The rapid evolution of AI is fundamentally transforming the educational landscape, offering unprecedented opportunities alongside new responsibilities. This recent two-part webinar series was designed to guide education leaders through this shift, moving from the "what" of cutting-edge innovation to the "how" of workforce preparation and the "why" of data security.

It featured two sessions:

The Cutting Edge: New Features from Top AI Solution Providers: This session explores the most impactful new features from industry-leading AI solution providers that support curriculum, lesson planning, streamlining administrative tasks, and more.

The Integrity Infrastructure: How to Ensure AI Solutions are Safe: This session dives deep into the architecture of safety, exploring how leading AI providers are prioritizing student data privacy and institutional security.

Watch on demand here

The Cutting Edge: New Features from Top AI Solution Providers

The recent Tech & Learning EdTech to Watch Virtual Playground featured lightning round demonstrations of three influential educational technology tools: Brisk Teaching, Copyleaks, and Inquire.

Hosted by Tech & Learning’s Christine Weiser, the event highlighted how generative AI is being leveraged to enhance curriculum management, ensure academic integrity, and facilitate deeper learning through project-based instructional design.

Brisk Teaching

Presented by Content Marketing Manager Elisabeth Bostwick and Manager of Curricular Solutions Architecture Whitney Noel, Brisk Teaching is an AI education platform designed to assist teachers with creating materials, providing feedback, and adapting instruction directly within existing Google and Microsoft tools.

Brisk Teaching’s central focus is Curriculum Intelligence, which ensures AI-generated outputs align with district priorities and high-quality instructional materials, mitigating the risk of misalignment.

The platform's "Brisk Brain" is built on two foundations:

• District Guidance: Content-agnostic priorities such as instructional focuses and a Portrait of a Graduate.
• Curriculum Libraries: Resources mapped directly to a district’s high-quality instructional materials.

“Brisk works where you do,” said Bostwick. “You can always leverage the extension to open up over top of anything that you are creating. You can see how easy it is to open the extension right over top of any YouTube videos, docs, web pages, slides, and more.”

The Curriculum Intelligence framework ensures generated resources, such as lesson plans and assessments, are aligned to state standards and district-level goals. A forthcoming feature, Planning Mode, will facilitate dynamic conversations between teachers and Brisk, suggesting district instructional strategies based on student needs.

For differentiation, Brisk offers student-facing tools such as Boost activities and a Tutor that apply customizable guardrails and scaffolds. This helps maintain "productive struggle" while meeting diverse learner needs through multi-language support, speech-to-text, and read-aloud functionality.

For curriculum directors, Brisk provides the benefit of one secure AI layer across all adopted curricula, saving time and capacity by customizing static core materials with district priorities. Brisk is safe and secure, adhering to COPPA, FERPA, and GDPR compliance.

Copyleaks

Senior Solutions Engineer John Michael Perla demonstrated Copyleaks, an academic integrity platform designed to guide students in the responsible and ethical use of generative AI. It integrates directly into the LMS environment, such as Canvas.AI Detection and Customization.

Copyleaks’ AI detection settings are customizable by the school—a top-down approach—with three levels available:

• Level One: Detects content copied directly from LLMs with no modifications.
• Level Two (Default): Identifies submissions in which minor edits were made to the LLM-generated text.
• Level Three (Strictest): Designed for high usage of LLM-modified content, including content generated with sophisticated prompts or evasion tools.

“Within Copyleaks, you can also customize the plagiarism settings,” said Perla. “So if you want to pull in data, we can identify content from the entire Internet, which is like seven billion web pages. We could also create a private cloud hub for your school, which will be all your school's data, in one cloud repository.”

A key differentiator for Copyleaks is its use of logic to explain the AI detection score, preventing instructors from relying solely on a percentage. This logic is provided through two patent-pending tools:

• AI Source Match, which identifies specific web pages or articles that the LLM used as a reference to generate the student's submission.
• AI Phrases, which detects phrases used with high frequency by AI tools.

Copyleaks is a top-tier partner with Canvas and D2L, and also integrates with Moodle, Blackboard, Brightspace, Schoology, and Sakai.

Inkwire

Dr. Julianne Ross-Kleinmann of Ulster BOCES demonstrated Inkwire, an early-stage, project-based learning (PBL) AI tool that supports deeper learning and accelerates authentic instructional design.

Inkwire consists of two main components:

• The PBL AI Copilot, which helps educators design PBL experiences aligned to state standards
• The Portfolio Platform, through which students can capture and showcase evidence of their learning.

“What stood out for us is that Inkwire is focused specifically on teaching and learning and not just a generic AI tool letting educators figure it out on their own,” said Ross-Kleinman. “Instead, it helps teachers think intentionally about authentic learning experiences.”

The design process utilizes the High-tech High Graduate School of Education kaleidoscope framework, which is customizable to a district's own instructional frameworks. Teachers can input a design idea, upload files, and then ask the AI to generate core project elements such as essential questions, launch ideas, and assessment types.

The output is a "one-pager report" that includes learning goals, including state-specific standards, competencies (which can be aligned to standards such as Portrait of a Graduate), and a day-by-day or calendar-view plan.

Inkwire is designed for teacher collaboration, allowing educators to co-design interdisciplinary projects. The portfolio section is crucial for assessment, as it can house student work and artifacts, supporting statewide initiatives by following students as they move between schools and tracking seals of alignment.

The Integrity Infrastructure: How to Ensure AI Solutions are Safe

Tech & Learning’s second "EdTech to Watch" webinar, hosted by brand manager Christine Weiser, explored responsible AI integration in K-12 education. The event showcased a pair of product solutions–TrekAI and Lightspeed Systems Insight–and emphasized the importance of safety, governance, and personalized learning. Attendees got to see demos of both tools and ask questions, and then were treated to a discussion of vetting AI tools from AI consultant Greg Bagby.

TrekAI

TrekAI functions as an on-demand, Socratic tutor for students. Designed to replace chaotic or unvetted AI usage, it serves as a "walled garden" that provides students with a supervised "learner's permit" experience.

“We're just handing the keys over to our students, and we're just kind of like, ‘Okay, just go figure this whole AI thing out,’” said Erin Burchik, Chief Growth Officer for TrekAI. “ChatGPT and other platforms kinda feel like this chaotic, overwhelming, unsafe interstate. And I don't know about you, but when I taught my kids how to drive, we started on back roads and parking lots. We didn't go straight to the interstate. And so we want to advocate for the time that students are in your care, you give them an environment to learn how to navigate this new world of AI safely.”

TrekAI aligns with district standards and curriculum, resisting plagiarism by guiding students through problems rather than providing instant answers. It is FERPA and COPPA compliant to protect student data privacy. It also includes social-emotional alerts that notify counselors and administrators if student interactions indicate risks such as self-harm or violence.

Another offering, Trek Adventure, is a hyper-personalized literacy tool that transforms standard curricula into choose-your-own-adventure books. By integrating specific educational standards (such as math concepts involving fractions) into the narrative, the tool reinforces classroom learning while keeping students engaged. It offers accessibility features, such as dyslexic-friendly fonts, and provides teachers with insights into student reading progress, making it a practical tool for guided reading rotations and literacy blocks.

“Almost all of our team are former educators, so when we're building out new products like Trek Adventure, I think about my sixth grade science class when I was a teacher for fifteen years,” said Joe Edlhuber, account executive, “I would have used Trek Adventure every week during my guided science rotation. It's really practical, not just fluff tech. It is really something that teachers should be using and students wanna be using every week.”

Lightspeed Systems

Insight from Lightspeed Systems provides districts with total visibility into their digital ecosystem, allowing administrators to identify exactly which AI tools are being used, by whom, and for how long. Given that schools often struggle to manage the hundreds of apps present in their environment, Insight’s analytics hub helps identify usage trends and distinguish between productive AI engagement and potential misuse.

“What people find is whether you've built an approval system or not, AI is already in your environment,” said Sergio Villegas, former educator and current regional sales manager for Lightspeed Systems. “What we need to be able to do is answer questions better. So our dashboard is gonna show you everything.”

Insight also offers automated monitoring of vendor privacy policies, alerting districts of changes in terms to ensure ongoing compliance.

Lightspeed Alert automates safety monitoring by analyzing student interactions in real-time. It focuses on identifying concerning behavior, such as indicators of self-harm or violence, across AI platforms and web activity. When an incident occurs, the system shows evidence—including screenshots and transcripts—to administrators, allowing for rapid, human-led intervention.

“This is kind of the wrap-around story of why having a consistent ecosystem matters because these systems need to talk to each other,” said Villegas. “It's hard for schools because we're all being tasked with too much on our plate and not enough people and resources to do it. So having a single ecosystem that can surface information, that can let you search deeper, that can automatically notify you, is important.”

By connecting directly to student information systems, the tool ensures that school staff can reach out to families or take appropriate action quickly, moving schools away from reactive, "he-said-she-said" scenarios.

Strategic Context: The AI Vetting Framework

To complement these tools, AI specialist Greg Bagby outlined a strategic roadmap for vetting AI technologies.

“Before adopting any tools, districts should ask this question: What problem is it solving?” Bagby said. “Is this a tool with clear goals for tech that we need to support? Is it gonna give personalized feedback? Is it for lesson design, assignments, tutoring? And who's gonna benefit from this tool? Is this for the teachers, the students, the school leaders ? We need to have all this in mind before we start jumping into tools because we have access to many, many tools, and why not understand the why before we jump in.”

Bagby said that districts should avoid working in silos and instead form inclusive task forces that include stakeholders from IT, curriculum, and, crucially, students.

Bagby’s framework underscores that AI must prioritize human-in-the-loop oversight, cultural bias testing, and rigorous data privacy agreements. He concluded that because AI technology evolves daily, district policies should be viewed as living documents, requiring constant dialogue to ensure they remain safe and reflective of the current learning environment.

“Just make sure that you avoid vendors who won't disclose how student data is being used and how AI is being trained,” Bagby added. “If it's using the student data to be trained on, that's one of those things that we wanna make sure that we always step away from and be cognizant of.”

Education budgets are tightening, screen-time debates are intensifying, and AI has dominated every industry headline. How can today’s education companies break through the noise?

One word: relationships. As in humans talking to humans. And listening to humans. In a crowded marketplace, the vendors who survive and thrive are those who stop pitching and start partnering.

This theme is at the heart of Tech & Learning’s EdExec Summit, taking place in Chicago September 10-11. While the agenda will focus on the key components of developing a strategic plan–including sales, marketing, research, and compliance–what makes this event different is the opportunity for education company executives to have deep conversations with their buyers and create meaningful relationships.

To offer a sneak peek into these conversations, Tech & Learning has partnered with the Ed-Tech Leadership Collective to present an Industry Briefing that will explore how current market pressures are fundamentally reshaping how districts choose—and stay with—their vendors.

Event Details

• Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026
• Time: 2:00 PM ET
• Registration Link: Secure Your Virtual Seat Here

What You Will Learn

By attending this briefing, education executives will gain actionable insights on how to align their strategies with district realities:

• Understanding District Priorities: Discover how current district challenges directly shape their buying decisions and partnership expectations.
• The Relationship Pivot: Learn how to transition your sales approach from cold, transactional outreach to value-driven, relationship-focused engagement.
• Network Maximization: Strategies to leverage your current district successes to build organic exposure across peer networks.
• Pilot Programs with Purpose: How to structure pilots that deliver clear ROI and cultivate long-term partnerships rather than forcing a heavy, upfront investment.
• Flexible Commercial Models: Creative ways to think about pricing, packaging, and budget alignment in a tight economy.
• Proving Impact: Why vendors must demonstrate measurable, high-quality outcomes rather than superficial engagement metrics to retain district business.

Featured Speakers

Hear directly from the leaders who make the purchasing decisions:

• Joe Ayala | Director of Information Technology, Santa Clara Unified School District, CA
• Trina Reaves | Director of STEM and Innovation, Clayton County Schools, GA

REGISTER FOR THE WEBINAR NOW

Join us for this conversation on June 16 to learn how your company can become an indispensable district partner, and in Chicago on September 10-11 for the Tech & Learning’s EdExec Summit to meet one-on-one with buyers and put those relationship-building strategies into practice.

• Navigating the ESSER Cliff: Why Education Company Leaders are Heading to the 2026 EdExec Summit

As artificial intelligence moves from a futuristic concept to a fundamental classroom tool, education leaders face a dual challenge: harnessing its immense potential while safeguarding the students they serve.

To address this shift, Tech & Learning is hosting an essential three-part webinar series designed to move beyond the hype. This series provides a roadmap for building a resilient, AI-augmented academic community, focusing on practical implementation, workforce alignment, and rigorous security.

In this series, attendees will get a sneak peek at some of the newest AI tools designed to improve teaching and learning, and get students prepared for the futures they choose.

Watch how this works:

Phase 1: The Cutting Edge

Date: May 20, 2026

Focus: New Features from Top AI Solution Providers

This session is a deep dive into the latest innovations from industry-leading AI providers. Rather than focusing on abstract theories, this webinar highlights the high-impact tools currently reshaping the day-to-day operations of schools.

REGISTER HERE

Phase 2: Future-Proofing Students

Date: June 3, 2026

Focus: Solutions That Support Career Readiness

As the global economy shifts toward automation and algorithmic intelligence, the definition of "career ready" is evolving. This session addresses the "how"—specifically, how educators can bridge the widening gap between traditional classroom settings and the modern, AI-integrated workforce.

REGISTER HERE

Phase 3: The Integrity Infrastructure

Date: June 10, 2026

Focus: Ensuring AI Solutions are Safe and Secure

Innovation without protection is a liability. The final installment of the series pivots to the "why" and "how" of institutional safety. This session explores the "Integrity Infrastructure" required to maintain trust within a school community.

REGISTER HERE

Whether you are an IT director, a principal, or a district superintendent, these sessions provide the tools and safety frameworks necessary to lead your community into the future with confidence.

Join the Conversation: Equip your institution with the strategies needed for an AI-augmented world. Register now to secure your spot in this transformative series hosted by Tech & Learning.

WITH THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS

In this two-part virtual interactive “playground” webinar series from Tech & Learning, attendees had the opportunity to explore innovative edtech products and ask questions during a live Q&A. Hosted by Christine Weiser, Tech & Learning’s brand content manager, each event featured 15-minute live demonstrations.

Watch Part 1: Primary Education On Demand

Watch Part 2: Secondary Education On Demand

PRIMARY EDUCATION

Reading Eggs

Reading Eggs is a comprehensive, research-backed digital literacy program designed for primary education. Allison Ireland, Director of Product for Reading Eggs, described it as a "huge solution with four programs in one."

Key feature include:

• Fast Phonics: Teaches phonics using decodable readers and supports emerging/early readers, English language learners, and students with knowledge gaps.
• Reading Eggs (Flagship): Focuses on fluency, interactive lessons, and explicit instruction to build early reading skills, including addressing unusual words and sounds not covered by standard phonics rules.
• Reading Express: Centers on comprehension, vocabulary, and skills such as main idea, cause and effect, and inferences. This area has been revamped to focus on comprehension and concept retention over time.
• The Library: A large collection with more than 4,000 leveled ebooks (decodable, fiction, nonfiction) across various topics, which includes quizzes and a "read to me" option for lower-level Lexile books.

The program aligns with the five pillars of the science of reading, bringing together phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension in an evidence-based way. It offers flexible usage for teachers, including station rotation, whole-class lessons, or assigned homework, and is designed to work on both browsers and dedicated tablet apps. The company is actively working on accessibility, including adding high-contrast options and large text.

“The goal here is to make sure students are retaining the skills that we're teaching them, that they're learning in an engaging way, and that teachers can then see on the teacher reporting side just where students might need a little bit more help and utilize lesson resources we have specifically for each of these lessons aligned to standards,” said Ireland, who lead the demonstration. “I really love how this program works in a way that helps teachers in the classroom, helps students working individually, helps those that are ready for harder things and not quite so ready for harder things.”

Lincoln AI

Lincoln AI, from Lincoln Learning Solutions, is a curriculum-driven large language model developed in partnership with Creatium, built on the existing Lincoln Empowered curriculum. It is intentionally designed as an educational tool to guide student inquiry rather than provide direct answers.

“Lincoln AI is guiding the student through that learning experience," said Charlie Thayer, Chief Academic Officer for Lincoln Learning Solutions, who led the demonstration featuring Linc, the AI learning coach. “It is supporting them anytime, anywhere. It's always available.”

Key features include:

• Curriculum-Driven Model: It is built off of the company's decade-long curriculum development, ensuring content is educationally sound and age-appropriate.
• Homework Helper: This feature allows students to upload a worksheet (ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies) or notes. It guides them through solving problems and understanding concepts without directly providing the final answer, and it's available 24/7.
• Flexible Communication: Students can interact with the tool by typing or texting.
• Safety and Support: It is founded on Amazon Bedrock guardrails, creating a "walled garden" to ensure a protected network environment. The accompanying teacher dashboard provides valuable analytics at the student and class level, and the system includes a security feature that sends "red alerts" to stakeholders for safety concerns.

“This is age appropriate based on the enrollment of the student,” said Dr. Rachel Book, Chief Business Development Officer for Lincoln. “If I enroll my student as the second graders that I'm used to working with, it will automatically go up or down to meet their Lexile level, to meet their level of mastery. So if you have students who are struggling a little bit, it's gonna go down and it's gonna help them to move up. And the other way around, if they're excelling, it's gonna help to increase their vocabulary and talk them through.”

vGuide by Vivacity

vGuide is a new managed service vertical from Vivacity, a six-time winner of Tech and Learning’s Awards of Excellence, focused on supporting Google environments, especially for K-12 leaders, admins, and teachers. The service is framed as a partnership to help districts manage and optimize their Google experience, particularly with Chromebooks and Chrome OS.

It is designed to address the fact that the Google ecosystem is constantly evolving (noting more than 300 changes in the Google Admin Console in the last few years), and aims to provide a clear road map to help users get to a more secure, controlled, and informed environment, said Kendal Shomura, Google Partner Services Leader for Vivacity, who demonstrated the platform.

The service is built on four core pillars:

• Migration Support: Assisting districts moving from Windows or macOS to Chrome OS, including data migration and change management support to help teachers transition comfortably to Chromebooks.
• Confidence in Google Management: Helping teams, especially those inheriting complex environments, understand and manage their Google settings.
• Environment Health Audits: Conducting comprehensive audits of the Google for Education domain and Chrome OS management settings to ensure a secure and controlled environment.
• Ongoing Optimization Support and Training: Providing continued support and training for teams to optimize their Google environment over time.

“We realized there's another aspect to Chromebooks and Chrome integration in schools,” said Shomura. “It's a lot more about how do we provide support for the people that are providing support, and how do we provide support for the teachers that are frontline in the classroom, and they have never used a Chromebook, but now they're being asked to troubleshoot a Chromebook. So we're trying to figure out ways that we can address the system as a whole rather than in pieces. That's where vGuide really comes into play.”

SECONDARY EDUCATION

Lincoln AI

Lincoln AI is a curriculum-driven learning assistant built specifically for K-12 students to provide a secure, guided, and personalized educational experience.

“For students, Lincoln AI, it becomes an anytime, anywhere, 24 hours per day, seven days a week coach that is right there on the screen with them at any time that they'd like to use it,” said Dr. Rachel Book, Chief Business Development Officer for Lincoln. “It acts like a personal study partner, guiding inquiries, supporting understanding, and helping every student move forward with confidence. So while it's also reducing a workload for teachers, it's enabling a true personalized learning experience at scale.”

Key features include:

• Curriculum-Driven LLM: A proprietary Large Language Model trained exclusively on Lincoln Learning's content and aligned with all state and national standards, resulting in a reported 99.7% rate of "no hallucinations" (inaccurate or fabricated information).
• Safety and Guardrails: Built with Amazon Bedrock guardrails, it provides an enterprise-level secure environment for students. It will not write essays or give direct answers, instead redirecting students to guide them through the problem-solving process.
• Interaction: Students can communicate via voice or text.
• Homework Helper: Allows students to upload worksheets (supports free-form and handwritten info) and receive coaching on specific questions, such as geography problems.
• Teacher Dashboard: Provides an overview of student activity, including average usage, trending topics, and email/dashboard alerts for "urgent attention" if negative or abusive language is detected in a student's chat.

“It is not going to work like other regular AI models,” said Charlie Thayer, Chief Academic Officer for Lincoln Learning Solutions, who provided a demonstration featuring Linc, the platform’s AI learning coach. “What you're seeing here is kind of a safety net with our guardrails that are in place that we are consistently fine tuning to ensure that.”

Gardyn for Schools

Gardyn for Schools provides a hands-on, year-round learning experience through an AI-controlled, indoor hydroponics system for classrooms.

The system uses artificial intelligence to control all lighting and automated watering, earning it the nickname "the easy button for hydroponics," said Brad Peters, Chief Education Officer for Gardyn.

Key features include:

• Automated Monitoring: Fixed cameras and sensors take pictures every half hour to analyze the plants, providing feedback and necessary instructions (e.g., if leaves are browning) through an app.
• Compact Design: The standard unit is five feet tall, only takes up two square feet of space, and is on wheels for easy movement between classes or locations. A smaller, four-foot tall version is also available.
• Low Maintenance: The water tank needs to be refilled and the plant food changed only once every 30 days. It also features a two-week "vacation mode" for self-operation.
• Engagement: The system holds 30 plants at a time and is recommended for assigning a plant to a student to encourage ownership and pride in their growth.
• Educational Adaptability: It is suitable for all grade levels (K-higher ed) and covers subjects including STEM, health, nutrition, science, agriculture, and culinary arts.
• Cost: The most popular educator package is around $1,600 and includes accessories and a nursery/baby incubator unit for starting new plants.

“Have you ever bought a houseplant and killed it? Because I've done the same thing,” said Peters, who provided the demonstration in front of live vegetable plants that he’s grown with the system, even going so far as to break off a leaf and eat. “Our motto is no green thumb required.”

Pikmykid

Pikmykid is a safety and dismissal platform focused on transforming daily and emergency operations through streamlined front-office security.

“Right there in the front office from the beginning of the day to the end, Pikmykid has you covered,” said Eric Sala, Senior Customer Value Executive for Pikmykid, who led the demonstration.

Key features include:

• Visitor Management Kiosk: Uses an Apple iPad kiosk and a Brother label printer to manage all visitors.
• Automatic Background Check: Visitors scan the back of their driver's license to automatically run a check against the national sex offender registry.
• Real-Time Alerts: If a visitor is flagged (for background check, custody dispute, or a positive reason like a VIP), a notification can be sent instantly via text, email, or app push to the safety or admin team.
• Official Badges: The system prints a badge for visitors with their photo, name, reason for the visit, date/time, and a QR code for check-out.
• Quick Check-In: Parents can opt for a quick badge/QR code for faster check-in on subsequent visits while still running a background check.
• SIS Integration: The system integrates with major Student Information Systems (SISs) to automatically recognize parents and capture potential custody considerations.
• Staff and Student Sign-In: It includes a feature for staff sign-in/sign-out (which can serve as a clock-in/out function) and can be used for students who are late to school, tracking tardies and notifying parents.
• Web Dashboard: A central web dashboard allows administrators to see who is on campus in real-time, view visitation history, manually check people in, and run or schedule reports on visitor logs (e.g., all volunteers in the last 90 days).

“Sometimes schools might think, ‘If we're gonna be pivoting toward this, it seems a little much, especially for parents,’ said Sala. “But we've actually found the opposite. Usually, parents when they come to the school and they see this for the first time, they're actually pleased, and say, ‘Hey. the school is doing something here to level up their security.”

Phones in class? Tablets at home? Everyone's got an opinion — but what does the data say?

The results from a national survey of school districts around student screen time and its impact on learning was the focus of a recent webinar sponsored by Lightspeed Systems. Hosted by Christine Weiser, Content Director for Tech & Learning, the discussion featured Amy Bennett, Chief Of Staff for Lightspeed Systems, Kyle Berger, Chief Technology Officer at Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, and Charles Franklin, Assistant Superintendent for Cypress Fairbanks ISD. The panel explored the realities of student screen time, challenging common misconceptions with data and expert insights.

“Chances are the majority of y'all looked at the screen of your phone before your feet touched the earth this morning,” said Berger. “It's just a natural addiction that everybody seems to have.”

WATCH THE WEBINAR ON DEMAND HERE

Key Data and Misconceptions

A significant finding from Lightspeed Insight, based on data from hundreds of school districts, reveals that K-12 students spend an average of 77 minutes of screen time per day on district-owned devices. This constitutes less than 20% of the average school day, a figure considerably lower than many parents and policymakers assume. The majority of this screen time occurs within school hours, supporting instruction, rather than after school.

Screen time averages vary by age, with elementary students using devices for less than an hour daily, while middle and high schoolers spend more time online due to increased coursework and collaboration. The data also shows a seasonal tapering of screen time throughout the school year, aligning with instructional rhythms, holidays, and testing periods, generally staying below 90 minutes a day. This consistency suggests that digital learning is integrated into instruction rather than replacing it.

A crucial takeaway is the shift from "quantity to quality" of screen time. The 77 minutes average is predominantly spent on curriculum platforms, productivity tools (such as Google Docs), and academic apps, not on "doom scrolling" or entertainment. This highlights the importance of the purpose behind screen use – whether it's for creating, researching, collaborating, or building fluency. Tools such as content filtering and classroom management are vital for establishing "digital guardrails" to ensure students remain focused on educational applications.

"Screen time is tied to mental health, to student engagement, to educational outcomes, school budgets, even topics like AI,” said Bennett. “Really, all the hot topics that are going on in edtech, screen time relates to them."

Educating the Community and Addressing Concerns

Both Berger and Franklin emphasized the ongoing battle against the misconception that students are constantly glued to their devices.

“As you reflect and spend time walking your schools and looking, you'll probably agree that there's probably a very, very small amount of students that are glued to a screen eight hours a day,” Berger said. “It's just not happening. So that misconception is really big."

“We have the same type of misconceptions where parents and the community feel like the students are on their screens constantly," Franklin added. “And I do think that some of the misconception comes from when students get home. We're not necessarily mirroring the exact environment that you may or may not have at home."

Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, a one-to-one district for over 13 years, and Cypress Fairbanks ISD, a one-to-one take-home district since the pandemic, actively educate their communities through professional development for teachers and Parent Tech Academies. These initiatives break down the different types of screen time (passive, active, and required for assessments) and communicate the districts' expectations and boundaries.

The districts also work to engage parents to help manage screen time.

"We go as far as to encourage our parents to participate, and we do a device-free dinner,” said Berger. “Once a year, we invite people out to the local restaurant. We lock up their cell phones and say, ‘Hey. If you can make it through dinner without looking at a device in general, our partners will help sponsor your dinner for you.’"

Impact of Cell Phone Bans and Equity

The implementation of House Bill 1481 in Texas, banning cell phones in schools, has been overwhelmingly positive. Teachers and principals reported increased student engagement in class activities and more direct student-to-student interaction. While some initial "withdrawal" was observed among students, and parents expressed anxiety about connectivity to their children, the ban ultimately reinforced existing policies and led to a re-education on student safety protocols.

Regarding equity, both Berger and Franklin highlighted their districts’ commitment to providing equal access to technology. This includes pre-K through 12 one-to-one device programs and providing wireless hotspots for students lacking home internet access.

The panelists stressed that while restrictions such as cell phone bans can create more equal usage, blanket screen time limits on district devices could widen gaps for students who rely solely on these devices for learning and connectivity. The consensus was to find ways to make the use of technology safe, protected, and healthy by teaching digital citizenship and self-regulation skills.

Advice For Districts

For districts feeling overwhelmed, the experts advised starting with data – whether from surveys, software such as Lightspeed Insight, or observations. This data should initiate open conversations within the community, involving curriculum and instruction teams, teachers, and parents, to establish shared expectations for screen time usage. The goal is to define what is appropriate for each campus and district, understanding that every community is unique.

Said Franklin: “A lot of it is explaining to the parents exactly what students have access to, showing them exactly what our approved applications are, explaining exactly what screen time looks like for every grade level, and also engaging our CTE and those departments to also explain exactly what boundaries we have and what opportunities we have because it does work both ways."

Achievement in math doesn't happen without motivation—and the most successful districts know how to combine the two.

During this recent webinar, hosted by Christine Weiser, Tech & Learning Content Director, and featuring Cassandra Haines-Riiska, Educator Success Specialist for Prodigy Education and Edward Courtney, an elementary teacher for Long Beach Public Schools in New York, as well as content from Lisa Marceau, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for North Adams Schools in Massachusetts (who could not attend), attendees heard real-world examples of how creating fun, engaging math experiences drives student persistence, improves outcomes, and helps close achievement gaps.

Whether your district is looking to accelerate learning, improve equity, or simply help students enjoy math again, the discussion provided practical, research-informed approaches to explore how math plus motivation adds up to lasting achievement for every student.

As Marceau shared by proxy, “The struggle IS the learning.”

WATCH ON DEMAND HERE

The Indispensable Link: Motivation Fuels Achievement

A central theme of the webinar was that math achievement is inextricably tied to student motivation. The most successful districts understand this connection and actively work to combine the two.

“Motivation comes in so many different shapes and colors,” said Courtney, emphasizing the importance of finding joy in learning, meeting students where they are, and celebrating every success, no matter how small. He noted that shifting negative feelings into positive ones can instantly change a student's day and motivate them to persist.

When students are curious, challenged, or seeking recognition, they are more likely to push through difficulties. Intrinsic motivation, the desire to learn for learning's sake, leads to deeper engagement, long-term achievement, and eventually mastery. Motivated learners view mistakes as opportunities for growth rather than failures, fostering a resilient mindset.

Engagement, particularly through interactive and game-based platforms such as Prodigy, builds momentum by making learning feel like progress and enjoyment. This leads to more frequent practice, greater focus, and boosts both academic and social skills. Ultimately, motivation leads to measurable performance gains, with research consistently showing that motivated students often outperform or catch up to their peers, even those with different starting proficiencies.

Cultivating Math Motivation: Strategies from the Field

Lisa Marceau's experience further illustrated the power of motivation. Faced with students lacking the drive to tackle challenging math problems, her mission was to reframe math as a "superpower" fueled by curiosity and motivation. Her district aimed to instill ownership over learning, observing that motivated students put more effort into difficult problems, engaged in math discourse, and collaborated more with classmates. Incorporating digital games was key to fostering deeper, interactive learning and demonstrating that math can be fun, leading to improved achievement and scores.

Key tips for fueling persistence include:

• Encouraging a Growth Mindset: Teaching students to believe in their ability to grow builds confidence and persistence.
• Embracing Productive Struggle: Helping students understand that struggle is an integral part of learning deepens conceptual understanding.
• Providing Support: Teachers and coaches must provide clear guidance on where and how students can seek help, building a supportive culture.
• Connecting Math to Real Life: Demonstrating the real-world relevance of math helps students see its necessity for achieving their goals.

Success Stories: From Individuals to Districts

“There's no victory that's too small of a victory,” said Courtney. “Even just one problem correct will really make a difference and it will really stand out with the student. It could make or break their entire day." He shared how a second-grader struggling with basic math facts who, through daily engagement with Prodigy and targeted assignments, improved her fluency by 20% in six weeks. This demonstrated the impact of consistent practice and the platform's built-in rewards.

At the classroom level, Courtney observed improved peer collaboration and increased attendance across grades K-5 when motivation-based learning tools were integrated. Teachers reported increased engagement and participation, with one fourth-grade class seeing participation jump from 60% to 100%. Courtney's personal journey from a "terrible math student" to someone who now loves teaching it underscores the transformative power of making math fun, engaging, and accessible.

On a school and district level, Edward's school in Long Beach, New York, implemented Prodigy during a period of budget constraints and potential closure. The students' motivation to keep their school open, fueled by the Prodigy State Challenge, led them to become state champions multiple times over. This collective goal fostered a strong sense of community and celebrated learning milestones, creating a positive school culture that continues to thrive.

Lisa Marceau's district also saw remarkable success, with 95% of their K-6 staff attending Prodigy training, including non-math teachers. This "top-down" approach ensured a common language and district-wide support for the initiative. Her school became the Massachusetts champion for the heroic tier, answering nearly 30,000 questions in a single month.

Scaling Proven Practices

Scaling these practices involves:

• Building a Culture of Growth: Encouraging a growth mindset and celebrating progress school-wide.
• Integrating into Curriculum: Embedding math games and competitions directly into lessons, rather than treating them as "extras."
• Monitoring and Sharing Data: Tracking student engagement alongside achievement and sharing results with students to foster motivation.
• Quality Professional Development: Providing hands-on workshops, peer collaboration opportunities, and tech training for staff, with continuous support.
• High Expectations and Useful Resources: Setting high expectations for all students and staff, and providing the resources they need to succeed.

By prioritizing motivation, celebrating effort, providing targeted support, and leveraging engaging tools such as Prodigy, educators can transform math learning into a joyful and achievable experience for every student.

The recent "Ready for AI? Preparing for the Next School Year" webinar, sponsored by PowerSchool, focused on equipping teachers and staff with the necessary skills and confidence to integrate AI into their classrooms. The discussion also showcased how AI can save time and enhance both teacher productivity and student engagement.

The panel featured:

• Matthew Winters, AI Education Specialist, Utah State Board of Education
• Dr. Michael Gaskell, School Principal in East Brunswick, New Jersey, Author, and Speaker
• Kathi Kersznowski, Lead Educational Technology Specialist, Washington Township Public Schools in New Jersey
• Kellie Ady, Senior Director, Education Strategy, PowerSchool & Government Relations

The participants shared advice, best practices and specific ways that they personally approach providing PD centered around implementing AI into their work.

Watch the on-demand webinar here

Key Takeaways

More Engaging AI PD - “I love to make PD fun, and people don't wanna work in the summer,” said Kersznowski. “So if you can make learning not feel like work, I think that's your best bet." She shared suggestions to make AI PD more engaging and informal, including:

• AI Appetizers: Friends gather, bring appetizers, and informally explore AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude.
• AI Accountability Buddies: A group text in which colleagues share AI discoveries and ideas.
• AI Cook-off: Participants challenge one other to use AI to generate recipes and then prepare them.
• Daily Coffee Chat: Anyone can spend five minutes each morning trying out an AI app on their phone.
• Spontaneous Planning: Use AI to generate fun day trip ideas based on preferences and budget.
• Playing with a Podcast (NotebookLM): Using NotebookLM (a free Google product) to create conversational podcasts from prompts, topics, websites, or YouTube videos. This can be used for personal interests or to spark ideas for classroom use.
• AI Book Club Member: Adding a chatbot as a member of a book club to offer its thoughts on the reading.

Find game changers - Gaskell suggested keeping it simple, focusing on “The whole concept of, ‘Wow, that's something fairly simple, straightforward, and very intuitive that that teachers can get interested in,’” he said. He highlighted "game changers" that can excite educators about AI, focusing on practical and intuitive applications. He then shared personal examples of using Google Gemini to:

• Convert a handwritten list of calendar dates from a Post-it note into Google Calendar events
• Create a calendar event from a screenshot of a confirmation text message (such as for a service appointment)

He also advocated for using NotebookLM for PD, noting its ability to create conversational voices and the new beta mode allowing interaction with them.

Start by getting personal - “I think everyone's aware that we have sort of a gap between student adoption of AI tools and then teacher adoption of it at the classroom level,” said Ady. “But we are seeing some shifts in terms of being more open to trying AI tools instructionally and not just personally.”

To help teachers who are reluctant to adopt AI tools, she suggested:

• Remind them about the tools they already use in their personal lives, such as GPS.
• Encourage using AI as a "thought partner," whether with a chatbot or a colleague.
• Highlight how AI can save time, such as by communicating with families.
• Embed AI tool usage directly into PD, allowing them to experience AI as learners.

Encourage play - "What we're learning is the importance of play,” said Winters. “I think we, as teachers, don't do enough of it in our classrooms, but also we don't play enough as adults. And when we talk about a tool that rewards creativity and curiosity like AI does, especially generative AI, we really gotta jump in and play once in a while with it."

Winters also discussed Utah's statewide AI training initiative, and emphasized how AI can boost productivity for teachers by:

• Speeding up actions: Using AI for tasks such as writing emails, creating formative assessments, and drafting rubrics, with human editing and revision.
• Fostering creativity: Exploring new possibilities within the classroom system that were previously unknown.
• Enhancing accessibility: Supporting traditionally underserved populations, such as students with disabilities, multilingual learners, and gifted and talented students.

He also suggested focusing on "tool types" rather than specific AI tools due to varied district resources and safety guidelines. He categorizes these as:

• Constitutionalized chatbots: AI with added rules for student functionality.
• RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generative) databases: Tools that draw from a knowledge base.
• Multimodal AI: Tools that produce various content types such as images and text, or even videos.

Looking ahead - The participants were asked for a bold prediction about AI.

"I don't know if this is a bold prediction, but I think it's a must do,” said Kersznowski. “AI is here. I think if it didn't settle in last year, this past year, I think everybody has started to realize it's here to stay, and it's not going away, and it's nothing we can continue to fear."

Winters added: “Ken Robinson, one of my favorite educational theorists, says that PD should be viewed not as an expense, but as an investment. And I think when we talk about artificial intelligence or anything that's associated with personalized learning, we need professional development consistently for teachers across the country to help build that capacity and around the globe as well.”

• Tech & Learning webinars

How can your school district strengthen family engagement and improve attendance -- without adding costs to your budget?

During a special webinar, sponsored by ClassDojo and hosted by Tech & Learning’s Content and Brand Director Christine Weiser, the focus was on transforming school culture through meaningful family connections. Lorri Hobson, former Director of ADM/Attendance for Cleveland Metropolitan School District in Ohio and Director of Productive Development at Attendance Works, and Chad Stevens, Head of K-12 Engagement at ClassDojo, walked attendees through a simple, effective five-step process that has proven to improve interactions with families and address attendance challenges.

Watch the webinar HERE for free on demand

Key Takeaways

The webinar focused on the five-step "caring conversations" process:

1. Learn

Before initiating communication, learn something positive about the student's talents or skills. “The learning should entail something that speaks to the child's talents, their skills, something that they do really well,” said Hobson.

Parents often have valuable insights about their children and should be seen as partners in the education process.

2. Share

Share this positive information with the family early in the conversation. By starting with positive feedback, Hobson said that families who may have negative preconceptions about school communications can be disarmed.

3. Inform

Inform the family about the reason for the call or communication. “At the discussion phase, you want to share what the challenges are, why you're calling, and what you're committed to do,” Hobson said. “And this is an opportunity to glean and learn from the parent or caregiver.

4. Discuss

Engage in a two-way conversation, discussing challenges and solutions and actively listening to the parent's perspective.

“Don't forget, our parents and caregivers know their children in a special way, what motivates them, what discourages them, what colors they like, what's their favorite genre of music,” said Hobson. “And I think it's so important that when we have conversations with parents that we use that time to maximize our learning.”

Hobson said that when dealing with angry parents, it’s good practice to let them vent, acknowledge their feelings, and then offer to continue the conversation at a better time or transfer them to someone who can help.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of apology for past negative experiences, or the importance of "warm transfers" when directing parents to other school staff.

5. Plan

Arrive at a collaborative plan of action with agreed-upon commitments from both the school and the family.

“We don't push for teachers or educators to make commitments beyond their scope or beyond their locus of control,” said Hobson. “So when you arrive at a plan, you're agreeing on what's within your purview to achieve or accomplish. The same should be true for parents. We're not asking them to make commitments beyond their parental authority because the likelihood of that plan being successful is slim.”

Documenting the plan and following up is crucial for building trust.

Using ClassDojo's New Free District Platform to Scale These Tips

Hobson noted that the new free ClassDojo For Districts platform can be used to scale this advice.

“It's very easy to use,” said Stevens. “It's got an amazing user interface, and so you can really scale it extremely rapidly to bring every school community together with the same ease, joy, and positivity that ClassDojo brings into the classrooms. We just try to keep it simple and powerful, the same things you're used to.”

In addition to driving deeper family engagement with instant two-way family communication, Stevens also noted ClassDojo's data privacy measures, assuring participants that the platform is funded through optional premium services and adheres to strict security and compliance standards.

“Now districts and schools and teachers can all communicate with families in the same place,” said Stevens. “We know there's been a lot of different tools out there for communication. We have schools today sending district-wide announcements, updates, celebrations, whatever you need.”

Stevens also pointed out ClassDojo's high school mode and the company’s efforts to address the unique communication needs of older students.

In closing, Hobson advised educators to be intentional about building productive relationships and to embrace change by implementing this simple process to improve parent engagement.

• Tech & Learning Webinars

AI isn't just a buzzword, and K-12 cybersecurity isn't just about blocking threats; it's about securing data from AI-driven risks while ensuring districts retain full control. As AI adoption grows, schools must take control to prevent misuse, protect data, and enforce accountability through technology, without adding complexity.

Sponsored by itopia, this webinar, which took place on April 8, 2025, explored how districts can take charge of their cybersecurity strategy, ensuring proactive threat prevention, responsible AI adoption, and total data control, with a platform such as itopia’s SecureClass. With fully customizable access controls, SecureCless helps you determine exactly what's allowed, down to the details.

Hosted by Tech & Learning’s Content and Brand Director Christine Weiser, the discussion featured Kyle Berger, Chief Technology Officer at Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, and Jena Draper, Chief Innovation Officer at Itopia.

Watch the replay here

Key Takeaways

AI Adoption and Cybersecurity Risks: AI is rapidly being adopted in education, far exceeding that of previous technologies such as the internet or social media, however, this growth brings increased cybersecurity risks. Schools need to secure data from AI-driven threats and maintain control over their systems. “Tools have now embedded AI into their platform, sometimes with us knowing it and accepting those terms, and sometimes without us accepting or knowing those terms,” said Draper. “It has created this extreme risk for us." This necessitates continuous review and adaptation of cybersecurity strategies.

Balancing AI Adoption and Security: "AI is going to be embedded in jobs that are existing today,” said Berger. “Jobs that have always been around are adapting." Consequently, schools cannot simply block AI due to its increasing importance in preparing students for the future workforce. Instead, they must find ways to enable AI use while mitigating risks.

Threat Landscape: The threat landscape is evolving, with bad actors increasingly using AI for malicious purposes. Schools need tools and strategies to defend against these advanced threats.

Data Control: A significant focus for schools and AI should be data control. “It just comes down to what data can be shared with that AI tool, right?” said Draper. “If I'm just typing in silly things about cats or something, it doesn't really matter. But if I'm starting to put my personal information in there, whether it's knowingly or unknowingly, then that's what creates the risk.” To that extent, Itopia's SecureClass allows schools to control what data can be shared with AI tools, such as blocking copy/paste, uploads/downloads, and camera/microphone access.

Chromebook Security: A misconception exists that Chromebooks are inherently secure. However, as their use increases, so does the risk. “It's not just students that are using these devices anymore,” said Berger. “The more usage you see, the more targets and threat actors are gonna start trying to find ways to get to it.” Ensuring that your cybersecurity protection works for all devices is critical.

Fighting AI with AI: The webinar emphasized the need to use AI to fight AI threats. “We've got a massive database of over 8 billion endpoints, and we're watching these threats as they are suspicious events so that they don't become problematic for you in the future,” said Draper. “So anytime a URL has any kind of suspicious activity, we go ahead and block it with our extension in real time, and we unblock it proactively as we get information that allows us to feel that that is no longer a risk to you. So we've blocked over 18 million websites in just the last 90 days for suspicious activity around malware and phishing. This is no easy task. But securing AI and then using AI to secure it is all part of what SecureClass's underlying mission is.”

• Tech & Learning Webinars

In Part 2 of this two-part series, Tech & Learning, in partnership with PowerSchool, brought together school district experts to share advice about how they improved teacher retention by streamlining their onboarding processes, creating a supportive culture, and offering personalized coaching and professional development programs.

This webinar delved into:

• How to improve retention by putting staff in places to succeed, connecting their work with the strategic direction of the district, and providing frequent feedback
• Tips to transform real-time instructional coaching data into personalized goals
• Strategies to tailor professional development recommendations to boost retention

Participants included:

• Dan Ryder, Director of Design and Innovation, CRCS Overman Schools, Maine
• Dr. Todd Dugan, Superintendent, Bunker Hill CUSD #8, Illinois
• Dr. Leanna Mullen, Student Data Coordinator and RtI Data Coach, Egg Harbor Township School District, New Jersey
• Fred Scott, Retired K-12 Educator, Consultant, and Solutions Engineer, PowerSchool

SEE PART 1 OF THIS SERIES HERE

Key Takeaways

Understanding Next Gen Teachers

Mullen discussed how her district has done in-depth research on the new generation of incoming teachers, which are primarily GenZ and Millennials. The research confirmed that these new teachers are very tech-savvy as it is embedded in all they do, plus they really value PD and crave constructive feedback. She added their strategy is “the millennial sandwich of ‘You’re doing a great job, but here’s something you can do to improve, but you’re doing a great job!’”

Ryder added: “The thing I hear all the time is, ‘They have all grown up with tech. But they haven’t had to use it the way the teaching profession needs it. We make assumptions all the time about generations, but some folks don’t live and breathe in specific modalities. Like, we’re not putting out lesson plans on Snapchat. We’re using tools that they’re not used to.”

Time Is Of The Essence

Mullen also shared from her district’s research that they find that most teachers coming into a district will decide around Day 44 whether they’ll stay, so it’s critical to focus on that time.

Duggan’s district had a 100% retention rate last year. “We didn’t set out for that, it just happened,” he said. But he noted that over the past few years they’ve introduced a full-blown new teacher/staff induction program that coincidentally happens inside the 44-day period Mullen mentioned. In addition to offering PD, they insist that new teachers spend a full day observing a teaching peer in the building or even in another district. They also have a part-time instructional technology coach for support.

Culture Club

“We’ve arrived as a district at the conclusion that it’s our culture that helps us retain teachers,” Duggan said. In addition to the aforementioned PD, they provide an opportunity for teachers to apply for a mini grant to travel to a major education conference. Being able to do so helps teachers feel as if they are actual working professionals, and builds their self-esteem.

Ryder said that as a public charter school not affiliated with a specific town, they have limited funds and can’t just ask for money to pay more competitive salaries.

Therefore, they’ve adopted the “radical” idea of treating people as humans, which has gone a long way to making them want to stay. “Authenticity helps people be themselves,” he said.

PD Voice and Choice

Scott shared that PowerSchool has done a study around what educators are looking for from their PD, and noted that a few key points: They want evidence-based PD that is flexible in strategies; it should be not one-size-fits-all, and offer hybrid and peer-to-peer opportunities; and they want to have the opportunity to have reflection on their practices.

Scott also said that the areas in which new educators are most interested are:

• How to handle discipline and disruptive students.
• How do I address student interventions?
• Communicating with parents and too many meetings/committees.

Ryder echoed the desire for personalized PD, noting that each teacher is able to choose their own path based on their own needs. “Everyone is going to be able to choose the path that fits them best,” he said, which follows the learning paths they’ve created for students. “We’ve had a realization over the past few years: What is good for our learners is good for our staff.”

“Ultimately, choice is important, especially for Millennial/GenZ teachers, who want that opportunity,” said Mullen. Her district offers after- or before-school PD cohorts that focus on new strategies and networking opportunities. They try to provide a variety of modalities and tools, and have launched an innovation team that determines strategies and vets digital tools. New PD opportunities are also generated by this group.

Collaboration Education

“Collaboration is key for PD being effective,” said Duggan, noting that sit-and-get PD isn’t engaging for anyone. “Our district has PD days built into the school year for new teachers to collaborate and learn from peers.”

Mullen discussed using data to show what’s working and the key to building rapport with existing staff. “We want to make sure everyone is on the same page in regard to PD.”

Scott said that PowerSchool’s research showed three preferred PD modalities: common planning time, PLCs, and a collaborational friends group, all of which rely on educators working together.

“Collaboration works best when everyone is authentic and real and heard,” said Ryder. “Their actual needs are met, plus sitting down to collaborate and problem solve together creates moments such as, “I want to work with you on this because I need the answer too!” That’s an amazing synergy.”

• Tech & Learning Webinars

Finding good teachers can be a daunting task. Knowing that our kids are in good hands is important for educators as well as parents. Therefore, the recruitment and onboarding of qualified educators is of equal importance.

In this recent webinar sponsored by PowerSchool, Dan Ryder, Director of Design and Innovation at CRCS Overman Schools in Maine, Greg Bagby, Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Hamilton County Schools, and Fred Scott, K-12 education veteran, talked about the recruitment and onboarding process in the education space.

Watch the full webinar for free on demand here

Unique Recruitment Obstacles

While there are tried and true methods of hiring employees, more nontraditional methods have become popular, especially in the world of education, to overcome recruitment obstacles. Greg Bagby served as a teacher, principal, and is now working in the district office providing support to principals in the process of vetting new teachers for their schools.

“Where Chattanooga is, we sit on the Tennessee-Georgia border and only until recently, like this year, the pay in my district was a little bit less than the surrounding districts were just across the state line,” said Bagby. “So it was a real challenge for us to recruit teachers to come to the district initially.”

The difference in support for public schools and their private counterparts also poses a hurdle when it comes to teachers deciding where to teach (and principals making public schools a desirable location).

Dan Ryder recalled how his district provides for students from a variety of backgrounds while also existing in a politically mixed environment, which influences the educational hiring process.

Fred Scott discussed how recruitment used to be a simple process for educational decision-makers and what teachers are now looking for in terms of employment expectations.

“There are three things that I have experienced in hiring large numbers of people and working with people. They want to be respected, they want their work to be inspected, and they also want to have solid expectations of what their job is. Those are the three things,” said Scott.

Being aware of what goals teachers have and where they want to be is important as it makes teachers feel more appreciated as employees and as people.

How to Recruit Quality Teachers

Regardless of the obstacles educational leaders may face, the recruitment process is important to providing quality education for students. Finding the right teachers might not involve the traditional recruitment process, as Ryder explained. At times, it might venture outside of the box.

“We started doing what most people do, which is put it out on your job posting sites,” said Ryder. “That’s been our primary driver for years. Then it was also going to your college fairs and visiting teacher prep programs, and that's been fine. But what has been really helpful for us to get the word out is using social media to constantly be talking about what we’re doing and that we’re always looking for people.”

Word of mouth seems to be a more preferred way to find educators who not only fit the culture of a school or district but also are genuinely interested in working in that particular environment. Using platforms such as Facebook can be great ways to provide insight to what happens inside the school.

Using searches for larger districts can help to refine the type of teacher for which you may be looking. In this case, traditional recruitment can help, but modern recruitment practices can also help to refine the educators who will become a perfect fit for a particular school or district.

How to Onboard Educators Successfully

After you find the right candidates, how you bring them into a new culture is key to helping create a solid relationship.

Scott explained that creating a clear communication path between teachers and their higher ups is important to fostering continuing success. Being clear on what teachers need to do in the classroom is also important. Providing support, training, and resources can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful teachers.

Bagby mentioned that he treats prospective teachers like they are already part of the team. This may involve in-class activity, but it can also feature out-of-the-class activities such as inviting teachers to lunch. Talking about teaching and expectations in a comfortable environment can help people relax, Bagby said, and giving teachers a stress-free introduction to the culture of a school can go a long way in helping teachers have a fruitful beginning in a new school or district.

• Tech & Learning Webinars

The movement toward standards-based learning has been in motion for over 30 years, yet there is still widespread confusion about why this model is so valuable.

During a recent Tech & Learning roundtable webinar sponsored by Otus, a panel of K-12 leaders tackled the most pressing questions about standards-based learning and grading, and shared how to prepare to address it in the new school year.

Watch the full webinar on demand here.

Panelists included:

• Eddie Oakley, Learning Acceleration Specialist, Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative, Kentucky
• Kelly Ronnebeck, Associate Superintendent for Student Achievement, East Moline School District 37, Illinois
• Jay Meadows, Chief Executive Officer, Exemplars
• Barbara Geibel, First Grade Teacher, Mentor Lead, Salem School District, Wisconsin

What are the core principles of your district’s standards-based grading, and how do you implement and provide feedback to support these?

Kelly Ronnebeck: “We found that standards-based systems’ grading really focuses on student learning of the core content, not on engagement or the student’s effort. We really liked that, and we were able to show parents where their students were performing in relation to the standard. It really aligns more closely to what we’re doing in the classroom with our instructional practices, and provides a more specific, accurate, and more understandable description of what students are doing.”

Barbara Geibel: “Last year is when we started meeting as grade levels and going through all our standards, picking out our essential standards and the ones we thought were most important, and then started aligning our assessments and building our report cards from that.”

Jay Meadows: “Looking at it through the lens of a math teacher, I realized that our grading practices weren’t really asking our students to think about 21st-century real-world problems and how to solve those while developing 21st-century skills . . . The traditional report card wasn’t really [reflecting those skills]. I was giving students As and Bs on tests for procedural fluency that my phone can do now. So what should we be asking kids to do in our math classrooms? When we think about math a little bigger, beyond procedures and algorithms, and encourage problem-solving and critical thinking, it’s more engaging and in alignment with 21st-century needs.”

Eddie Oakley: “Focusing on the priority standards, and staying away from ‘the efforts’ and extra credit, really let us know where students are, and what they can and cannot do.”

What steps have you taken to align curriculum, assessments, and instruction to standards-based grading?

Geibel: “We worked together to make sure that our assessments were aligned to the state standards, and we used Otus to put that all in to make sure of the accountability and consistency so that we’re all on the same page . . . In the beginning, you have some who are leery about it – it’s something different, right?”

Ronnebeck: “Standards-based grading really helped us give true pictures to parents and teachers and students, especially since we have such a diverse population. It was a big shift, but our teachers were very excited about it because they felt that disconnect between what we were doing with instruction and matching that with a letter grade . . . We started the learning as a group, doing various book studies looking into standards-based grading, what is it, etc. And then from there, we had various curriculum committees working together, which had representation from all the different grade levels, so we were hearing all the voices across the district, which helped with the buy-in.”

Oakley: “We started with the end in mind. We built our summative assessments first, and then built toward the standards . . . Our district has built a portrait of a graduate, which tells every parent what a student should be able to do at the end of each grade level before going on to the next grade level. It took a lot of work all across the district, and featured a big committee with staff, teachers, community members, and parents. The profile features six pieces to it: global citizen, lifelong learner, inspired innovator, critical thinker, responsible collaborators, effective communicators. Each student in 5th, 8th, and 12th grade has to do a defense of learning to see if they can go across to the next grade level.”

Meadows: “When you start with your assessments, you can work backward. You can say, ‘If these are the expectations, the big ideas, then how can we learn to do that in my classrooms?’ And then that drives a lot of conversations in your PLCs and PD . . . So when you ask students to think about math beyond procedural fluency, it really increases the engagement levels of students. When students are given the freedom to solve a cool problem any way they want, it increases student engagement and freedom in the math classroom . . . So when you do that, you create a consistent set of expectations from K through high school that certain big ideas will be covered every year. And it can take three years for everyone to buy in and see math the same way, and that consistency is the key to standards-based learning. It takes time, but it’s a powerful journey.”

Oakley: “Assessments and instruction both need to be rigorous. And I told my students and teachers that the practice is going to be harder than the game. So taking tough assessments gives them the confidence when it’s time to take the state exams.”

How are you communicating to parents? Learning expectations, grading policies, etc.

Oakley: “It first started with getting the staff on board, and then went to families. I wrote letters to parents, and said, ‘When you were in school, grades were 70%, 80%, etc.,’ and I asked them to tell me what that meant. And they couldn’t tell me what it meant. Now with standards-based grading, their students can tell them what that means because they’ve mastered the standard . . . Now we’re using social media to get things out to students and parents.”

Geibel: “We’re just going to be starting it, so it’s been a lot of communication to start out. It’s starting with early grades first. This will be a breath of fresh air because it can show the parents exactly what their student does and does not know . . . By starting with K-2, they will move up through the grades to help with the adoption/switch.”

Ronnebeck: “It’s a very slow rollout. We started with our K-4 buildings, which are self-contained classrooms. We had a gentle start with traditional grades, but changed some other parts. We worked with the mindset at middle school the first year, but we’re also holding town hall meetings, sending home notes, flyers, social media, etc. We also had a short video at every event that scrolled through it over and over again, giving the highlights of standards-based grading . . . A lot of the communication has really happened through conversation, but with the students talking to their parents, but it’s also discussed in teacher conferences, which rolls into the instruction. So having those direct discussions with parents was really the game-changer. Change is scary!”

• Tech & Learning webinars

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar sponsored by Cricut, Vincent Young, Vice President of Marketing, explained how the maker movement has evolved over the years and where it is going into the future.

Watch the full webinar on demand here.

How the Maker Movement is Evolving

For a school, a makerspace can instill a sense of pride in both students and educators with custom-made items. Whereas creating custom items started as an at-home hobby for some (with others utilizing professional services to create custom items), Cricut has brought custom-made designs into the classroom for educational purposes.

“Right now, about a fourth of U.S. K-12 schools actually report that they have a Cricut somewhere on their campus,” says Young. “About the same number, about a fourth of all U.S. K-12 teachers say they actually have a Cricut at home. So it’s a very popular product amongst not only the school community but the educator community.”

Cricut looks to help foster the maker movement by encouraging creativity among students, teachers, administrators, parents, and anyone involved in the educational space. The main focus of the maker movement is to encourage and enhance design skills and design thinking, traits that would be highly valued in the professional world.

Over the last ten years, the movement has incorporated various technologies that cater to creative needs. Many of these forms of tech have been introduced to the educational space over time, from simple forms of tech to advanced 3D printers.

Cost and Relevance

The K-12 maker movement helps to create dedicated school spaces to help foster design-thinking, hands-on learning, and the development of vocational skills. Two of the factors that have influenced the movement for many schools revolved around cost and relevance.

“Despite the popularity of many of these technologies, cost is still a barrier,” says Young. “The second one has to do with relevance. When we think about the range of things that can be fabricated, it’s not relevant to a full range of educators and students from K all the way through 12. It’s also not relevant across a full range of school subjects. So a lot of the K-12 maker movement technology has been relegated to high schools in maker or engineering curriculum.”

What Does the Future of the K-12 Maker Movement Look Like?

Young points out how the future of the K-12 maker movement involves more creativity from the user while also building on what was already established in makerspaces.

“It’s really about bringing humanity into the next iteration of technology,” he said. “When we think about the next generation of the K-12 maker movement, it’s about building on the things that were great within the last ten years. It was centered around the object, the fabrication of a thing. It’s building on that but making it a little more human.”

Bringing more user interaction into the K-12 maker movement is the focus of Cricut, giving more freedom to the students and helping them feel more connected with the things they make. In the past, few individuals knew how to operate the technology used to create particular items. Cricut wants to broaden the amount of people who have access to and know how to use such devices to express their creativity.

• Tech & Learning Webinars
• How Makerspace Cross-Curricular Projects Have Made a Positive Impact on Culture and Learning

For school and district leaders facing the task of creating a responsible AI policy, understanding of the different types of AI and domain-specificity matters.

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar, Leigh Hall, Director of Research for Merlyn Mind, explored ten critical aspects essential for creating a responsible AI policy. The session covered key areas including data privacy, safety and security, training and support, student well-being, and more.

View the full webinar on demand here

Key Takeaways

The top ten things to know about creating a responsible AI policy, according to Hall:

1. Why Use AI?

Hall discussed the need to make clear the rationale for implementing AI into your district. For example, AI can lead to enhancing learning opportunities, improving digital literacy skills, increasing efficiency, and creating a more equitable and accessible learning environment.

“AI integration streamlines administrative tasks, allowing educators to focus more on teaching and student support, thereby enhancing overall productivity and job satisfaction,” said Hall. It can also help with personalized learning, providing data-driven insights, and preparing students for a future in which using AI will be necessary.

“One of the fears and concerns we hear from teachers is that critical thinking skills will go down,” she said. “But it does not have to be that way! Ideally, it’s going to inspire creativity. Students are pretty excited about these tools, and we can use these tools to expose them to what’s going on in the world.”

2. Data Privacy, Safety, and Cybersecurity

When approaching AI data privacy and security, Hall recommended first outlining protocols around student data that are in compliance with local and national regulations. Then, explain how your district will adhere to ethical and safety standards, provide criteria for how and when AI will be used, and define roles and responsibilities by those associated with its use.

Hall endorsed informed consent, saying, “Transparent communication and obtaining informed consent from parents and guardians will be prioritized, ensuring that they understand how student data is used and protected.” She also recommended to protect data that districts comply with regulations, have secure storage, and have control over access.

“If you’re adopting an AI tool, you need to know who owns the data,” she said. “Do you own it, or does the company who creates the tool own it? And if they say they own the data, what does that mean?”

Providing cybersecurity training as well as having an incident response plan and continuous monitoring, are also critical.

3. Bias and Fairness

Using AI in an equitable, fair, and unbiased manner is critical, Hall said. That includes ensuring that any AI tools promote an equitable and inclusive experience, explaining if you plan on using diverse datasets, promoting training to recognize AI bias, and creating protocols to monitor it all.

Hall discussed mitigating bias in AI tools, including the importance of diverse datasets. “Ideally, diverse datasets will accurately reflect the demographics of the student population and the broader community,” she said.

4. Transparency and Accountability

Being transparent and accountable about your district’s AI use is critical, said Hall, adding the need to fully disclose how AI is being used in educational settings and to define the mechanisms for accountability.

“Providing comprehensive information about the application of AI technologies fosters transparency,” she said. “This includes sharing details about specific use cases, intended outcomes, and potential implications.”

Accountability practices should include full disclosure about systems, a dedicated reporting channel, and prompt investigation of any reports.

5. Developing A Framework for AI Procurement

Having clearly stated guidelines and protocols for adopting an AI tool is key, said Hall. When doing so, a comprehensive needs assessment should be undertaken first, followed by due diligence and a pilot test of any tool.

“Gather comprehensive feedback to understand the tool’s practical implications and user experience,” said Hall. “Analyze data on the tool’s impact and performance to make an informed decision about wider implementation.”

6. Educator Training and Support

Obviously, providing professional development is critical for the implementation of AI tools. Educators need to understand that ongoing AI PD opportunities can help build their overall digital literacy, Hall said, including best practices around ethical use.

In addition to PD programs and curated resources, a community of practice can provide additional support. “A community of practice is established to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing among educators, enabling them to stay informed about best practices and emerging trends in AI education.”

7. Student Well-Being

Student well-being and safety needs to always be a priority, said Hall. This includes creating guidelines for monitoring and addressing potential negative impacts, explaining how AI will support accessibility and be used to help all students, including those with disabilities or who may be ELLs.

It’s also important to create an AI environment in which students feel safe and empowered, and allows for parental engagement. “Engaging parents and guardians in discussions about AI technology use and safety, ensures that they are informed and involved in supporting their children’s well-being in the digital environment,” she said.

8. Parent and Community Engagement

“What you want to do first is to understand what parental concerns are?” said Hall. “Have a forum for parents and community members to come in. And we have to know the top three to five concerns, and then we can develop a strategy to address those concerns.”

In addition, you need to establish how you will explain the ongoing use of AI technology as well as develop a reliable system to receive and process parent and community feedback and concerns. This can include dedicating specific communication channels, creating opportunities for informational discussion and workshops, and collaborating with local organizations.

9. Evaluation and Continuous Improvement

As with any initiative, prepare for ongoing evaluation of any AI technology, which should include defining processes for assessing effectiveness and learning outcomes as well as using data-driven insights.

Performance metrics, feedback loops, and flexibility will all be part of the evaluation process. “Adopt an adaptive approach to AI tool implementation, allowing for iterative improvements and adjustments based on feedback and evolving educational needs,” Hall suggested.

10. Roll-Out Plans

When it’s time to actually implement AI technology, have a clear plan and timetable in place to maximize benefits and minimize disruption, Hall said. Also plan ahead for the hardware, software, and personnel necessary to support AI in your district.

“Remember, we want realistic goals, timelines, and outcomes for that AI implementation,” Hall said.

THE BENEFITS OF TECH & LEARNING WEBINARS 

FOR EDUCATORS

Tech & Learning webinars feature education leaders and experts from across the country, discussing how they are solving some of the biggest challenges facing schools and districts, from AI and data privacy to mental wellness and cybersecurity. Each one provides professional learning opportunities, best practices, advice, and more. Plus, registrants may be eligible to win a $250 Amazon Gift Card!

FOR SPONSORS

Webinars continue to be one of the best ways to generate leads and educate fresh audiences about your solutions. Tech & Learning’s webinar platform and marketing program offers an opportunity to showcase your product and get qualified leads in two models: single sponsor and multi-sponsored.

To read about and view all of our past webinars, visit Tech & Learning's Webinars page.

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The rapid growth of AI in schools has caused both excitement and concern from school district communities. In Part 2 of this two-part series, Tech & Learning, in partnership with PowerSchool, brought together school district experts to share advice about how they trained their staff to be comfortable with the integration of AI tools, as well as support students with using the AI tools that can help with their success.

Hosted by Christine Weiser, the discussion featured: Alana Winnick, Educational Technology Director and Data Protection Officer, Pocantico Hills Central School District; Greg Bagby,

Coordinator of Instructional Technology, Hamilton County Schools; and Joel Lathrop,

Director, Education Strategy, PowerSchool.

Key Takeaways

Watch the full webinar:

How Has The Use of AI Already Impacted Learning?

“One of my 8-year-old students said, ‘We are the future. We need to learn how to do this or we will not be prepared when we have jobs,’” said Winnick.

Winnick pointed out that what doesn’t work is blocking AI, or just assuming that students understand what AI is and how to use it. “Our job as education leaders is to educate our staff, who then can educate our students on what AI is and how to use it the right way,” she said.

Winnick gives AI users two jobs: 1. To be a detective, and be on the lookout for bad use/content. 2. Be an AI “DJ” to remix the content and add their own thoughts and ideas.

Winnick also encourages introducing students to AI as soon as possible. “My third graders are doing absolutely insane things that I don’t see elementary students in other places doing.” She stressed that the focus should be on encouraging students to want to learn with AI and use it to reach those higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, not just use it as “an easy way out.”

In that vein, Bagby mentioned the futility of banning AI, comparing it to infamous bank robber Willie Sutton. “After he was caught by the FBI, the FBI asked, ‘Why do you rob banks?’ And Sutton said, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’ And well, AI is where the kids are going to be.”

Consequently, educators need to embrace it as well. Bagby discussed using AI as a guide on the side, citing an example of an AI math tutor chatbot being used with a small group of students to provide support in the learning process rather than just answers.

What doesn’t work, however, is just giving AI to students without any sort of plan. “If you don’t have a plan, or if you don’t have a guide, things will get a little hairy for you,” Bagby said. “And it’s harder to rein them back in if you don’t have that guide.”

One of the biggest challenges for districts that want to embrace AI is that they’re busy dealing with many other issues, and don’t always have the resources to dedicate specifically to AI, said Lathrop, who cited a national survey that showed 70% of district leaders could see the potential benefit of AI.

“Using technology tools to promote more positive student behaviors and getting students motivated is really one of the most common challenges we’re seeing,” Lathrop said.

Lathrop added that we’ve gone from “This is what AI could do in our district” to “This is what AI is actually doing in our district.”

How Can AI Work With PD?

From having been a principal for a decade, Bagby noted when it comes to professional learning that teachers are a lot like the students in the sense that you want to engage them in the same ways, and that there are going to be high flyers and early adopters. “However, there are going to be folks who aren’t as quick to adopt tech tools, and you have to find their entry points,” he said.

Bagby recommended that, like students, it can be effective to show teachers what tools there are, and then give them time to play and explore. It’s also critical to give them tools and/or skills they can use the next day so they can immediately bring it into the classroom and find success, which can build confidence and competency. He also added that any PD should be a continuous process that requires follow up and further support.

Winnick reminded everyone that when it comes to PD, that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. “I think it’s really important, just like we say in the classroom, ‘voice and choice,’ she said. Teachers should have agency in how they learn, be that synchronously or asynchronously, as well as opportunities to learn in many different ways. “You get to choose how you want to learn it, but it’s not a choice whether you want to learn it or not,” she said.

Lathrop suggested that having “superheroes” like Winnick and Bagby in your district to lead PD efforts is the best way to make PD effective. If those leaders are not available, PowerSchool has plenty of resources to provide support, such as training, best practices, and more. It also helps to have a platform such as PowerSchool that also has AI already seamlessly integrated.

One Piece of AI Advice for First Step of AI PD

“If you’re not using AI to connect data across your systems, your results will be limited,” said Lathrop. “And working within platforms that you’re already familiar with can reduce the learning/training curve for your staff.”

“It’s really important that as a school leader, there can’t be a disconnect between how teachers are trained and how they’re expected to work,” said Winnick, adding that any PD has to be aligned with performance expectations.

Bagby stressed that any PD has to be directly related to the work the teachers are doing, regardless of curriculum. “Make sure that you’re training them on something that’s going to be relevant,” he said.

Part 1: Designing an AI Roadmap Framework: Creating and Communicating AI Guidelines and Policies

The use of AI in school districts has been equal parts exciting and concerning for educators. Many factors involving the use of AI-driven programs and technology have yet to be fully understood. However, the quest to integrate and comprehend AI’s usefulness is one that many school districts have undertaken to help both teachers and students.

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar sponsored by PowerSchool, designing an AI roadmap for school districts was discussed by: Alana Winnick, Educational Technology Director and Data Protection Officer at Pocantico Hills Central School District; Greg Bagby, Coordinator of Instructional Technology at Hamilton County Schools; and Joel Lathrop, Director for Education Strategy at PowerSchool.

Watch the webinar on-demand here

Key Takeaways

How have you addressed AI concerns in your district?

Alana Winnick: AI is not going anywhere and we should embrace it. It is our job as educators to prepare students for their future. It’s inequitable to not use it as a teaching tool.

We listened to and addressed issues raised from parents, teachers, and other stakeholders within the district.

One of the major challenges with AI is the idea of AI use for cheating. But focusing on the learning process and how to best use AI tools to benefit learning instead of circumventing learning helps to change the idea of learning with AI across the board.

Greg Bagby: We cannot block or ban our way out of using AI. If they have access to it, they are going to use it. It is not about getting in front of AI, it is about understanding the best ways to use AI. What we need to understand is that AI is only going to get better.

Reaching out to the community is the best way to understand what the concerns are that are surrounding AI. Helping students understand AI is the best way to prepare them for professional success after their educational career ends.

Integrating AI use on every scale helps to normalize its use and train all those involved how to use AI products and programs.

Joel Lathrop: Preparation is important for a district to successfully deploy an AI plan. Having an AI readiness assessment will go a long way toward knowing if your school district is ready to adopt AI on a wide scale. Teacher training is important as teachers will be on the front lines of introducing AI to students.

It’s important to note that AI is not meant to replace people, but to complement the human element.

Bringing AI to your data is also important on a security level, as taking your data outside of a secure environment can create security risks.

How Do You Plan for District Wide AI Adoption?

GB: We created an AI support team to better understand the trajectory of AI in the world and in the educational space. Building a diverse team that can help principals, administrators, and others adopt AI into their school systems helped to ensure the success of the project.

Being open to working with other agencies about AI helps to create a comprehensive plan of attack as well. Working with edtech organizations, universities, and even elected officials gives us an extremely diverse blend of information to help form our AI direction for educators and students.

AW: Creating “AI policies” is not the mindset to take when it comes to AI, but having a firm stance on how to use AI helps to give teachers and students the ability to better understand how to move forward with AI use. Giving teachers agency to create their own guidelines for using AI helps to support teachers in their decisions while also advocating AI use.

Getting the conversation started about AI has really worked. Involving teachers, industry experts, students, parents, and other stakeholders can create amazing talking points for AI. Embrace policy revision to include AI.

JL: Many districts are still planning how to integrate AI into their existing tech policies. Some districts are banning the use of AI while others are limiting it to teacher-use only.

The best way to help adopt a district wide plan for AI is to know how ready your district is for AI. An AI readiness assessment is important, but equally as important is how safe and secure your data is when using AI. Finally, knowing what your budget can handle is integral to knowing what tools and resources you can introduce to your district.

What Is the Most Important First Step In Launching a District Wide AI Plan 

JL: Be sure that the vendor you use has K-12 experience. They need to be aligned with your staff, your students, and your teachers.

AW: No matter where you are in your AI journey, you’re on the right track. Reach out, have conversations, embrace learning.

GB: Make sure you have the right verbiage when using AI. Make sure student information safety is a top priority. Policy, privacy, and professional readiness.

For more information, please visit PowerSchool.

With the rise of innovations such as generative AI, IT leaders face increasingly complex challenges in the effort to protect student safety and digital wellbeing.

During a recent webinar presentation sponsored by Linewize, Logan Joiner, Network Analyst for Richland School District in Washington, and Terrisa Reeves, Territory Directory for Linewize, discussed exploring practical solutions and empowering IT teams for success in the evolving world of edtech.

The discussion delved into how IT leaders can address challenges including the need for granularity in filtering, parental concerns and support, and the impact of generative AI tools to student safety.

Watch the webinar on demand

Key Takeaways

Currently, K-12 IT leaders everywhere are being asked to meet a host of increasingly complex challenges in the effort to protect student safety and digital wellbeing.

“One challenge we all face today is the capacity of our technology to address these growing needs,” said Reeves.

In particular, Reeves said that three challenges IT leaders are facing include:

1. Granularity and flexibility in filtering - In this area of challenge, Reeves cited new sites popping up everyday, VPNs and proxies, legacy URL filtering, and filtering distractors as a few key pain points.

“It’s like Whack-a-mole to keep up with students who are using VPNs and proxies to get around filters,” said Reeves.

Joiner discussed how much of his day is spent monitoring Linewize for these situations, and then using the tools at his disposal to handle any issues.

“We’re allowing parents to be involved, but we’re enabling districts to manage the process,” said Reeves.

2. Parental engagement & partnership - “Our parents are seeking to be more active and have more control over what their children are accessing online,” said Reeves. “We want to put safeguards in place.”

Reeves noted that within this area, the focus is on involving parents/guardians in keeping students safe online, parents actively wanting support from schools, and how schools are seeking better ways to communicate with parents.

“It’s as simple as parents want to know,” said Joiner, who added that he and his team worked with Linewize to build a great communication plan for connecting with families.

3. The rise of generative AI - “Districts across the country are taking different stances on how they’re managing generative AI,” said Reeves, noting that the main challenges are striking a balance with AI, understanding that not all AI tools are the same, and exploring the need for AI strategy.

Logan discussed how his district only allows AI at the high school level, noting that teachers can use Linewize tools to block AI as they see fit. “Our district goal is to build good digital citizenship with students and teach them how to use tools the right way,” he said.

Reeves and Joiner then discussed the full Linewize ecosystem of digital school safety tools.

For more information, visit Linewize.

Amanda Ironside, Director of the MTSS Center for FIRST Educational Resources, spoke about the importance of Tier 1 interventions in MTSS frameworks during a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

The webinar was hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and was part two of a two-part series about MTSS interventions sponsored by Otus. Here is part one: Building a Data-Informed MTSS Framework for Student Achievement. 

Watch the full webinar here. 

Key Takeaways

What Tier 1 Supports Are 

In an MTSS framework, Tier 1 supports are the first line of education and are built upon grade-level standards. “Tier 1 is our universal general classroom instruction,” Ironside said. “That is that core universal instruction.” 

She added it is often the most important component of an MTSS framework. “It includes the instructional practices that are research-based and proven to benefit and strengthen our learners' growth and achievement regardless of their readiness level,” she said. 

Tier 1 Instruction Needs an 80 Percent Success Rate 

The research shows that typically for successful MTSS frameworks, 80% of learners should be meeting grade-level standards and expectations from Tier 1 instruction alone without any additional interventions or extensions, Ironside said. 

She then asked attendees to think about their district right now. “Could you confidently say that about 80% of your learners are at that grade level?” she said. “If you find that percentage to be less, that's when we really have to look into our Tier 1 instruction. We have to look at how we're going to strengthen that Tier 1 instruction. Because without high-quality evidence-based tier one instruction, Tier 2 and Tier 3 will not be as effective.” 

Utilizing What Works in Tiers 2 and 3 in Tier 1

One way to strengthen Tier 1 instruction is to borrow some of the savvy teaching strategies from other tiers. “Some of the things that we use in Tier 2 and Tier 3 for strategies, such as small group instruction, intensive scaffolds and supports, those should also be in Tier 1 – that's still good instruction,” Ironside said. “And just because I'm pulling a small group during my Tier 1 core instruction time, doesn't mean that I'm moving to a Tier 2 intervention.” 

Using Data to Guide You

Data can inform how you update and implement new Tier 1 teaching strategies on a class-by-class basis and larger district level. Ironside said that teachers should look at their class data per unit and see which students need individual attention. “You're looking at 'Okay, these are the concepts that as a whole my class understands, but now here's a couple where I'm noticing some pockets of students that I might need to reteach in small groups during my core instruction.'” 

The principle is the same for district leaders who should be using data to answer questions such as: Which buildings do we need to focus efforts on for this particular subject area? Or where do we need to put resources in order to strengthen the instruction and the achievement that's happening? 

On the opposite end of the spectrum Ironside said that district leaders should look at where student achievement is high and what certain schools within each district are doing that should be emulated. 

Making the Importance of Assessments Clear 

To get good data requires assessment but many teachers and other school stakeholders have a negative view of assessment. To get teacher and student buy-in on assessments, the purpose of that assessment needs to be communicated. 

“As a district, as a building, we have to make sure that the reason why we are giving these assessments is clear,” Ironside said. “We have to make sure that if we are assessing, we're using what we're learning from that otherwise, the negativity towards assessment is right, because if we're not doing anything with the data then why are we giving the assessment?” 

• Tech & Learning Webinars
• Building a Data-Informed MTSS Framework for Student Achievement

Traditional MTSS frameworks for student achievement visualize interventions and programs as a three-tier pyramid with universal supports at the bottom, targeted supports in the middle, and intensive ones at the top/tip. 

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and sponsored by Otus, education experts talked about turning this model on its side and ensuring that MTSS frameworks are designed to accelerate learning for every student, not just those who are struggling. 

Watch the full webinar here. 

Key Takeaways: Diamond MTSS Design 

The rethinking of MTSS supports as a diamond instead of a pyramid grew out of the data, said Amanda Ironside, director of the MTSS Center for FIRST Educational Resources. 

“What we started to see over the years is that the same data that we're using to identify students that are in need of scaffolds and those intensive interventions also help us with those students that need something different in terms of extensions for above grade level instruction,” she said. “So the model morphs to more of this diamond, where we think about all of the learners within our classroom and the ones that might struggle with the grade level concept, but also the ones that are already there, or are already past it. And now what do we do in terms of intensive intervention for those kids?” 

Ray said this focus on all students can be a missing element of MTSS. “I feel like so many times we forget the extension side of MTSS and we focus so much on the scaffolding and the intervention side,” she added. 

Every Student Deserves to Grow 

The MTSS diamond approach is designed to be more strengths-based than traditional MTSS frameworks. 

“Every learner regardless of their starting level of achievement, deserves to grow, and I think sometimes that can get lost because we put a lot of our resources towards our students who are in need of scaffolds and supports and those intensive interventions,” Ironside said. “But we also have to remember that other side as well, and how how we can ensure that those students are being challenged, that they're learning at the level that they deserve to learn at as well.” 

Supporting Teachers

"No framework, no matter how well-thought-out, can succeed without teacher buy-in. Getting teachers to successfully implement a framework is about providing support and mentorship,” Ironside said. "We have to first make sure that the teachers that we hire and the teachers that are new to our profession are feeling supported, and that they feel like they have someone in their corner.” 

It’s important not to just hand over resources and wish new teachers the best. “We're providing mentors for our new teachers, and even new teachers to a district,” Ironside said. “Even if you've been teaching 15-20 years and you move to a new district, we still need to provide mentorship, and we still need to provide that partnership.” 

 Using Data Effectively 

Implementing an effective diamond-shaped MTSS framework is also about using data effectively.

“Sometimes we're data rich, but we're information poor,” Ironside said. “We have all of this data, right? But sometimes we don't know what to do with all of it and that is often because our framework isn't solid.” 

Kendell Hunter, product marketing manager at Otus, said the trick for school leaders is to use data to make their jobs less complex. “We have a lot of data and we should at this point be able to work smarter, not harder,” she said. 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray, South Carolina educators and DreamBox Learning representatives talked about how state resources in South Carolina, including funding for DreamBox, have helped fuel math achievement. 

"The first step to the longer journey before us is using the program and seeing the positive from those interactions," said Jennifer Wise, K-12 Mathematics Coordinator for Lexington School District Two. "It’s important to have benchmarks to say, ‘Ok, we’re here, what’s the next step?’"

Watch the full webinar here. 

Measuring Value-Added Growth 

Dr. Matthew Lavery, Director of Research of South Carolina’s Education Oversight Committee, said the state has moved toward measuring student growth in math to better encourage growth. “When we started to think about how to design our system so that it is inclined to produce proficiency, rather than having median growth or average growth be the comparison point when average growth doesn't really change much, we're using these progressively assigned targets that are designed to get students toward proficiency as the comparison point,” he said. “Hopefully, the system is now inclined to produce students on a pathway toward proficiency rather than producing the same straight lines year over year.” 

Prudent Pedagogy 

Before making DreamBox Learning tools available to every district in the state, South Carolina officials vetted the product and made sure it was research-backed and aligned with teaching practices in the state, said Odell Kennedy, South Carolina Sales Director for DreamBox Learning. “If you want to have long-term or sustainable gains, then it has to be predicated on prudent pedagogy instructional design that aligns to that pedagogy,” Kennedy said. 

Later, he added, “What makes us different is that we do not focus only on the answer a student provides. But we focus as much, if not more, on the thinking that led to that answer.”

Remembering The Why 

Wise said that in addition to utilizing state resources, successful math programs inspire students and remind them why math matters. “Why are we learning math? Yes, there's computational effectiveness, there's innovation and practice, but there's also a beauty and wonder,” she said. “Being able to provide opportunities and spaces for students to be able to tinker with math and become nimble and see it for so much more than just a computation – computations are valuable, but let’s see it as more.” 

Reducing Math Anxiety 

Math is one of the topics that creates a lot of anxiety but state and tech resources can help with that. “Not being very comfortable in math growing up myself, I can really relate to that,” said Lynn Carey, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction School District of Newberry County. “To me when the student is on a program such as DreamBox, it's non-threatening. It's just between them and the program. If they get an answer wrong, they're not embarrassed in front of their peers. It's a safe space. After Covid, and during Covid, there's just been so much anxiety, stress, and mental health [concerns] in children and adults, anything we can do to help minimize that, I think is a step in the right direction.” 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

When a child falls behind in reading, an effective reading intervention program can be a lifeline to everything else education has to offer. That’s why having effective reading interventions is so key for every school and district. 

A panel of education experts explored how to build effective reading interventions with the help of technology during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. They discussed motivating students and staff as well as ways in which technology can help educators differentiate instruction for students with different needs. 

Watch the full webinar here. 

Key Takeaways

Technology Can Help 

Kelly Frasse, Director of Student Services and Professional Development, Sangamon Area Special Education District, said her district decided to use DreamBox Reading Plus, an adoptive literacy program, because they wanted something that could help educators meet students where they are. “We just needed different modalities to teach the students because of the varying learning styles that we have that we needed to address, especially with working with students with disabilities,” she said. 

Dr. Lynn Simmers, Assistant Superintendent, South Allen County Schools, said technology fosters more focused learning. “The students do appreciate the immediate feedback that they're receiving, and so do teachers,” Simmers said. “We're setting goals. Teachers are involved in weekly collaboration meetings. So we're looking at student growth over time.” 

Challenges Are Many so Solutions Need to Be Versatile 

“So I think the challenges with reading intervention programs stem from just the the challenges that we face as educators on a daily basis,” said Kyle Coffman, principal at Riverside Intermediate, Plymouth Community School Corporation. These challenges are linked to the four major assumptions about student learning. “Not every student comes to us at grade level. Not every student learns the same way. Some students need more time than others. And not every child has a home environment that's conducive to academic learning,” Coffman said. This means that reading intervention programs need to work with students with different skill levels from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. “We want programs that are going to help educators address that stratification of need,” he said. 

Celebrating Success 

Keeping kids engaged and excited about any intervention program can be a challenge. That’s why it’s so important to offer immediate and positive feedback. Maria Jenkins, Title 1 Instructional Coach, Silver Creek School Corporation, sets goals with students and provides them with rewards when they meet those goals. Jenkins said it can be helpful for teachers to be mindful of trying to maintain the motivation and excitement of the program.

“You have to celebrate success,” Coffman said, noting that his district offers certificates that students earn. In addition, providing students with a degree of voice in their education is key for building engagement. “Students get to choose what they want to read, I cannot stress that enough,” he said. “I think we all know how important that is.” 

Motivation Is Key 

Tami Zylka, Professional Development Specialist at DreamBox Learning, which sponsored the event, said Reading Plus was designed with student motivation in mind. “We want our students to feel that they are able to improve as readers and become lifelong readers,’ she said, adding that DreamBox reading products are designed in accordance with the science of reading best practices. "[We want to] develop students reading and literacy skills in a manner that is aligned with the science of reading.” 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

STEAM education levels the playing field for students, according to Dr. Holly Gerlach, Solution Architect at LEGO Education. 

“Simply stated, STEAM learning is an equalizer,” Gerlach said. “STEAM is such a critical component of not only where we presently are at this given moment, but when we think to the future, it is a critical component of how we are continuously evolving.” 

Gerlach spoke during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. The webinar also featured Jillian Johnson, a STEM Educator, Curriculum Designer, and Innovation Specialist & Learning Consultant at Andover Elementary School in Florida, and Daniel Buhrow, a 3rd-5th Grade Gifted & Talented STEAM teacher at Webb Elementary McKinney ISD in Texas. 

Watch the full webinar here. 

Key Takeaways

Foster Imagination 

Johnson said that when students are being creative there’s a spark behind their eyes. “Sometimes the traditional form of education that we're used to, it stifles that spark, it stifles that creativity,” she said. 

Encouraging STEAM and creativity can help students keep that spark while learning. “We're seeing how important that imagination is, how much we have to showcase that, and the students want to showcase that because those ideas set them apart from one another," she said. "When they are building something with their LEGO, it's them creating whatever they imagine and that is the most unique, precious quality that we have.” 

Buhrow agreed. “We do a great job with our code and maker spaces to incorporate a lot of these team-centered ideas,” he said. However, students always want more and he advised educators to channel that joy for learning in these kinds of skills that we're looking for with these STEM careers. 

Educators Don’t Need Coding Experience 

Many teachers pause when they hear 'coding' and therefore shy away from teaching that area of STEM or STEAM, but it doesn’t have to be that way. 

“It feels intimidating when you say 'code,'” Johnson said. “But you do not have to be an experienced coder in order to teach the skills that are necessary to learn code. So a lot of the things that a good educator is already doing within their class to teach their math standards or their ELA standards, those are the same types of strategies that you would use to teach code because really you're more of the facilitator or the coach guiding them to get there.” 

Buhrow said this was exactly his experience with teaching code. “It's just a matter of having that flexible mindset going in, I had no formal training on it either. I started off by just taking one of the LEGO kits home and testing it out myself and seeing what worked,” he said. “There's always a kid in there who's going to be able to do this better than you will, and that's awesome.” 

Highlight Diversity of Opportunity in STEAM 

People don’t always realize just how many fields and subfields STEAM interacts with but it’s important to make students aware of those opportunities. “We need to show diversity in STEAM careers,” Buhrow said. 

For instance, there is a whole world of food and environmental science of which many are unaware. “In food science you could be the packaging engineer, you could be the marketer. You could be the research chef,” Buhrow said. “You could be working in sustainability and working with new materials on how to get rid of cardboard.” 

Get Started With Your STEAM Program Today 

Educators interested in starting to put more of an emphasis on discovery-based STEAM learning often hesitate before implementing lessons, but the panelists urged teachers to jump in.  

Gerlach said teachers can find opportunities to change the way they’re teaching their current curriculum requirements by looking to other educators and by implementing new STEAM lessons in smaller increments. 

The most important step to take, however, is that first step. “I always say you have to start somewhere,” Gerlach said. “What is this small thing that we can start today because the best day to change something or to try something is today." 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

Students across the U.S. and globe are experiencing a mental health crisis that was exasperated but not, experts agree, caused by the pandemic. 

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar, hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray, a team of panelists discussed how cultural shifts and tech tools paired with teacher, parent, and student education can help lead to healthier, happier, and ultimately, more academically successful students. 

Watch the full webinar here. 

Key Takeaways

Sobering Statistics 

Dr. Nicole Cobb, associate chair of the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University, began the webinar by sharing a number of stark statistics around student well-being. 

“Over the last year or two, 70% of public school students have been asking for more mental health support at school and in their communities,” she said. “Thirty-two percent of students say they are stressed out. Eighty-three percent say that they have physical symptoms related to their anxiety, their stress, their depression, and 42% say they feel persistently sad and hopeless, and they do not see it getting better.” 

In addition, Cobb shared how research indicates one in five students have seriously considered or attempted suicide. “Suicide is the fourth-leading cause of death between 15 and 29-year-olds. These statistics, just tell us that this is a real problem. This is not passing. COVID only heightened our awareness of this, but it is something in our country and even globally, we've been struggling to address for quite some time now.” 

Prerequisite for Learning 

As educators know, anxiety, stress, and trauma are not only harmful to kids mentally and physically but also academically. “If we're not working our way through and healing our stress and trauma, we can get to the point where we are not able to learn in meaningful ways,” said Dr. Kathryn Kennedy, founder and executive director of Wellness for Educators & Consult4Ed Group. “The healing process needs to include not just the cognitive healing, but also bodily healing, because trauma and stress are not just stored in our minds, but also in our physical bodies.” 

She added, “When safety, community, and relationships are strong, that's when learning can actually take place.” 

It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

The first step to solving these problems is creating space within a district’s culture to discuss feelings. “What we need to do as districts or schools, or even just in the classroom, is to normalize not being okay,” said Michael Garcia, a counselor and owner of Paradigm Counseling & Consulting, PLLC, who specializes in the treatment of children and adolescents in trauma and their families. Garcia added, “It's okay to not be okay. We can talk about this. We can openly use our words to say, 'This is how I feel.'” 

Providing professional development and educating teachers about trauma-informed practices is a key component in building this type of culture, Garcia said. “So when little Johnny is in the classroom, getting these big feelings and these big behaviors, then we can keep our calm. We can be curious about ‘Hey, what is it you need right now?’ and create this culture of meeting needs.” 

Being Proactive Rather Than Reactive 

Many schools use digital monitoring tools, except education is not yet getting the most out of these tools, said Channing Anderson, product engagement manager at Impero. 

“Districts buy these things and they use them reactively, they wait until a student does something wrong or something bad and they go and find the evidence and then they come to that student,” she said. 

These tools can be more powerful and helpful if they are used preventatively. In this way, the focus can be on education rather than punishment. 

“Whenever we use these tools to punish students or to control students, and to try to control their online behavior, we're actually not shaping their behavior at all,” she said. “We're not doing anything to help them learn how to navigate their online life. When we use these tools in a proactive way to learn more about the students, then we are helping these students learn how to navigate the challenges that come with living online.” 

Too often classes in education don’t consider the way humans actually learn, said Steve Oertle during a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

“I find so many classes that folks take, bachelors, masters, doctoral . . . don’t consider the brain,” said Oertle, who is the assistant superintendent at Roxana CUSD #1 in Illinois. 

The webinar was hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and also featured Chris Hull, a former classroom educator and current president and co-founder of Otus, a student growth platform.

Watch the full webinar here.

Key Takeaways 

Repetition and Repetition in Different Contexts

“Lesson number one from neurology is we need lots and lots of repetition in anything that we do to have the best shot at it being permanent,” Oertle said. 

“The second lesson in terms of neurology, really is those multiple repetitions that come in learning should come in a variety of different contexts. In other words, if you're constantly saying something the same exact way and that is the sort of repetition you get, you're building a really strong neural-to-neural connection but there's only one way in and one way out.” 

Providing repetition in different contexts will strengthen neural connections and give students more ways to access the knowledge, Oertle said. “So they've got an on-ramp here and an on-ramp here and an on-ramp here, so that no matter how they come to whatever that skill is, or that knowledge is, they have a myriad of ways to connect to that super-fast highway that we've built through repetition.” 

The Four Stages of Learning 

Cognitive scientists have found that learning happens primarily in four stages:

Experience. “Learning has to start with some sort of experience and that is brought into you through your five senses,” Oertle said. 

Process, Organize. “You bring a new experience in, your brain has to be able to file and organize that information in terms of, 'What do I do with this? Do I purge it? Is it important? Is it relevant? What do I know from my past that I can actually file this against in terms of my past experiences?'” 

Synthesize, Hypothesize, Plan. “Once that information is organized based upon your prior experience or your prior knowledge, you move to the frontal lobe, which is really where we synthesize, analyze, and hypothesize. What are we going to do with this information? If it's relevant, how am I going to use it?” Oertle said. 

Apply, Test/Experiment. After new knowledge has gone through the first three steps, it is time for a learner to assess how they will use this knowledge, Oertle said. “I'm going to test it. I'm going to write something, I'm going to explain something. I'm going to present something. I'm going to attempt a skill.” 

The final testing process provides a new experience that causes the student to reflect and starts the whole process over again, Oertle says. 

Active Learning and Data 

Otus is designed to facilitate efficient learning. “Learning is an act that requires effort,” Hull said. “We really gather the information about a kid, we visualize it so it can be acted upon. So the focus can be on learning. That's what my focus was as a teacher.” 

This data can help power other important teaching strategies such as active learning that promotes student voice and choice. “The more choice you can have, the more empowered learners are,” Oertle said. “There is a lot of research out there that points to high-effect exercises when students are the ones doing the talking and doing the doing as opposed to the teacher talking. Unfortunately, there's also research out there that is the non-exemplar that shows that 80% to 90% of most classrooms, at least in the United States are teacher voice. That's a lot of teacher's voice.” 

This is one of many areas in which educators can use more science-based practices in their teaching. “Potentially, the students aren't doing as much learning as they could be if they were the ones discussing talking and having voice and choice in the classroom,” Oertle said. 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

The importance of productive failure, instant feedback, and mastery education in math education was discussed at a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

The talk was hosted by Dr. Kecia ray and featured a lively discussion with Daniel Crispino, director of school leadership in Meriden Public Schools, and Daniel Tracy, senior solutions strategist at ST Math, a math education tool created by the nonprofit MIND Education.

Watch the full video of the webinar on-demand here. 

Key Takeaways

Process Over Product 

Crispino talked about how a few years ago Meriden Public Schools in Connecticut began rethinking its approach to math education to better understand how students were thinking and to encourage their productive struggle. 

The district focused on encouraging students to take risks, accept some setbacks, and still gain confidence and demonstrate perseverance. “This is a shift from when I learned when it was right, or it was wrong,” Crispino said. “We really wanted to emphasize that process over product, because we knew if we improved our processes, then our product eventually would improve, so that was really our focus.” 

These strategies have helped Meriden Public Schools increase math scores amid nationwide declines. 

Instantaneous Feedback and Degree of Error

Tracy said an important part of processes such as Meriden Public Schools went through is providing students with instant feedback that shows them their degree of error. He compared this to a game of basketball in which just missing a shot is not the same as an air ball -- traditional math lessons don’t do a good enough job of showing students when they just barely missed the correct answer. 

“The only difference between struggle and productive struggle is the story that the student is telling themselves,” Tracy said. “Do they believe they can do it? And the way you can get a kid to believe they can do it is if they see ‘Oh, I only missed it by a little bit. I almost made it.’” 

Instantaneous feedback in math education, like basketball, is important. “The faster we can have feedback, the more accurate the feedback, the more it displays the degree of error, the more likely the student is going to continue and persevere, and the learning takes place at a much more rapid pace,” Tracy said. 

Mastery and Differentiation 

Mastery and differentiation are also key. Math instruction in Meriden is student-driven and students have time to work on key concepts until these are mastered. “If they are struggling on something that was previously taught, they're always going to have additional opportunities throughout the year,” Crispino said. “Students are never just moving on to something else when they haven't grasped something previously.” 

ST Math is built around reshaping students’ understanding of success and failure in education. “The idea is can we lower the cost of failure to where the student perceives mastery as the most important thing, and it doesn't matter how long it took you to master it, as long as you mastered it,” Tracy said.

Seeing Into Students' Minds as They Learn Math 

Another key component of ST Math and Meriden Public Schools’ math education process is understanding how students are approaching their work on each math problem. “Instead of asking how you teach math, which is an adult-focused question, what we're asking is, 'How do you learn math and that actually gets you a wildly different outcome?'” Tracy said. “So our focus is how do you learn, and then apply that information to deep mathematical ideas.” 

Crispino said educators have put these ideas into practice in Meriden in a variety of ways. For example, students will work in groups and then discuss how they arrived at a solution to a math problem. “You can start to compare how students solved [a problem], which is really cool because there's a lot of different ways to get to an answer,” Crispino said. 

Crispino has multiple ways he can tell a math class is going well. “I want to see students collaborating, I want to see evidence [scrap] paper. I want to see people grinding through difficult math problems, and not just giving up," he said. 

In Meriden, this process is well underway, he said. "We've started to see it actually in front of our eyes, which is pretty powerful.” 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

When a district or school switches to standards-based education, also known as mastery-based education, there can be pushback from students, teachers, and parents. Navigating this pushback and making a successful transition to standards-based grading was the focus of a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

The talk was hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and featured Sara Andrus, District Administrator with Sharon J11 Community Schools in Wisconsin, and Lisa Westman an author, speaker, and consultant who works with school districts to implement standards-based grading. The webinar also featured input from Kendell Hunter, product marketing manager for Otus, and a former classroom educator. 

Watch the full video of the webinar on-demand here. 

Key Takeaways  

Building a Rubric Based on Standards and Finding Meaningful Assessment 

Andrus said that Sharon J11 Community Schools started their discussion of standards-based, or mastery-based, grading by looking at what grades actually convey to educators and parents. “What does an A tell you about your kid? Does it tell you the skills the child has or doesn't have? Or does it just tell you that they were quiet in class,” she said.

Using state standards as a guide they built rubrics that students could be assessed against. “The rubric builds itself if you look at the standard,” Andrus said. Educators in the district then engaged in “calibration conversations,” Andrus said. “What are the standards telling us these kids should be able to do at this point? And if they can't do that, why not? And how can we help fill those gaps?” 

Westman said that sometimes when schools try and implement standards-based learning they don’t focus enough on calibrating their instruction and assessment, and focus too much on creating a standards-based report card. “A lot of time was spent on creating this report card. Not a lot of time was spent and helping teachers parents and students understand the shift,” she said. “Everyone wants to start with a report card, but really that's the end. So don't start with the report card. Start with the practices.”

More Chances to Succeed and No More Zeros 

One of the points of resistance among some educators’ in Andrus’ district was around the concept of re-dos. “So there was a big conversation around what's the point of a redo,” she said. “It's to show you've corrected your misunderstandings. Why wouldn't you get credit for that?” 

Re-dos are likely to be a topic requiring discussion when implementing mastery or standards-based learning. “Sometimes they may say, ‘Well, this thing only had two questions on it, so I don't want them to redo it,’” Andrus says. “I say great. Is there another way they could show you they know that now? Could you give them two different problems?” 

This process can be empowering to students and eliminate the stigma of zeros. “There are no zeros, so we don't have to argue about them anymore. We can put them on the shelf,” Andrus says. 

Separating Behavior and Grade 

Beyond questions around re-dos, a concern among educators is how student behavior plays into a standardized-based classroom. “What if the students are misbehaving, and I used to use the grades as an incentive, and then also if I don't grade it with an A,B, C, the students won't do it,” Westman says. 

Mastery-based educators, however, are able to overcome these challenges by focusing on standards and separating behavior from grades. For instance, Andrus’ district used daily learning targets to help keep kids on pace and become more involved in their own progress. 

While behavior can become more separated from grades, it shouldn’t be ignored in a standards-based classroom, Westman says. There should be behavioral learning goals, and educators should think of executive functioning and behavior skills as skills, she said. Instead of telling a parent that their child is talking too much and not concentrating, the conversation should be more skills-based. 

“Here's the expectation and here's where your child is at in relationship to this behavior expectation,” Westman says. “And then also thinking about as we dialogue with each other, how do we teach those skills and give students feedback on those skills?”  

Standards-Based Grading Doesn’t Necessarily Take More Time

Another common concern with standards-based grading is that it requires too much extra grading time. However, that does not have to be true. “In my mind, traditional work is a lot of backend work,” Andrus said. “In standards-based, you're doing a lot of work on the front end.” 

Establishing a clear rubric makes grading faster and there are tech tools to assist with this process in many topics. The rubric also cuts down on time debating with parents and students about grades. “It's hard to argue about, 'Why did I get this score?’ Or 'You didn't grade me fairly.' We aren't having those arguments anymore.” 

• Tech & Learning webinars

Creating deeper learning with better assessments that cut beneath the surface was the topic of a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

The talk was hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and featured Vivian May, secondary instructional coach at Marion County Public Schools in Kentucky, and Kendell Hunter, a product marketing manager at Otus and a former classroom educator. 

The conversation included a discussion of how May’s district revamped its assessment process using modern tech tools in order to foster more learning that delved beneath surface. 

Watch the full video of the webinar on demand here. 

Key Takeaways  

Assessing Assessments 

During the pandemic, educators at the Marion County Public Schools realized there was a disconnect between the way students were scoring in their classes and the results they received on statewide assessments. “A lot of our teachers realized that students that were getting A’s [and] B’s in their classes were scoring novice and apprentice on our state assessment,” May said. “So we realized our assessments were not rigorous enough. We were teaching kids, but we were just surface teaching them, and then when we assessed them, we were just surface assessing them.” 

Understanding State Standards

To change this, leaders at Marion County Public Schools started a process of deconstructing state standards during professional development days. During these sessions educators: 

• Broke down Kentucky standards by identifying the verb, noun, vocabulary, and prerequisites 
• Looked at already created assessments to see if the question "matched" the standard. 
• Looked at the verbs -- are students displaying the ability to complete the standard?

Asking Questions That Dig Deeper 

This process resulted in more robust probing questions of various kinds. At this point technology became a vital part of the process and the district began using Otus to create new assessments. “What we loved about Otus was we can create any type of assessment. We can create a formative, we can create a summative, we can create a rubric,” May said. The questions also do not need to be text-based. “For example, we had a seventh-grade ELA where the standard was wanting them to match a type of media to an article. So I was able to upload a podcast on to Otus and then also uploaded a nonfiction article, and then our students were able to toggle between the two. Then it also has a question, which is very much what our state assessment looks like.” 

Processing Assessments Quicker Also Helps Schools Adjust Sooner 

Another key to strong assessments discussed during the webinar was speed, and when it comes to that, digital assessments far outpace more traditional methods. “That's really the beauty of a digital assessment,” Hunter said. “All of this data is generated as soon as students submit and what you can do is select an assessment and then view overall how students are performing on any of those standards that were on the assessment. So who's mastering? Who needs support?” 

Using Data From Assessments 

Of course, how a school uses the data generated by an assessment is key. “Once we created our assessment and made sure that our questions matched our standard, I could go in and I could link a standard to each question,” May said. 

Once teachers in Marion County Public Schools have given their assessments, May said that they can explore the data in a number of ways. “I start first looking at just a grade, and then I can filter down to each teacher and then I can filter it down to each period for that teacher. And then and I can filter it down to even demographics.” 

All of these data points can help give educators actionable insights about their students that they can use to adjust their teaching and strategies long term to ensure student success. 

• Tech & Learning Webinars

A bad grade can keep a student up at night but offers little in the way of constructive feedback. 

“When you think about a traditional grading system, there's one data point, 'I got a 75 on this quiz,' or 'I got a B on this essay,'” said John Camp, head of teaching and learning at the New England Innovation Academy. That’s part of why at his school the focus is on competencies rather than letter or numerical grades. “There are several data points for each assessment so that a student can understand what skills they're working on, and when they get that back with feedback, they understand how to improve,” Camp added. 

Camp and other education experts recently spoke about effective grading models at a Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and sponsored by Otus. 

The webinar can be viewed on-demand here.  

Key Takeaways

Traditional Grading is Losing Points 

Matt Townsley, professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Northern Iowa, said COVID helped speed up trends in grading toward standards or competency-based grading that were already present. “We want to create a system, a gradebook, that honors that students learn at different rates and different paces. We knew that before COVID, but COVID just kind of highlighted that fact for us,” he said. 

Camp added, “Not only do students learn at different rates in different ways, teachers teach at different rates and in different ways. A lot of times, that's super challenging when we're talking about the arbitrary nature of 'This is five points, this is 100 points.'” 

Updating a Grading System Takes Time 

Despite what advocates see as advantages for competency-based grading, education leaders should not try to move their district to a new grading system overnight. 

“If you're considering a change, I would say take it slow. Don't try to do too much all at once,” said Kendell Hunter, user community coordinator at Otus and a former teacher. “Make sure that teachers have the right tools to work smarter, not harder. I was in a school that went through a three-year transition to standards-based grading. At one point I was calculating my conversions, we were all sitting down and our heads were just spinning trying to crunch numbers. We don't need teachers to crunch numbers, we need them to analyze responses, guide instruction.” 

Getting Parents on Board

The first step for school leaders looking to update grading systems is to start with the why. “Clearly articulate what the purpose of grades is going to be in your school,” Townsley said. “Do not start by saying, 'We want to buy an awesome gradebook,' or 'We want to do this little change.' Start by creating consensus within the school around what the purpose of grades is.”  

The next step is communicating that to students and their parents. One of Camp’s students last year told him that while he understood the competency-based system he wasn’t sure what to tell his parents when they asked how he was doing in the class. “I said, ‘Tell them what you learned. Tell them what you're learning. Tell them what you're working on,’” Camp said. 

Keeping Students Motivated 

A common question about competency-based learning is in regard to whether students will be motivated to do daily homework if they’re not being graded on that work. The panelists agreed that the role grades play in motivation is overrated. “I can confidently say that the grading scale did not impact motivation in my experience,” Hunter said. “The students who struggled with motivation struggled when we were on points, when we were transitioning to standards, and when we were full on standards-based.” 

She added, “In terms of motivation, I always had the most success when I focused on things that I could control, like the learning activities, the level of excitement, the safety that my students felt in their classrooms, that collaboration.” 

Standards Aligned Grading is Not Grade Inflation

Sometimes competency or standards teaching is accused of being grade inflation by another name. The panelists disagreed with that assessment. 

“I would argue that it's not great inflation because you can really target how a student is performing on a standard,” Camp said. “Getting points for homework – that's the grade inflation, just getting points for compliance. In a standards-based system where you're focusing on specific skills, it's very clear you can't just get a high mark if you can't do the skill well, so it's much more targeted than a traditional system.” 

Standards Aligned Grading Is How the World Works

Another argument against standards-aligned grading is that it is “not how the real world works.” Townsley disagreed with that. “Never in the real world is anyone ever expected to be perfect the first time and every time thereafter,” he said. “Our aim in the K-12 system is to help as many kids as possible, get it. That's our goal. That's why we exist. So we should be figuring out ways to provide students multiple opportunities to learn the stuff that we're teaching them.” 

Effective standards-aligned classrooms allow students multiple opportunities but students have to earn the opportunity to retry an assignment or test. “It's not some free-for-all where we hand back the test or the project, then 30 seconds later they're doing it all over again. It's much different than maybe it seems from afar,” Townsley said. “There's a ton of things in life that you don’t get a second chance on. But there are plenty of things you do. You can take the GRE exam multiple times, the MCAT exam multiple times, the ACT multiple times, the driver's license test multiple times. Some of the highest-trained professionals I know, surgeons, they practice and make mistakes on cadavers time and time and time and time again before they're ever allowed to practice their surgical skills on real people.” 

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Sometimes, there are misconceptions about what a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) is. 

“MTSS as a way of thinking, it's not a program or an intervention,” says Judy Elliott, Ph.D, an education consultant at EduLead, LLC.

Elliott, the former Chief Academic Officer of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and Melissa DeWalk, director of Student Services at Odyssey Online Learning, discussed ways MTSS can be used to support educators and students during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and sponsored by DreamBox Learning. 

Watch the full webinar on-demand here. 

Key Takeaways  

Leadership Style Matters

Elliott shared research that looked at 747 interventions in schools that provide strong support for MTSS. “What they found was that having an effective principal, using collective leadership in a school, had a greater impact than 70 percent of those 747 interventions,” Elliott said. She noted that leadership explains about 25 percent of the variation in student learning across schools and that classroom factors account for more than 33 percent of the variation seen in student learning between schools. 

Intervene Early 

A good MTSS framework can allow educators to identify students who are struggling and then act before these struggles get out of control. “We shouldn't be waiting for a student to fail before we're stepping in,” DeWalk said. She noted that her virtual school has recently shifted its thinking around this and has had positive results with its renewed emphasis on intervening before a student has had significant struggles. 

Leadership Buy-in Is Essential 

Given the challenges coming out of COVID, DeWalk said education leaders need to embrace innovation in MTSS. “Let's think outside-the-box about MTSS, and let's not get so stuck in those tier one, tier two, tier three boxes and the things that we were doing prior to COVID,” she said. 

Modeling MTSS 

“When we do this work in brick-and-mortar schools there needs to be a district leadership team that's always meeting together and clearing the branches off the pathway so that the teachers and leaders can run freely down the path,” Elliott said. “Communication and collaboration mean that the leadership at the district level is really modeling communication and collaboration. The vision is really clear. The expectations are there from the boardroom to the classroom.” 

Establishing an MTSS Culture 

Creating the type of clear pathway for MTSS that Elliott referred to requires agreed-upon definitions of terms and expectations. “I always advocate that the first thing school districts need to do is create a board policy around multi-tiered systems of support and what that looks like. What's the definition? What are the non-negotiables? What does that look like for your district?” She added school leadership needs to build off of district leadership and this will ultimately lead to student success. “Student achievement is higher in schools where collective leadership is used and there are lots of interactions going on amongst and between teachers.” 

Parents Also Play a Key Role in This Process 

Educating parents on how to help navigate their students through a district's MTSS is also critical. “What I've found is that most parents really aren't equipped to fully advocate for their kids when it comes to academics,” DeWalk said. “So part of the way that we have really tried to reach in at our school is by educating the parent as much as we're educating the student about why we feel the extra resources and interventions that we're putting in place are important.” Efforts in this regard include having a student engagement specialist work with parents to coach them through the process of supporting their children's academic careers. 

Evaluate MTSS Programs 

Assessing your MTSS is, fittingly, all about collaboration. DeWalk said she liked to regularly check in with the people who are working with students to get a sense of what is working well and what can be improved. “I think it's really easy for us to make policy and procedure about what we're going to do,” she said. However, those policies and procedures might not always work as well in reality as they seem to on paper. “Regularly check in with your team to make sure that the policies and the procedures that are in place are actually supporting them and that it's not just an additional thing that they have to do in order to go through the MTSS process with a student,” she advised. 

Tech & Learning Webinars

Using interactive displays in the classroom is an opportunity to make the most of time with students and empower them with simple strategies. 

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray, education experts discussed best practices, experiential learning tips, special processes, and technology insights needed to maximize display use and improve engagement.

“Remember we’re preparing our students for their future, not preparing them by our past,” said Micah Shippee, a middle school teacher for 22 years and now Director of Education Technology Consulting and Solutions for Samsung, adding that an interactive display really amplifies our teachers, which are still the best instruction resource in the classroom. “Good instruction is based on modeling. And so when we're using interactive panels, I think it's really powerful to use the same tools that students are using and to demonstrate for them how to use those tools in a more productive manner.” 

To watch the full webinar on demand, click here. 

Key Takeaways

Forward looking, figuratively. "Interactive displays let us get the learning away from the front of the room and into the hands of the students," said Matt Miller, author, former educator, and founder of Ditch That Textbook. "Moving the learning away from the front of the room benefits the students and learning improves."

"We cannot be locked to the front of the classroom, that sage on the stage," said Shippee, adding that innovation requires a culture shift. "Innovation could be becoming more of a guide on the side, and using these technologies to allow students to engage with the class instruction." To support that, district administrators need to look at full packages when considering interactive technology solutions, including professional development.

Amplification, not substitution. "Technology is not a silver bullet that will fix all problems," said Miller. "It's the way we use it to improve students' lives that creates engagement."

“Remember, tech is an amplifier of instruction, not a substitute,” said Shippee.

Along those lines, educators should also remember that professional development is a continuum, and that learning never ends. “It’s not too late!” said Gloria Marchus, an edtech consultant for Samsung. “If there’s a tool or platform you didn’t get training on learning to use during the pandemic, you can still go back and get training.”

Marchus also said that teachers learn similar to the way that students do, so when it comes to PD for technology, presenters should be engaging, create hands-on learning opportunities, and most importantly, be transparent. “Because not only are you rolling out, ‘Here's this idea here's this tool, here's the strategy,’ but they need to understand the why. It's much harder to say ‘Hey, you really need to incorporate this in your room,’ if they can't see the purpose behind it.”

Mistakes welcome. When it came to learning tech, Shippee said he often tried it right in front of his students so they could see him make mistakes as he learned. “I failed right in front of them,” he said. “And then I successfully leveraged that same technology right in front of them. It wasn't ‘This isn't working, put your heads down while I figure it out.’ It was watching an adult persevere, seeing some stick-to-itiveness that sometimes works out and sometimes doesn't. It allowed me to be vulnerable in front of my students and for us to be real with each other, and the relationship level just boosted through the roof. And technology was the catalyst for that.”

Such a process is closer to how students learn on their own outside of class in the real world and can be a model, said Miller. “For example, when a student gets a brand new video game, do they get out the instruction manual and read it front to back before they start playing it, to make sure that they know all of the things that they need? No, absolutely not! They jump in, and they start trying to figure it out, and you know they die on the first level, and then they die again, and then they finally figure it out, and they can get to the next level.”

The learning experience that we design for students needs to have an appropriate level of challenge to it, said Shippee. And then we have to provide the proper tools, such as interactive displays, for students to collaborate and solve these challenges.

Advice for the year ahead. Each of the presenters was asked by Ray for one piece of advice to educators as they begin the new school year.

“You are probably doing better than you think,” said Marchus, in regard to using new technology and teaching in general. “I've had a lot of experiences when you end a lesson, a day, or a conversation, and you’re kicking yourself, and then the next day someone will come up, and they'll say ‘Thanks.’”

“Change is upon us, so we have to embrace it,” said Shippee. “Letting our students see us try something new and fail is useful.”

Finally, Miller suggested that educators remember to take care of themselves. “Teaching is hard work,” he said. “So many teachers are burned out or leaving the profession, and by golly, we need you!”

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Digital literacy and ease of use for teachers and students are important components of creating secure digital collaboration, say Drew Lane and Mary Schlegelmilch. 

Lane, executive director of ICT at Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas, and Schlegelmilch, business development manager at Cisco, spoke with Dr. Kecia Ray during a recent Tech & Learning webinar sponsored by Cisco. 

Watch the on-demand version here. 

Key Takeaways  

Plan on Planning 

When developing secure collaboration systems in a district, having a planning process that prioritizes flexibility is important. 

“The act of planning itself is probably as important as the plan itself,” Lane said. “No matter what plan you develop, it will change as soon as you put it in place. As soon as it is tested, it will change and you will need to respond to that change.” 

He added, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy. Who would have ever thought supply chain issues would be such a factor in the execution of your plans? So that's required creative thinking.” 

Keeping this in mind, Lane’s district now plans five years out rather than seven, which allows for more flexibility. 

Use The Right Tech Tools 

Finding the correct use of your technology tools is as important as the quality of the tools themselves. 

“Technology is a tool and like all tools you need to use it for the right thing,” Lane said. “If you use a hammer to fix a windshield, you don't get a repaired windshield.” 

For example, the forced remote learning of 2020 and parts of 2021 were more challenging than many expected, Lane said. However, schools learned from the experience and know better how to use available edtech tools for both in-person and virtual learning going forward. “If we're ever in a position where we have to do a version 2.0, it will be better than version 1.0 was because we will take the lessons learned,” Lane said. 

Give Teachers The Support They Need to Focus on Teaching 

Schlegelmilch has spent time over the past two-plus years working with teachers on developing good tech pedagogy. “What I learned is that teachers really want to do what they do best, which is teach, but they also want to communicate,” she said. 

To support both these goals, teachers need access to a secure network and the right tools for communication and collaboration such as easy-to-use video chat options. When technology is difficult to use for students or teachers, utilization tends to be low. “I always say, ‘Make it easy for teachers. Make it even easier for students,’” Schlegelmilch said

Realize That Secure Collaboration is Linked to Digital Citizenship 

The Shawnee Mission School District was able to navigate remote learning and incorporate more technology without putting its students or teachers at risk from data breaches. Even though the district has avoided being hacked, school leaders learned during the pandemic that they need to do more work around digital literacy education for all school stakeholders. “Secure collaboration leads to greater digital literacy,” Lane said. “It is symbiotic. In that sense. You have to have one living with the other to get the full benefit. People didn't necessarily realize until they were using secure collaboration that insecure collaboration and cybersecurity was a threat to them at an individual level.” 

District leaders are now devoting resources to ensure educators understand cybersecurity basics and its role in protecting their district’s network or networks. “We do have a responsibility if we intend to remain masters of technology and not the other way around to be digitally literate enough to understand the limitations of things like identity access management controls,” Lane said. “You have to understand how a bad actor could get into my space against my wishes, and what actions are available for me to take as a teacher to prevent that. I think that there is some water there for us to carry as educators and I think there always will be.”

Define Security and Innovate 

It can also help to clarify what secure collaboration involves for your district. Lane said that for his district it means if they’re working with a tech platform their IT department understands the way the district’s data is stored. “They know where that data rests,” he said. “They know that that data is encrypted when it's in transit. And they know that that data is in good hands when it's decrypted and presented to your internal customer.” 

Schlegelmilch said that secure tech tools that foster collaboration can help teachers continue to use technology to innovate education. “Coming out of this pandemic, I always say this is the time to truly reimagine education,” she said. “This is not the time to go back to the old normal of what we had. This is the time where we start thinking differently.” 

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As educators continue to meet the needs of students in an ever-changing landscape, it’s critical to adopt learning solutions that demonstrate a positive impact on student growth. 

Pinellas County Schools, one of the largest and most diverse in the nation, helped students achieve over 5 percentile points of growth on NWEA MAP assessments in just eight weeks.

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar sponsored by DreamBox Learning, Michael Feeney, Executive Director of Elementary Education District at Pinellas County Schools, shared the critical steps educators took to ensure program success and how they helped students at all learning levels meet academic goals during challenging times.

Watch the on-demand version here 

Key Takeaways

Getting ahead of the slide. From the outset of the pandemic, Feeney and PCS focused on preventing COVID slide and boosting student achievement by removing barriers to learning. The district tries to create personalized learning paths for every student, so when the pandemic began, each was given a device and provided internet access. 

“We're very committed to that equity piece,” said Feeney. “You've got to have devices and you’ve got to have broadband, so that investment it's really important.”

Time was also provided before and after school to give students extra opportunities to work, and the number of recommended weekly DreamBox math lessons was doubled, which only took students about 1.5 to 2 hours to complete.

Five is the magic number. Feeney repeatedly stressed that across grade levels and demographics, students who received the same instruction in the classroom but also completed at least five Dreambox lessons per week, doubled their growth on NWEA MAP scores.

“Every district leader wants to know: ‘Is this tool really working?’” said Feeney. So being able to provide data to show that Dreambox, in conjunction with the instruction provided by the district’s teachers, is working is critical. 

“Dreambox is like GPS,” he added. “If we take a wrong turn, it will update and adapt to our students and put them back on track.”

Tools are nice but teaching always matters. “We need to earn teachers’ trust, we need to earn their time, and none of this success happens without them,” said Tim Hudson, chief learning officer for DreamBox Learning.

To that end, in addition to regular monitoring and weekly professional development, the district now has designated a DreamBox education lead and developed “champions” at each school to support teachers helping one another. 

“We need to engage brains–kids have thoughts, and in personal learning, we want students to progress through the development of an idea, including the critical thinking and sense making pieces of it,” said Hudson. “Just because students get the right answers sometimes doesn’t mean that they have the depth of understanding. So we focus on developing the pedagogy.”

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Dr. Matthew Cheeseman lost both parents to suicide. 

“When you have two parents pass away by suicide, each and every day you look through a new lens of intent,” said the Superintendent at Beaufort County Schools in Washington, North Carolina, during a recent Tech & Learning webinar. 

Judging students and colleagues by intent rather than behavior is one of many ways in which Cheeseman – the NERESA Region 1 Superintendent of the Year – has tried to lead his staff and students through the mental health challenges of the past two years. 

Cheeseman and Dr. Tim Hudson, Chief Learning Officer at DreamBox Learning, spoke about how school leaders can use multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) to help teachers and students. The virtual event was sponsored by DreamBox Learning and hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. 

View the webinar on-demand here. 

Key Takeaways  

Supporting Educators

MTSS Programs Should Evolve 

Beaufort County Schools has been very intentional about setting up its MTSS program to address social and emotional learning, student behavior, and traditional academic learning as well as staff needs. “Each and every month we have assigned times to really look at our programs, value our programs, and look at what we need to change moving forward based on those values,” Cheeseman said. “We've developed an intentional plan for what it should look like for students. But we've also strategically provided monthly professional development to assist our system principals and our counselors at the school sites.” 

A key component of that plan is providing educators with the MTSS support they need so that they can be empowered to empower their students. “We're working through our adults in order to reach those students,” Cheeseman said. 

Educators Should Be Part of the MTSS Plan 

“We've had a lot of adult behaviors that needed support and needed to be addressed,” Cheeseman said. The district had “adults needing to be recognized, needing to feel loved, needing to feel respected, but also needing some accommodations along the way,” he added. 

Often staff members don’t know how to ask for the support they need, so part of the district's plan has been to train principals and other school leaders in MTSS and establish more lines of communication for educators to request help and assistance. These school leaders are also making sure they’re asking their staff what resources they need to be successful in their lives outside of school. 

Encourage Educators to Strike the Right Work-Life Balance

“I tell everyone that I'm in contact with that I would like you to work to live instead of living to work,” Cheeseman said. “Although we're in the business of teaching and learning, and we desire to have the greatest student outcomes for all, our goal is to make sure that our employees have the resources they need to be successful. So they know that each and every day we want them to come back refreshed from living that great life on the weekends, living that great life at home in the evening, but at the same time being present 100 percent of the time when they're here at work.” 

The Right Kind of Assessments  

Accelerate Students Without Causing Trauma 

Educators want students to hit certain benchmarks, but they need to be realistic about how they identify students who have fallen behind and how they get to them to catch up effectively, Hudson, from DreamBox Learning said. 

“Not every student is on that same schedule. So if every fourth grader is not going to be proficient in fourth-grade standards by the end of this school year, we have an obligation this year to accelerate them in a way that can get them on track by the end of fifth grade next year,” Hudson said. “We have to have those realistic expectations. We don't want to inflict any trauma on students by trying to rush them through things in a shallow sort of way.” 

Be Smarter About Assessments 

Effectively identifying the students who need support means designing assessments that meaningfully test student knowledge. Hudson said that if we tested driving the way we frequently test math, we would test each driver on turning, then on acceleration, etc. without ever having them combine the various skills needed to drive. “If we do assessment this way, it's not going to give us the most authentic picture of a student's true performance capability,” he said. “Assessing those isolated skills is the wrong way to monitor progress toward driving performance.” 

If your math assessments can be easily answered by Excel, a calculator, or another tech tool, you may need to rethink your assessment, he said. 

Don’t Take Shortcuts

Hudson said it’s important for teachers to take the time to develop meaningful assessments that challenge students. “We can't prioritize short-term gains on shallow assessment items,” he said. “Good learning takes time.” 

He then quoted a friend’s grandmother’s sage advice: “If you don't have time to do it right, you better have time to do it twice.” 

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Emergency remote learning should not be confused with planned and intentional virtual learning.

That was one of the key themes of a recent webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and sponsored by Stride Learning Solutions, which provides online and blended education programs. 

During the discussion, Bouchra Bouanani, executive director of Miami Virtual Program Arizona, an online K-11 public school in Arizona, and Cindy Wright, vice president of academics at Stride, discussed the benefits of virtual learning and cleared up misconceptions about online learning. 

View the on-demand version here. 

Key Takeaways 

Myth: Remote learning and virtual learning are the same

“Remote learning is trying to adapt a brick-and-mortar program and run it remotely,” Bouanani explained. “In virtual learning, the whole student and teacher experience is tailored to learning from home, so the platform, the interactive curriculum, teachers’ expectations for live instruction, everything is made for a virtual learning experience.” 

Wright added that a robust virtual learning environment should be designed to work with diverse learners and provide a continuum of support for students. This type of virtual school and curriculum can enhance fully online, blended, or even in-person learning. 

Myth: Students lose socialization when participating in a virtual learning environment

In the past, socialization in online classes was difficult but that has changed, and students in virtual schools will meet in person and gather for social events online. “The amount of socialization available in a virtual environment is a shock to most people,” Wright said. “We have some things that can be purely social – they're going to meet at a local zoo, or they're going to meet in a Zoom room and they're going to see a guest speaker who's talking about how to get into gaming.” 

Virtual schools also enable students to form friendships that are not limited by geography. “You have some students, especially in small towns, they might have a particular area that they're so interested in, but not a lot of other kids in the neighborhood or in the local area have that interest,” Wright said. “So you're able to have that worldwide connection and that national connection.” 

Bouanani said that as an online educator and as a parent whose children attend virtual school, she’s seen powerful social interactions firsthand. Her children have attended dances, taken internships, joined clubs, and made lifelong friends. 

Myth: Virtual learning is generally asynchronous

“Online learning offers synchronous live sessions daily as well as open office hours, where students can come and get extra supports based on student data,” Bouanani said. In her school, there also are synchronous enrichment sessions for advanced and gifted students, and special education services with special education teachers, as well as synchronous services for English learners.

Wright said that at Stride, they spend a lot of time working with teachers and staff on creating effective synchronous interactions with students. “It's even part of their observations, their evaluations, that they're engaging students on a regular basis [synchronously],” she said. 

Myth: Online students have very limited interaction with their teachers

“Students have just as much if not more access to quality time with their teachers in a virtual environment,” Wright said. Virtual learning also allows students to be organized into different groups more efficiently. “You're able to group students by abilities or project or what have you.” 

To be effective, synchronous virtual learning often requires interaction between the teacher and students and between each student and their classmates. “If anything, students interact more with their online instructors and students in a live session,” Bouanani said. “Students are always eager to participate during live sessions. Teachers go the extra mile and get super creative to include everybody in that conversation. So student opinion and voice feel valued in the online environment.” 

Myth: Field trips don’t occur in virtual learning 

Students who attend Miami Virtual Program Arizona participate in virtual and physical field trips. For physical field trips, the school will often offer several meet-up locations to accommodate families who live in different parts of Arizona. “If it's a park day, we'll have 10 locations depending on where the students are,” Bouanani said. “If it's a museum, it will be museums around the state.” 

Virtual schools are also set up for students to easily participate in virtual field trips. “One thing I like about virtual field trips, we are not bound by time,” Wright said. “We can do a virtual field trip at Shakespeare's Globe Theater, and take children where passports would be required. So they become less limited, and they're not so locally dependent on what's available in the area.” 

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How can schools use data to personalize the learning experience for all students? 

“We’re really starting to see districts rally around the data, and trying to get it into the hands of school-level administrators to drive future decisions,” said Dr. Adam Cibulka, Senior Manager Student Analytics for Frontline Education, during a recent Tech & Learning virtual roundtable discussion. “We have students who have been in crisis through this entire time, and they might not be telling us they're in crisis, so we need to make sure and find a way to take all the data sets that we have put it in a spot for our team to analyze and act on because many times those students would not cry out that they need help.”

Educators and experts discussed this and how they are using data to benchmark student performance, target opportunity gaps, develop strategies to accelerate student learning, and ensure all students have equitable learning opportunities.

See the free on-demand version here

Key Takeaways

Whole child focus. “Equity means that everyone is searching to find their place. And every one is looking for a chance to have a chance,” said Dr. Searetha Smith-Collins, 7 Mindsets Chief Academic Officer. “So as we think about data collection and analyzing data, and finding ways to support learning and opportunities, we have to keep that in mind as our underlying thoughts.” 

Currently, district leaders are focused on educator recruiting, staffing, and training, while school-level priorities are mainly centered on social-emotional learning and areas beyond pure academic performance. “I love something that Louisa May Alcott said. ‘I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship,’” said Smith-Collins. “And I think for those of us who have successfully managed through this process that we just concluded, about 700-plus days of COVID and its impact, we're closer to knowing now that we need to develop the whole child, the whole person. We know that we can now get back to transforming education and building positive, happy humans.”

Data rich, analytics poor. Cibulka discussed how Frontline has been working hard with districts to develop analytics dashboards that allows educators to easily combine and analyze student data, from attendance to what apps they have, to create better supports. “We need the data to know where we are now so we can craft a path to where we want to be,” he said. 

“Many of our clients are saying, ‘We’re data rich and analytics poor – where do we go?’” said Dr. CyLynn Braswell, Advisor for Student Analytics at Frontline Education. Educators really want to understand the metrics to know who their students are and what the community is experiencing, and to move forward. “If we're not careful about how we pivot, if we continue to keep circling back around, we're going to go right back to where we were pre-COVID and not providing the opportunities for young people.”

“Data doesn’t give you the answer, but it helps you answer what the reality is and how to monitor the situation,” said Dr. Barbara Ybarra, Associate Superintendent of Teaching & Learning for Bryan ISD in Texas. Ultimately, she said, “It's about the progress, the conversation, and the action. And that comes from strong leadership, that's built on trust in a collaborative way that’s shared between the campus, the district, and all the other teams coming together to make the greatest positive impact on that child in the time that I have with them.” 

Using data to better support equity. Smith-Collins noted that a lot of professors weren’t ready for the same learning emergencies as there was in K-12, which trickled down into instruction. “We can’t depend on what we think will be certain, so we have to prepare for different ways of doing business,” she said. “We saw that there are shortages and uneven opportunities so we have to begin to look at how we are delivering teaching and learning and assessments. And is it really addressing the needs of all of our families and students?” Consequently, using data to inform decisions around the appropriate curriculum tools that will help teachers make shifts to virtual learning, if need be, is critical. 

Students who are connected to the school community tend to thrive, so it’s critical to track  data in order to make those connections for all students, said Ybarra. It’s also important to address the opportunity gaps within families, and providing data to the community is a part of that, especially for district improvement plans. “Nothing's worse than being asked to actually sit at the table and not being allowed to eat,” she said. “That happens in the data and we see it. These tools allow us to actually become actionable around it and say everyone will come to the table and all will eat.”

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How can schools create the infrastructure that supports the equitable and safe use of technology in schools today -- and in the future? 

During a recent Tech & Learning roundtable, Sandra Paul, director of IT for Township of Union Public Schools in New Jersey, and Rob Dickson, CIO for Wichita Public Schools in Kansas, discussed best practices on how school districts could implement the tools and systems to ensure IT is safe, accessible, and easy to manage. The webinar was hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray and sponsored by Microsoft. 

View the on-demand version of the talk here. 

Access Anywhere and Everywhere  

Providing students equitable and safe access to technology goes well beyond the classroom today. “We've accepted as a society that our kids are going to be multi-medium connectors,” Dickson said. “Before, when we thought about learning, we kept it in the confines of that classroom, or we kept it in the confines of that district.” 

Paul agreed. “When it comes to equity, the biggest thing is we've changed the whole concept of instruction and learning,” she said. “It's no longer boxed into a school district or in the four walls of the classroom. It's gone out into the community and beyond.” 

Education technology leaders now need to think about the tech that is available in each student and teacher’s home and what kind of support the district can provide for effective and secure use of that technology. 

Limits On Use 

In her district, Paul said she provided student access to educational materials but not to everything on the internet. “My whole idea was to make sure that the students get what they need, but also make sure that whatever device they're using has the filtering, or has the ability to give them what they need on an instructional site,” she said. For instance, parents were not able to check their personal emails on a school device. “We had to do workshops for parents that explained a Chromebook is not a laptop, or an iPad, or cell phone,” Paul said. 

Dickson also employs filters on school-issued devices to help keep students and the school’s network secure. However, he will loosen certain restrictions with students and staff members who he knows are knowledgeable about how they are using a given device. “If I've trained a student or a staff member on something, I’ll allow them to go a little bit further than I typically would the standard user,” he said. 

Privacy Concerns 

Dickson discussed how there is more awareness of data privacy in Europe and more restrictions on the way data can be gathered and used. However, more U.S. states are beginning to focus on data and the need to protect data that can be used to identify students – even if it’s not explicitly sharing a student’s name. 

Paul said that leaving student security and safety up to technology directors alone is a mistake and that laws surrounding student privacy and safety need to be updated. Not only do directors have to try and protect student data but they have to help students steer a safe course while using devices that are increasingly controlled by algorithms that might prey on their insecurities by doing things such as reinforcing worries about weight or appearance. “Everybody was in a rush to give out these devices, not realizing that there is a side of it that we need to definitely step back and take a look at because the laws have not caught up,” she said. 

Guarding Against Cyber Attacks 

School IT infrastructures continue to increasingly be targets of attacks from hackers. 

“It's a matter of when not if it's going to happen,” Paul said of cyberattacks. “We, as directors, try to be preventative. We try to educate and inform everyone that's a part of the entire instructional and learning process.” 

In addition to providing advice on how to protect school information, IT directors also try to inform educators about protecting their own personal information. Dickson’s district has moved all staff to two-factor authentication. “That’s non-negotiable,” he said. 

Other Steps Districts Can Take to Protect Themselves 

Paul advised those who are new technology leaders to connect with others in the field. “Reach out to your colleagues in the next district, your next state,” she said. “Reach out and join some national organizations. COSN has been amazing.” 

Dickson is working with other tech directors in Kansas to share best practices and knowledge. “We're going to start creating peer groups where we review one another's processes and procedures,” he said. “There are some things that are very inexpensive that you can put in place to help.” 

In addition, Dickson said that his district is working with Microsoft to help protect student data by providing secure platforms and help the district respond if an incident were to occur. “If something were to happen, let's say a data breach or data leak, I can contact Microsoft and have one of the largest entities in technology in the world helping me to remediate that,” he said. 

• Recent Tech & Learning Webinars

We know children thrive through play, but did you know that learning through play is a powerful research-backed strategy to boost student engagement in the classroom?

“When students are playing, they’re unlocking their natural curiosity and finding their joy in learning,” said Dr. Jenny Nash, Head of Education Impact, US, for LEGO Education, during a recent virtual Tech & Learning roundtable discussion. “And when students learn in a purposeful, hands-on way it builds their confidence, and lessons can really become more motivating and meaningful. Purposeful play is rooted in pedagogical approaches, such as project-based learning, and it's really known to increase student learning outcomes."

During the event, experts shared evidence from both research and practice that demonstrate the connection between play and learning. Attendees heard about strategies and resources to incorporate purposeful play into their STEAM classrooms to help kids develop cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and creative skills, all using a research-based approach and real classroom examples.

The roundtable is available free on-demand here

Key Takeaways

Failing Forward. Learning through play allows students to try things and fail, and then learn from that, said Nash. “If we can have that meaningful failure, if we give students an opportunity to unlock their thinking and make their thinking visible and share what it looks like as they're creating and building, and we give them that chance to fail with it and learn from that – hey, it's not a failure, it's just an iteration of learning,” she said. “And now, they’re like, ‘I'm gonna be able to take some knowledge and change that, tweak it, and try something else out.’”

Obviously, hands-on tools such as LEGO Education building kits and solutions provide these opportunities. “LEGO has such a great low floor and high ceiling for learning,” said Susan McGrath, District Digital Learning Coach for Fayette County Public Schools in Kentucky. “It accommodates failure and creates some great productive struggle. I feel like I'm tricking them sometimes into learning.”

Future ready. Having such a familiar tool as LEGO available is especially helpful with younger students. “Being able to introduce LEGO tools into the classroom allowed my first-grade students to work and learn at their own pace, and be comfortable. For many of them, this was their first in-person experience in school,” said Joey Tanaka, EdTech and Robotics Specialist at Bertschi School in Seattle and a LEGO Education Master Educator. “Our job is to find the right learning level for each student.” 

When introducing a tool such as a LEGO kit, to get a sense of it, Tanaka likes to first give it to someone who is competent and then a student who maybe has never worked with LEGO. “Recently, on the very first night I gave a kit to a student, I got this late-night email from her mother, and I was like, ‘Oh, great. Maybe I should have coached her more and provided more guidance.’ And the email said this: ‘We really didn't have time to help her, and so we just passed her the box.’ Then they heard this: ‘This is like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!’” 

Using playful and hands-on learning can sometimes engage students who might not otherwise participate, said McGrath. It also can open the door to other opportunities and types of learning.

“Research just continues to show that if we can embed the knowledge and skills, if we can embed that social-emotional learning through those types of experiences, at the end of the day, our students become confident and resilient learners,” said Nash. “They're going to be ready for whatever that future holds.”

Cross-curricular connections. A hands-on such as a robotics kit can be used to make connections across content areas. For example, Tanaka discussed how he watched as one student tried to create a faster car, and how adding elements to boost power, such as extra engines and wheels, didn’t really add to the speed. As the student worked, he started to explore other variables, including weight and air resistance, which opened the door to a physics lesson. “This is a perfect example of how our goal as teachers is really to have the kids puzzle things out on their own,” he said. “LEGO is really excellent for that, showing kids things that are really hard to show at times, like motion or speed. It was just a phenomenal moment as a teacher.”

McGrath is working with her district’s math and science specialists to bring in LEGO Education into more classrooms. “I actually was at one of our elementary schools, and they brought in their science class to the library for a STEM lesson. And we did a LEGO activity  and the students loved it. And to hear them talk with the science teacher about concepts that she had already been teaching – I wish I had a picture of her face because she was kind of jaw-dropped as the students were mentioning things she had talked about, and they were actually seeing it in action in their build.”

Just do it. In regard to adopting STEAM learning through play, McGrath said to educators, “Don't be afraid. Jump in. Try just try.”

“Be flexible,” said Tanaka.

“You can do it,” said McGrath. “Just have faith.”

• Recent Tech & Learning Webinars

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is not easy to study. 

“All of us in education know it's challenging measuring academic skills; it's even more challenging measuring social-emotional skills,” said Jennifer Adams, who serves on the Executive Committee for Karanga The Global Alliance for Social-Emotional Learning and Life Skills, and is former Superintendent/Director of Education for the English public schools in Ottawa, Canada.

Despite the challenges involved, global research into SEL is improving as is an understanding of its importance and the best practices involved. 

“The topic discussion is becoming more granular and more nuanced. It's moved away from smiley face stickers for everybody to people understanding the science behind it,” said Mark Sparvell, director of marketing education at Microsoft and an advisor to Goldie Hawn's MindUp Foundation. 

Adams and Sparvell, who is also an ambassador for the Emotional Intelligence Society of Australia and founder of the SELinEdu Community, spoke about global research into social-emotional learning during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray.  The two focused on highlights from Beyond Academic Learning: First Results from the Survey of Social and Emotional Skills, a global study of SEL from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

View the on-demand version of the webinar here.  

 Key Takeaways  

Social and Emotional Skills Related to Well-Being

The OECD study is one of the first international efforts to collect data from students, parents and educators on the social and emotional skills of learners at age 10 and 15. Survey results were collected from 11 cities in 10 countries. 

“The first and foremost conclusion that the study comes to is that social-emotional skills are strongly related to well-being,” Adams said. “That might seem obvious, but I think it's important that we've got an international study that says this across countries around the world with very different education systems with very different cultures, languages, religions, etc.” 

This intercultural finding highlights the need for schools to do more to support SEL for educators and students, Adams said. 

Other findings include: 

• SE skills dip in adolescence, particularly for girls
• Boys reported higher emotional regulation,  sociableness , and energy levels
• Girls reported higher levels of responsibility, empathy and cooperation
• Socioeconomically advantaged students reported higher SE skills
• A competitive school climate and high expectations (teachers/parents) are associated with higher well-being in 10 year olds and higher test anxiety for 10 and 15 year olds
• Well-being dips as test anxiety increases from 10-15 year olds, especially for girls

Focus on Well Being Rather Than Learning Loss 

The OECD report and a separate Aspen Institute guidance reached similar conclusions around learning loss, Sparvell said. “At the moment, we hear people, schools, and systems talking about learning loss talking about learning interrupted,” he said. “There is maybe an inclination to rush toward more content, more time spent covering curriculum, but both the OECD paper and the Aspen Institute suggest a balanced approach, which carefully considers well-being, particularly emotional well being, as a route toward academic achievement.” 

Adams leads a thought leadership group, which frequently invites education and health experts to talk. “It's very interesting to hear that when those panelists are talking, whether they're from the education system or the mental health sector, they're all saying the exact same thing,” she said. “The advice that they're giving to education, policymakers, and to leaders, is to make sure that we really take care of our students and our staff, and the learning will come as part of that. The knee-jerk reaction to potentially go down that path of trying to catch up is absolutely the wrong approach.” 

Social and Emotional Learning Disparities 

A particularly significant finding of the OECD paper was that socioeconomically advantaged students reported higher social and emotional skills. 

“We know that there is a demonstrated gap based on socio-demographics for academic skills,” Adams said. “What this study has shown is that that gap exists for social-emotional skills. And obviously, during this time with a pandemic, it exacerbated both of those gaps, which really means that as we come back, and we have children coming back into schools, we have to take extra care now that we know more about the gaps and the needs of those vulnerable children.” 

Sparvell said the impact of this disparity could potentially be felt for years. “Those with higher developed social and emotional skills, with greater resilience, with greater ability to put things into perspective, with greater levels of optimism, all of that good social and emotional learning stuff, essentially have got protective factors to allow them to mitigate the harm caused,” Sparvell said. “Yet this research is suggesting those very students who are already more vulnerable through their parents possibly having to physically go to work, through not having potential access to devices and technology, and who are already at risk, are even further at risk if they're not having access to high-quality, social and emotional learning programs.” 

Boosting Academic Achievement By Giving Students Control 

Sparvell shared how Microsoft sponsored The Class of COVID: Lessons of Today and Learnings for Tomorrow, a white paper by Harvard Business Review. For the paper, the team spoke with experts in a variety of fields to develop advice for coming out of the pandemic. 

Sparvell shared highlights from his conversation with John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, and bestselling author of the “Brain Rules” series of books. “He said to me he’s only interested in what he can measure in terms of the brain. And he said that brains are built for stress, they love it. That's what we're designed for. Stress triggers emotions, which then guide behaviors fight, flight, freeze. But the brain hates feeling out of control. When it feels out of control, experiencing stress for prolonged periods, it ceases to operate effectively. It basically starts to freak out.” 

With this in mind, Medina’s advice for educators that Sparvell relayed is: “Be very cognizant about allowing students to have control in remote learning, hybrid learning, or face-to-face learning because in a world that is largely out of their control, they need small pockets of control. So when you hear people talking about voice and choice, and agency, what they're really talking about is, ‘I see you, I hear you, and you matter.’ It calms the stressed brain, and allows learners to engage in deep learning.” 

Sparvell added, “We know that emotions are the gatekeeper of how we think and process information. What drives us to do what we do and motivation, and where we direct our scarcest resource, our attention. So, for learning to be effective, we need to pay very careful attention to the emotional context.” 

• Recent Tech & Learning Webinars

During a recent Tech & Learning webinar, education and technology leaders discussed the importance of using an LMS as a consistent foundation for teaching and learning—both in and out of the classroom—for all students and a variety of learning experiences. 

“I often say that an LMS is the building for our online experiences, just like a gymnasium is the building for athletic experiences. You can have a lot of athletic equipment spread all across your campus, but it’s more effective to have it all in one place,” said Dr. Kecia Ray, education expert and the webinar’s host.  

Among the topics covered:

• Building a foundation for digital learning 
• Differentiating instruction in and out of the classroom 
• Enhancing the digital learning experience for young students 
• Engaging with students anytime, anywhere 

View the on-demand version here

Key Takeaways

All together now. “We surveyed parents after our pandemic response, and not surprisingly, they told us we had too many systems for our students and families,” said Janie Stach, director of IT at Grapevine-Colleyville ISD in Texas. The district subsequently decided to move to one common LMS for everyone, choosing Canvas Instructure. 

“Every decision we made, we made sure there were lots of voices in the room,” said Karsyn Jackson, lead IT coach for Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. “So not only was it district leadership, but also stakeholders, parents, and students, so that we were all aligned. We’re constantly working with our teachers to make sure that we’re meeting them where they are in terms of what they need.”

KISS Your LMS. When considering which LMS to choose, Trenton Goble, Instructure’s VP for K12 Strategy, had some basic advice:

- Keep it simple
- Build out templates, engaging teachers in the process
- Engage leaders at all levels

Goble also stressed the importance of having a consistent place for students to log into every day to see what they have to, and also a place to find support and receive feedback is critical for student success. And an LMS provides that.

“We want to really create an environment where we're setting people up for success,” he said. The goal for districts implementing an LMS to start with should be to get every teacher comfortable with the platform, and then as that happens, they can evolve up the ladder at their own pace.

Professional development. When the decision was made that online learning is not going away, the Grapevine-Colleyville leadership supported the Canvas LMS adoption fully so teachers were forced to buy in, said Jackson, which boosted participation in subsequent training. “If that is your goal then mandate it because that is a way to get buy-in and go through the right steps and implementation to make sure that you are changing the attitudes and behaviors of your teachers so that they have genuine, authentic buy-in and they enjoy using it.” 

“If you’re going to mandate something, you need to make sure that teachers understand why and how it’s going to benefit their students in the classroom,” said Goble.

The district first piloted the platform with teachers who were ready to use it, and then created Canvas Academy, which features district-aligned professional learning courses. The Canvas course creation guidelines, which are rooted in universal design, were the starting point, and that was adopted for the district with different targeted levels of skills to meet teachers where they were.

When a district can come in and create a template and develop best practices, it provides consistency, which is critical for teachers, parents, and students, said Goble. “I could see new teachers coming in and saying, ‘I feel hyper overwhelmed, I don't have the time or the energy to learn this,’ and when a district comes in and creates those templates and that structure, and creates consistency, it takes some of that anxiety away. And then over time, the teacher starts to feel more comfortable, and then they may want to customize some of the functionality.

“We're working continuously with teachers to grow those skills to make sure that we are constantly meeting them where they are when it comes to the needs that they have with Canvas,” said Jackson.

• Recent Tech & Learning Webinars

Using technology to facilitate inclusive teaching means evolving and focusing on student needs and benefits, not tech for tech’s sake, said panelists during “Inclusive by Design: All About Accessibility and Equity in Schools” a recent Tech & Learning webinar sponsored by Microsoft and hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray.

During the event educators shared how they’ve successfully incorporated powerful tech tools into their districts.

Watch the free webinar on demand here. 

Key Takeaways 

Inclusive Tech is An Ongoing Evolution 

Tracey Rowley, Education Technology Integration Specialist for Tucson Unified School District, said that using tech tools to promote inclusivity is an ongoing effort. 

“We continue to provide support and training on the different technologies that are available. We really want to empower our students, empower our parents, empower people, to be confident and to feel independence,” she said. “And we continue to innovate and pivot, based on the needs of our schools and our students and our teachers.” 

Rowley shared how one student was able to use Microsoft’s Immersive Reader to translate her paper into Spanish to be able to work with her mom on the paper. 

However, Rowley said you never want to focus just on the technology. “The last thing a lot of people want is more things: more things to do, more things to learn. So we've really focused on reinforcing the why and the how, and encouraging people to work together as they learn about these different tools that will increase accessibility and inclusivity.” 

Tech Tools Should Be Used Intentionally 

Aric Bilas is the Technology Integration Educator at Phoenix Union High School District, which has about 28,000 students, 10 percent of whom are in special education. In addition, there are approximately 100 different home languages spoken by students in the district. “We have a lot of need for accessibility, and inclusivity with our teaching,” Bilas said. 

The district began a push in 2019 to use more technology to aid inclusivity in the classroom but leaders quickly learned that simply adding tech didn’t increase accessibility. “We were seeing initially that a lot of teachers were trying new things and doing new things, but they weren't necessarily doing it in a way that was meaningful to students,” he said. “So we incorporated Universal Design for Learning Tripoli framework to really help streamline that lesson design process.”

This process has resulted in more teachers utilizing available tools, including Microsoft Sway Presenter coach, a tool within PowerPoint that evaluates how a presenter delivers material including pacing, pitch, use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, then gives you a report that includes statistics and suggestions for improvements.

As these tools have become more widespread, the district has seen a cultural shift. “Teachers in their classrooms are only using tools and technology that have these things built into them, they're looking for tools that use Immersive Reader, whether it's a Microsoft product, or it's a third-party product. If it doesn't have Immersive Reader built into it, they shy away from it.” 

Getting the Most Out of Microsoft Tools 

Jill Sitnick, the education industry executive and manager of the U.S. Training Partner Program for Microsoft U.S. Education, said Microsoft has many resources and online tutorials that can be found at The Microsoft Educator Center. 

As a former English teacher, Sitnick, like many others, has a particular fondness for Immersive Reader, which was designed to help solve challenges around reading based on the latest literacy science and research. Text-to-speech options that highlight the word being spoken is a proven way to improve literacy in some readers. 

“I'm writing a book, and I'm using Immersive Reader all the time to highlight the verbs to make sure I have the right tense. And I'm using the reading progress, the reading bar to proofread,” Sitnick said. “I always used to say to my students in my English class, ‘Proofread your essays backward, read each sentence separately.’ This is helping me do it. So you want to think a little bit outside the box in terms of what different tools you use for any population.” 

Sitnick added that another great tool was Dictation, which types out what students say. “As an English teacher, I had to kind of sit back and say, ‘What am I really evaluating with students when I'm looking at a document with bad handwriting that I can't read?’ I really want to look at what the student's ideas are, and Dictate allows us to do that.” 

Educators can also use dictation to make comments on student work and students can use it to comment on the work of classmates should the educator desire that. Another tool Sitnick recommends is Microsoft Editor, an AI-powered writing assistant that proofreads work. “It's not the 1997 editor that used to be there,” she said. “It is fantastic in terms of grammar, spelling, conciseness, conventions. I'm using it constantly as I'm evaluating my writing. It is a wonderful tool to help students proofread their own writing before they hand it in to a teacher.” 

More T&L Webinar Recaps

• How to Move Beyond Algebra-Ready to Algebra-Excited
• Using Technology to Address Student Mental Health
• STEM Lessons: Make Learning Engaging in Any Environment
• T&L Webinars

Adding advanced mathematical concepts to young math students and subtracting lessons with no real-world application equals more math success, said panelists during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray.

“Moving Beyond Algebra-Ready to Algebra-Excited: Cultivating Algebraic Reasoning from Kindergarten to High School” was sponsored by DreamBox. 

During the event, educators shared real-world, actionable tips for making math classrooms more joyful and productive places. 

Watch the free webinar on demand here. 

Early Algebra for All Students > Early Algebra for Some Students 

Research shows that only 35 out of every 100 eighth graders are proficient in math, said Kirsten Keels, professional development specialist at DreamBox Learning and Ph. D candidate who conducts research aimed at getting all students ready for algebra at an early grade level. 

“I want to situate algebra as a civil right for all of our students,” said the former fourth- and fifth-grade math and science teacher. “When we think about the life outcomes that are attached to taking algebra and successfully completing this in high school, or even in eighth grade, it can either be a gateway for students to their educational opportunities and financial security, or it can be a gatekeeper barring students from those life outcomes.” 

To ensure that all students are ready for algebra, Keels advises preparing students for algebra as soon as possible. “I tend to reframe algebra as a sense-making activity,” she said. “We know that students enter our classrooms, even as early as kindergarten, curious about their world, wanting to know more about it, so why not take their lived experience and help them mathematize. So a part of early algebra is helping them see that mathematics can be used to model the world around them.” 

Subtle Shifts + Better Word Problems = Student Success  

Students can start learning pre-algebra as early as kindergarten. “They can start thinking about functions and variable notation at those grade levels, as long as we think about how to present it in a meaningful way. We can reorganize arithmetic and highlight the algebraic nature of this content that's already in our K-5 classrooms,” Keels said. 

She shared her research with fifth-grade students, including special education students, and how she was able to teach them principles of algebra with word problems that were open to various possibilities. For example: “John has some pieces of candy inside of a box. He has three pieces on top. How many pieces of candy does John have?” Students were then able to learn that the number of cookies within the box was a variable and could be represented by “N.” 

“For these students, we had subtle shifts that made a big difference,” Keels said. “So now instead of focusing on two numbers and figuring out whether or not we're going to add, subtract, multiply or divide, we're focusing on sets of numbers and making generalizations. We're highlighting those key relationships, and there's a body of literature that talks about how special education students benefit from focusing on problem structure. So instead of giving them traditional word problem after traditional word problem, I gave them one word problem and they got to explore and come up with their own solution in different ways.” 

Make Your Math Problems Add Up In the Real World  

Dr. Tim Hudson, chief learning officer at DreamBox Learning, spoke about the problems with how studying math is often framed, noting that most Algebra I descriptions are dry and not focused enough on math’s many applications. “If students are curious about their world, and they want to mathematize their lived experience, the only things in these course descriptions that speak to that are like, ‘You're doing this to succeed in advanced courses,’ which is not terribly motivating. It’s like, ‘Why would I want to do well in this thing I don't like just to do well in things that I'm also not going to like down the line?’” said Hudson, a former high high school mathematics teacher and K-12 mathematics coordinator and strategic planning facilitator for the Parkway School District in suburban St. Louis. 

These problems often extend from the course descriptions into the way the course is actually taught. “It feels like the way we treat math a lot of times when we're teaching it, is to break it up into a bunch of pieces. It's just a list of polynomial functions, simplifying expressions, and different things,” Hudson said. “If we taught driver's ed like we taught math, we would break it up into disconnected pieces, like one day is the stick shift. Tuesday is the clutch. Wednesday is the gas and the brake. Thursday is the steering. And then we send students off to real world driving situations, and it's not going to go well because you can't break it up like that, and have it make sense and be able to put it back together.” 

Hudson advised creating word problems that actually relate to the real world and inspire students to pull all their math skills together. “Driving is fun, but just doing one repetitive thing with the gas pedal is not, it's all got to be put together,” he said. 

Better Pedagogy = More Joy and Success in Math  

K-12 educators Denise Trakas and Sarah Knox spoke about how they put these ideas into practice within their districts.

Trakas, the K-5 mathematics program coordinator for Washoe County School District in Nevada, said her district has been working on bringing a resilient math pedagogy and joy to the mathematics classroom. “We started by developing the K-5 mathematics philosophy,” she said. 

The district’s new math philosophy is built around being responsive to where each student is at a given time. “So it's not just about being teacher-centered, or student-centered,” Trakas said. “It's really about using our great instructional practices that we have as teachers and making it learner responsive.” 

Trakas used data gathered from DreamBox to celebrate students' math milestones at each of the schools in her district, awarding certificates to the students who completed the most lessons completed with understanding and the student who had the most growth. “I haven't received so much positive feedback from schools as I did from that, it took something off the school's plate, and they're recognizing students' hard work and effort,” she said. 

Knox, the director of intervention and prevention in the Instructional Support Services Division of Napa Valley USD, talked about her own struggles with math as a student, and how she was told by an educator that she would never be good at the subject, which is of course not the message you want to send to any student. “We've been working on a two-fold approach to support students like myself, who really struggled with math,” she said. “One is to have a growth mindset be a core component of our math approach, and then also that we have pathways that are mindful and are appropriate for students at different places in their math skills.”

Within Knox’s district a majority of students are Latinx and math programs are designed to be responsive to each student’s individual needs. “We are committed to long term learning solutions for students and data is really important in determining what's working for our students,” Knox said. 

More T&L Webinar Recaps

• Using Technology to Address Student Mental Health
• STEM Lessons: Make Learning Engaging in Any Environment
• T&L Webinars

Educators can make STEM lessons engaging, tactile, and fun, whether delivered in-person or remotely. 

That was one of the messages from educators who spoke during a recent Tech & Learning webinar hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. 

In this part two of a series, the theme was making the switch from hybrid to in-person learning. Educators shared STEM lesson plans that work well in various teaching formats. 

“Engaging technology in the classroom is going to be absolutely critical, as we bring students back to the classroom full time,” said Scott Willett, vice president of sales for the Americas of Boxlight, Inc. 

Watch the free on demand webinar here. 

Key Takeaways 

Strategies for engagement

Daniel Thompson, a science teacher at The Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, shared three activities he found were effective at fostering engagement and science learning: science-themed escape rooms, a circuit box building lesson, and motion activities. 

Motion activities. Thompson got his students learning about things such as gravity, with motion activities. For one lesson, he had students write down their weight and then multiply that by the gravity on the moon. “That would tell them here’s what your weight would be like on the moon,” he said. “And they would do that for Mercury, Venus, all the way down to Neptune, and that would tell them, ‘Hey here's what your weight would be like on that planet.’ Then what I would have them do is measure how far they can jump. Let's say they can jump 1.5 meters, they would write that down.” 

They’d then use the same conversion units to calculate how far they could jump on other planets. 

Circuit boxes. Thompson also had his students build circuit boxes using common materials such as cardboard boxes, batteries, and stripped-down Christmas lights. The lesson taught students about electricity and current, and provided an opportunity to express their creativity by decorating their circuit boxes and creating mini rooms that let their artistic abilities shine. “The kids get pretty detailed, they have Hulu, they got a picture of themselves,” he said. 

Escape rooms. Thompson designed digital escape rooms that had his students racing against the clock to solve science puzzles and unlock various clues. Around Christmas, he had an escape room based on Santa’s workshop that incorporated many of the science lessons he had taught previously. He said that regardless of where and how he conducted the escape rooms, they were always a hit. “Their favorite thing to do by far was escape rooms,” Thompson said of his students. “I did these through Zoom and I did them in-person, and the kids loved it.” 

The Power of 3D Printing 

Shelley Emslie, 5th Grade Teacher at Swan River School in Big Fork, Montana, shared how she uses 3D printing as a fun way to get her students interested in STEM. While utilizing 3D printing can seem very technical, Emslie urged educators to try their hand at it, even without prior experience. “Don’t be afraid of 3D printing,” Emslie said. “The kids will take you along the journey and they actually will help you out tremendously.” 

Bubbles of opportunity. One of Emslie’s favorite activities with her students involved a lesson building on children’s love of blowing soap bubbles. She had her students write out the formula for creating bubbles and then each one used the 3D printer to print their own bubble wand. “Then we hypothesized which ones would make the best bubbles, and the kids really enjoyed that,” she said. 

Coral printing. Emslie had her students learn about coral reefs and the science involved. Then to make the lesson more tactile and engaging, she had them design and print their own coral pieces. “Then we did a coral wall, and it still is in my classroom,” she said. She added that students continue to find new and amazing ways to utilize 3D printing. 

Printing for others. Emslie’s students also used 3D printing to make tools and goods for helping others. These included masks for protection from COVID-19, gifts for residents at an assisted living facility, and a glass with a handle designed to be held without a strong grip for a friend of Emslie’s that suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease and who has trouble gripping cans, cups, and glasses. 

• Student Safety & Classroom Management: Building the Roadmap
• Using Technology to Address Student Mental Health
• Engaging Students in Any Environment
• T&L Webinars

Effective classroom management, especially when teaching remotely and in synchronous classrooms, is key to student success. In Part 2 of this series, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with educators and professional experts who shared their classroom management tips and best practices that have kept their students engaged and on-track, as well as help the teacher more easily manage lesson delivery and assessment.    

“I don’t see distance learning going anywhere,” said Denise DeJuliannie, technology director for Eden Valley-Watkins ISD 463 in Minnesota. “It is here today, and it will be here tomorrow.” 

“[The current distance learning going on] is a model that’s going to outlive the pandemic, although probably on a smaller scale,” agreed Jarrett Volzer, General Manager MDM and Classroom Technologies for Securly. “I think the pandemic kind of opened the doors for those who were playing around with these [distance learning] ideas. You saw new ways to do it, new advantages to doing it, and new ways to apply it to different groups of students.”

Watch the free on-demand webinar here. 

Key Takeaways

Embracing new learning. Leaders at Olympia School District in Washington recently surveyed parents in regard to remote and distance learning, and more than 600 said if given the opportunity, they would keep their students in that environment forever, according to district CIO Marc Elliott. “We were surprised that we got that feedback from parents, but their students flourished in this model. They said, ‘We like this. This works for us, and we would prefer to have this type of online school,’ which is more intimate than to what we've been seeing as an online school option.”

In response, Olympia is developing its own virtual academy environment with dedicated online-only teachers and students, which will free up face-to-face teachers to concentrate on the students in front of them.

SEL support. At Eden Valley-Watkins, social-emotional learning is promoted through a support network that’s available to all students and staff. It’s provided an opportunity for students to be seen and heard, not only by connecting with teachers but all staff, including lunch ladies. “We're just going to elaborate a lot more during the summer with more professional development,” said DeJuliannie. “We have a leadership group of students who have gone through this training as well so they have a core group of friends and peers who they can go talk to as well.”

The district has taken other smaller measures, such as enabling students to activate virtual backgrounds during video classes, so those who are potentially embarrassed by their home conditions can stay engaged but enjoy some privacy and comfort.

Being fully in remote learning until recently, Olympia was facing a similar situation. “If you want to put a student in an uncomfortable situation, tell them to turn on their cameras and show what their houses are like,” said Elliott. Many are embarrassed of the conditions at home, which is another issue that teachers have had to navigate.

To try and overcome this and support SEL, teachers and administration have needed to get really creative. For example, one school started an online Dungeons & Dragons club to engage students. “We just needed the kids to be around each other, and to have some of that inner personal connection,” said Elliott.

Right tools for the job. Part of keeping students engaged and on track is having the right monitoring platform in the first place, said Volzer, who adds that there’s been a difference in how these platforms are now being used. “Traditionally the classroom management tools have been more of seeing what the kids are doing more and more or less keeping them focused on a task, whereas now we've seen a change with the remote classes. In particular, these are being used more for engagement and communications than previously.” 

Making sure that platform is compatible with other teaching and learning tools is also critical. “When a teacher doesn't have to worry if their content is going to work on a particular device that a student is bringing into their classroom or using remotely, that helps tremendously,” said Dejuliannie.

Of course, PD for any technology tools continues to be an emphasis in every district. “I have the three most awesome instructional technology coaches that work with me,” said Elliott. “Last spring, in a month and a half they offered over 300 professional development sessions. That was massively beneficial to our teachers to get them as ready as possible, but also to tell them, ‘You're going to be okay, this is going to be okay, you're going to make it.’”

Leaders at both Olympia and Eden Valley-Watkins are planning on summer PD programs to varying degrees. 

Most PD tends to be tool specific, Volzer said, but districts should also consider the parent communication piece of the puzzle. If a district is deploying a tool or if a device that goes home, it’s important that they also provide resources and information to families as well. “Now there's a little bit more time to think, so make sure that all the appropriate stakeholders are informed of what's going on, so they know what the teacher is doing when the teacher is engaging with the student during class time,” he said.

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Social-emotional learning’s importance for students, teachers, and all school stakeholders is increasingly recognized. But how we define SEL, how best to implement it, and what role technology can play in providing SEL support is not always clear.  

During this recent Tech & Learning virtual roundtable, these topics were discussed. Dr. Kecia Ray spoke with Dr. Nick Yoder, director of strategic initiatives for Harmony SEL and Inspire Teaching & Learning at National University; Dr. Dawn Bridges, the AASA SEL Cohort Program Lead and the Senior Director of Education Partnerships for Right At School; and Michael Boggess, sales director for Lightspeed Systems. 

Watch the on demand version here. 

Key Takeaways 

SEL Definitions Abound

Defining SEL is more difficult than many people realize and research has found hundreds of terms have been used to talk about children’s social and emotional development, said Yoder. “So it's not surprising that we all come with a very different definition of what we mean and think about social emotional learning,” Yoder said, noting that he generally uses CASEL’s definition. The definition has been recently updated to say that social-emotional learning is an integral part of education and human development. It is the teaching and learning process, in which all young people and adults, acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy relationships, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain healthy relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. 

“They even continue to further talk about how it supports equity and equitable access for youth and the combination and the context in which all youth live, learn, and grow and develop in families, and communities,” Yoder said. 

Not Just for Students or Teachers 

While more attention is being paid to the SEL needs of teachers, Bridges said the conversation can’t stop there. “We need to make sure that it includes the community, it isn't  just teachers,” she said. “It's the staff and bus drivers. It's the Board of Education and the whole entire community. And when we think about moving forward and what schools need, we need to take a very comprehensive look and make sure we're including all stakeholders in that.” 

SEL and Mental Health 

Though linked, SEL and mental health are not synonyms. “The World Health Organization, defines mental health as a state of well being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with normal life stressors, and can work productively and is able to make a good contribution to his or her community,” Yoder said. “Another definition of mental health really focuses on a series of psychological symptoms that can interfere with overall functioning, so there's both that sort of asset-based approach to defining mental health as well as more of a deficit-based approach to defining mental health.” 

He added, “When we're thinking of SEL we're definitely thinking about that asset-based approach and skill development. The attitude development within supportive contexts that will help people function in multiple domains of life. So they are similar in that they both promote overall well being, but they are slightly different in their focus and how they are approached within schools and districts.” 

Making SEL Part of Your Ongoing Plan

Bridges said superintendents need to be thinking several years in advance about how SEL can support their district’s goals. “What are those skills, what is that experience of a pre-K to grade 12 and beyond, and into postgraduate work? What are those outcomes that we want, and how do we want to make sure that we are very systemic and intentional in embedding a plan and a vision for our students around social-emotional learning,” she said. “From a leadership perspective, the superintendent and stakeholders and board of education really needs to think about what does it look like, what do we want these kids to have and so a profile of a graduate is one thing that comes to mind when building that vision.” 

Harmony SEL, the program Yoder works with at National University, offers free SEL training and teacher prep for educators. “There is a huge need for increased SEL within teacher preparation across the board, but it was deeper than many people realize and it definitely needs to be ingrained more fully,” he says. 

Using Data and Technology to Support SEL 

Boggess said that before utilizing data you have to make sure it is accurate and easy to obtain. “Solutions such as Lightspeed can show you who's not logging in, which is the equity, part of the conversation,” he said. “If you have these students who have devices and they don't have connectivity at home, you need reports of who's not actually using it, not who's using it and how they're using it. It's more important to see who's not using it, because that right there is your first warning sign of what's going on.” 

It is also key that you are able to track student uses of various tech tools. This data can also provide info that helps you target SEL efforts to students and can encourage more questions to be asked by school leaders around SEL.  

“I'm grateful to see so many leaders asking the questions and using technology to ask questions like ‘Do you feel that you belong?’” Bridges said. “The biggest thing is building those relationships. So how can we use that technology to make sure that we are connecting with kids and that they do feel that they do belong. Or if they don't, what are we doing to make sure that they do, and what are our equitable practices that we're putting in place to ensure that they do feel like they belong.” 

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It’s long been known that active learning engages students, and the pandemic has emphasized the importance of incorporating this approach into instruction across a range of learning environments. This student-centered learning approach gives learners a voice that lets them drive the process to maximum engagement. 

During this Tech & Learning virtual roundtable, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with a panel of experts about the research that confirms the efficacy of active learning in the areas of math, literacy, and social emotional learning, and offered practical strategies that school leadership teams can put into place to make the most of active learning.  

“It is all about the teacher in that classroom and the ways that we find to meet our students where they are,” said Kris Astle, Education Strategist for SMART Technologies.

“We focus on starting active learning from Day 1 of kindergarten,” said Matthew X. Joseph, director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment in Leicester Public Schools in Massachusetts. “They’re with us for 12 years, and if we can instill that use of technology early, it’s wonderful. They get comfortable with it, and it sticks. Tools are going to come and go, but the skills we’re providing will stay.”

Watch the on-demand version here 

Key Takeaways

Creating an active learning environment. “One of the big things that we talk a lot about in our district is we have to move from participation to engagement,” said Joseph. “That's when you get into the active piece of the learning. And essentially what has to happen is our teachers need to get out of the way, where they disseminate some content and information for projects, and then let students create content.”

Rather than having teachers feel as if they “were trying to drink from a fire hose,” the district found the core tools that fit their needs and established a common language for active learning, which allowed for easier and more effective collaboration.

Bibb County School District in Georgia followed a similar approach to supporting active learning, creating a standardized yet robust digital learning environment, said Rose Powell, Executive Director of Technology Services. “Active learning is incorporating the four Cs -- communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity -- so it's very important that we're teaching our students how to be able to do all four of these and using technology through that process because it is the way of our future,” she said. “So providing that interactivity and that engagement for active learning is critical so students are engaged in the learning process.”

“When we think about active learning, we're really thinking about that innovation and creation that students are doing and giving them the opportunity to do that,” said Astle. 

Student-centered approach. Getting students to be active users of technology has been a focus in Bibb County. “A lot of our teachers will say, ‘Well, they watched the video today,’ ‘They did this today,’” said Bobby Brian Lewis, instructional technology coach. “So that's the big question we always ask: ‘Are your students going to be consuming content with technology, or are they producing content with technology?’”

Students are encouraged to own that ‘voice and choice’ process, said Powell. “When they own it, and when they reflect on it, they're much more engaged.” 

“Active learning is great, and giving students a voice is important, but it’s equally important to actively listen to them as well,” said Joseph. “When we listen, we show that we value them.”

That social-emotional learning component is key to active learning, agreed Powell, particularly in regard to students coming back after more than a year out of classrooms. “One of my favorite sayings is: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” she said. “And honestly, that’s what makes for the best classrooms. Unless you feel comfortable, learning is not going to take place.”

Right tools for the job. Flexibility in regard to using tools has been critical for teachers and administrators in the past year, said Lewis. “Being able to adapt to the new situation -- ‘Whatever we're given, we can work with it,” he said. “That's made us better.”

“There's so many powerful tools, such as Smart Learning Suite, out there,” said Astle. “If you're face-to-face in the classroom, or even if you're socially distant right now, that technology can bridge the gap.”

“There are lots of ways to use the smallest of tech tools to make the biggest of gains,” said Powell. “Ultimately, it’s not about the tech. The teacher in the classroom is the biggest factor in student mastery and success.”

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Engaging students in these strange times starts with enabling teachers to form connections with those in their classes, said CJ Reynolds during a recent Tech & Learning Virtual Roundtable hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. 

“If you can empower teachers you can then empower their students,” said Reynolds, a literature teacher at Boys' Latin of Philadelphia and the creator of Real Rap With Reynolds. 

Ray also spoke with Tony Riggs, an education market expert and CEO for NeedThese, and Michael Smith, head of global strategic alliances at Samsung, about strategies for creating new, engaging lesson plans for students regardless of their learning environment. 

See the on-demand version here. 

Key Takeaways 

Talk Is Not Cheap

“We’re in this crazy space where kids can disappear so easily,” Reynolds said. “And it's our job to connect to them and I think the easiest way to do that is to talk to kids, maybe in the first five minutes of class, or the last two to five minutes, or in their breakout rooms when they ask a question. Before jumping into whatever you're learning that day, just ask questions like, ‘What video game is everyone playing? What do you watch on YouTube? Did anyone seen anything great on TV lately? Are you playing sports?’ Regular stuff that might give kids space to talk about what they're interested in.” 

After asking these questions, Reynolds advised teachers to really listen to the student responses. “This does two things: one, it shows kids that they matter, it shows them that you're interested,” he said. “In doing that you're making them the professionals in the moment. You're making them the experts. So when they want to talk about some game or video or platform and what they're into right now, they are now empowered because they know everything. And the other thing this does is it lets students who think that they're invisible know that they are indeed visible.” 

Converting Conversations 

Reynolds uses that information he receives from candid conversations with his students to shape the classroom experience. “You take some of what you've learned, some of what kids have mentioned, and you turn it into lessons,” he said. 

For example, Reynolds’ students are interested in hip hop, so he designed a class around the history of hip hop. The students learn about songwriting, poetry, and word choice as well as culture, and meet with graffiti artists and have rap battles with guest DJs participating. 

Some years back he built vocabulary lessons around episodes of the “Jersey Shore” because that’s what his students were watching. More recently, he’s used examples from the uber-popular online video game Fortnite. 

“Whether you are virtual, hybrid, or in person, we do projects in our class that allow students to share a bit of who they are,” Reynolds said. 

For example, he had students read a short story then imagine it was a movie and make a mixtape of songs that would play over different scenes. “Maybe it's the vibe of the song, maybe it's the lyrics of the song,” Reynolds said. “You are creating this connection between what you want students to learn and what they need to learn and what they like. We've gone on to do this with stop-motion videos. We've made movie trailers for different stories that we read and articles that we've read. It is, again, just this simple opportunity to allow kids to marry who they are with what they're learning. And I think that this creates an opportunity for student voice to really come about and also to create engagement.” 

Engagement is Never Just About the Tech

Smith said when technology is working to help educators foster student engagement, no one thinks about it. “If you do technology properly, it goes away,” he said. “It physically disappears, and it allows something much more natural to occur in the classroom. So we're keenly focused on one thing and one thing only, and that's making tech seamless for teachers. It’s one thing to create a lesson plan when you're in a classroom. It's something entirely different, to try to make that translate over a PC and engage the student and bring them in. So that's what I consider to be the experience we're trying to reach.” 

Riggs said that as educators have become more comfortable with technology the opportunities to utilize it have increased. “In the past, if a substitute teacher was called in, they’d come into the classroom and didn't really have a handle on what was going on, they had to struggle through that, the students had to struggle through that, the administrators, and so on,” he said. “Those kinds of problems are going to start to be minimized.” 

Today, even if a teacher can’t make their class in-person, they might be able to teach it remotely, and the same thing is true with students and attendance, Riggs says. 

Funding For Tech Is Here But It’s All About Engagement 

Having the right setup is key to connecting with students in hybrid or remote settings. “Before it was a monetary issue,” Riggs said. “That's kind of gone away a little bit right now. There's a lot of money for education.” 

But he adds investments that schools make should be guided by recognizing the importance of teaching toward each individual student. “What do students like right now, they like clear audio, they like bright screens, they like interactivity,” Riggs said. “It goes back to teaching for the students. It's finding a solution that's engaging an instant gamification type of solution. It doesn't need to be an hour-long conversation on one math problem. It can be just micro lessons and engaging. Our students are just quick quick quick, absorb, absorb, absorb, you know, input output.” 

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In this recent Tech & Learning virtual roundtable, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with two district CTOs and an industry professional about their strategies in using technology to spot early warning signs of student mental health concerns and protect students from cyberbullying, self-harm, and violence. 

“We all know the isolation that the kids and the staff are feeling,” said Rob Chambers, VP of Customer Success for Lightspeed Systems, who also participated in the event. “And having technology thrust upon us as everyone did, has changed the world that we're experiencing.”

See the on-demand version here

Key Takeaways

The new ‘normal.’ COVID has dramatically changed expectations around student mental health. For example, Stacy Royster, CTO/Director of Technology for Opelika City Schools in Alabama, said she was shocked that once the COVID lockdown and remote learning started in the district, there was a dramatic increase in the alerts from the district’s network monitoring platform, Lightspeed Systems, involving younger students. “We know what it's like to be a teenager and the things that go through their heads and what we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis with those students but those things just shifted down to younger grades, very quickly,” Royster said. “All of a sudden we were seeing Google searches for ‘How do I hurt myself?’ and these were for second graders.” Seeing the increase in alerts, the district put in new mental health supports for younger students.

Just like the students, adults have also had a hard time the past year, said Kyle Berger, Chief Technology Officer for Grapevine-Colleyville ISD in Texas. And that was also reflected in increased alerts from Lightspeed’s platform. “Sometimes we're so focused on the kids, we forget about the staff,” Berger said. “And as we started seeing lots of various alerts from them, we were able to reach out one-to-one and just talk with them through how they were doing.”

Technology was also being used beyond educational purposes, including in families with challenging socio economic issues. “The parents were also using the school devices,” said Royster. “In fact, we would start to see job searches in the student’s history and we would have our counselors to reach out to those families to see if the parent lost their job because of COVID. So it was not just whole-child but it was whole-family support we were able to offer by monitoring this online activity.”

Tech evolution. While navigating the sudden reliance on technology, new learning and usage habits have emerged. “When COVID started, kids were very concentrated on trying to maintain that normal school schedule,” said Berger. “But as that first month progressed, we started seeing pockets of work -- a student would log in, do maybe one thing, then go off and do other things, and then come back to work. They began to really self manage their time a lot more.” 

During the lockdown, devices have gone from being a secondary learning tool to being the primary one, said Chambers. “The other thing that we had to address very rapidly was a shift to using tools in education that had not been used before, such as Zoom and YouTube,” he said. And as more kids have delved into new technology and platforms, it’s caused them to isolate more, which is a big concern for parents and educators, he added.

The floodgates of alert fatigue. “I never have any off hours because technology is 24/7,” said Royster, who added that she was afraid that something would happen in regard to a student either after work or on the weekend. So she started relying more on the tools and the district team.

Berger agreed, noting that the pandemic opened up a floodgate of alerts, which brought about a certain level of fatigue. “So it's so important to have accurate tools, to really sort through all the data to make concise decisions and respond quickly,” he said. “That is so important because not just one person can do it all the time.” 

New possibilities. “In the last 12 months we’ve gone from pandemic to pandemonium to possibilities,” said Berger, adding that it’s critical to not to leave behind the lessons learned in the past year. “It's now to decide what is normal.”

“You will never be able to hold technology back now,” said Royster. “We have changed the face of education. We have rewritten what we’re doing in our classrooms. Every teacher has their entire course digitally at this point. And so when we do come back completely face-to-face, think about the Tier 2 and Tier 3 instruction. We have so many screen casts of reading lessons and math lessons and demonstrations that we will be able to use for those types of interventions, it's going to turn education upside down! It’s what us in edtech had been begging for for years. Unfortunately, it took a pandemic. But we’re where we are now, and everybody's excited about it.”

The parent connection is now stronger than ever, said Berger. “They have crawled inside and outside of every lesson and understand everything. Our parents know more about standards now and what's expected to be learned to move on more than they ever have in the past.”

“You can’t give this to parents and then take it away,” said Chambers. “We always wanted more and more parent engagement. And now we have it in schools, and I don't think that it's going to go away.”

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In this recent Tech & Learning virtual roundtable, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with a panel of experts about the building blocks of a student safety district program, and how technology can help educators connect with students and signal to educators if students are at risk. The panel also discussed developing effective content monitoring tools and engaging parents. 

The on-demand version is available here.

Key Takeaways 

Forming a Connection

When the Berryessa Union School District in California went remote in March 2020,  the district’s Director of Technology Martin Cisneros said his main focus was keeping children connected but in a deeper way than that term is normally used. He wanted children to be connected to the internet and their class lessons, and also the larger community and to tech tools that could protect them from the dangers of isolation and self harm. “Making sure that we had a way to monitor students was our number one priority before we decided how many gadgets we're going to be deploying,” Cisneros said. The district focused on providing community and support for students as they learned how to navigate both new systems and a new way of learning. 

Tom Walker, director of technology for the Massac Unit School District #1 in Illinois agreed. He said that in addition to getting students devices and providing internet connectivity, his district also paid attention to student well-being. “We just kind of had to look at the day that we were on, and really pay attention to the needs of our students, our community at large, and try to meet those needs no matter what the environment was,” he said. 

Digital Protection 

Cisneros and Walker’s districts both use Securly, a cloud-based web filtering program designed for schools to protect student safety and help with school-device management. The program serves about 10 million students. 

Mike Jolley, general manager and director of K-12 Safety for Securly, said that initially in March 2020 conversations among educators Securly works with were focused on connectivity issues, but that changed almost immediately to student safety. “It became not only about kids aren't seeing their teachers every day -- teachers are the ones that can see signs in kids and pick up on something maybe different -- but kids aren't seeing their peers,” he says. “It really started to be a conversation about now that we've got devices in the hands of kids who've never had it before, in homes that have never had them from the school before, and they're online more than ever, how do we keep these kids safe. How do we keep them safe from a lot of things, from outside predators, from online bullying, and all the different challenges that are present that come along with the amazing advantages of technology.” 

Securly is able to send alerts to administrators if students are engaging in potentially dangerous behavior online, and educators can work with parents to help get kids counseling and other support they may require. “Google is a source of truth for kids,” Jolley said. “They get really specific with the searches. And so they'll go into Google and type, ‘How do I kill myself painlessly?’ ‘How do I overdose on x, y, and z?’ ‘Where do I get such and such?’ And those are very important warning signs that can bubble up and be sent to school administrators, or school counselors. Even parents can get real-time access to see when those things are going on.” 

Walker’s district serves about 1,900 students and said Securly’s Auditor function has been invaluable. “For us, over the last few school years, it has detected every school year 200-plus instances of potential self harm or disturbing violence-related content, either through our devices and/or our networks,” he said. “If it will save one student's life, then it's paid for itself over and over and over again.” 

Beyond Tech 

Any edtech tool should be deployed in conjunction with other social and emotional learning efforts. In Walker’s district, there are a number of processes in place to help support the emotional well-being of students. For example, one is an anonymous “text the principal” program. “So if a student has any kind of issue, whether it was they're worried about another student, they're worried about themselves, they're worried about a fight that might happen, anything, they could utilize this simple service we have,” Walker said. 

Connecting with students and their parents on an individual level is key, as is recognizing that school teaches more than just the lesson at hand.

“We talk about culturally responsive education, and what does that mean? That basically means you become a student of your students,” Cisneros said. “We now really understand a large component of school is that social component. We see it because our reports tell us about some dark stuff that happens in our kids’ lives that the only safe place is at school when they're there physically. So we have to shift around and help our teachers understand, ‘Oh by the way, here's some more information that you need so you can better understand the culture of your classroom.’” 

He says it’s helpful as a tech director to have tools that give teachers more understanding about their classroom communities. “It’s that silver lining that now as we go back into whatever our new normal is going to be, we're now going to have these tools in order to help support our students a lot better than before COVID.” 

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In this recent Tech & Learning virtual roundtable, Dr. Kecia Ray talked with a panel of experts about what they’ve learned in the past year, and how these lessons will inform their planning moving forward -- including the ways they are keeping their districts safe from cyber threats.  

The on-demand version is available here 

Key Takeaways

Remote learning on the fly. “My greatest challenge was taking a five-year 1-to-1 plan and implementing it in three months,” said AJ Phillips, Director of Information Technology for Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia, the largest public school district in the state. “And then training, families and students at home on how to use them. You know, setting up these virtual meetings and not being able to meet with them in person and hold their hand and touch the device and all those things.” To improve access, Phillips set up 38 parking lots around the district with wifi--families could drive in and students could connect to the internet with their devices and learn.

David Sanders, Chief Technology Officer at Mesa Public Schools in Arizona talked about the challenge of distributing 35-40,000 devices in three weeks, and then figuring out how to support the families and students after that. For example, they had to extend help desk hours beyond five o'clock to help with logins and other device-related issues such as remote security, including ramping up conversations with students and parents to protect against phishing attacks.

“Usually when they're on the network it's easy to remote into them,” said Sanders. “So now we had to do a paradigm shift, think outside the box, and do some type of mobile device management for those devices. How do we manage them, how do we make sure they stay up-to-date from a security perspective.” 

The phishing hole. Since the introduction of remote learning, Prince William County Schools has seen phishing attacks double, according to Phillips. “I always joke that we can't be the wild west but we can't be Fort Knox, either,” she said. “We need to find a happy medium for students and staff.” 

Efforts were focused on making sure everyone in the district was provided with the training to recognize phishing emails. “Interestingly enough, I think our students did better than our staff in recognizing phishing emails,” Phillips said, adding that staff is often so busy that it’s more of a challenge to stay vigilant with every email. Two-factor authentication and VPN access has also been added. 

“It’s not if we get hit but when we get hit, and what is our recovery plan,” said Phillips.

Mesa Public Schools has also taken physical measures such as installing malware protection, but education continues to be critical in preventing cyber attacks, said Sanders. “Parents are seeing these phishing emails, and they're thinking that somebody is personally attacking their kid, and they don't realize it's just a computer-generated email,” he said. “So we did have a lot of conversations with parents about situations like that.”

That training extends to staff as well. “I tell people I’d rather have you bother me about a suspicious link beforehand rather than come to me afterward once you have malware on your device,” said Sanders.

Staying informed is also critical, particularly regularly checking FBI K-12 cybersecurity updates.

Promoting equity. In addition to the aforementioned wifi parking lot solution, Prince William County Public Schools partnered with local internet providers and gave hotspots to families who needed access. The challenge now is how to provide access over the long term, with potential solutions ranging from a private LTE to districts becoming their own IP providers--all of which begs questions around cost, sustainability, and practicality. E-rate funding, Title IV, and more Covid-related federal grants could help provide the support needed to permanently close equity gaps.  

Bridget Duff, Director of Education Vertical Sales Solutions for Cox Business, discussed the company’s Connect2Compete program, which offers low-cost home internet access and has helped more than 130,000 students and families. Cox also offers its Digital Academy, designed to support online literacy and learning. 

Lunch 'n Learn with Tech & Learning

We hope you can join us for these regular District Leadership Lunch ‘n Learn Roundtable series, hosted by Dr. Kecia Ray. In these events, districts from across the U.S. share their strategic plans, the challenges they are facing, and the creative solutions they are using to support students and teachers. Register for our upcoming events here. 

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