A collection of resources to support K‑12 students, their parents/caregivers, teachers, and adult learners. A collection of professional learning and teacher resources for K‑12 educators.
Sustained investment in K-12 schools has been shown to improve children’s performance in the classroom and increase their future earnings, with students from low income families showing more pronounced benefits.
As with any educational resource, there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with using OERs in the classroom. expanded access to learning. Students anywhere in the world can access OERs at any time, and they can access the material repeatedly.
Internal and external issues that arise in the classroom can negatively affect learning outcomes. Whether it’s deescalating a conflict or working through a life problem that is getting in the way of a student’s learning, you should be prepared to take on challenges and know how to best approach the situation.
A collection of resources to support K‑12 students, their parents/caregivers, teachers, and adult learners.
A collection of professional learning and teacher resources for K‑12 educators.
To understand how teachers are spending their time today and how that might change in a more automated world, we surveyed more than 2,000 teachers in four countries with high adoption rates for education technology: Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 8 8.
The area with the biggest automation potential is one that teachers deal with before they even get to the classroom: preparation. Across the four countries we studied, teachers spend an average of 11 hours a week in preparation activities. We estimate that effective use of technology could cut the time to just six hours.
What will teachers do with the additional 13 hours a week saved by the application of technology? Some of this time, hopefully, will be given back to teachers themselves—to spend time with their families and their communities—thus increasing the attractiveness of teaching as a profession.
All of this begs a question: How will we capture the promise of technology in our schools? The good news is that this is not about technology we have not yet invented. It will not require AI systems that pass the Turing test. To the contrary, achieving these savings in teacher time is mostly about adoption of existing education technology.
Jake Bryant is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Washington, DC, office, Christine Heitz is a consultant in the Denver office, Saurabh Sanghvi is an associate partner in the Silicon Valley office, and Dilip Wagle is a senior partner in the Seattle office.
Advantages of using OERs include: expanded access to learning. Students anywhere in the world can access OERs at any time, and they can access the material repeatedly. scalability.
Unlike textbooks and other static sources of information, OERs can be improved quickly through direct editing by users or through solicitation and incorporation of user feedback. Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER available for others to use.
Adopting OERs in the classroom involves additional work on the part of faculty, instructional designers, editors, digital rights specialists, and others in order to find the OERs, adapt/modify them, check them for accessibility, verify any copyright issues, publish the resources in the institution’s LMS, and so forth. These are issues that many colleges and universities have little experience with.
Instructors can take an existing OER, adapt it for a class, and make the modified OER available for others to use. Disadvantages of OERs include: quality issues. Since many OER repositories allow any user to create an account and post material, some resources may not be relevant and/or accurate.
Presenting information in multiple formats may help students to more easily learn the material being taught. increase student interaction with course resources. Students can interact directly with OERs in a way that commercial textbooks don’t allow.
The use of OERs instead of traditional textbooks or course packs, etc. can substantially reduce the cost of course materials for students. showcasing of innovation and talent. A wide audience may learn of faculty research interests and expertise.
sustainability issues. Since OER creators generally do not receive any type of payment for their OER, there may be little incentive for them to update their OER or to ensure that it will continue to be available online.
Here are six soft skills that may be beneficial for K-12 teachers, along with tips and resources for developing them. 1. Leadership. Regardless of the age level of your students, it’s important for you to possess leadership skills that help you work effectively with and garner respect from students, parents, school management, and the community. ...
Good listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills are the signs of a successful teacher. To be sure that everyone understands your expectations, you should present materials with clarity and provide feedback effectively.
According to MindTools, soft skills are important because, “While your technical skills may get your foot in the door, your people skills are what open most of the doors to come. Your work ethic, your attitude, your communication skills, your emotional intelligence, and a whole host of other personal attributes are the soft skills ...
Leadership ability helps ensure that you, your colleagues, and your students are working toward clear goals and desired educational outcomes. Teachers with strong leadership skills play a large role in today’s schools. Being able to support faculty and students, both formally and informally, adds to the capacity for a school to improve. Whether a resource provider, a mentor, or an innovative visionary, leadership aptitude may help you improve student outcomes.
For example, the merged city-suburban school district of Louisville and Jefferson County in Kentucky started controlled choice in the 1990’s allowing students to transfer out of neighborhood schools so that all schools would enroll a student body between 15 – 50 percent Black — about 15 percentage points above or below the overall enrollment of Black students in the district. The school district has been able to meet diversity goals for the vast majority of its schools while receiving broad support from parents and students. A 2011 survey found that nine out of ten parents agreeing that school district’s guidelines should “ensure that students learn with students from different races and socioeconomic backgrounds.”
This is needed because the research shows money has the largest impact in education when it’s directed to high-poverty areas. Several recent studies show that increased K-12 funding in many states during the 1970s through 2000s resulted in notably improved achievement by low-income students. Sustained investment in K-12 schools has been shown to improve children’s performance in the classroom and increase their future earnings, with students from low income families showing more pronounced benefits. For example, a recent study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics shows that when increases are sustained over a 12 year period, students are more likely to complete high school, their average adult wages goes up, and the likelihood that they’ll be living in poverty goes down.
Chronic absenteeism has been shown to have significant negative impacts on student performance and graduation rates. This includes negative impacts on math and reading scores as early as kindergarten, and is correlated to lower assessment scores in later grades. Chronic absenteeism also diminishes one’s eagerness to learn, increases feelings of isolation, and is an early indicator of dropping out of high school.
Private school vouchers and educational savings accounts can be particularly harmful if they are designed in ways that exclude students from low income families. For example, in many programs, the dollar value of the voucher falls far below private school tuition costs, and when you factor in additional costs like transportation and uniforms, it effectively excludes students from low-income families. At the same time, not all programs target funds to students from low-income families or with special education needs. The result is a public subsidy to families who can already afford the majority of private school costs at the exclusion of those who can’t. That’s a recipe for making the challenges of high poverty schools worse, not better.
These attendance and retention challenges can lead to students dropping out of school or not graduating high school on time.
Students in high poverty schools do worse on standardized tests, are more likely to be chronically absent during the school year, more likely to be held back in their grade, and less likely to graduate on-time.
The lack of sufficient resources and offerings represents a lost opportunity for our children, communities, and the future economy of Virginia. This needs to be addressed by Virginia leaders by better targeting resources to high poverty schools and by promoting enrollment policies that encourage racially and economically diverse schools. At the same time, they should also be skeptical of using public funds for private schools, particularly if funding is not targeted to low income students or the benefit is inadequate for tuition as that can further segregate schools.
On the whole, the teachers were less enthusiastic about the potential impact of having access to a learning expert to help assess students’ needs or acquiring more knowledge about neuroscience and brain development.
Overall, 61 percent of the teachers said they believe they currently are able to differentiate their instruction to address their students’ diverse learning abilities. However, that percentage was considerably lower among math teachers (46 percent) and teachers who work in schools that don’t have a high proportion of graduates who attend college (50 percent).
The survey found that, among students with diverse learning needs, low-income students and students who had been told by a teacher or other adult that they have a learning problem or disability were the least likely to say their needs are being well-served by their schools. In addition, by high school age, the boys surveyed tended to have lower educational expectations than the girls, the survey shows. ―
Teachers: Schools Lack Resources for Diverse-Needs Students. A large majority of U.S. teachers believe that schools are not doing enough to prepare students with diverse learning needs for success after high school, according to a recent nationwide survey.
A large majority of U.S. teachers believe that schools are not doing enough to prepare students with diverse learning needs for success after high school, according to a recent nationwide survey.