Technology

Effective Grading Practices - Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP)

What Schools Can Do Right Now to Ensure Effective Grading Practices

Presenter linkDouglas Reeves
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Categories: Assessment, Pandemic Response and Educational Practices, Technology

This entry is the ninth in a blog series called Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP), which aims to highlight and further the important work educators are doing amid the worldwide COVID-19 crisis.

Based on FAST Grading: A Guide to Implementing Best Practices

With almost all schools in the United States and Canada closed, and countless more around the world, leaders and policymakers share a legitimate concern about educational equity in grading. While some students have been able to continue their lessons with online learning, many others cannot. Some families lack computers and internet connectivity. Other families have a computer and internet service, but with parents and siblings all competing for the same computer and bandwidth, it is almost impossible for any individual child to have continuous access to online learning.  Read more

Adapting to COVID-19 Teaching

Presenter linkJeremy Adams
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Pandemic Response and Educational Practices, Technology

This entry is the first in a blog series called Pandemic Response and Educational Practices (PREP), which aims to highlight and further the important work educators are doing amid the worldwide COVID-19 crisis.

Based on Riding the Wave.

Teachers are used to standing at the water’s edge, peering into the distance and seeing wave after wave of change coming their way. It can certainly be daunting.

Usually, teachers can correctly gauge how much time they have before these waves come crashing over them. Read more

Managing Your Class, No Matter the Size

Are You a YouTube Recommendation Engine for Your Students?

Presenter linkWilliam M. Ferriter
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Categories: Technology

Let’s start with a simple question: are your students spending any of their free time watching videos on YouTube?

Here’s the answer: most likely.

While there is little direct statistical evidence of YouTube use by elementary-aged children, 81 percent of parents of children under age 11 who were surveyed report that their children are consuming content on the popular video-sharing website.

Marketing companies—who produce some of the most detailed statistics on YouTube use—report that 74 percent of kids between the ages of 12 and 24 use YouTube on a weekly basis, that YouTube captures about 30 percent of the total screen time of teenage users, and that the average teen spends about an hour each day watching YouTube.

Now another question: do you know what kind of YouTube videos your students are watching? Read more

To Increase Student Motivation, Focus on Real-World, Project-Based Learning

Presenter linkSuzie Boss
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Categories: 21st Century Skills, Instruction, Technology

Based on Implementing Project-Based Learning

When Hurricane Harvey flooded neighborhoods and destroyed property in Houston, Texas, teachers didn’t take long to turn the natural disaster into meaningful learning. In schools across the Humble Independent School District, students engaged in a wide range of projects that focused on protecting and restoring the Lake Houston Watershed—using drones to survey riverbanks, inventing devices to filter drinking water, and participating in hands-on conservation efforts.

These students have no reason to ask the tired question, “When will we ever need to know this?” Read more