Key points:

• Gamification can encourage students to take ownership of their learning
• Game-based learning promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment
• See related article: Digital tools are sticking around–here’s the right way to leverage technology
• For more news on gamification, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page

Students don’t have to be video game fanatics to appreciate a gamified classroom lesson. When teachers turn a lesson or tough-to-teach concept into a motivational gamed or use a fun competition to teach new concepts, students become immersed in their learning and are often more engaged–meaning they’re more likely to retain information.

Still, there’s an art to gamifying a lesson and ensuring that students are actually learning instead of just playing a game for points.

Here’s how educators across the country are using tools–from Minecraft: Education Edition to Roblox and easy-to-access online resources–to gamify their lessons and help students engage with learning.

1. Carrie Rosenberg, a fourth grade teacher at Community Christian School, notes that gamification is one of the biggest education trends right now. According to ISTE, “gamification is about transforming the classroom environment and regular activities into a game.” Many students want more than just good grades from school–they want something physical or immediate. Rosenberg uses Gimkit, Kahoot!, and Prodigy to gamify her instruction and motivate students. Learn more about her instructional strategies.

2. Games are part of many people’s lives–so why not use them to benefit students when teaching? Abigail Beran, a fifth grade teacher enrolled in a masters program in education technology, knows that her students are more likely to engage in an educational activity when it is gamified–and that they’re even more likely to do so when the activity is gamified with technology. There are a variety of reading and math apps and websites that cater to gamification, and even provide the opportunity for differentiation. Beran uses tools including Raz Kids, Dreamscapes, Prodigy English, and IXL language arts for English/language arts gamification, and uses Prodigy Math, Math Playground, Pet Bingo, Sushi Monster, and IXL math for gamifying math. Discover how she integrates these gamified tools into her classroom.

3. As an educator for more 27 years and a digital learning specialist (social studies) for the past 7 years in Atlanta Public Schools, Felisa Ford has supported educators across the district and beyond as they purposefully integrate technology in the classroom to promote engagement and 21^st century skill development. While there are many tools and resources available to educators to support their efforts to create dynamic digital learning environments, one of the most engaging is Minecraft Education Edition (M:EE). Popular among students (and teachers!), M:EE is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. Read about five ways Ford has helped the district’s teachers use M:EE into classroom instruction.

Key points:

• Immersive opportunities make high frequency words stick and keep students engaged
• Mastering high frequency words helps students grow into proficient readers
• See related article: How efficacy studies improve literacy instruction
• For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

If you were to poll an audience of educators–classroom teachers, literacy specialists, reading researchers, and university professors–about whether high frequency words should be taught in early elementary, the resounding answer would be YES. These words, after all, are important to students’ ultimate reading success.

The nuances of teaching high frequency words in early elementary would only arise around how these words should be taught.

Luckily, there is a plethora of best practice research and engaging, tech-enabled activities on teaching high frequency words to help teachers make it both a fun and interesting learning experience for young students.

Understanding high frequency words

Before teaching about high frequency words, it is important to understand how they differ from sight words. While these categories of words are often used interchangeably and can cross pollinate, high frequency words are words that appear most frequently in spoken and written language. Sight words, on the other hand, are those words that students recognize by sight–without the need to stop and decode the word–when reading.

For example, “the” is a high frequency word as well as a sight word for many people. “Email” is not a high frequency word, but is often a sight word. Classmates’ names often become sight words for students. Kindergarten students who are still emergent readers during the first semester will quickly learn their name by sight, as well as their classmates’ names (…and, they often get a great sense of satisfaction when recognizing and reading each other’s names!)

When it comes to choosing the actual words that are considered high frequency words, the educational community has embraced three different lists of words: the Dolch, Zeno, and Fry high frequency word lists. These lists have many shared words, and there is no research that says one list supersedes the other. Any of the lists or teaching a combination of the lists should still help produce successful readers.

Strategies for teaching emerging readers high frequency words

There are hundreds of ways to teach high frequency words and the majority of those ways fall into two instructional categories: memorization and phonics integration.

Both of these instructional strategies lead to students learning and quickly recalling many, many words–both high frequency words and sight words–with automaticity. This is called orthographic mapping, which is essentially a progression of warehousing words permanently in a student’s memory for immediate retrieval.

With memorization, teachers can create fun–and effective–learning opportunities for students as long as a few rules are applied. First, it is important to eliminate distractions so that the focus is on the high frequency word. Distractions can include other words printed around the target word, and having accompanying pictures with a word. For example, a picture of a girl in a swing holding her cat can be distracting when the target word is “with.”

It is also important for teachers to say the high frequency word clearly multiple times and to put the word in a sentence for contextual understanding. Providing students with the opportunity to write the word, so they are making the physical connection to the spoken word, is also important.  

There are a number of digital flashcard apps teachers can use to help students memorize high frequency words. The flashcards can also be shown to the whole class using projectors or interactive displays as part of a whole group activity.

Creating “sounds walls” in the classroom–whether on a bulletin board or digital display–highlighting four to five high frequency words is another great way to help students visualize, practice, and memorize target words. Each week, the words can be swapped out with new ones for them to learn.

Another strategy for teaching high frequency words is through integrating the words into phonics lessons. It will help if teachers pick high frequency words that integrate with the phonics skills they are covering. For example, when teaching the phonic element /s/, it can be valuable to include the high frequency word “said,” even if the vowel irregularity of /ai/ hasn’t been taught yet. If students are learning /s/ and maybe even /d/, they will be excited and motivated to apply this knowledge to learning and remembering a new word.

With either memorization or phonics integration, teachers can play a quiz game with students in which teams compete to come up with answers to questions about high frequency words. Or, they can have students participate in racetrack-style board games where two or more players move markers along the spaces of a path from start to finish. At each stop, the player must read a word and use it correctly in a sentence in order to stay on that space. Technology, whether through the use of apps or student devices, can easily be incorporated into both of these game-based activities to make the experiences even more engaging.

Regardless of which instructional strategy is used to teach high frequency words, it is important that students are immersed and active participants in the learning experience. This means that students should be hearing, saying, reading and writing high frequency words consistently within foundational lessons. These immersive opportunities are what make the words stick and what keep students engaged. And, it’s the ultimate mastery of high frequency words that will enable young students to grow into proficient readers. 

FALL RIVER – Fall River Public Schools announced an innovative new partnership with Ignite Reading to deliver virtual, one-to-one literacy tutoring for 300 first grade students in six schools this fall. Nationally, Ignite Reading’s students have recorded an average of over two weeks of reading progress per week, with no achievement gap for students of color, students with IEPs, multilingual learners, or students receiving free or reduced-price lunches. 

Ignite Reading officials joined Fall River leaders and students at Mary L. Fonseca Elementary today to showcase the nationally recognized program. The demonstration was followed by a Q&A session. Ignite Reading is now serving students in 60 schools across the commonwealth. 

“We’re thrilled to announce a new innovative collaboration with Ignite Reading. Given how participating students have bolstered their foundational reading skills in Massachusetts and nationally with Ignite Reading, we are optimistic that this program will supercharge literacy progress in Fall River,” said Stephanie Kennedy, Director of English Language Arts K-12 of Fall River Public Schools.

“Partnering with Ignite Reading has given us the opportunity to provide high-dose tutoring to our students in a way that would not otherwise be possible,” said Dr. Tracy Curley, Assistant Superintendent/Chief Academic Officer of Fall River Public Schools.

Ignite Reading pairs students with expert tutors who deliver daily, 15-minute, Science of Reading-based instruction to help them master the key foundational skills that equip them to become independent readers.The one-to-one virtual program is seamlessly integrated into the school day and takes the burden off teachers by providing individualized instruction for every student. 

The company is now teaching thousands of students to read across eight states with further plans to expand nationwide. In addition to Massachusetts, Ignite Reading is partnering with schools and districts to serve thousands of students in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, New York, and Oregon this fall.

“We’re excited to expand our collaboration with Fall River schools to equip hundreds of local students with enhanced literacy skills. Through Ignite Reading’s one-to-one tutoring model,  students nationwide are surpassing expected benchmarks, achieving more than two weeks of reading progress for every week in the program. In addition to improved literacy, we’re also witnessing a significant and positive social-emotional impact. It’s a privilege to serve Fall River’s exceptional students, families, and educational institutions,” said Jessica Reid Sliwerski, Founder & CEO of Ignite Reading.

About Ignite Reading 

Ignite Reading’s mission is to ensure that every student is a confident, independent reader by the end of first grade. The organization was co-founded by CEO Jessica Reid Sliwerski and Evan Marwell, Executive Chairman of Ignite and CEO of EducationSuperHighway. Ignite Reading pairs schools with a dedicated literacy specialist and a team of virtual reading tutors, all highly trained in the Science of Reading, who deliver 1:1 daily instruction to students focused on their specific decoding gaps. Ignite’s data-driven approach, provided by caring and skilled tutors, gives kids the know-how and confidence they need to thrive as fluent readers. The Ignite Reading program, delivered 15 minutes per day during a school’s literacy block, takes the burden of differentiated instruction off of teachers and has an impact immediately. For more information about Ignite Reading, visit: www.ignite-reading.com

About Fall River Public Schools

As an urban Gateway district in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the student population of the Fall River Public Schools (FRPS) is ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. Of the 10,987 scholars in Fall River Public Schools, 86% of students are identified as High Needs.  Of all students, 23.1% are English learners, 25.9% are students with disabilities, and 79.9% percent are economically disadvantaged.  Our student population is 44.1% white, 31.8% Hispanic, 11.9% African American,  8.7% multi-race/non-Hispanic, 3.3% Asian, and 0.2% Native American.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

Children get one childhood, and time is one of the most precious resources we have in schools. For these reasons, I am increasingly frustrated that I have next to no power to stop my own children from wasting their time in front of a computer screen.

That’s because screens are where they are expected to access and complete their schoolwork and homework. My children are assigned to watch online videos and answer questions about them in an online form. Their grades reflect their responses.  

No doubt, this assigned screen time probably comes from a good place. Teachers want to provide students with experiences they will enjoy. Why give students a reading that they may not do when you could give them a video they are more likely to watch?

Watch enough videos and students begin to believe that learning must be passively entertaining and that the best way to take in new information is through streaming content. The most compelling story is often not the most truthful one, but the one that is the most slickly produced. 

I don’t want that for my children. I want my children to enjoy the challenges of learning, to take in multiple sources, and to ask good questions about everything they engage with. I don’t want them on autopilot, screening their way through childhood. 

UNESCO recently published a book titled “An Ed-Tech Tragedy?” and it is sobering. This book spells out how pandemic school shutdowns resulted in massive learning losses. It also highlights the costs, in terms of mental health, of spending so much time on screens. 

For years, educational technologists have cast personalized online learning as an answer to what plagues education. But even when ed tech was needed most, these tools did not always rise to the occasion. They couldn’t take the place of teachers, peers, and classroom conversations. And our reliance on them has instilled terrible habits in teachers and students.

Parents were rightly frustrated and angry when their children were robbed of the opportunity to attend school because of pandemic lockdowns. It is not good for a child to be away from their peers and in front of screens. Key social, emotional, and intellectual skills are lost when this happens. That’s why we must not replicate the worst aspects of school lockdowns now that children are back in school. Children should spend time engaging their teacher and each other–making eye contact and appreciating what can only be learned through human presence–not retreating back into the safe, solitary spaces of their devices.

Their schoolwork should have them engaging with what is best in our culture, not what is most convenient or entertaining. This means reading challenging texts with students and doing the work of helping them develop their voices in relation to these texts. However, educators seem to be having a hard time remembering that distance learning was the best we could think to do during the lockdown, not a best practice that we should continue.

I am not afraid to mourn all that was lost because of the pandemic. Children suffered tremendously, and schools across the country will be dealing with the academic, social, and emotional fallout for years to come. My grieving process involves honoring my hopes and fears from the middle of the pandemic. I promised myself then that if we ever got back to normal, I wouldn’t take the physical presence of my students for granted. I would look at their unmasked faces and try to communicate how much I appreciated that we were together. 

Screens, and the illusion of engagement they offer, get in the way of this type of lived gratitude, and they distract us from what matters.

To be clear, teachers’ lives in schools are often tremendously difficult. Many educators are demoralized and under-appreciated, but an over-reliance on screens will not make the work of teaching more rewarding or valued. It’s human connections that make teaching an endlessly rewarding calling. I know this from my own classrooms and my experience training future teachers. 

As much as I may internally complain about having to pick up all the little Lego pieces, Magna-Tiles, and wooden blocks that my boys leave scattered around the house at the end of a long day, I know that this type of embodied play is the foundation of a good childhood. And as hard as it might be to listen–really listen–to the stories my daughters tell as they process their day at school (and not just let my mind wander to all the items on my to-do list), there is no greater gift we can give children than our fullest attention.

I am not a perfect parent or teacher, but I do know that I am at my best when I am present. And I know that screens keep me from offering my full presence. I wish I had more power to keep them out of schools because I know my children–and all of our children–deserve better.

For more news on teaching trends, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

Key points:

• When students feel supported, they’re more likely to share their struggles
• Mental health partnerships can better support students and staff
• See related article: How to build relationships with students
• Get the latest news on student and staff well-being by visiting eSN’s SEL & Well-Being page

Belonging is a fundamental human need. We are all searching for a sense of connection with the people and places in our lives. Students and school staff are no different, so it’s crucial to ensure learning environments foster a sense of belonging.

When students have a strong sense of belonging, they are more likely to be engaged in school and to perform well academically. Unfortunately, new data shows that only 62 percent of high school students feel connected to others at school, and nearly one-third of students experience poor mental health.

In addition, the latest federal data found that 33 percent of school leaders noticed an uptick in violence amongst students and students experiencing anxiety and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder over the last year–many attribute the increase to the pandemic and its lingering effects. There’s simply no time to waste; we must make our schools welcoming, safe spaces for students and staff alike.

Build trusting relationships with students to create a culture of belonging

Trust is the cornerstone of belonging. Students need us to be accessible, dependable, and trustworthy. When students trust us, they’ll be more willing to be honest about their struggles and help us stay in tune with what’s happening in the halls that we don’t see.

Celebrate student backgrounds and cultures

Celebrating cultures is more than just hosting an event; it’s about consistently honoring the ethnicity, background, and experiences of the students we serve. By recognizing the diverse backgrounds and cultural traditions of the school’s communities, we create avenues for students to share and celebrate their experiences openly.

Encouraging open dialogue and allowing students to lead discussions about their cultures fosters a climate of true inclusivity.  Celebrating and embracing students’ lived experiences greatly increases students’–and their family’s–feelings of belonging.

Engage the community as a partner

Schools that focus on belonging recognize the power of community engagement. For example, when a community member talks openly about a challenging topic, such as their family’s experience with substance abuse, it can create a sense of belonging and validation for students coping with a similar situation.  School advisory councils that involve students, families, and staff as decision-makers influence school operations and bridge the gap between students and their communities.

Empower school counselors through collaborative partnerships

Relationships take time to foster. Students need to be seen, and staff need the time to truly see them. When staff are overburdened, as many are nationwide, it hinders their ability to build meaningful relationships with students. And when a student needs care outside of the scope of school resources, staff are often tasked with finding the care they need. On average, it takes up to 60 phone calls to connect a student, family member, or staff member to the proper mental health resources.

That’s where partners providing mental health care coordination services come into play. Collaborations like this can alleviate the burden on school staff and save them countless hours of tedious work. What’s more, a third-party partner can also provide mental health support to school staff. School staff are the backbone of a school community, and their mental health and well-being are essential to a thriving school culture.

After a prolonged period of disconnection, building strong relationships is more important than ever. Dr. Bruce Perry, in his book The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook says, “Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love. People, not programs, change people.” As you reflect on the practices in your school community, remember that the trusting relationships we cultivate with students and staff members are the most powerful tool we have to create the sense of belonging.

About Sarah Mathew

Key points:

• Learner-centered education can play a critical role in education reform
• Changing instructional models often helps students become more engaged and immersed in their learning
• See related article: What data tells us about student-centered learning
• Get the latest news on teaching trends by visiting eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

School models are, for the most part, outdated–and very overdue for replacement. When students reach high school, research shows that close to 66 percent of students are disengaged. But even students who do successfully navigate their schooling emerge with only a specific (and often narrow) skillset that may or may not match their strengths or interests.

Conventional schooling often leaves students disillusioned, questioning their intelligence and value as it is framed by a system that needs an overhaul.

Learner-centered education can play a critical role in reshaping education systems, offering a more holistic approach to meeting learners’ needs and helping students find fulfillment in their academic accomplishments.

K-12 Value Networks: The Hidden Forces That Help or Hinder Learner-Centered Education, a report from the Clayton Christensen Institute and authored by CCI senior research fellow Thomas Arnett, offers insight into understanding why schools struggle to change their instructional models, along with tips to establish and support learner-centered education models.

Program leaders, sponsors, learners and their families, staff, community partners, and funders are all critical to the success of these learner-centered education models.

The report describes how five different learner-centered education models–The Met, Virtual Learning Academy Charter School, Iowa BIG, Village High School, and Embark Education–were able to launch and grow their models by assembling value networks congruent with their vision for learner-centered education.

1. The Met: The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, known as The Met, is a network of six small, public high schools located in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. The hallmark of The Met’s learner-centered model is that its learners go out in their communities for two days out of the week to lead real-world projects as interns for partner organizations. For example, learners might work with a local bakery, a law firm, a tech company, or a recording studio.

When learners join the Met, they and their families work with an advisor to identify their strengths, needs, and interests, and then develop an individualized learning plan with an internship as its centerpiece. Learners are responsible for researching potential internship opportunities and communicating with partner sites to arrange their internships. Advisors coach them as they do their research and outreach to ensure that internships match their needs and interests.

2. Virtual Learning Academy Charter School: The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS) is a statewide virtual school created in 2007 that serves K–12 learners throughout New Hampshire. The concept for the school came from the superintendent of the Exeter Region Cooperative School District, who saw an opportunity to take advantage of a new charter school law to apply for a statewide charter. Rather than create another conventional school, however, the superintendent recognized the distinctive value of using a virtual school model to offer a wide array of flexible, part-time and full-time learning options unavailable through brick-and-mortar campuses.

VLACS’s competency-based model is highly adaptable to learners’ needs and interests. It offers a range of options for learners to earn credits: through online courses, learner-designed projects, and out-of-school learning experiences such as internships and travel. Learners who take online courses move through those courses at their own pace and earn credit whenever they’re able to demonstrate mastery of designated competencies. For projects and other learning experiences, VLACS aligns these experiences with state learning standards and then measures learners’ mastery of standards using performance-based assessments.

3. Iowa BIG: A community conversation about the knowledge and skills young people need to become engaged and successful members of the community as adults was linked with an initiative to send 60 community leaders back to school alongside learners over a four-month period. Through this experience, the community leaders realized that most learners were disengaged in school. Partitioning content into discrete subjects and courses made the learning boring and the teaching hard. Meanwhile, the work learners did in school had little connection to real-world problems, careers, and citizenship. Then came the founding of Iowa BIG, a high school learning experience sponsored by four local districts that enables learners to earn core credits by doing authentic projects.

The typical day of an Iowa BIG learner is half conventional and half learner-centered. For part of the day—either the morning or the afternoon—learners attend their local high schools. Then for the other half of the day, they go to an Iowa BIG site for real-world learning experiences. The model works with partner companies and organizations across Cedar Rapids to conceptualize projects learners might complete. Learners then work with partners to co-design interdisciplinary projects that both align with the academic and life goals of the learner, as well as the business or nonprofit needs of the partner. Projects might include creating museum exhibits, helping optimize processes at a hospital, hydroponic farming, or developing a messaging campaign for an animal shelter.

4. Village High School: The Village diverges markedly from standard approaches to high school education. Its learners receive all of their core academic content–English, history, social studies, and math–through mastery-based online courses. This format eliminates the need for scheduled class times and allows learners to progress at their own pace and test out of modules that they already have expertise in. Online courses at Village High School create time and capacity for the most learner-centered features of its model: its array of in-person electives.

Often team-taught and generally in-person, these courses are inspired by teachers’ and learners’ own passions. They cover myriad different topics, often in an interdisciplinary format: from Adulting 101, Renewable Energy, and Beekeeping to Comparative Religions and International Relations. Many electives take advantage of the Village’s flexible format. For an elective on ceramics, learners spend an entire day every week working on ceramics projects; and one physical education elective takes learners out into the Colorado Rockies for hiking and rock climbing. The grading model in electives is also different–closer to a workplace evaluation than to conventional points earned on assignments and tests. Learners and teachers sit down together to discuss learners’ progress and work, and decide on a grade together.

5. Embark Education: Miguel Gonzalez, a career educator, launched Embark Education in 2019 out of a coffee shop and a bike shop in North Denver, CO. His goal was to create a learner-centered model at the intersection of authentic experiences and relationships. That goal translated into a private, tuition-free micro-school serving approximately 50 sixth- through eighth-grade learners. Embark’s two businesses, Pinwheel Coffee and Framework Cycles, enable learners to engage in projects that integrate academics with real-world questions. For example, while working on the practical skill of crafting the perfect cappuccino under the guidance of adult baristas, learners investigate the differing mathematical ratios of ingredients present in a latte versus a cappuccino, and the chemistry behind the extraction of caffeine from coffee beans.

These integrated “shop projects’’ include a combination of direct instruction within the three core academic disciplines (math, science, and humanities); personalized learner exploration; and practical work within the bike and coffee shops. They enable learners to master foundational academic skills while simultaneously experiencing the application of these skills in the world beyond the classroom. Learners’ projects for the businesses must contribute to the success of the businesses. For example, learners don’t work on problems that the businesses have already solved, such as having learners apply math and science to reinvent the latte. Instead, Embark’s leaders look for opportunities that leverage the unique advantage of having learners’ on site to make the businesses better than what they could do alone.

Key points:

• SEL is critical for students, and it should be a key part of before- and after-school programs
• SEL should be embedded throughout every program, starting with students’ arrival
• See related article: It’s critical to promote mental health supports at the start of the school year

Incorporating social and emotional learning (SEL) throughout the school day has risen in popularity over the last few years, especially to counteract the increasing rates of anxiety and depression in students since the COVID-19 pandemic. Lost in the discussion, however, is the importance of before- and after-school programs–the bookends of the school day. 

These before- and after-school programs dedicate a significant amount of time to activities that can help students develop social-emotional skills. In fact, a 2021 survey of program providers found that in addition to academic enrichment, 86 percent of programs give young people the time to interact with their peers and build social skills. Plus, students themselves report that 80 percent of the programs give the students time to talk with peers and adults about how they’re feeling. Yet, staff may not approach every interaction with intention to foster social and emotional growth.

Before- and after-school programs offer critical support, including caring and supportive mentors, as well as safe spaces where students build confidence and a sense of belonging. They also provide opportunities to work collaboratively, problem solve, and think critically. SEL skills are not separate from those activities–SEL is not sprinkled on the cupcake; it’s part of the cupcake. Before- and after-school programs must make every interaction more intentional to complement classroom learning.

These programs help children develop strong social skills, gain self-control and confidence, improve work habits and grades, and build healthy relationships with peers–all the things we want young people to have to be successful. But to ensure that these programs are set up for success, there are two essential questions every program coordinator should ask: “How well do I know my students?” and “How can I ensure my program meets their needs?” 

Running an effective program

SEL should be embedded throughout every program, starting with students’ arrival. How do you greet students when they show up? When a student hears a caring adult say their name, it instills a sense of belonging, supporting self-awareness.  

An overview of the schedule at the beginning of the program is important. Kids need to learn how to self-manage and regulate their emotions. For a young person who is excited for the craft part of the program, understanding what else is on the agenda is key to them mastering the skills of self-management and self-awareness.

The actual activity is when the rubber meets the road. As program directors and administrators, we need to analyze the activities–how much time are they alone, in small groups and in large groups. It is important to outline the program activities so students have an opportunity to participate in all three options and balance between them. As students develop, they must know how to interact at all three levels. If you find that some students don’t perform in large groups, you may have to reevaluate how well you know your students. For example, if behavior problems spike when you do large groups, maybe the answer is that you have too many students in these groups.

Finally, do you have a clearly defined dismissal policy? This is an ideal opportunity to introduce students to social awareness. When your program has an established system of welcoming and dismissing students, it demonstrates consistency. It also helps young people see how their individual behavior fits into the overall success of the program. This is a key component of social awareness, where students understand how they fit into the larger community in various ways. Additionally, it’s a way to model other ways they use social awareness for example while leaving a store or restaurant. It’s a reminder that the SEL skills developed in school are useful in all aspects of life.

For students, SEL is not just limited to the classroom. Before- and after-school programs play an equally important role. With every interaction between staff and students, these bookends to students’ days provide the opportunities to hone these competencies and grow, if there is consistency and intention in programs’ approach.

Key points:

• ChatGPT is here to stay, and it’s wise to now consider it a part of learning
• In fact, every assignment moving forward must be graded with ChatGPT in mind
• See related article: How educators can navigate AI-driven plagiarism

You may have heard of ChatGPT. According to Google, about 350,000 articles have been written on the subject, and a significant percentage are related to education. With so much publicity, it is reasonable to assume that all students from middle school through post-secondary are aware of its power. Whether you like it or not, we have a new partner in the classroom.

Many primers on ChatGPT are available, but I want to focus on teachers’ and students’ concerns about using it in the classroom. Some schools (such as the entire NYC public school district) have attempted to ban it entirely, while others such as Yale have taken the opposite approach. In my opinion, attempting to ban anything in the world of ubiquitous cell phones is a waste of time and effort. Students are ingenious, especially when it comes to getting around the rules. From a search of articles, both scholarly and in mainstream media, the approach I am suggesting has not yet been proposed. I came upon it while thinking about the eternal pedagogical problem: how to grade group projects.

It is well-documented and often repeated in teachers’ professional development that the right type of co-learning can deepen understanding and long-term knowledge gains. The critical question is, “What is the right type of co-learning?” Sometimes group projects work well. Sometimes one partner does all the work and another just coasts along for the ride. How are teachers supposed to grade these efforts? Give everyone the same grade? Let students grade each other’s contributions? Try to guess how much time each student put in? There is no perfect solution.

And that, in a nutshell, is where we find ourselves with ChatGPT. From now on, every assignment must be explicitly graded as a partner project with ChatGPT. Individual essays, science fair partner projects, group programming assignments, digital and physical art pieces–every single assignment from now on has a silent partner.

Of course, this does not mean that every student will use ChatGPT on every assignment. What it does mean is that we must assume that they might. We must transfer the responsibility of evaluating how much of the work is original from the teacher to the student, and we must explicitly teach students how to take on that responsibility. ChatGPT might be the partner that did everything, the partner that didn’t show up, or somewhere in between. Despite many efforts, there will never be a tool that can evaluate how much of an assignment was influenced by AI. I will even double down by saying not only will there not be such a tool, there should not be such a tool.

This leads to the most important question: If no such tool exists, how can educators know how much help the students received? How do we evaluate their knowledge? The answer: we ask them. We need to give that responsibility back to the students. We are their partners in learning, not their masters, and it is our job to help them understand what they are learning and how, not to police and punish them for using tools we don’t fully understand or feel comfortable with.

It is time for educators to treat ChatGPT as an unreliable partner in all assignments and to provide a way for students to let us know how much help they received. I specify an unreliable partner because there is no way to know where ChatGPT got its information for any single response. It uses a mathematical model of likely words, not research. It’s basically auto-complete on steroids. ChatGPT is like a classmate who has read extensively and is really confident about everything they say but can’t remember exactly where they got their information from. It could be an academic publication or it could be a conspiracy website. And that is how we should treat it – a partner who sounds like they know what they are talking about but still needs to be fact-checked.

I would like to propose the following sample rubric based on how partners might rate each other in real life:

Category	Student-Driven	Moderate ChatGPT Help	ChatGPT-Driven
Topic Selection and Thesis Formulation	Student independently selected the essay topic and formulated the thesis. ChatGPT input (if any) was limited to guidance, suggestions, and corrections.	ChatGPT assisted in refining the essay topic or thesis statement, but the initial idea was student-generated.	The essay topic and thesis statement were primarily or entirely suggested or formulated by ChatGPT.
Research and Data Collection	Student conducted all research and collected supporting evidence independently or with minimal ChatGPT consultation.	ChatGPT assisted in finding sources or evidence but did not do the research for the student.	ChatGPT conducted the majority or all of the research and data collection.
Analysis and Argumentation	Student independently analyzed data and evidence to build arguments supporting the thesis. ChatGPT may have provided guidance on analytical methods.	ChatGPT assisted in the analysis and argumentation but did not build the argument for the student.	ChatGPT primarily or completely analyzed the data and constructed the argument.
Writing and Structure	The essay’s structure, including the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion, was formulated by the student. ChatGPT involvement was limited to feedback and suggestions.	ChatGPT assisted in structuring the essay or improving its readability, but the content and organization were student-generated.	The essay was primarily or entirely structured and written by ChatGPT.
Final Draft and Editing	Student independently revised and edited the essay. ChatGPT may have provided minor suggestions for improvement.	Student utilized ChatGPT for more significant revisions and editing but maintained original thought and structure.	ChatGPT conducted the majority or all of the revisions and editing.

This rubric could easily be modified for any assignment, from a programming challenge to a play. It requires no technical knowledge about ChatGPT. In fact, we could substitute the word “ChatGPT” with “Parents,” “Wikipedia,” “Google Search,” “Tutor,” or “TA.” It takes no more than a few seconds to fill out and read. And it still allows the teacher to specify how much ChatGPT is permitted for any given assignment. Even if the rule is “none at all,” the rubric is still valid. The student must still write down that they did not use the tool. It takes it from “I’m just tricking the teacher to save some time” to “I am explicitly lying about what I did.”

The value of this rubric is that it places the responsibility for learning back on the student’s shoulders. This proposal is not about making less work for the teacher or taking away their authority. It is about helping students develop their own moral compass. As CS Lewis so famously said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking,” which is especially critical in the world of online learning. This rubric gives students the opportunity to show us what they did when we weren’t looking. It allows them a chance to have their integrity reinforced through practice. And if we treat this opportunity with understanding instead of punishment, it has the possibility of helping the students who need it the most.

You will notice that this rubric has no points attached. What if, instead of using it simply as another entry in the grade book, we took it as an opportunity for discussion with the student? If they are not afraid of getting a 0 for admitting that they used ChatGPT, it opens up a whole world of possible discussions, depending on their answers:

“I didn’t really understand the question, but once I did, I was fine.”

“I work every day after school and then look after my siblings…. I just didn’t have time.”

“I thought my essay was really good and didn’t know what changes to make.”

If we allow students to self-evaluate without grade-based consequences, we can learn what supports they need as well as how we can improve our curricula. We can even use it as a perfect opportunity to teach students how to support themselves using tools like ChatGPT properly without resorting to plagiarism. We could boost the equity in our classrooms immensely if students can individualize the help they are getting at the time, place, and pace they need.

It is no use burying our heads in the sand and banning AI-based tools. These tools are becoming more and more powerful and are being used in new ways every day. We have a real chance to help students understand their own responsibility, take charge of their own learning, and use this amazing technology to improve their self-efficacy, their knowledge, their outcomes, and ultimately their lives.

Key points:

• Teachers and librarians play a pivotal role in helping students find what–and how–they like to read
• Let’s take a look at some of the most-read titles by grade level
• See related article: I work with struggling readers–here’s what’s standing in their way

About five years ago, my New Year’s resolution was to read all the books on my bookshelf I’d never managed to crack. While that resolution was a complete failure (I still have unread books on my shelf), it reignited my love of reading.

Each year, I document my #BritReads reading journey on my social media channels. This year, I decided to bring #BritReads to life with my close family and friends. In lieu of a Christmas present, I’m buying each of them four books a year – books I’ve read or those that are at the top of my list to read. Rather than a one-size-fits-all #BritReads Book Club, I’m curating books just for each of them. For example, my Christmas movie-loving, hopeless-romantic childhood friend will not get my favorite thriller or whodunit!

Just like my little book club, as librarians and teachers, I know you’re looking to connect students with their next favorite book, which means you need to be ahead of the trends and know about the titles emerging as the next generation of books to remember. So, let’s take a look at what students are reading in school libraries and classrooms across the country. Here are the top requested titles according to trend reports in our industry:

In lower elementary, the most popular book (and my #BritReads pick for the little ones) is a picture book called The Smart Cookie by John Jory. It’s the fifth picture book in Jory’s series teaching life lessons using food, accompanied by The Cool Bean, which also tops the list. In The Smart Cookie, the cookie realizes that while school can be tough, with hard work, anyone can be smart in their own way.  From friendly food… to animals. In the nonfiction section, the Who Would Win series is also a hit.  Students love to learn about various species of animals like sharks, reptiles, and birds and select which species survives. 

In upper elementary, Dog Man, The Baby-Sitters Club, and the I Survived series continue to be perennial favorites. In the world of nonfiction, students are starting to learn about race and history through books like Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, We Are Still Here!: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know, and Stamped (For Kids): Racism, Antiracism, and You. My #BritReads favorite for upper elementary school is a throwback to my childhood. I read every single book in The Baby-Sitters Club series as a child, so it’s heartwarming to see these Ann M. Martin characters as a part of young lives all over again.

In middle school, books about middle grade students navigating the world dominate the world of fiction, such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Jerry Craft’s New Kid. In nonfiction, students and teachers are gravitating toward true stories about normal people who accomplish extraordinary things such as I Am Malala, Hidden Figures, and Undefeated: Jim Thorp and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team. My #BritReads pick is Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African American Women Who Helped Launch our Nation into Space. I read the adult version as part of #BritReads21, but this one has been adapted for a younger audience, giving students an opportunity to learn about a group of women who were well ahead of their time!

As for high school and adult-level titles, many of the books that students are reading are required as part of the curriculum including classics like The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and A Raisin in the Sun. But the classics sit alongside modern fiction hits like The Hate U Give and The Hunger Games series. I was pleased to see I picked some winners for the first #BritReads Book Club mailing. Each of my journalist friends got a copy of Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, which happens to be on the top of the adult nonfiction list.  My #BritReads favorite, The Catcher in the Rye, is one of the inspirations behind my 5-month-old boy’s name – Holden!

Across all age levels, teachers and librarians continue to seek titles written by diverse authors featuring multi-cultural characters with social and emotional learning lessons. If it happens to be a part of a series, or graphic novel or Manga form…even better! You can check them all out on Titlewave.

Key points:

• TED-Ed Lessons are a great way to inject some fun into learning a new topic
• During October, take advantage of creepy decorations and Halloween and use these videos to teach students some new facts
• See related article: 9 TED-Ed Lessons about different holiday origins

It’s October, and for many students, that means pumpkins, scary decorations, and trick-or-treating on Halloween. What better way to celebrate October than to incorporate some fun and spooky videos to engage students, while also teaching them some fun facts?

Teachers with students of all ages can use TED-Ed Lessons to leverage October’s fun events (Friday the 13th in October, anyone?) and speak to students’ different interests.

The TED-Ed platform lets educators build lessons around any TED-Ed Original, TED Talk, or YouTube video. Once teachers find the video they want to use, they can use the TED-Ed Lessons editor to add questions, discussion prompts, and additional resources.

Use these TED-Ed Lessons and videos for brain breaks, to introduce new lessons, or to give students some fun and age-appropriate spooky experiences into your classroom:

1. Where do superstitions come from? Are you afraid of black cats? Would you open an umbrella indoors? How do you feel about the number 13? Whether or not you believe in them, you’re probably familiar with a few of these superstitions. But where did they come from? Stuart Vyse shares the weird and specific origins of some of our favorite superstitions.

2. Why is being scared so fun? At this very moment, people are lining up somewhere to scare themselves, be it with a thrill-ride or a horror movie. In fact, in October of 2015 alone, about 28 million people visited a haunted house in the US. But you might wonder: What could possibly be fun about being scared? Margee Kerr examines the biology and psychology behind what makes fear so fun.

3. The fascinating history of cemeteries: Spindly trees, rusted gates, crumbling stone, a solitary mourner: these things come to mind when we think of cemeteries. But not long ago, many burial grounds were lively places, with gardens and crowds of people — and for much of human history, we didn’t bury our dead at all. How did cemeteries become what they are today? Keith Eggener delves into our ever-evolving rituals for honoring the dead.

4. What can you learn from ancient skeletons? Ancient skeletons can tell us a great deal about the past, including the age, gender and even the social status of its former owner. But how can we know all of these details simply by examining some old, soil-caked bones? Farnaz Khatibi examines a fascinating branch of science known as biological anthropology.

5. A video that terrifies while it teaches? There’s a TED-Ed Lesson for that: Pick your poison: Blood hungry vampires. Zombies on a mission for your tasty brain. Creepy crawlies. No matter your (fictional or real) fright of choice, TED-Ed has a lesson for all of your Halloween needs. So pick out your favorite candy (more on that later), choose a few videos, and have a very happy Halloween.

Key points

• AI tools like ChatGPT can change the way students approach writing by facilitating rapid prototyping and offering real-time feedback
• Using AI to support student writing has the potential to help students see failure as an opportunity for growth
• See related article: Dear parents: 3 ways AI will show up in your child’s classroom this year

This story originally appeared on the Christensen Institute’s blog and is reposted here with permission.

Ninth-grade English was a paradox for me—both the best and worst year for helping me learn to write. 

Every month, my Advanced English teacher, Mr. Johnson, assigned our class one of the classics of English literature and expected us to demonstrate what we had learned with an accompanying essay. He set a high bar for clearly articulated theses, well-structured paragraphs, well-crafted sentences, and supporting quotes from the text. I credit Mr. Johnson’s class for eventually helping me pass the AP Writing exam my senior year without ever taking an AP-level English class.

However, that same 9th-grade English class also planted the seeds of debilitating habits and mindsets in my writing process. Mr. Johnson was willing to provide feedback on drafts. But the demands of all my other classes and activities rarely afforded me the time to take him up on his offer. Consequently, I found myself in a pressure cooker each month, drafting essays in the final days and hours before they were due. The ticking clock and the weight of a looming grade forced me into a mindset where every sentence had to be near-perfect in my desperation to maintain my academic record. Writing became less of an exploration of ideas and more of a high-stakes gamble.

Fortunately, schools and society seem to be entering an era in which AI could completely upend the dysfunctional part of my 9th-grade English experience.

The damaging mindsets forged by conventional grading

The pressure I felt to craft near-perfect drafts on the first attempt is hardly unique to me—it’s symptomatic of a broader issue common across US K–12 education. In most classrooms, students don’t iterate on their work. With all the volumes of content to be covered, there just isn’t time in either the class period or the school year for cycles of feedback. Instead, teachers give assignments, students complete those assignments, teachers grade students’ work, and each assignment grade leaves an indelible impact on a students’ final grade for that class. Grades from individual classes then get averaged together, semester by semester, into GPAs that permanently carry the marks of any prior failures and shortcomings in a students’ learning. 

I suspect these norms of practice are major cultivators of what Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck would term a ‘fixed mindset.’ They create a stifling atmosphere where failure is a brand to be avoided rather than an experience to learn from. The binary of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ prevails, leaving little room for trial and error, an invaluable aspect of the learning process. The emphasis on the end product over the process perpetuates the fear of failure, curbing creativity, curiosity, and the potential for new discoveries. The outcome? A learning experience that prioritizes safe choices and known paths over innovative thinking and problem-solving.

Now, more than ever, students’ future success in an ever-changing world requires that they learn how to think critically and creatively while collaborating with others to solve complex problems. But the unwritten curriculum of most schools—instilling process perfectionism through rewarding flawless performance—is probably doing more harm than good.

The threat and opportunity of AI

Against this backdrop, there’s a lurking concern that AI is just going to help students find mindless shortcuts for cheating their way to good grades. But that’s only a risk if schools and teachers hold a low bar for what they expect of their students. Wharton professor, Ethan Mollick, made a compelling argument in his ASU+GSV talk last April that ChatGPT should really mean the end of lousy student writing. “I don’t accept papers that aren’t good anymore because the minimum you can do is turn in a good paper. So, why am I going to force you to write a bad one? … [With AI] we can increase our standards of what we can accomplish.” Knowing the minimum bar that tools like ChatGPT can produce, he expects students to prove that they’ve developed their ideas beyond what the AI can generate.

Journalist Adam Davidson noted on a recent Freakonomics podcast episode that he’s taken to calling ChatGPT “the ‘B-minus at everything’ program.” If schools set low expectations for the quality of students’ essays, then AI will enable those who so desire to cheat their education. But if schools and teachers want to elevate expectations for their students, AI can be a powerful tool for rapid feedback and iterative prototyping. 

Breaking 9th-grade writing mindsets and habits

I think my 9th-grade self would have loved having a tool like ChatGPT to help with my essay assignments. But the real reason why is probably not what you’re thinking.

I relish the first part of writing—coming up with ideas worth sharing—and I find satisfaction in the final part of writing—polishing my prose for persuasive power. But the middle part—hammering out a lousy first draft—is a painful process given my bad habit of perfectionistic editing as I write. But over the last few months, I’ve found two amazing things that ChatGPT can do for me as a writer.

First, ChatGPT allows me to do what my colleague, Bob Moesta, calls “rapid prototyping.” I feed the AI my ideas—often through verbal dictation using its mobile app—and then it hands me back an outline for organizing those ideas into a blog post. We do some back and forth on the outline, then I ask it to write me the first draft, one headings-worth at a time. I’m not giving it a topic and then asking it to do the work of coming up with what to say on that topic. I’m doing the thinking, then it’s doing the initial writing. 

Are the first drafts written by ChatGPT up to par with what I expect of my own writing? No. They look like they were written by an average high school student following all the formal conventions they’ve been trained to mimic. The structure is so predictable that it’s boring, and the sentences are full of cliche turns of phrase.

But with this leg up from ChatGPT, a process that has typically taken me around four to six hours gets cut down to about an hour. What’s even more important is that this collaboration between me and the machine has been easing my dread of writing the first draft.

Second, ChatGPT gives me quick and convenient access to an outside perspective on my work. When I’m not sure if my structure is working, or I’m struggling to come up with a concise and catchy way to convey my ideas, outside feedback is often the best remedy. Unfortunately, the turnaround time for collegial feedback is typically a day or more, and when my colleagues are pressed for time, asking for feedback can feel like an imposition. Meanwhile, ChatGPT can often give me just what I need: a little bit of new insight to break me out of the rut I’m stuck in. Are its insights as good as those of a colleague? No. But what it lacks in quality it compensates for in on-demand responsiveness.

In short, while AI can handle the ‘how’ of writing, it falls short in understanding the ‘why’ and ‘what’—the substance that gives a piece of writing its rigor and depth. Nonetheless, I’ve experienced first hand how tools like ChatGPT can facilitate cycles of writing, revising, and refining, all while helping me foster low-stress, fail-forward mindsets.

Harnessing AI’s potential to revolutionize educational feedback

I think we’re on the verge of a future where AI dramatically reshapes how students experience learning to write. With the help of AI, students will be able to see more clearly that the most important part of writing isn’t what happens when your fingers hit the keyboard—it’s the learning and the thinking that happens before you ever pull up a blank page. Once they do their thinking, AI can help them translate what they’ve discovered into written text. Then, as they learn to work with that text to hone in on what they really want to communicate, sophisticated algorithms can help them sharpen their intuitions for that medium by providing real-time feedback on not only grammatical errors but also argument coherence, evidence use, and rhetorical strategy.

When schools and educators see AI as an ally rather than an adversary, I suspect they’ll discover an unprecedented opportunity to both raise the bar on what they expect from their students as well as make the learning experience more enjoyable and meaningful. Did I mention that I used AI to write the first draft of this piece?

This post was written with assistance from ChatGPT. For anyone interested in how the post was crafted, here’s a link to the ChatGPT conversation that helped produce this post.