especially savvy at tricks for using Google apps in unique ways in the classroom.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 17.9

Total Score: 78.9

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @tammyworcester

TCEA

Officially the blog for the Texas Computer Education Association, this website is crammed with great ideas and resources for educators everywhere. Most recently, it offers tips on photo editing and a roundup of leadership courses.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 17, Helpfulness 21.9, Authority 21

Total Score: 83.9

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @TCEA

Tchers’ Voice

The slogan for this blog, posted on the Teaching Channel, reads: “Our blog is filled with great ideas from passionate educators just like you. Let’s get better together!” and that pretty much sums it up. Here a squad of teachers share techniques to implement in the classroom as well as thoughts worth pondering around education.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 23, Authority 23

Total Score: 95

Twitter: @TeachingChannel

Well, that’s it for letters S-TC. Did we miss any?

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters M-Q

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best blogs in education, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters I-L and in this one, I will discuss letters M-Q.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

Magical Maths

What started out as a blog about maths has become a blog for teachers to post various opinion pieces, as well as practical ideas and exercises to implement in the classroom.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 18, Helpfulness 20, Authority 25

Total Score: 81

Twitter: @magicalmaths

MiddleWeb

MiddleWeb provides resources for the middle grades. They focus on five streams of content: Resource Roundups, Themed Blogs, Articles, Interviews and Book Reviews. Co-teaching, how to help students crush math anxiety, and opening your classroom doors to family audiences are all recent topics that have been covered on their very active blog.

Score: Activity 19, Originality 19, Helpfulness 20, Authority 20

Total Score: 78

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @middleweb

MindShift

This is an extremely exciting blog as it explores anything and everything that is proven to help learning, be it technology, games, or new teaching methods. For teachers looking to incorporate helpful tools and techniques in the classroom, this is blog is a must read.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 25, Helpfulness 25, Authority 24

Total Score: 99

Twitter: @MindShiftKQED

Email: [email protected]

Moving at the Speed of Creativity

If you’re very into edtech, then this is a blog by Wesley Fryer is for you. Engaging posts about advancement in edtech and how to use various tools, as well as book reviews.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 24, Helpfulness 20, Authority 25

Total Score: 89

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @wfryer

Ms. Cassidy’s Classroom Blog

Ms. Cassidy has a love of teaching that comes across in her blog posts, which describe activities she’s done with her class. It will provide you with doses of inspiration and ideas for activities you can use in the classroom.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 20

Total Score: 76

Twitter: @mscassidysclass

My Paperless Classroom

A tech integration specialist presents his real-life trials and triumphs. He also shares ideas for unique Makerspace projects.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 18.5, Helpfulness 18.7, Authority 20

Total Score: 81.2%

Twitter: @SamPatue

NACAC Admitted

The NACAC (or National Association for College Admission Counseling) is the place to go if you work in admission, or if you (or your kids) are getting ready to take the plunge into the admissions process.

Score:  Active 25, Original 22, Helpfulness 24, Authority 23

Total: 94

Twitter: @NACAC

NAFSA: Association of International Educators

NAFSA focuses on the latest in news, from politics to holidays, around the world. They also offer advice on a number of different topics through guest bloggers.

Score:  Active 22, Original 24, Helpfulness 22.5, Authority 25

Total: 93.5

Twitter: @NAFSA

NEA Today

NEA Today provides News and features from the National Education Association. If you like to keep up to date on what’s going on in the field of education, including research and some theories and ideas to implement in the classroom, then this is an excellent blog.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 25, Helpfulness 23.5, Authority 25

Total Score: 97.5

Twitter: @NEAToday

On an e-Journey With Generation Y

An Australian Information Technology teacher shares her ideas and experiences around fostering global connections in the classroom. She is especially masterful in her use of Skype as a tool to teach about culture.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 20, Helpfulness 19, Authority 19

Total Score: 76

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @murcha

On Campus

Covering the latest information on campus, this blog is a treasure trove of the latest news, trends, and statistics. It is a great resource for students, professors, and staff, and gives you a way to connect with others to get more information.

Score:  Active 22, Original 16, Help 22, Authority 17

Total: 77

Twitter: @OnCampusWGBH

Prof Hacker

This blog focuses on teaching, technology, and productivity within academia, but it does occasionally stray into politics when the latest news affects higher education.

Score:  Active 25, Original 24, Helpfulness 22, Authority 25

Total: 96

Twitter: @ProfHacker

Pearson Teaching & Learning Blog

Pearson provides products and services in the educational field and their Teaching & Learning PreK-12 Education blog is very informative, with useful tips and thoughts to ponder.

Score: Activity 23, Originality 20, Helpfulness 20, Authority 22.5

Total Score: 85.5

Twitter: @PearsonNorthAm

Q&A with Larry Ferlazzo

Larry Ferlazzo is an award-winning English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. He’s also an author of several books related to teaching and is big on using goal setting to motivate students. His blog often offers Q&As with other writers on topics surrounding education. It’s a blog that definitively provides a fresh look at teaching and education as a whole. As Larry also answers readers questions regarding teaching, you’re welcome to contact him.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 25

Total Score: 93

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @Larryferlazzo

Well, that’s it for letters M-Q. Did we miss any?

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, K-12

The A-Z of Education Blogs: Letters I-L

In this multi-part series, we are profiling the best of the best education blogs, in alphabetical order. In the previous article, I introduced letters F-H and in this one, I will discuss letters I-L.

Click here to access all of the articles in this series.

IIE Opening Minds

The focus of this particular blog is on the various international learning experiences, such as studying abroad and latest learning theories around the globe. It takes a unique look at how to open minds through higher education on the international stage.

Score:  Active 16.9, Original 23, Helpfulness 22, Authority 24

Total: 85.9

Twitter: @IIEglobal

Email: [email protected]

iLearn Technology

Kelly Tenkely started out as a teacher and turned into a technology integration specialist who started her own school, implementing all the inspirational new educational techniques available. The blog focuses mainly on implementing technology in the classroom using various tools, but also ideas around education. As with any blog you will use whatever material and ideas you see fit to implement in your classroom.

Score: Activity 21, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 21

Total Score: 83.5

Twitter: @ktenkeley

I’m a Girl Who Codes

The site is full of inspiring stories about young women who have found success in the world of coding. You will find stories of young women who used coding to start businesses or to find hope in homelessness.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 24, Helpfulness 24, Authority 25

Total Score: 98

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @GirlsWhoCode

Instructional Tech Talk

Jeff Herb presents a potpourri of videos, podcasts, and articles about the effective use of technology tools. Recently he has shared strategies for using Ozobot, as well as tips for the use of online videos in the classroom.

Score: Activity 17, Originality 21.5, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 20.5

Total Score: 80.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @jeffherb

Inside Higher Ed

This is a site that everyone in higher education should bookmark because it has posts about virtually everything in the field. With an area that goes to other blogs and articles, it is like a search engine just for those in the industry.

Score:  Active 25, Original 20., Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total: 88.5

Twitter: @InsideHigherEd

Inspired Instruction: Videos from the Teaching Channel  

This excellent blog shares useful videos from the teaching channel, offering ideas for what to incorporate into your classroom. One of the best blogs for easy implementation of tools shared thanks to the videos that make it easy to see exactly how to implement it.

Score: Activity 18, Originality 18, Helpfulness 18, Authority 18

Total Score: 72

International Student Blog

Designed to help international students, this blog focuses on the issues, concerns, and news specific to the niche. Whether you need advice on socializing in a new country, tips on traveling, or what to expect over the various holidays around the world, it is a great place for those who are learning outside of their home country.

Score:  Active 22, Original 23, Helpfulness 21, Authority 19.7

Total: 85.7

Twitter: @IntStudent

ISTE EdTekHub

A recognized leader in educational technology, ISTE analyzes current trends in areas such as coding and Virtual Reality. Updated daily, the blog will keep you up-to-date on the changing world of edtech.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 23, Helpfulness 23, Authority 24.5

Total Score: 95.5

Twitter: @isteconnects

Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch

Educational technologist Kathy Schrock shares her discoveries and insights about educational technology and its impact in the classroom. Recent blog posts offer ideas for using Pokemon Go in the classroom and for creating 360° images with a cell phone.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 90.5

Twitter: @kathyschrock

Email: [email protected]

Kleinspiration

Author and award-winning educator Erin Klein provides practical strategies to increase student achievement and engagement with technology. She earns top marks for her engaging and relevant website.

Score: Activity 22, Originality 23, Helpfulness 22.9, Authority 24

Total Score: 92%

Twitter: @KleinErin

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

Larry Ferlazzo has another blog and this one, too, is helpful for teachers. Especially if you want to stay up to date with the latest news regarding teaching practices and studies on what’s effective in the classroom as Ferlazzo scours the net on an almost daily basis for news to share and also expresses his own opinions. The focus is ESL, ELL and EFL.

Score: Activity 25, Originality 21, Helpfulness 21, Authority 25

Total Score: 92

Twitter: @larryferlazzo

Learning in Hand

Tony Vincent’s technology blog has been around since the 1990s, and it’s still a treasure trove of advice and resources today. Recently he provides tips for teacher iPad use and formative assessment tools.

Score: Activity 24, Originality 20.5, Helpfulness 21, Authority 22

Total Score: 87.5

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @tonyvincent

Learning with ‘e’s

Steve Wheeler, a professor of educational technology, explores our changing culture and the ways teachers must adapt to it. His blog features periodic interviews with education influencers.

Score: Activity 20, Originality 20, Helpfulness 22.5, Authority 23

Total Score: 85.5

Twitter: @timbuckteeth

Logorrhea

As the name suggests, this is a blog that tends to go all over the place, hitting both high profile and more obscure topics in higher education. There is a lot of advice in that can help you keep things in perspective through some of the most difficult situations.

Score:  Active 17, Original 23, Help 18, Authority 17.5

Total: 75.5

Twitter: @DavidJHinson

Well, that’s it for letters I-L. Did we miss any?

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