Recent articles
5 Tips for Checking Student Understanding in a Virtual Classroom
01/08/2021
Topics: Assessment, ISTE Certification, ISTE Standards
“I’m staring at a bunch of black screens.”
“I’ve never even met my students in person.”
“If I can’t see them, how can I tell if they’ve learned the material?”
These statements illustrate just a few of the many struggles that educators around the…
Citizen Science: Students Find Climate Change Clues in Their Own Backyards
12/22/2020
Topics: NASA, STEM
Scientists have always been reluctant to attribute extreme weather events to climate change. Weather is different from climate, they say, and extreme variations aren’t unusual.
However, climate change…
Adapting Learning Science for Unprecedented Times
11/18/2020
Topics: Learning sciences
Longer class times to encourage creative teaching. Fewer courses to minimize cognitive overload. More time for socializing with peers and working on passion projects.
Grounded in the most promising…
Familiar Tools Offer New Tricks for K-12 Educators
11/12/2020
Topics: ISTE Conference & Expo
When the question is about making online learning engaging, Leslie Fisher has a lot of ideas. As a student, school was just something to get through. When she went to college, she discovered the joys of…
It’s Time to Re-Evaluate K-12 Assessments
11/10/2020
Topics: Assessment, Online learning
Like many aspects of education, assessments have looked the same for a long time. Typically they take the form of an end-of-unit test or something more immediate, like a quiz using a digital platform like…
Design Challenges Engage Students by Tapping Their Creativity
09/28/2020
Topics: STEM & STEAM
Years ago, Tim Needles quit giving homework to his art students at Smithtown East High School on Long Island, New York. Instead, he gave them optional “creative challenges.”
Such a challenge could…
5 Reasons Why It Is More Important Than Ever to Teach Creativity
09/02/2020
Topics: Creativity
On the laundry list of skills and content areas teachers have to cover, creativity doesn’t traditionally get top billing. It’s usually lumped together with other soft skills like communication and collaboration…
Act now: Ask Congress to fund online learning PD!
08/11/2020
Topics: Advocacy and funding
As states and districts continue preparing for the upcoming school year, national data reveal the critical need to support educators’ capacity to deliver effective and equitable online learning experiences. For…
NASA makes a game of trying to save world’s coral reefs
06/10/2020
Topics: citizen science, ISTE Standards for Students, NASA
NASA’s latest citizen science project is a serious global endeavor cloaked in a video game.
The…
9 resources for teaching anti-racism
06/03/2020
Topics: digital equity
How do you nurture anti-racism in children? Can educators and parents teach young people to see past their unconscious bias and ingrained beliefs to truly empathize with peers of color? How can white educators…