In the face of mounting testing pressures, rapidly changing reform efforts and student circumstances over which teachers feel little control, more than half of teachers consider their jobs to be highly stressful, which is affecting teacher absenteeism rates, retention and student achievement, according to The Hechinger Report.
There is a growing trend to address teachers’ mental health through stress-reduction and resiliency-building exercises. These include yoga and programs such as those offered by the Center for Resilience, Breathe for Change and mindfulness training offered through Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education. However, these efforts are mere triage and only offer short-term solutions, some experts say.
Education leaders can offer longer-term solutions that address root issues by providing mentoring support in schools rather than bringing in outside experts, rolling out new initiatives in a more teacher-centered way, and involving teachers in discussions about what works best for students.
But principals also need to build relationships with teachers themselves to create a sense of trust and more open and honest lines of communication. Good teachers are hard to find and losing them to stress is not a good option. Finding ways to solve the issues that are causing them stress and helping them deal with the inevitable pressures along the way is well worth the effort in the long run.
Study: Schools with principals from New Leaders program show higher student learning gains
K-8 students with the same principal, who was trained by the nonprofit, for at least three years get higher math and English language arts scores than those with other leaders.
Principals trained and supported by New Leaders — a New York City-based nonprofit — are contributing to higher student achievement and staying in their jobs longer than those hired through other preparation programs, a new RAND Corp. study shows.
Students attending K-8 schools that have had a New Leaders principal for at least three years score at least 3% higher in math and roughly 2% higher in English language arts (ELA) than students with school leaders prepared in other ways.
The RAND researchers found that specific aspects of being a leader — specifically competencies related to instruction, and adult and team leadership — were more closely associated with increases in student achievement.
What New Leaders calls “cultural capital,” which includes skills related to “cultural leadership” and “operational leadership,” was more closely linked to retention.
A 2017 Stanford University study showed that academic growth among CPS students in grades 3-8 was increasing at a faster rate than in most districts in the nation.
In October 2018, the Education Week Research Center conducted a nationally representative online survey of nearly 500 K-12 teachers, principals, and district leaders to learn more about their views on innovation—a common buzzword that was defined in the survey as “the introduction and/or creation of new ideas or methods.”
Navigating politics and learning to let go of past responsibilities were among the most unexpected aspects of their positions
Richard Carranza — Chancellor, New York City Department of Education
I’ve been principal in two different schools in two different states, so my heart’s really in the classroom, in the schools themselves. But it’s important that if anybody’s going to become a superintendent, you realize that you also have a good array of political issues that you’re going to have to deal with, [from] elected officials [and] individuals that are not elected but have considerable political clout and could affect the initiatives or agenda that you have.
Suzanne Lacey — Superintendent, Talladega County Schools
a thing I struggled with the most was just letting go of the jobs that I had done before.
Glenn Robbins — Superintendent, Tabernacle Township School District
“No one ever made a difference by being like everyone else.” An organization is either run by visionaries or operators. Which are you?
Leadership is a privilege. Serve others each day with a positive attitude. How strong are your relationships with not only your board of education and administrative team, but also the teachers association? Relationships and communication are first. Everything else comes second.
Stay true to the district’s goals and values. Remember to embrace the infinite game, and not chase the external finite game. Focus within, not external. Coach, mentor, support and challenge. Be the leader that creates more leaders, not produces more soldiers.
70 percent of teens now say they use social media more than once a day, compared to 34 percent of teens in 2012.
Snapchat is now the most popular social media platform among teens, with 41 percent saying it’s the one use most frequently.
35 percent of teens now say texting is their preferred mode of communication with friends, more than the 32 percent who prefer in-person communication. In 2012, 49 percent of teens preferred in-person communication.
One-fourth of teens say using social media makes them feel less lonely, compared to 3 percent who say it makes them feel more lonely.
Nearly three-fourths of teens believe tech companies manipulate them to get them to spend more time on their devices and platforms.
Back in 2012, Facebook dominated the landscape, and social media was something for teens to periodically check in on.
In 2018, though, “social media” is no longer a monolith. Teens now communicate, express themselves, share experiences and ideas, rant, gossip, flirt, plan, and stay on top of current events using a mix of platforms that compete ferociously for their attention.
Sixty-three percent of teens say they use Snapchat, and 41 percent say it’s the platform they use most frequently.
Instagram, meanwhile, is used by 61 percent of teens.
And Facebook’s decline among teens has been “precipitous,” according to the new report. Just 15 percent of teens now say Facebook is their main social media site, down from 68 percent six years ago
Anna Egalite, assistant professor of leadership and policy at NC State. Previously, Anna taught elementary school and did a postdoc at Harvard. She’ll be writing about education-leadership research—what we know, where we have good intuitions, and where we’re still very much in the dark.
It’s back-to-school time and education reporters are highlighting stories about how school leaders are “leaning on data” to promote student learning, making administrative decisions that are “supported by a data-driven process,” and drawing on their experience in “data-driven instruction.”
In April, a PLAYlive Nation lounge in Tracy, Calif., hosted its first Fortnite tournament and sold out. Hundreds of players bought tickets to play against one another and win prizes.
Joost van Dreunen, the CEO of Superdata Research, a video game analytics firm, says most shooter games are serious and simulate violence. Fortnite, he says, is more like a friendly game of tag.
His company estimates the game has made about $223 million across all platforms in March alone. In lifetime sales, it had made about $614 million. The game is free to play, but Epic Games, the company that owns Fortnite, makes money through microtransactions. Players can spend real money to make cosmetic changes to their characters in the game. They can buy things like skins, which are like costumes, for their characters or emotes, which are celebratory dance moves their characters can do after winning or killing another player in the game.
Ninja, the gamer name taken by 26-year-old Tyler Blevins, is now a legend in the Fortnite world. He is a master at the game and rocketed into popularity after playing in an online battle with rap artists Drake and Travis Scott on March 14. That battle has been watched more than 9 million times.
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Educators Battle ‘Fortnite’ for Students’ Attention
Many educators want to ban the game from their classrooms, but some are taking the opposite approach, attempting to weave students’ interest in Fortnite into class discussions and assignments.
Nick Fisher, a science teacher at Fort Zumwalt North High School in O’Fallon, Mo., said his students like to take screenshots of gameplay and send them to friends over Snapchat. Teenagers want to broadcast their victories, and because the game is on their phones, it’s easy to post updates to social media, making Fortnite “the perfect concoction of addiction,” said Fisher.
North High blocks all social media and gaming sites on its WiFi, said Fisher, but students tell him how they circumvent the restriction: They use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to establish independent internet connections. (Dozens of YouTube videos provide step-by-step tutorials for students looking to get around school WiFi controls.)
“Kids can’t multitask,” she said. “Even having a digital device within sight can cognitively distract the student enough that they can’t focus on the academics.”
Schools and teachers should be guiding parents when it comes to appropriate limits around screen time, said Kolb. Most parents will appreciate research-based recommendations, such as turning off all screens a set amount of time before bed, she said.
Games like Fortnite can even have social benefits, said John Velez, an assistant professor of journalism and electronic media at Texas Tech University. Velez, who studies the positive effects of video games, has found that playing violent games cooperatively with helpful teammates promotes pro-social behavior.
Chris Aviles, the coordinator of innovation, technology, and 21st century skills for the Fair Haven Public Schools in New Jersey, wrote “A Teacher’s Guide to Surviving Fortnite,” an exploration of ways the game can be used for instructional purposes. The guide, posted to his blog Teched Up Teacher, suggests how to integrate the game into writing prompts, math lessons on probability, and physics.
Aviles doesn’t advocate playing the game at school. There isn’t any educational value in letting students engage in virtual combat during a lesson, he said. Instead, teachers can build a lesson around one aspect of the game, such as having students calculate the best angle of approach as they jump from the “Battle Bus,” the floating bus that drops players onto the map at the beginning of each match.
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Instagram, Snapchat, Fortnite: The distractions are endless. Here’s how to help kids cope.
In January, two of Apple’s shareholder groups asked the company to look at the addictive effects of iPhones on children. Google’s recent developer conference highlighted tools to help users better control smartphone usage.
A 2015 survey of more than 1,800 teachers and 400 principals in Alberta, B.C., found that nearly three-fourths of teachers frequently or very frequently observed students multitasking with technology, and 67 percent of teachers believed that the number of students negatively distracted by digital technologies in the classroom was growing.
The best approach is to use empathy, compassion and collaboration to help the young people in your life find ways to manage their digital workflow.
Encourage visualization for inspiration and motivation. The first step is getting students to buy in and to want to make behavioral changes.
Focus on compartmentalization. A 2009 study from Stanford researchers found that people who juggled several streams of electronic information were not able to pay attention, remember key information or switch tasks as effectively as those who completed one task at a time.
Using the Pomodoro technique of spending 25 minutes focused on one task followed by a five-minute break can be an easy way to have students begin to shift from a multitasking to a monotasking mind-set.
Make focus fun. There are now numerous ways to use technology to help us be more productive with technology, and it doesn’t have to be arduous. Students in my office use apps such as Forest or Flipd to motivate them to stay off their phones during class or when doing homework. Forest has a simple interface that will build a digital tree for users who stay off their phones. Flipd allows users to hide certain apps, allot time off their phone based on their schedule and, for a premium, track their progress over time.
Provide structured support as needed. A middle school student with whom I worked recently was relieved when his mother used the Mac OS app SelfControl to block YouTube and ESPN while he was doing his homework (Cold Turkey is a similar PC-based app).
Allow opportunities for regrouping. Even the best plans can go awry (for adults and kids alike). It’s important to focus on progress rather than perfection. Create time daily or weekly for students to think about what went well in terms of managing distractions and improving productivity, and what they would like to do better. Ask open-ended questions without judgment or expectation
The Next 10 Years: Helping STEM Students Thrive series, on January 10th, from 12-1:30 PM ET. The topic will be learning spaces with the following guest speakers:
Jeanne L. Narum, Principal, Learning Spaces Collaboratory
Jeanne will discuss what she has learned about what works, why and how it works in achieving sustainable institutional transformation in the world of planning spaces for learning in the undergraduate setting.
Lisa Stephens, Sr. Strategist- SUNY Academic Innovation – University at Buffalo
Rebecca Rotundo, Instructional Technology Specialist, University at Buffalo
Lisa and Rebecca will share their experience in FLEXspace (Flexible Learning Environments eXchange) an open education repository project which has expanded to over 2,600+ users from 1,200+ educational institutions across 42 countries.
Xin Li, Associate University Librarian, Cornell
Xin will share information about the Library’s initiative to install a Portal on the Cornell campus in Sept. 2018, with the goal to engage faculty, students, and the community in live conversations with Portal users in different countries, cultures, or life circumstances, such as what others do for STEM education.
This collaboration between Cornell University and the University at Buffalo featuring the perspectives of national thought leaders and institutional representatives about expanding the participation of women in undergraduate STEM education at different scales.
This interactive, online series features a different topic per month. Each session kicks off with an introduction by our distinguished thought leaders followed by institutional representatives from Cornell University and the University at Buffalo who will share insights from their campuses. Participants may join the conversation, ask questions, share experiences, build networks and learn more about:
· Innovations that can expand female or underrepresented minority student participation and success in STEM undergraduate education.
· Effective evidence-based STEM teaching practices commonly adopted at research universities.
· Unique institutional and cultural challenges to achieving STEM diversity.
The announcement by Silicon Valley personalized learning startup AltSchool that it will close two of its lab school campuses in Palo Alto and New York City has some educators concerned that the company is putting profits over efforts to improve education, EdSurge reports.
Butler Middle School (PA) Principal Jason Huffman also told the publication that he sees the company’s struggles as parallel to those of other education reform models that didn’t live up to their promises, adding that organizations like Future Ready have made similar models and platforms for personalization available at a lower cost to schools and districts.
Education historian Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, has been among the chief critics of these increasingly close ties, especially as it pertains to charter schools and voucher programs, decrying efforts to “turn us from citizens into consumers.” Public schools, she has said, should be focused around “building a sense of community, having a sense of democracy at the local level, having people from different backgrounds coming together to solve problems and learn how to be citizens.”
But AltSchool’s intentions with its lab schools and approach to developing its platform have seemed noble enough, with the company partnering with schools of varying sizes to learn how to best scale up successful approaches to personalized learning for traditional public schools. Its lab schools have been noted for eschewing traditional grade level structures and curriculum, attracting funding from the likes of Mark Zuckerberg.
Earlier this year, we visited one of the company’s partner schools — Berthold Academy, a Montessori in Reston, VA — to find out more about what AltSchool was looking to model and how its partnerships worked, finding a promising approach in action.
