Two NYC After-School Programs Teach Students About Healthy Eating
The Hip Hop H.E.A.L.S., or Healthy Eating and Living in Schools, after-school program was developed last year by Columbia University neurologist Olajide Williams and hip hop artist Doug E. Fresh to use music to help teach students about healthy eating, according to Chalkbeat New York. This is one of two after-school healthy eating programs that…
Indiana Developing Online Dashboard to Boost K-12 Attendance
An early warning dashboard will be available to Indiana’s K-12 districts before the 2024-2025 academic year to help identify students who are at risk of not graduating on time due to chronic absenteeism and other issues, according to a news release. Delivery to all districts is planned for the start of the 2024-2025 academic year….
Michigan Schools Add 1,300+ Mental Health Professionals
Michigan has added more than 1,300 mental health professionals to its schools in the last five years, according to state records, as reported in Chalkbeat Detroit. Michigan schools hired a total of 1,316 staff to address student’s mental well-being, including counselors, social workers, and psychologists. The hirings occurred from the 2018-19 school year through 2022-23….
Purposeful Play Produces Positives
A survey of 1,000 K-8 teachers and students finds nearly all (98 percent) students believe purposeful play helps them learn. Most (96 percent) teachers believe play with intent is an effective way for learning, according to a study by Wakefield Research. Still, 40 percent of teachers use purposeful play only once a week or less,…
Hyperconnected Schools Expand Learning Opportunities
At the district and the school level, it’s critical to ensure faculty and staff possess the digital literacy needed to effectively use technology device investments effectively, according to an article in EdTech. “One of the biggest challenges is helping people understand the potential of the technology and integrating it into the daily workflow in a way that…
Student Ownership & Control Accelerate Learning
Students want to feel ownership and control of their learning, according to the American Institutes for Research. Among the findings: Students who believe their knowledge increases over time produce better IQ test results. A growth mindset is important to master content. Mastery of content is preferred to studying for a test score or course grade. …
Technology Takes Learning Outside of School Walls
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, slightly less than half (49 percent) of schools implemented one-to-one technology device programs, according to a 2019 survey by OverDrive Education and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, as reported in EdTech. But the use of technology has quickly grown. By 2022, about 90 percent of middle and high schools…
Alaska Schools Innovate to Beat the Weather
Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District recognized the positive impact of technology and remote learning on students’ learning prior to the pandemic, according to an article in EdTech. The district is larger than Scotland and has 19,000 students. It faces a variety of disruptions particular to Alaska’s climate and culture. Harsh weather frequently prevents students from traveling long…
Reading Emphasis Helps States Exceed Pre-Pandemic Performance
In 2019, Westcliffe Elementary in Greenville, South Carolina, received troubling news: It was one of 265 schools in the state where more than a third of third graders failed to meet literacy standards, according to an article in The 74 newsletter. Teachers in those schools received two years of training in what’s known as the…
Nature Helps Social Emotional Learning
Observing the natural world in school open spaces shapes students’ skills like patience and self-regulation, according to K-12 Dive. Regular time spent outdoors helps elementary school students develop social-emotional learning (SEL) skills such as patience and self-regulation — and lead to an understanding that learning is a process that doesn’t always bring immediate results, according to the…
