Since the pandemic, the urgency of designing and scaling evidence-based products to support learning recovery has become more pronounced. Educational institutions are grappling with unprecedented disruptions and widening achievement gaps, making the need for effective, research-backed interventions critical. The focus is not only on creating these products but also ensuring they are adopted and effectively implemented in schools and classrooms across the country.
The Leveraging Evidence to Accelerate Recovery Nationwide (LEARN) Network, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, is at the forefront of this effort. Led by SRI International, a nonprofit with a strong track record of bringing innovations to market, the LEARN Network focuses on promoting learning growth by enhancing the use of evidence-based educational products.
The Network also comprises four product teams dedicated to adapting and positioning evidence-based products that boost literacy and math learning to make them more useful and accessible for educators. By providing learning and coaching opportunities, the LEARN Network aims to build the capacity of these teams and others in the field to equitably and sustainably scale educational products. This involves understanding educators’ problems of practice and needs and systems decision-making processes in product procurement, and developing tools for researchers, developers and educators to support the widespread adoption of effective solutions.
Jessica Mislevy Director of Digital Learning and Technology Policy, SRI Education
Recently, EdSurge spoke with education researchers Kerry Friedman and Jessica Mislevy about the importance of integrating evidence-based practices, educator input and a systems lens from the earliest stages of product development. Friedman, a former teacher with 12 years of experience in research and technical assistance, focuses on strengthening educators' and system leaders' ability to use evidence in practice. As the project director for the LEARN Network, she works with researchers and developers on capacity building and design of evidence-based products and programs. Mislevy is the director of digital learning and technology policy at SRI Education, specializing in mixed-methods evaluations of products designed to improve student outcomes in K-12 and post-secondary education. She is a co-principal investigator with the LEARN Network, focusing on educators’ effective adoption and scaling of evidence-based practices and programs.
EdSurge: Why are evidence-based products and programs so vital, especially at this point in time in America’s schools?
Mislevy: We've all seen how the COVID-19 pandemic upended education systems across the country, interrupting learning for students and exacerbating existing inequalities in education. We're seeing this reflected in the 2022 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress with the first-ever decline recorded in mathematics and the largest average score decline in reading in decades. Research shows that the quality of learning products and programs matters for student outcomes. Now more than ever, it's important to get those products that can improve education outcomes for all learners and eliminate persistent achievement gaps in districts and schools. Unfortunately, many effective products don't reach educators due to an overwhelming supply of products. It can be hard to select products that are effective and well-matched to students' needs and contexts, as well as affordable and easy to use.
What key considerations should researchers and developers keep in mind while designing and scaling products and programs?
Friedman: When considering scale, researchers often view it as the final step. However, designing a scalable innovation begins with the initial idea. This is where our framework for the LEARN Network starts. We adapted SRI International's Invent-Apply-Transition (I-A-T) framework to better fit the education sector, incorporating Liberatory Design principles focused on equity and systems thinking.
Kerry Friedman Senior Researcher, SRI Education
Both the I-A-T framework and Liberatory Design emphasize the importance of understanding users' needs from the start. This understanding forms the foundation of the Invent stage of the I-A-T framework. In the Apply stage, you assess the broader market, identifying key players, infrastructure, policies, and competition to refine your innovation. Finally, in the Transition phase, you consider how to scale your product, envisioning it at a systems level and exploring pathways to create a financially viable approach.
We created the Learn to Scale Toolkit to guide researchers through these stages and support the scaling process. We also profiled various products on their journeys from development to scale in our Stories of Scaling.
How is the Network working to increase the use of evidence-based products and programs in schools?
Mislevy: We're coming at it from both the supply and the demand side. On the supply side, the LEARN Network provides capacity building to researchers and developers in scaling their evidence-based products. So we support them in adapting their products while considering educator context, decision-making processes and usability. This has included a mix of one-on-one and cross-team coaching and consultation sessions to provide tools and training while also supporting and promoting team building and collaboration. In addition to SRI scaling experts, we also bring together other expert voices to contribute to these conversations. Then on the demand side, we're working to better understand the needs and barriers that educators face in adopting and scaling evidence-based products. We translate these findings into actionable takeaways for developers to ensure their products are more likely to be adopted and scaled.
Does the Network have any insights into school and district needs or how they select programs and products?
Free LEARN Network resources for researchers, developers and educators:
The LEARN to Scale Toolkit: a comprehensive resource for researchers and developers based on the Invent-Apply-Transition framework
Stories of Scaling: a profile series highlighting impactful researchers, entrepreneurs and evidence-based products
The LEARN Network Blog: articles, podcasts and Q&As featuring experts and thought leaders from across the U.S.
LEARN Network Research: action-oriented research briefs focused on product development, procurement and more
Mislevy: The LEARN Network conducted a focused study on K-12 education procurement practices to better understand how decision-makers determine which products to adopt in their schools and districts and how evidence is used in those decisions. We conducted in-depth interviews with a broad array of education leaders and other education stakeholders, and also conducted nationally representative surveys of public school and district leaders through the RAND American Educator Panels. We examined what motivates schools and districts to procure products, who is involved in the decision-making process and what sources of information leaders look to when selecting products. For example, we found that routine curriculum review cycles often motivated educators to procure core curriculum materials, whereas reviews of student outcome data more often led to the procurement of supplemental materials.
We also saw that teachers are reported as most involved in identifying and evaluating prospective products for their schools and districts, while school and district leaders are more involved in making final decisions about which products to select. In terms of usage, research and evidence were amongst the more influential sources for informing procurement decisions, though we found that recommendations from fellow education leaders and end users actually ranked higher. Our research has important implications for product developers so they really understand the systemic forces that influence when and why products are procured, as well as who is involved throughout that procurement process to increase the likelihood of product uptake and scale. We recently published on the LEARN Network website the first of several planned research briefs, which features lessons for developers ready to bring their products to market or scale to broader audiences.
The information reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305N220012 to SRI International. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.
This is a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) that enhances the educational experience. The digital platform connects educators, students, and parents to facilitate interactive and engaging learning. It provides an app and webpage user-friendly interface for educators to efficiently create, manage, and deliver educational content. Administrators can effortlessly set up classes and curriculums, add users, and assign content, whether it is custom or pre-existing. Students can access this content, complete assignments, and track their progress. Students and teachers can use a stylus on the app to write directly on the assignment. It also has a helpful writing feature to display work. Part of its real value is actually quite basic: it allows efficient communication between teachers, students, and parents.
EdQuill was developed by a team with Ushapriya Ravilla to address the evolving needs of modern education. EdQuill aims to improve the teaching and learning experience, reduce administrative burdens on educators, and foster greater parent involvement in students’ education. It is available to educational institutions, learning centers, tutors, and educators. Access EdQuill by signing up for a free trial or scheduling a demo with EdQuill’s expert representatives.
In two short years, EdQuill has helped over 100 educators impact more than 2,000 students nationwide. Using the platform led to a 40% decrease in printing costs and increased productivity in administrative tasks for 100% of teachers. For these reasons and more, EdQuill earned a Cool Tool Award (finalist) for “Best Classroom Management Solution” as part of The EdTech Awards 2024 from EdTech Digest. Learn more.
HOUSTON — On a Saturday morning in August 2023, a crowd gathered outside the Houston Independent School District administration building with protest signs in hand. The brutal, sticky heat of Texas summer already had people wiping sweat from their brows and handing out bottled water from ice-filled coolers.
Teachers, parents and politicians took turns at the microphone, united in their criticism of the controversial state takeover of Texas’ largest school district. One fear expressed was about how the mostly Black and Latino students at 28 schools would fare under a plan created by new Superintendent Mike Miles that would require school libraries to cease, in essence, functioning as libraries.
Demonstrators gather in August 2023 in protest of Houston ISD's plan to close libraries in schools. Photo by Nadia Tamez-Robledo for EdSurge.
Instead, they would become “team centers,” where teachers would send disruptive students to work independently. The most high-achieving students would be funneled there, too, where they could do worksheets at their own pace and free up teachers to focus on everyone else.
Taylor Hill, a student at Wheatley High School, would experience the change firsthand. Her school is located in Houston’s Fifth Ward neighborhood and serves a student body that is nearly 100 percent classified as economically disadvantaged.
The Texas Education Agency awards letter grades to schools and districts based on test scores and other student performance metrics. When Wheatley High received a seventh “F” rating from the Texas Education Agency in 2019, it triggered the state takeover of the district. A Houston lawmaker championed the 2015 law that created the mandatory takeover process, something he saw as a way to hold the district accountable for continually low-performing schools.
At the protest, Hill stepped up to the podium and spoke into the microphone, talking over a crescendo of buzzing cicadas. The library at her school is a refuge, she said.
“I live in Fifth Ward. There's not a lot there, but what is there should not be turned into a detention center, especially when I am constantly there,” Hill told the crowd. “I read a lot, and I just feel like that is not what needs to happen.”
Unfortunately for Hill, the new state-appointed superintendent went through with his plan. A year later, the early consequences are becoming clear. School librarians have lost their jobs. Teachers have adopted a district-approved curriculum that some feel is rote and uninspiring. And children are receiving different educations depending on which part of the city they call home — a divide that maps onto Houston’s income and racial disparities.
Man With a Plan for ‘Differentiation’
Mike Miles was appointed superintendent in June 2023, brought in to lead the state takeover and improve academic performance in Houston.
In addition to districts, schools in Texas are individually given A through F grades based partially on standardized test scores. Miles quickly created big and controversial plans to improve scores. One strategy among his planned overhaul — called the New Education System, or NES — was to close libraries at 28 schools out of the district’s 274 total and turn them into “team centers.” It would accomplish two goals, he said: create a place to send “disruptive” students after removing them from class as well as an environment to send high-achieving students for enrichment.
School principals were also given the option to voluntarily adopt the new system, becoming what the district referred to as “NES-aligned.” After adding in those campuses, a total of 85 schools would start fall 2023 under the program.
The problem? Myriad parents and teachers alike hated the idea of closing down libraries and isolating students, especially considering these schools — and the entire school district — serves a student population that’s overwhelmingly Black and Latino.
The map below shows Houston schools that are part of the New Education System with each neighborhood color-coded based on median income. Click on the map to see more information about income in each neighborhood. Areas become more green as income increases and more blue as income decreases.
Map by Nadia Tamez-Robledo for EdSurge.
One was Melissa Yarborough, a teacher at Navarro Middle School in Houston’s East End, which is home to one of the city’s historically Latino neighborhoods. While not targeted as a failing school, her campus became “NES-aligned,” meaning her principal opted into the New Education System.
Her two children, however, were students at one of the targeted schools, Pugh Elementary in the city’s northeastern Denver Harbor neighborhood. Although, it wasn’t labeled as “failing” when Miles was appointed superintendent. It had an A rating from the state in 2022. Even by Houston ISD’s own calculations, the school is expected to earn a B rating when 2023 and 2024 school “report cards” are released. It was a tougher scoring formula released last year that makes earning high “grades” harder. A lawsuit by Texas school districts over the change has halted the release of 2023 ratings for now, and a second lawsuit is similarly blocking the state from releasing 2024 ratings.
As demonstrators hung back and talked after the protest, Yarborough said she was horrified by the way Miles described his plan to move disruptive students to the library-turned-team-center and tune into lessons via Zoom.
“He said, ‘Imagine. I'm walking in with 150 kids. All the children are working on their own little assignment or whatever, individually or in pairs,’” Yarborough recalled. “He said it to me like it's a beautiful thing.”
Screenshot of teacher and parent Melissa Yarborough speaking during the public comment portion of a board meeting in February. Video courtesy of Houston ISD.
She said Miles sold the idea as “differentiation,” a principle that all teachers learn during their undergraduate training. In essence, it’s the idea that teachers should adjust their lessons to each student’s needs, whether they’re struggling or grasping a concept quickly.
Yarborough said Miles’ plan isn’t effective differentiation, though. Disruptive students will receive a worse education, if the results of pandemic-era Zoom classes are any indicator, she said. And doing worksheets in the library isn’t a reward for high-achievers, she added.
Duncan Klussmann agreed with Yarborough’s assessment. A former superintendent of nearby Spring Branch Independent School District, he is now a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Houston. Ultimately, Klussmann said, Miles’ model is designed to produce higher test scores. But Klussmann is more interested to know what the student experience is in these schools.
“Just because you have higher state test schools, do more students go off to higher ed?” he asked. “Are they successful when they go off to higher ed? Do more students get a technical certification? Do more students go into the military, you know? Do they have a better life after high school? We don't know. We won't know for four, six, 10 years what the effect is of NES schools on students.”
Officials from Houston ISD did not respond to interview or information requests from EdSurge.
Displaced Librarians
When Brandie Dowda was hired at Burrus Elementary, a campus home to mostly Black and Hispanic students, she was the first librarian employed by the school in a decade.
Her tenure wouldn’t last long.
During summer 2023 — the same one during which Houstonians like student Hill and parent Yarborough protested outside the district administration building — Dowda was on vacation when the principal at Burrus informed her that the librarian position was being eliminated. The campus was going to be part of the inaugural New Education System cohort of schools, and the library would be closed.
Dowda found another librarian position in the district at Almeda Elementary and said she was happy at her new school. The library had long been central to life at the campus, and Dowda said students were rarely seen without a book in hand.
But again, her tenure would be short-lived.
Librarian Brandie Dowda poses in front of knitted protest signs before speaking at a board of managers meeting in August 2024. Photo courtesy of Dowda.
Dowda was leaving for work one morning in January 2024 and quickly scrolled through the news feed on her phone before heading out the door when she saw it — a news article announcing that 26 more schools would join the New Education System in the fall of 2024.
Dowda’s school was on the list. “I went, ‘Oh, I get to do this again,’” she recalled. “I found out from the regular news, which if I remember correctly, is also how my principal found out. It's kind of how everybody found out.”
Dowda said that her former library at Burrus wasn’t turned into a team center — a classroom was used instead — but students still weren’t allowed to access the books. Then, in May 2024 at Almeda, she was in the middle of a lesson when movers arrived to begin disassembling the library, she said. As the school year ended, the carpet was left with bald spots where shelves had been removed and the concrete floor underneath showed through. Her students were upset to learn that their library would be closed when they returned in the fall.
The library at Almeda Elementary after bookshelves were removed. Photo courtesy of Brandie Dowda.
Dowda’s story mirrors that of Cheryl Hensley, the former librarian at Lockhart Elementary. Hensley had been retired from her 38-year career in Houston ISD when a friend coaxed her into applying for the librarian position at the campus, which is in the city’s historically Black neighborhood of Third Ward.
Like Dowda at Almeda Elementary, she was at Lockhart for one year before her job was eliminated. Her principal opted into the NES standards believing that, in doing so, decisions about the school would still ultimately be made at the campus level. Hensley found out she lost her job in summer 2023.
“The principal is a super supporter of libraries and books and literature and reading, all over, I mean 100 percent,” Hensley said, “and so she was thinking I would be OK. They told [the principal] they could keep everybody, that everything would be the same and nothing would change.”
Cheryl Hensley poses in the library at Lockhart Elementary, where she was formerly a librarian and where she now volunteers monthly. She says that while the books have not been removed, they are not checked out to students. Photo courtesy of Hensley.
But then Hensley heard from the principal: “She called me in and just said, ‘No, I can't keep you. They told me that I have to turn my library into a team center.’”
Beyond the professional upheaval, Hensley and Dowda worry about what the absence of a school library will mean for students’ success in elementary school and beyond. Third grade is widely noted as a critical time for children to achieve reading proficiency, otherwise putting them at risk of falling behind academically during each subsequent year.
“I teach them to love to read,” Hensley said. “If you're invested so much in reading and math, then you're missing a major component [by closing libraries]. Because if a kid loves to read, they will read more. If a kid loves to read, he will comprehend more. We are part of that solution.”
Hensley said she visited her former colleagues and students at Lockhart monthly during the 2023-24 school year, and students asked her if she was back to reopen the library each time. It has been turned into a team center with about 50 desks, she says, where students are sent if they finish their classwork early.
Hensley said the school’s library, even if it’s not operating as one, still has books thanks to the principal’s actions in 2023. A work crew arrived to remove the shelves — making way for the team center desks — when the principal was at an off-campus meeting, Hensley recalled. The principal returned just in time to tell the crew that nothing was to be taken.
“She said, ‘We'll work that out, because you're not taking the books,’” Hensley says. “She pushed back, and I appreciate her 100 percent because still the library itself at Lockhart is basically intact.”
Houston ISD told Houston Landing that some schools allow students to informally check out books on an “honor system.”
The NES approach might fix the problem of low test scores, she said, “but it's not going to give you a lifetime learner or lifetime reader that will read and comprehend and think for themselves.”
While the district is moving forward with bringing more schools in its New Education System — and closing more libraries in the process — Dowda said that there aren’t any parents or community members she’s heard from who see library closures as a smart move.
“Why are you closing the libraries when you want to improve literacy and reading scores? They have not yet explained to us how that makes sense,” Dowda said. “I'm not the only one who has pointed out that this is not happening in the schools in the west side of Houston, which are the affluent schools that are mostly white. It is happening in the Title I schools with high poverty rates that are populated mostly by African American and Hispanic students.”
Dowda won’t be looking for yet another librarian job within Houston ISD. Instead, she found one in a different school district nearby. She predicts other educators who work at NES schools will do the same.
“I'm going to go to another district that values libraries,” she said, “and where I can have stability in a library and go about my librarian business of helping children find books that they enjoy reading.”
‘It’s Segregation’
It was last November that Yarborough, the Houston teacher and parent, stepped outside the bounds of the new NES curriculum for the final time.
After the summer protest, Yarborough started the 2023-24 school year using the district’s mandated materials. But three months in, she had had enough of watching students in her English language arts class mentally check out from the monotony of the new structure: She read off district-created slides, and then students answered a multiple-choice question by holding up a markerboard where they scribbled an A, B, C or D. For short-answer questions, they wrote on an index card. Over and over, until it was time for a five-question quiz.
Would Miles or any of those board members send their child to an NES school? They would say, 'Oh, no. My kids need to be more challenged.'
— Melissa Yarborough
“By November I was like, ‘I'm done with this,’” Yarborough recalls. “They're not learning. I know they can. I'm going to go back to a great lesson.”
For Native American Heritage Month, Yarborough decided to introduce her sixth graders to stories, poems and songs that fit the theme, despite them not being approved for use. Each time she rebelled by using a story or activity in class, even if an observing school administrator had liked the lesson, her supervisor would remind Yarborough the next day not to stray from the slides that were sent over by the district.
Eventually, an assistant principal called Yarborough into her office. She reminded Yarborough that the district’s orders barred teachers at NES-aligned schools like Navarro Middle from giving students quizzes, tests or any assessment outside of what was part of district-provided slideshows.
“It sounded kind of like a threat where she said, ‘I'm telling you before the [executive director] comes and tells you herself,’” Yarborough recalls. “‘You're going to be in big trouble with the ED herself if you don't start doing this now.’”
Yarborough quit her teaching job in January. She now works as a teacher in a nearby district, outside of the NES program. She couldn’t be part of a system that was forcing her to, as Yarborough puts it, treat students like machines.
“I knew they weren't learning. I knew I wasn't preparing them for anything in life besides a STAAR test,” Yarborough says, referencing the state’s annual standardized test, “and I was having to deny their humanity while we did that. I was so stressed, and my stomach was always a knot. I was like, ‘This is horrible. I can't keep doing this.’”
The slideshow model didn’t give her time to help students understand concepts before moving on, or for students to practice a skill on their own. The timed, jam-packed schedule didn’t even leave most kids with time to go to the bathroom, she says.
“They've just been holding up the whiteboard on the multiple-choice question slides, so they haven't been able to read a story and think through it and make mistakes and get feedback on their own,” Yarborough says. “So you have kids who will give up, and they just write any letter on their whiteboard, and it doesn't matter to them. And Mike Miles calls this engagement, but that's just obedience — because when a student is really engaged, it's their mind that's engaged, not their hand with a marker.”
Despite educators’ concerns, district leaders are riding high on data showing that some campuses made huge improvements in their overall accountability ratings — rising by 30 or more points, in some cases — during Miles’ first year at the helm. The district called the increases “remarkable” in a news release, noting the changes made under the New Education System.
While the state has been blocked from releasing annual school accountability scores, Houston ISD crunched the numbers itself and released its campuses’ preliminary scores. Wheatley High School, the source of low scores that triggered the state takeover, will increase from a “D” rating in 2023 to a “B” at the end of the 2024 academic year. The number of schools rated “A” and “B” will more than double during the same period, according to the district, while “D” and “F” campuses will fall to 41 schools in 2024 compared to 121 the previous year.
“We are incredibly proud of what we’ve been able to achieve in one year,” Miles said in the news release. “Together with our dedicated teachers, principals, and everyone at HISD, we will continue to provide high-quality instruction that builds on this growth.”
The first year of NES was turbulent, with a seemingly constant stream of new reforms. Protesters spoke out against the overhaul at public meetings, with plans for massive layoffs angering parents. Employee turnover during Miles’ tenure was 33 percent higher than the previous year.
Miles has remained cool under the barrage of criticism — including from a panel of graduating seniors who had firsthand experience under his New Education System. He brushed off the idea that a 9,000-student drop in enrollment was worrisome, telling the Houston Chronicle that the “numbers are changing every day ... but we feel confident that we’re going to keep growing in our enrollment until September.”
In the same article, a parent said her children had “hollow zombie faces” due to the stressful environment at their Houston ISD school. She opted to have them do virtual schooling this year.
As a parent, Yarborough wasn’t only troubled by how the superintendent’s test-centered plan changed school for the students she taught. Both of her children attended Pugh Elementary, part of the original cohort of NES schools, during the 2023-24 school year. She said her daughter’s fourth-grade class operated much like Yarborough was expected to run her sixth-grade class. Her son’s first-grade class wasn’t much different.
“My younger one would say, ‘Today's the same as every day,’” she recalls. “He said there wasn't the best part or the worst part. It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. It was just a flat line, like blah, every day.”
Yarborough found another school for her children — her son has specifically asked not to go back to Pugh Elementary for second grade. But to ensure she chose a school that’s beyond the reach of the New Education System, it meant looking at areas of the city that are wealthier.
“Miles is not going to target the schools where the parents have wealth and power, and that's concentrated in the schools with higher white populations,” Yarborough says. “And that's due to a legacy of racism.”
She feels bad about searching for schools based on the income level of their students’ families. But she doesn’t feel like she has a choice.
“Would Miles or any of those board members send their child to an NES school? They would say, ‘Oh, no. My kids need to be more challenged. My kids need a better social environment. My kids,’” Yarborough said. “They're giving our kids less. They're treating our kids differently. It's segregation.”
Integrating technology into the classroom involves more than just adding gadgets and software; it’s about creating a dynamic learning environment where students are actively engaged and teachers can teach more effectively. This journey requires collaboration among technology teams, instructional coaches and educators.
Recently, EdSurge spoke with three educational leaders from Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53 in Illinois about their experiences with and strategies for using technology to enrich classroom environments. Caitlin Smith, the director of technology, has been in the K-12 educational technology space for 10 years. As the technology integration and support specialist, Kari Moulton brings 18 years of education experience to her work with teachers and staff to support technology integration. Amber Skeate, starting her 20th year in the classroom, serves on the technology committee and as technology leader at Alan B. Shepard Elementary School.
Caitlin Smith Director of Technology, Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53, Illinois
A District Perspective: Evaluating and Implementing New Technology
Technology plays a crucial role in classroom success, but integrating new tools can be challenging. Smith emphasizes the importance of addressing the big picture. "Being at the district level, I have to look at the challenges that hinder more than just one user," she explains. "I start by looking at where we have had the most issues coming from the end users (staff and students) or if the administration notices gaps in student growth." Smith’s approach ensures that the technology chosen benefits the entire district.
When evaluating new technology, Smith places a priority on solutions that are both easy to implement and cost-effective. "We discuss this in our technology leadership meetings and set up trials for each tech leader to test the technology," she says. This thorough vetting process ensures that the selected tools will effectively address the district’s needs. "Having both a technology integration specialist and a technology leadership committee allows the district to implement new technology throughout the year with the input of teachers along with my own staff’s recommendations," Smith adds, highlighting the importance of collaborative decision-making in tech integration.
Kari Moulton Technology Integration and Support Specialist, Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53, Illinois
A School Perspective: Rolling Out Technology to Teachers
Once new technology is selected, rolling it out successfully is the next challenge. Moulton plays a key role in this phase. "We do whatever it takes to support our teachers," Moulton shares. Her team provides a monthly newsletter with information about new tools, creates instructional videos and offers one-on-one training sessions. Her proactive support helps teachers feel confident and prepared to use new technology in their classrooms. Additionally, Moulton meets with new teachers at the start of the school year to give them an overview of the technology they will be using, ensuring that they are ready to integrate it into their teaching from day one.
“Having a supportive edtech company ensures that the adoption of the new tools is smooth,” Moulton adds, underscoring the importance of reliable vendor support in the tech adoption process. She points to Bourbonnais' implementation of Vivi, the classroom engagement and campus communications solution as an example. “Vivi made [our technology] rollout unique because they sent us two boxes to demo for eight weeks. This allowed us to have various teachers at all grade levels test out the solution and give us feedback.”
“One beneficial way that edtech companies have supported the tools that we have adopted is great communication and support,” shares Moulton. She highlights Vivi's exemplary support: “I have monthly meetings with my [customer success manager] to check in on how things are going, what is working and what we might need to troubleshoot. They also give out [usage] data. With budgets affecting a majority of schools, having the data to back up the usage of the tool is very important and beneficial in determining the future use of the tool.”
Amber Skeate Classroom Teacher, Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53, Illinois
A Classroom Perspective: Transforming Classroom Experiences
In the classroom, technology can transform instruction and student engagement. "Technology is a huge part of my classroom atmosphere,” says Skeate. The students each have a laptop and can use approved apps for independent work during math and reading, allowing them to work at their instructional level while Skeate meets with small groups. Technology is also used to present concepts to the class. "The way I project my slide presentations, lessons and videos wouldn't happen without Vivi,” shares Skeate.
The ability to actively participate in lessons through technology fosters a more engaging and interactive classroom environment. “The students ask me every day if they are going to use the Vivi App so that they can be the teacher for the lesson,” Skeate excitedly states. Vivi's wireless screen mirroring allows the teacher to pass control of the classroom display to the students to share how they answer problems or write a word.
And engagement is not the only benefit. “Technology has been a lifesaver when it comes to honing in on instructional levels of all students through particular reading and math apps,” explains Skeate. In addition, technology can be a time-saver for teachers. "Vivi's Play Content feature allows me to line up all the videos I need for the day,” notes Skeate, which saves her time she would otherwise spend searching for materials. This efficiency enables her to focus more on teaching and less on administrative tasks, ultimately benefiting her students.
Recommended Resources:
Tech Tips for Teachers: Find quick tech tips to enhance classroom engagement and efficiency.
Customer Stories: See how school districts are using Vivi to enhance learning and reach their goals.
Teacher Self-Care Checklist: Discover practical self-care tips to help teachers reduce stress and avoid burnout.
The collaboration between district leaders, tech coaches and teachers at Bourbonnais showcases how technology can be seamlessly integrated to create engaging and efficient classroom environments. By focusing on comprehensive training and ongoing support while implementing interactive tools like Vivi, these educators are transforming their teaching and enhancing student learning experiences. The positive impact of technology on the instructional experience and classroom dynamics is evident, demonstrating that when implemented thoughtfully, technology can be a powerful tool in education.
Strategies for collaborative technology integration
For district-level staff: Carry out a proactive needs assessment / Carry out multi-level evaluations
For school-level staff: Provide multifaceted teacher support / Provide training geared toward new teachers / Seek edtech partner collaboration
For classroom-level staff: Provide tech-infused instruction / Offer student choice and control
See for yourself how Vivi transforms communication, boosts classroom engagement and simplifies IT management. Learn more at Vivi.io.
A growing number of high school students are looking for opportunities to do academic research, hoping to add ‘published author’ to their list of achievements when they apply to colleges.
Just look on popular Facebook groups and Reddit threads for tips on getting into selective colleges, and you’ll likely find posts recommending that students participate in intensive research or compete in science competitions as a way to stand out on college applications. It seems that many aspiring applicants and their parents have fixed on the idea that getting research published in an academic journal as a high school student has arisen as a new trophy to strive for in an escalating race to try to stand out as an applicant, especially after more selective colleges have dropped requiring the SAT or other admissions tests.
But experts say that the trend of high school research, while well-intentioned, has plenty of pitfalls. After all, academic research often requires deeper knowledge of a field than is typical in high school, and it involves carefully following ethical guidelines to protect research subjects from potential harm that students may not be aware of without expert guidance.
“A piece of research, even a basic piece of research, can take years to produce,” says Bob Malkin, the executive director at the International Research Institutes of North Carolina. “High school students have classes they need to worry about. They may be playing sports. They might be pursuing other hobbies or interests. So mixing this in with all the other things they need to do can definitely be a bad idea, just because it takes so much time.”
Pushing students to get involved in research early can also amplify inequities among those who don’t have access to expensive research programs or opportunities at elite institutions. That’s because many students can’t afford to participate in summer programs to hone research skills, or they aren’t taught important research skills in high school, says Bethany Usher, the provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Radford University. As a result, they don’t have the same experiences that will help them find a job in a lab or conduct their own project when they get to college freshman year, she says.
That’s not to say that teaching research skills in high school is bad, though. In fact, Malkin recently co-wrote a book about how to help young students along the path, called “A Guide to Academic Research for High School Students.”
The hope, experts say, is that teaching research skills becomes a more mainstream affair, making its way into high schools and undergraduate courses outside of elite private schools. That could help build basic skills without chasing publication at too young an age.
Building Skills
Bonnie Hale, an independent counselor advising high school students on their college applications, says that she sees students whose attempts to do research to enhance their resume does them more harm than good.
One student, for instance, asked Hale to help her send out a survey to parents across California, a task that would’ve required the oversight of an institutional review board.
Other students will try to submit their work for publication without the proper elements of an academic paper, such as a background literature review or a methods section. One student hoped to submit a paper that didn’t even include a research question, Hale says. No peer reviewed journal would publish this work, she adds.
"Students may not have seen themselves as being interested in doing something like that, but if they're taught inquiry and research opportunities in high schools, that doesn't require a university to be nearby."
— Bethany Usher, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Radford University.
Some journals cater toward research from high schoolers, but they often require high fees, are run by other high school or undergraduate students or aren’t reputable journals, Hale says. Plus, publishing in these journals likely won’t impress college admissions officials, she adds. For students looking to get research published, Malkin suggests they work with a college faculty member, though that can be difficult to pull off.
Publishing research without proper mentorship or oversight can also have major consequences for the student, says Hale, who co-wrote the book on student research with Malkin. She’s worked with some students who say they participated in a study, only for Hale to find out they overstated their role in the paper. If students get caught conducting research unethically or mis-representing themselves on an application, a college could rescind its offer or put that student on probation, she says.
“That’s what students don’t understand,” Hale says. “That the pressure makes them go in a direction that they ought not to go.”
To Hale and Malkin, improving the environment starts with changing parent attitudes. Parents need to lower the pressure and understand that their child will learn and be happy in college even if they don’t get into their dream school, Malkin says. If they’re interested in research, encourage them, but if they’re not, don’t force it, he says. “Somehow somebody's got to convince these parents that your kid's going to be okay,” he adds.
Usher, of Radford, says more high schools around the country should also help teach research skills — without pushing too hard too soon. She says high school teachers could encourage their students to participate in community-based projects, for example, such as surveys or other outreach in their local area. Often the skills young students learn through doing research, like critical thinking, are what help them later on rather than the research itself, she says.
“If we want to reach a greater majority of students, being able to have those teachers well-equipped to be taking advantage of research opportunities from communities and making them relevant to students” is essential, Usher says.
Early exposure to core research skills could also help with college readiness and retention, she adds. “Students may not have seen themselves as being interested in doing something like that, but if they're taught inquiry and research opportunities in high schools, that doesn't require a university to be nearby,” she adds.
Some colleges have also begun incorporating research skills into courses. Throughout a student’s time in college, classes will continue to build on those skills, which students can use when they enter the workforce or graduate school, says Lindsay Currie, executive officer for the Council on Undergraduate Research.
Most graduate programs now require some level of research, Malkin says, and students need to start as early as possible. Working research into classes encourages students to sign up for additional opportunities outside of the classroom once they build their confidence in the subject, Currie adds.
“If you just have a flyer that says, ‘hey, do you want to participate in my lab,’ you might not, as a college freshman, really understand what that means if you don't have any context for it,” she says. These courses “make it so students understand the value and can test out whether it's the right fit for them.”
In one biology class at Radford, students conducted research on a specific fungus among bees. After a semester of trapping bees and testing them using various methods, the students presented their original findings at a research fair. These types of projects can be conducted in any type of course, says Usher, who was the previous president of the Council on Undergraduate Research. She suggests that students could each choreograph their own routines in a dance class rather than just all learning the same steps.
“They don't have to step out of their comfort zone, everybody's going to class so there's not a ‘you get selected for a thing’” type of process, Usher says. “Sometimes students do research and they don't even know they've done it,” she adds “You need to be like, ‘this thing that you thought was really cool and exciting, that was research.’”
Two instructors at Vilnius University in Lithuania brought in some unusual teaching assistants earlier this year: AI chatbot versions of themselves.
The instructors — Paul Jurcys and Goda Strikaitė-Latušinskaja — created AI chatbots trained only on academic publications, PowerPoint slides and other teaching materials that they had created over the years. And they called these chatbots “AI Knowledge Twins,” dubbing one Paul AI and the other Goda AI.
They told their students to take any questions they had during class or while doing their homework to the bots first before approaching the human instructors. The idea wasn’t to discourage asking questions, but rather to nudge students to try out the chatbot doubles.
“We introduced them as our assistants — as our research assistants that help people interact with our knowledge in a new and unique way,” says Jurcys.
Experts in artificial intelligence have for years experimented with the idea of creating chatbots that can fill this support role in classrooms. With the rise of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools, there’s a new push to try robot TAs.
“From a faculty perspective, especially someone who is overwhelmed with teaching and needs a teaching assistant, that's very attractive to them — then they can focus on research and not focus on teaching,” says Marc Watkins, a lecturer of writing and rhetoric at the University of Mississippi and director of the university’s AI Summer Institute for Teachers of Writing.
But just because Watkins thought some faculty would like it doesn’t mean he thinks it’s a good idea.
“That's exactly why it's so dangerous too, because it basically offloads this sort of human relationships that we're trying to develop with our students and between teachers and students to an algorithm,” he says.
On this week’s EdSurge Podcast, we hear from these professors about how the experiment went — how it changed classroom discussion but sometimes caused distraction. A student in the class, Maria Ignacia, also shares her view on what it was like to have chatbot TAs.
And we listen in as Jurcys asks his chatbot questions — and admits the bot puts things a bit differently than he would.
“You go into your own world for a moment. Like, if someone's talking to me and I'm reading a book, I wouldn't hear them,” says Aylynn, an eighth grader in Pendergast Elementary District in Phoenix, Arizona. “You can understand someone else's culture, what they celebrate, what they honor and what they believe in, without personally asking. It makes me empathize with other people.”
I spoke to Aylynn as part of a visit to Pendergast with my colleagues from Imagine Learning to hear about educators’ and students’ experiences using the Imagine Learning EL Education curriculum. Her words describe the transformative power of reading — a skill that, unlike spoken language, humans are not naturally hardwired to master. Reading requires building connections in the brain that wouldn’t exist without explicit instruction. As a result, teaching students how to read is a complex and challenging endeavor — that’s why it takes years.
Imagine Learning EL Education aligns with the concept of high-quality instructional materials (HQIMs).
The Science of Reading
Over the past several decades, research in educational psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience has converged to form the science of reading, providing clear, evidence-based guidelines on effective reading instruction. The science of reading distills vast knowledge into practical strategies to help all students become proficient readers, emphasizing a comprehensive approach that includes word recognition, language comprehension and bridging skills.
Word recognition encompasses complex skills such as phonological awareness (recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken words), phonics (understanding how letters and sounds correspond), and decoding (applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships to pronounce written words). With practice, sight word recognition allows instant recognition of common words.
Language comprehension involves developing background knowledge for context and mastering language structures, such as grammar and syntax, to make sense of sentences and larger texts.
Bridging skills connect these processes. Print awareness helps with the organization of texts, vocabulary knowledge enables the use of a wide range of words and self-regulation helps students manage their reading, maintain focus and apply strategies effectively.
Imagine Learning EL Education is science-backed and heart-driven.
Content-Based Literacy
Recommended Resources
Imagine Learning EL Education: Discover ELA with heart — Imagine Learning EL Education is the content-based English language arts program rooted in the science of reading for grades K–8.
Addressing the Science of Reading: An Imagine Learning EL Education white paper on how 35 years of peer-reviewed research from the fields of educational psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience have contributed to our understanding of the science of reading.
The Science of Reading: Imagine Learning's core, supplemental and intervention products that bridge the gap between pedagogy and classroom instruction.
To address potential breakdowns in reading abilities, schools increasingly turn to digital and blended learning programs that align their curricula with the science of reading. The Imagine Learning EL Education curriculum is deeply rooted in the science of reading, focusing on explicit instruction in the areas outlined above. It offers a content-based approach that combines structured phonics instruction with the use of compelling, real-world texts to engage and excite K-8 learners. In doing so, it aligns with the concept of high-quality instructional materials (HQIMs), a term that an increasing number of school districts use when identifying materials that fulfill criteria such as being aligned to learning standards, offering best-practice pedagogy and delivering a user-friendly experience for both teachers and students.
At Pendergast, the educators I chatted with spoke at length about how helpful they find the program in applying the science of reading principles to practical contexts. “It's nice with Imagine Learning EL Education that the children have explicit phonics instruction,” says Corina, an instructional coach. “But also, there are opportunities in labs for verbal reasoning and vocabulary development and background building, and the children have those hands-on opportunities to apply what they are learning in the module to their lab's time.”
One effective content-based approach to literacy involves students exploring long-form, cross-curricular content. “I love the fact that students are actually reading and spending time in books,” says seventh grade ELA teacher Kathryn. “Not just basals, not just snippets of a story, but actual novels and books.” Every teacher I spoke to at Pendergast echoed that same sentiment — the books bring the curriculum to life for the students.
School principal Abraham agrees: “Having the students have the ability to really dive deep within that text and read the text multiple times is so important for comprehension, especially with our students that are English language learners or that might have a learning disability. [It has] really helped us in closing that achievement gap.”
“When we're looking for those high-quality instructional materials, we're looking for standard alignment,” says Kelsie, assistant director of interdisciplinary literacy, as we talked about the selection process for a new curriculum. “We're also looking for materials that the students can see themselves in. Are they culturally relevant for our kids? We also want them to be able to take that deep knowledge of learning into other aspects of their life and be ready for the future.”
A teacher uses Imagine Learning EL Education digital products at Pendergast, AZ.
A Passport to Achievement
What I love is seeing my students get to be their authentic selves while they're growing in their learning spaces with teachers who are excited to show them how far they can stretch themselves.
— Kelsie, Assistant Director of Interdisciplinary Literacy at Pendergast, AZ
As I spent time with Kelsie, we talked about the impact for teachers and students, of going on a journey with a curriculum with a holistic pedagogical approach through the grades. “Imagine Learning EL Education is definitely a full gamut of resources that meets all of the different literacy needs,” she says. “Within the program, you will build the foundational skills necessary in K-2. When we go into third through fifth grade, we get to work toward mastery, and then our sixth, seventh and eighth graders take that, and they get to fly. What I love is seeing my students get to be their authentic selves while they're growing in their learning spaces with teachers who are excited to show them how far they can stretch themselves.”
“Reading is like your access to the rest of the world. You have to be able to read," reflects Akin, a school counselor. Imagine Learning EL Education exemplifies how, when the science of reading is brought to life in the classroom, it not only addresses the complexities of learning to read but also prepares students for a future where they can confidently navigate the world through the power of literacy. As Aylynn's experience shows, reading opens doors to understanding, empathy and knowledge, making it a passport to anything students aspire to achieve.
As someone who views cooking and baking as hobbies, not chores, I follow a lot of food bloggers and recipe developers on social media. I subscribe to many of their newsletters. I, well, make and eat a lot of their food.
Yet I’ve only come across one who devotes back-to-school season to easing the financial burden on educators.
Deb Perelman, the best-selling author and food blogger behind Smitten Kitchen, has been running the Classroom Wishlist Project for three years now. Each summer, she creates a post on her Instagram account (1.8 million followers) welcoming teachers to share their school supply lists, along with a bit of humanizing information like where they live and what they teach, in a Google form.
Then Perelman puts their responses in a spreadsheet, which as of mid-August has over 730 entries for the 2024-25 school year, and invites her expansive reader community to visit a teacher’s wish list and purchase what they can so that these educators don’t have to pay out of their pockets.
The average teacher, according to the nonprofit DonorsChoose, spends close to $700 of their own money on classroom supplies in a given year — a reality that “feels all wrong and makes me sad,” Perelman says in the Classroom Wishlist Project description.
The famous food writer lives in Manhattan and has children entering fourth and 10th grade this year. There are all sorts of causes and issues she could support. Why, I wondered, did she choose this one?
I recently got to ask Perelman that myself, along with other questions — like what has most surprised her about the endeavor and what recipe on her site most says “back to school.”
She is quick to note that the wish list project, which she finds gratifying and heartening, does not require major sacrifice on her part.
“I almost feel guilty, sometimes, about what a low lift this project is for me,” she admits. “I would do it if it was harder, [but] I feel like I have to be honest — I'm not sweating over this.”
She adds: “It's more a reflection of the generosity of the community, and the kindness. This is not about me doing anything special. I'm really just using a space I've already created to bounce the light back to people who need it.”
The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
EdSurge: When and how did the Classroom Wishlist Project first begin?
Deb Perelman: This is the third summer, so I guess that means that it began in — what year is this? — 2022.
A reader messaged me, and she said her daughter was a school teacher, and [the school] had given her no budget for classroom supplies. She asked: Would I mind sharing her classroom wish list with my readers and getting the word out?
It feels good. I think everybody wins. I love the idea of supporting teachers.
— Deb Perelman
And when I did, they wiped out her wish list in, I feel like, under a day. The generosity was just staggering. And I heard from a lot of other teachers who asked if I could help them, too. I thought, ‘Yes, why not? Let's just do this.’
The first summer, it was not the most organized. Like, people would [direct message] me their list, and I would share it in a spreadsheet. By the second summer, which was last summer, I knew I was going to do this as a project, hopefully every year.
I created a Google Form where teachers could submit their list, and asked them to tell us a little bit about their classroom and to tell us what city they’re in. I think that helps a lot because sometimes you might read, like, ‘Oh, it's a music classroom. I love music,’ or, ‘Oh, that's my town.’ So it's more meaningful for people to have a little more information when there are so many [lists].
Doing it that way, we got a lot, a lot, a lot more submissions — like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And I worried — and I still worry — that we get too many submissions to make any meaningful difference. If it's 20 lists, we're going to wipe them out. But I can't promise that for 900 lists at all — or even close.
But the thing I forget is that, if you need stuff and a stranger sends you even a quarter of it or one [item], it still just completely makes your day. Whether you just got the crayons or just got 10 books, it doesn't matter. There's no way it's not well received, even if it's not everything people need.
Photo courtesy of Deb Perelman
I imagine people receiving and giving appreciate the humanity of it.
Yeah, I think it feels good on both sides. And I think it feels really fun to buy books and crayons for classrooms. I love buying school supplies.
I have two kids, and they're both in public school. When they first started in their elementary school, we would get [a list] from the teachers at the beginning of the year, ‘Here's some stuff we could use for the classroom, bring it in if you can.’ And then, as the fundraising improved at the public school, the PTA was able to bring in more money. We no longer have to buy any school supplies at all, and it really is such a privilege. I mean, we don't even buy a single box of crayons. It's just — it's crazy.
We got very lucky. … And like I said, I think it's so fun to buy crayons and books and whatever for a classroom. It feels really good.
That's a very organic start. Do you often get reader emails of people asking for you to support a cause?
Not as often as I would expect, but maybe I'm not that on top of my email.
Photo courtesy of Deb Perelman
One of the dark Smitten Kitchen secrets is that I have no staff, just sort of a very, very, very part-time assistant. I'm just like a do-it-myself person, which is good and bad. So I wouldn't say this happens a ton, but I liked this one. It feels good. I think everybody wins. I love the idea of supporting teachers.
The things that these teachers need are often so basic. These are small, inexpensive purchases that can really make somebody’s day. And then I get these lovely notes back from them. It’s just the joy, the incandescent joy, from people who walk into their classroom and find that a complete stranger bought all the glue they needed for the year. Or somebody sent me this picture of — it must be 50 books for her classroom. Somebody bought basically every book on her list, and she walked into her classroom and it was there.
How do the teachers find you? Are they often readers in your online community?
Usually. I mostly do the shoutout through Instagram, where I have my largest social community. I have a website too, but I almost try to funnel it down a little bit. It's either somebody who reads the site, or it might be their kid or their friend. I was trying to keep it from being too wide and too open on the internet, because otherwise we'll just get 10,000 wish lists and nothing will get filled.
But I also like the idea, if I can get a part-time staff person next summer, of trying to expand it a little bit more. Like maybe I can get some people to sponsor or match wish list clearing. I just don't have, personally, the bandwidth to dig into that right now.
Is there any teacher this year or in past years whose story stands out to you?
Oh, my goodness, there have been so many.
I remember last summer, after the wildfires in Hawaii, there were people who were looking specifically for the lists from those teachers [on Maui].
Especially when there's been some sort of tragedy or weather disaster, and it's been in the news and teachers don't even know how they're going to start their school year, I think there's definitely a lot of focus on that. There's definitely an interest in helping in such a specific way — where what you're doing is going to directly affect a kid's education and how their year goes. It feels like the most satisfying giving in that way.
Is there a request that has been especially frequent or something that surprises you when you look through these wish lists?
I think the thing that [is most surprising] is just that so much of how a school thrives depends on the way we do funding. And I am not a national expert on education in any way … but so much of it comes from crowdsourced fundraising and not out of the money schools get from the state for students.
In a lot of places, parents don't have extra money to give. And then there's other places where parents are writing $500 checks or more to the PTA every year, and it's just crazy how much that changes a kid's education.
If you're in an area where parents don't have deep pockets and a lot of spare change, why should the kids' classrooms not have what they need? Why should that affect whether they have enough crayons? It's wild when you think of it that way.
That's what's been eye-opening for me. I've also heard from so many retired teachers and older teachers who are like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I must have spent $2,000 a year from my own paycheck. This is so nice that people want to help out.’ People don't see this money that the teachers are spending. It's invisible.
Do you measure success by dollars raised or wish lists cleared, or are you measuring it at all?
I'm actually not measuring it at all. … I do use the thank you notes as a good measure of how it's being received and the joy. You can always just see the joy.
Final question: What recipe on your website is the most quintessential ‘back to school’ recipe?
I think homemade Oreos have got to be it, right? I mean, of course. It's either going to be grilled cheese and tomato soup — a kid-friendly meal — or it's going to be homemade Oreos. They’re really easy: It’s like two chocolate sugar cookies with vanilla in them. They’re really fun.
The first day of high school is usually filled with icebreakers, like the classic, two truths and a lie. Two truths and one lie I often share with my class are:
I am a physics teacher
I hate science
I love dogs
The lie, unfortunately, is that I love dogs — they’re fine; I’m just not a pet person. In this case, I really am a physics teacher who, at one point, hated science; in fact, I spent the better part of the past decade trying to escape it. But let me clarify that I don’t feel that way anymore.
Although I was never bad at science, it wasn’t interesting or meaningful to me, and I just never saw myself in it. I never considered this might be the root of my disinterest; I just unconsciously absorbed that science was figured out centuries ago by old, white men who did not look or think like me.
Regardless of my feelings toward it, when I was in college, my parents pushed me into engineering with the promise that it would lead to a steady income and a competitive salary. Needless to say, I struggled to keep up with the coursework, and I began to hate it. Not only was I unprepared for the levels of math and study skills required, but as a bleeding-heart, 17-year-old, I wanted to do something to help my community.
Soon after, I fell in love with education by volunteering to teach English as a Second Language outside my classes. Upon graduating, I tried to pivot from science and develop some real-world career experience by working in consulting, but I eventually decided to pursue teaching full-time. Due to my background in engineering, I was selected for a physics teaching credential program instead of my first choice of English.
Ironically, it has been through my teaching experience that I have finally come to see the way science drives our daily lives. If I had learned in high school what a motor and a generator were, and seen that they are simply wires around magnets, I think I might have chosen to continue in engineering and spent more time loving science instead of hating it. Not to mention, my experience struggling to like science gives me a unique insight into a parallel problem that I am observing among the students in my classroom.
Many of my students have a deep sense of curiosity, a wealth of creativity and an awareness of the world that I lacked when I was in school. These attributes make them ideal candidates to thrive in science, but the curriculum requires a level of math and reading that makes the science itself hard to grasp. This led me to wonder: What’s so fun about science? Why should my students care about it? And what would make them care enough to see themselves as scientists one day?
The Magical World of Science
I should point out that I’m not the only one asking these questions. Many educators, like Stanford University Professor Bryan Brown, have long advocated for a shift in the national approach to teaching science and have worked to develop curricular content to further those goals.
In the meantime, science teachers like myself are largely left to modify and present the standards independently as schools cycle through textbooks and curriculums. For example, one performance expectation in our district’s Next Generation Science Standards-aligned curriculum reads:
Students who demonstrate understanding can evaluate the validity and reliability of claims in published materials of the effects that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have when absorbed by matter.
During my first year of teaching, I realized that these standards relied on algebra and reading skills that were still out of reach for most of my class. Seeing my students’ bewilderment and frustration, I began to reflect on my time in college when I lacked the math competencies and background vocabulary to grasp the material. So, I learned to adapt my expectations for what teaching high school science actually means.
One day, during class, I posed a question to my student on a topic everyone was familiar with: cell phones. Specifically, I asked, “Can cell phones cause cancer?”
In our initial poll, the classes were all fairly split. Most, but not all of them, had heard of the claim that their cell phones might cause cancer. About half of them believed it, and the other half weren’t sure, so we launched an investigative unit to understand how cell phones use microwave and radio frequencies to communicate.
We learned about ionizing versus non-ionizing radiation and practiced evaluating internet sources for credibility. This culminated in a written claim, evidence, and reasoning letter explaining their conclusions to a family member. I loved the enthusiastic discussion and hilarious, brilliant letters this unit generated, but I was nervous about teaching the next unit: electricity and magnetism.
Electricity had always been my weak point when I studied physics, and I could never understand things happening at a scale too small and a speed too fast to see. After much research, I had the models of atoms, vocabulary worksheets and circuit diagrams prepared, but I had no way to make this interesting to my students. Rummaging around our ancient and cluttered science supply closet, I dug up a dusty box labeled ‘fun fly stick’ that functioned like a miniature Van-de-Graff generator.
I started with a demonstration. Then, I let the kids take turns with the wand that seemed to magically transform a flat sheet of mylar into a floating, glittering, 3-D-patterned orb. I watched their excitement as they propelled it through the air, only to touch it and have it collapse back into a flat sheet.
After the demo, we worked together — through a week of brainstorming, models, labs, and notes — to figure out that the magic behind this trick is just electrons. While too tiny for us to see individually, we can still observe their effects and come to understand that it is their movement through wires and magnets that drives so much of our daily lives. I focused on making this apparent to my students as we built a speaker, turned a nail into an electromagnet and used a hand-crank electromagnetic generator to power light bulbs.
Although I included the math and vocabulary, I was more interested in their ability to explain the big idea. To finish the unit, we studied the local electric grid and analyzed the utility bills of a typical apartment in our community, which the kids weirdly, yet passionately loved.
It was during this demo that I really started to love science — when I realized a science teacher could be sort of the inverse of a magician. Through this experience, I worked to convince my students that science is not only something that explains the natural world around us, but something that continues to affect how we live, work, communicate, play and exist.
Exit Ticket
Nearly a decade after my own high school and college experiences, feeling unenthused and unmoved by the prospect of a career in STEM, I’ve come to believe it is vital that my students learn the real-world meaning of science and see themselves as future scientists.
Nowadays, I openly share with my students how I used to hate science and why I love it now. They know my focus is more on them learning how to think and work like scientists than on memorizing formulas. Instead, I lean into questions about climate change, microplastics, PFAs, artificial intelligence and the future of the Earth and space exploration, topics that will undoubtedly be important for students to understand and have knowledge about long after they leave my classroom.
For me, the goal of high school science is for students to leave my class with the curiosity to ask questions about the world around them, the perseverance and resourcefulness to figure out the answer, and the confidence they can contribute to shaping the world they inherit. If teachers and caretakers can point to the relevance of science in the world around them, I’m hopeful we can make progress for more inclusive and representative decision-makers and researchers.
Writing centers on college campuses have been around for more than 100 years, and they’re both a resource for students doing assignments and a symbol of the importance in higher education of learning to express yourself in text.
But as generative AI tools like ChatGPT sweep into mainstream business tools, promising to draft properly-formatted text from simple prompts and the click of a button, new questions are rising about what role writing centers should play — or whether they will be needed in the future.
Many writing centers are already jumping in to experiment with new AI tools, making the case both for the continued importance of writing instruction and for their place on campus as a hub for teaching AI literacy.
“I see this as a real opportunity for writing centers to show leadership if they're given an opportunity,” says Sherry Wynn Perdue, president of the International Writing Centers Association. “It's an important moment, and our role as leaders is to help provide resources for our colleagues so that we can be leaders in the conversation about generative AI.”
Some writing instructors worry, though, that the new tools may tempt colleges to rely too heavily on the technology or even eliminate writing centers entirely. Writing centers are often run by non-tenured staff, which can make them especially vulnerable, says Genie N. Giaimo, director of Middlebury University's writing center and an assistant professor of writing and rhetoric there. And in the past, administrators at some colleges have replaced their services with all-encompassing tutoring centers or third party organizations, Wynn Perdue adds.
"Writing doesn’t have that much meaning without a human audience. Meeting with someone as you are developing your ideas is often the place where you feel that there’s the most meaning in what you’re doing.”
— Anna Mills, an English instructor at the College of Marin
And even some professors with doctoral degrees in English are wondering whether colleges need to do as much these days to teach the skill of writing in light of new AI tools. “Why do we need a required writing course if AI can do everything outside stakeholders want such a course to teach?,” asked Melissa Nicolas, a professor of English at Washington State University, in an op-ed last year.
So where does AI leave the writing center?
Finding a Balance
Writing centers need to find a balance between introducing AI into the writing process and keeping the human support that every writer needs, argues Anna Mills, an English instructor at the College of Marin.
AI can serve as a supplement to a human tutor, Mills says. She encourages her students to use MyEssayFeedback, an AI tool that critiques the organization of an essay, the quality of evidence a student has included to support their thesis or the tone of the writing. Such tools can also evaluate research questions or review a student's writing based on the rubric for the assignment, she says.
By modeling these uses of AI, Mills says, writing centers can increase students’ understanding of the technology and ease their worries about using it inappropriately. Many students arrive at college concerned that they’ll be accused of cheating if they use AI for anything, she says. For instance, many have seen the video on TikTok of a student who says she was given an F on a paper for using a grammar checker that set off an AI detection system her professors used. Providing guidance can help students feel more comfortable with the technology, she says. And understanding that AI’s suggestions can be wrong also boosts student confidence in their own abilities.
“The student could say, once they get the feedback, ‘No, that's not really what I want to do. Could you help me think about how to expand this other part of it?’” Mills says. “That's something that I think we need to be cultivating — that kind of confidence and willingness to engage and push back — because that is how you get the most out of AI.”
Still, Mills requires her students to go to the writing center at least four times during the semester. Human interaction is essential to the writing process, she argues. Often the tutors energize students and show a genuine interest in what they are writing, something they can’t get from any chatbot, Mills says.
“Writing doesn’t have that much meaning without a human audience,” Mills says. “Meeting with someone as you are developing your ideas is often the place where you feel that there’s the most meaning in what you’re doing.”
Writing centers can play a pivotal role in retention for a college, says Giaimo. The resources can be especially important for students who historically haven’t gotten as much support from colleges, such as first-generation students and those from marginalized communities, she adds. And working with a tutor could be the first one-on-one teaching interaction a student has at college, which is vital, especially for students coming out of the pandemic.
Even as the use of AI tools grows in the business world, students still need to learn how to write and organize their ideas, Giaimo says. And without proper guidance, students can end up leaning too heavily on tools like ChatGPT without ever picking up the underlying skills to put their own thoughts down on paper.
“We forget that most people who are in these processes, at least in higher education, they're just kind of starting out or learning,” Giaimo says. “The process part is important, and actually maybe even more important than what the final end product looks like.”
Promoting AI Literacy
Writing center tutors play an essential role in helping students understand how to use AI appropriately, says Sarah Z. Johnson, director of Madison College’s writing center. Many writing centers these days train tutors in AI literacy, which the tutors can then pass down to the students they work with as the opportunity arises.
Johnson and her team train their tutors to teach students about how AI can be useful in the writing process. For instance, if a student is struggling to organize an essay, a tutor might ask the student to paste their draft into a chatbot and ask it to create an outline for them, Johnson says. The student can see where a paragraph or sentence may work better in the paper and save time during the tutoring session, she says.
This year, tutors will also learn a list of AI literacies, such as how large language models work, issues with generative AI, such as their cultural biases, or how to write prompts that can help organize information, Johnson says.
At Middlebury, tutors are also trained to navigate AI policies, which can differ among instructors, Giaimo says. Tutors also learn to speak with students who they find have used AI inappropriately — say, by having a chatbot do too much of an assignment without attribution — and guide them in a more productive direction.
In that way, Johnson says, tutors can help writers think through the “implications” of using AI, so they can make their own decisions about questions like “Does this final product represent me? Does it represent my voice? Does it represent what I want to say?”
The most important thing, says Johsnon, is “realizing that gen AI is a tool, but you have to know how to use it rather than it using you.”
Writing centers often have relationships with departments across campus, which makes them an excellent place to promote AI literacy, Johnson says. Students may be coming with an assignment from an engineering class or a social sciences class, she says, which means writing center staff can build connections with colleagues across the college.
To prevent colleges from replacing writing centers with AI, directors and staff need to be proactive and advocate for the role they play in promoting AI literacy, she says. Johnson and Wynn Perdue helped craft a list of AI literacies that will be released later this year by a joint task force between the Modern Language Association and the Conference on College Composition and Communication. The IWCA also has its own generative AI taskforce, which Johnson and Wynn Perdue both sit on, that plans to create additional resources to help writing centers adjust and train their staff.
“Gen AI is not something that we're scared of, but it is something that absolutely needs to have parameters,” Johnson says. “If we're not helping students figure out what those parameters are through tutors and things like that, I just don't know how it's going to happen.”
Educational technology adoption has grown significantly in the past decade, and it’s clear that K-12 schools are now comfortable with and embrace the new technology norms. The next step for school leaders is to focus on purchasing edtech strategically, ensuring that these tools genuinely make a positive difference in teaching and learning.
Susan Uram Director of Educational Technology at Rockford Public Schools
But effectively evaluating edtech products is no small feat. Districts must balance diverse needs, ensure data privacy and align tech initiatives with educational goals. The process involves navigating budget constraints, integrating new tools with existing systems and ensuring accessibility for all students. To shed light on how districts tackle these challenges, EdSurge spoke with three leaders in educational technology.
Susan Uram, the director of educational technology for Rockford Public Schools in Illinois, leverages her background as a classroom teacher, curriculum dean and instructional coach to bridge the gap between IT initiatives and classroom instruction. April Chamberlain, the technology and library supervisor for Trussville City Schools in Alabama, also began her career in the classroom before taking on a pivotal role in aligning technology initiatives with instructional needs. Jessica Peters, the director of personalized learning at KIPP DC Public Schools, oversees the integration of educational technology across 22 schools, drawing on her experience as a classroom teacher and instructional technology coach to implement effective edtech solutions.
April Chamberlain Technology and Library Supervisor at Trussville City Schools
Together, they provide invaluable insights into the challenges and strategies surrounding edtech procurement and implementation in their districts, including their shared excitement about their involvement with the Benchmark project. Benchmark, an ISTE research project with funding from the Walton Family Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, aims to support districts that are trying to improve the ways in which they assess, measure and report student progress based on their needs and contexts. As part of the Benchmark project, ISTE worked with six public school districts across the United States to explore problems of practice related to assessment evaluation and selection within their districts.
EdSurge: How does your district approach edtech product evaluation and selection? And what makes the procurement process challenging?
Uram: Rockford Public Schools is a relatively large district with 27,000 students. We balance the different needs of individual schools with a high mobility rate of almost 20 percent within the district. So we try to honor the professional choices of our educators while providing consistent education and experiences for families across the district.
Jessica Peters Director of Personalized Learning at KIPP DC
When a new edtech product request comes in, we have checkpoints to evaluate if the tool meets our needs. Does it duplicate something in place? How is this tool different or better? Would a pilot provide a genuine trial? [Product evaluation] is not just about whether teachers or students like the tool. It needs to be a product worth investing time and effort into learning to use effectively.
Chamberlain: We ask those same types of questions. Our state has a multi-year program that helps us evaluate our current resources to decide if we need to recalibrate, remove or add something new. We use a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), so it is important but challenging to have all seats at the table — all stakeholders — represented when reviewing edtech.
During the past school year, we audited the district’s programs, initiatives and projects. We had representatives from technology, student services, administration, counseling and curriculum in the room for the district meeting. Then principals turned around and conducted similar audits at the building level. First, we listed all of the edtech products being used by teachers, both instructional and operational, which revealed some surprises. We then categorized these resources by subjects like English, math, behavioral or foundational wellness, and further broke them down into the setting each product serves: Tier 1, 2 or 3. This allowed us to see the gaps and overlaps with edtech products.
Going forward, we now have a form that teachers fill out to request a new product. The teacher answers questions about the tool, such as technical details, and how it aligns with or improves instruction. That completed form goes to the school-based tech team, which discusses the product and compares it to what we know is already being used across the school and district. Once approved at the school level, we go forward with a pilot to determine if there is a sustained value for other settings across the school or district to implement the new product.
Peters: KIPP DC has a few checkpoints in place. Mid-school year, around January or February when budget planning starts, I conduct a light analysis of all our current products to identify those that are underused, ineffective or redundant. Our pilot program is generally very open to requests, although we do say no to a few things if they're extremely duplicative. Every summer, we perform a thorough efficacy analysis on all core and pilot products. Occasionally, some products bypass our data review due to initiatives from the KIPP Foundation or strong endorsements from top instructional leaders, and we have to adapt accordingly.
Peters: The tool is much more thorough than anything we've ever used and addresses almost every question that we could come up with. If we were to walk through the tool for every product, I think there would be a lot more confidence that the product is, in fact, appropriate for us to use and meets all of our standards. It is a heavy tool, so working through the whole framework is time-consuming and not really something that I could ask a teacher or the average school leader to do. But I think it's excellent for district-level evaluation.
Uram: Right out of COVID, we were overwhelmed with the thousands of products that teachers were using. We needed a better language — a framework to address all of the products. The tool helped to cut through all the verbiage that a vendor might say about the product and ask questions like, “What are the accessibility features? Where do you find them? Is there interoperability?” It makes the evaluation more fact-based and removes the feelings and opinions.
There are a lot of questions in the tool, so we have chunked together pieces of the framework and provided guiding questions based on those pieces. If a product passes through those questions, we can dive a bit deeper. [The tool] has helped us take a deep breath when we see a shiny new product before we buy it.
Chamberlain: We learned to shift questions [we ask] vendors from “Does this product do this?” to “Show me how this product does this.” The tool guides us to ask the right questions and think about what we are trying to achieve with a product, so not saying, “I want this math product,” but instead, “I want a better way to assess my third grade students on the skills that the data shows they performed low on.” It is very empowering.
Uram: We need to think about the role of technology in school and how we evaluate whether a product is improving teaching and learning. We are at an important intersection of understanding data privacy and online presence in a way that we didn’t need to before. It was different when kids were just playing Oregon Trail. There is more at risk. We ourselves have been taken down by ransomware. So making data privacy a part of the product evaluation discussion is a necessity.
Peters: The Teacher Ready Framework removes emotion from the conversation and bases it on data instead. A big success we have seen at KIPP DC is no longer basing [product purchasing] decisions on how cool something seems. Now, we conduct efficacy analyses. The tool really highlights for us what is working and worth classroom time. It has created a huge shift in the standards we hold products to.
What if why you choose to become a teacher determines how successful you will be in the role?
Society has always been fascinated to learn about the motivations of famous athletes, entertainers, and politicians and how they came to their profession. We think about their career trajectory and consider its relevance to ourselves or people we know. What if, similarly, we learned about the motivations of aspiring K-12 teachers, and used that to predict how effective they will be and how long they will stay in the classroom?
As professors and researchers in university teaching and learning programs, we’re fascinated by this question. We figured that learning more about teacher motivation could help us better understand teacher pipelines and find ways to diversify and improve the quality of our nation’s teachers, so we designed a study to gather more information.
From 2012-2018, nearly 2,800 preservice teachers within one of the largest teacher preparation programs in Texas responded to an essay prompt, “Explain why you decided to become a teacher.” We used a natural language processing algorithm to review their responses.
Historically, people went into teaching for relatively straightforward reasons: They desired a stable career, enjoyed having summers off, or had family members who were teachers. However, across the essay responses, we found that those motivations were not the most prevalent, nor were they related to teacher outcomes — but others were.
Studying Preservice Teacher Motivations
Previously, researchers have primarily looked at in-service teacher motivations. Rather than learning from someone who is already in the profession, we wanted to learn from those who have yet to enter the profession. This better informs our understanding of how to get someone interested in teaching to then aid recruitment.
Using machine learning to process the thousands of open-ended essay responses, we identified 10 broad reasons for why preservice teachers want to become teachers.
The two most frequent drivers were altruism (the desire to do selfless good) and intrinsic motivation (an enjoyment of teaching, helping or interacting with students or children). Other interesting but less frequently cited motivations include the impact of prior teachers, love of a content area, and a family connection to teaching.
Interestingly, motivations differed by preservice teachers’ characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, gender, family income and certification.
For instance, individuals seeking their elementary certification were more likely to enjoy working with children, whereas middle and high school preservice teachers were interested in teaching a particular content area. Relatedly, men were less likely than women to report that they had “always wanted to teach.” This suggests that background characteristics can shape motivations to become a teacher.
Further, and more importantly, we found that some teacher motivations were related to better teacher outcomes. While altruism was the most frequent answer given, it wasn’t the one most strongly correlated with effectiveness.
Specifically, preservice teachers who shared that they were intrinsically motivated to teach and had experienced some adversity within schools were found to be both more effective educators and less likely to leave the classroom prematurely. Individuals who had these two motivating factors had a significant and positive correlation with their clinical teaching observation scores, and were less likely to leave the K-12 public school system within their first several years of entry.
Though these were modest effects, the fact that written self-reports of teaching motivation had even some significance with these outcomes is noteworthy. Motivations are no longer just interesting; they can be consequential.
From Motivations to Marketing
By better understanding teacher motivations, we can learn more about who could succeed in the profession. More precisely, we want to find individuals who are intrinsically motivated to teach or have overcome adversity within education spaces.
These future teachers could be like the following study participant who expressed how adversity and the impact of prior teachers motivated them to become a teacher:
“The statistics are stacked against someone with my background. Living in an impoverished neighborhood and struggling to learn English as my second language, and a daughter of Mexican immigrant parents who didn’t even get to finish primary school … I was fortunate to have many teachers who became my role models … I want to pay forward what my teachers did for me.”
How can we get these kinds of people into the classroom?
First, states need to consider long-term solutions to teacher shortages, including finding and nudging motivated individuals into educator preparation programs. Policymakers could invest in early teaching opportunities such as tutoring programs or summer programs with an explicit design to encourage individuals to consider careers in education and teaching (consider Breakthrough Collaborative as an example).
Second, teacher preparation programs need to prioritize strategic marketing, particularly in places where intrinsic motivation for teaching occurs more naturally (think: high schools, college campuses and child care centers).
Third, school districts could consider teacher motivations as part of their hiring process. Considering all else equal, it may be worth gaining insight into applicants’ interest in teaching, since our research indicates some motivations lead to more effective and longer tenured teachers than others.
Through these recommendations, classrooms across the nation can begin to utilize teacher motivations to enhance student learning.
Many teachers and professors are spending time this summer experimenting with AI tools to help them prepare slide presentations, craft tests and homework questions, and more. That’s in part because of a huge batch of new tools and updated features that incorporate ChatGPT, which companies have released in recent weeks.
As more instructors experiment with using generative AI to make teaching materials, an important question bubbles up. Should they disclose that to students?
It’s a fair question given the widespread concern in the field about students using AI to write their essays or bots to do their homework for them. If students are required to make clear when and how they’re using AI tools, should educators be too?
When Marc Watkins heads back into the classroom this fall to teach a digital media studies course, he plans to make clear to students how he’s now using AI behind the scenes in preparing for classes. Watkins is a lecturer of writing and rhetoric at the University of Mississippi and director of the university’s AI Summer Institute for Teachers of Writing, an optional program for faculty.
“We need to be open and honest and transparent if we’re using AI,” he says. “I think it’s important to show them how to do this, and how to model this behavior going forward,” Watkins says.
While it may seem logical for teachers and professors to clearly disclose when they use AI to develop instructional materials, just as they are asking students to do in assignments, Watkins points out that it’s not as simple as it might seem. At colleges and universities, there's a culture of professors grabbing materials from the web without always citing them. And he says K-12 teachers frequently use materials from a range of sources including curriculum and textbooks from their schools and districts, resources they’ve gotten from colleagues or found on websites, and materials they’ve purchased from marketplaces such as Teachers Pay Teachers. But teachers rarely share with students where these materials come from.
Watkins says that a few months ago, when he saw a demo of a new feature in a popular learning management system that uses AI to help make materials with one click, he asked a company official whether they could add a button that would automatically watermark when AI is used to make that clear to students.
The company wasn’t receptive, though, he says: “The impression I've gotten from the developers — and this is what's so maddening about this whole situation — is they basically are like, well, ‘Who cares about that?’”
Many educators seem to agree: In a recent survey conducted by Education Week, about 80 percent of the K-12 teachers who responded said it isn’t necessary to tell students and parents when they use AI to plan lessons and most educator respondents said that also applied to designing assessments and tracking behavior. In open-ended answers, some educators said they see it as a tool akin to a calculator, or like using content from a textbook.
But many experts say it depends on what a teacher is doing with AI. For example, an educator may decide to skip a disclosure when they do something like use a chatbot to improve the draft of a text or slide, but they may want to make it clear if they use AI to do something like help grade assignments.
So as teachers are learning to use generative AI tools themselves, they’re also wrestling with when and how to communicate what they’re trying.
Leading By Example
For Alana Winnick, educational technology director at Pocantico Hills Central School District in Sleepy Hollow, New York, it’s important to make it clear to colleagues when she uses generative AI in a way that is new — and which people may not even realize is possible.
For instance, when she first started using the technology to help her compose email messages to staff members, she included a line at the end stating: “Written in collaboration with artificial intelligence.” That’s because she had turned to an AI chatbot to ask it for ideas to make her message “more creative and engaging,” she explains, and then she “tweaked” the result to make the message her own. She imagines teachers might use AI in the same way to create assignments or lesson plans. “No matter what, the thoughts need to start with the human user and end with the human user,” she stresses.
But Winnick, who wrote a book on AI in education called “The Generative Age: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Education” and hosts a podcast by the same name, thinks putting in that disclosure note is temporary, not some fundamental ethical requirement, since she thinks this kind of AI use will become routine. “I don’t think [that] 10 years from now you’ll have to do that,” she says. “I did it to raise awareness and normalize [it] and encourage it — and say, ‘It’s ok.’”
To Jane Rosenzweig, director of the Harvard College Writing Center at Harvard University, whether or not to add a disclosure would depend on the way a teacher is using AI.
“These are totally different things,” he says. “As a student, you’re submitting your thing as a grade to be evaluated. The teachers, they know how to do it. They’re just making their work more efficient.”
— Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer for Code.org and the leader of TeachAI
“If an instructor was to use ChatGPT to generate writing feedback, I would absolutely expect them to tell students they are doing that,” she says. After all, the goal of any writing instruction, she notes, is to help “two human beings communicate with each other.” When she grades a student paper, Rosenzweig says she assumes the text was written by the student unless otherwise noted, and she imagines that her students expect any feedback they get to be from the human instructor, unless they are told otherwise.
When EdSurge posed the question of whether teachers and professors should disclose when they’re using AI to create instructional materials to readers of our higher ed newsletter, a few readers replied that they saw doing so as important — as a teachable moment for students, and for themselves.
“If we're using it simply to help with brainstorming, then it might not be necessary,” said Katie Datko, director of distance learning and instructional technology at Mt. San Antonio College. “But if we're using it as a co-creator of content, then we should apply the developing norms for citing AI-generated content.”
Seeking Policy Guidance
Since the release of ChatGPT, many schools and colleges have rushed to create policies on the appropriate use of AI.
But most of those policies don’t address the question of whether educators should tell students how they’re using new generative AI tools, says Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer for Code.org and the leader of TeachAI, a consortium of several education groups working to develop and share guidance for educators about AI. (EdSurge is an independent newsroom that shares a parent organization with ISTE, which is involved in the consortium. Learn more about EdSurge ethics and policies here and supporters here.)
A toolkit for schools released by TeachAI recommends that: “If a teacher or student uses an AI system, its use must be disclosed and explained.”
But Yongpradit says that his personal view is that “it depends” on what kind of AI use is involved. If AI is just helping to write an email, he explains, or even part of a lesson plan, that might not require disclosure. But there are other activities he says are more core to teaching where disclosure should be made, like when AI grading tools are used.
Even if an educator decides to cite an AI chatbot, though, the mechanics can be tricky, Yongpradit says. While there are major organizations including the Modern Language Association and the American Psychological Association that have issued guidelines on citing generative AI, he says the approaches remain clunky.
“That’s like pouring new wine into old wineskins,” he says, “because it takes a past paradigm for taking and citing source material and puts it toward a tool that doesn’t work the same way. Stuff before involved humans and was static. AI is just weird to fit it in that model because AI is a tool, not a source.”
For instance, the output of an AI chatbot depends greatly on how a prompt is worded. And most chatbots give a slightly different answer every time, even if the same exact prompt is used.
Yongpradit says he was recently attending a panel discussion where an educator urged teachers to disclose AI use since they are asking their students to do so, garnering cheers from students in attendance. But to Yongpradit, those situations are hardly equivalent.
“These are totally different things,” he says. “As a student, you’re submitting your thing as a grade to be evaluated. The teachers, they know how to do it. They’re just making their work more efficient.”
That said, “if the teacher is publishing it and putting it on Teachers Pay Teachers, then yes, they should disclose it,” he adds.
The important thing, he says, will be for states, districts and other educational institutions to develop policies of their own, so the rules of the road are clear.
“With a lack of guidance, you have a Wild West of expectations.”
Recently, I found myself in Barnes and Noble, captivated by a "Read with Pride" display in the Young Adult section. Holding several new books, I was transported back to my high school years, a time before smartphones and social media, when I would cautiously approach the gay and lesbian section of my local bookstore.
Each visit was an anxious yet defiant act of self-discovery as I sought validation and visibility in the pages of books that I curated for myself. Here, titles like “Giovanni’s Room,” “Zami: A New Spelling of My Name,” and “At Swim, Two Boys” were pivotal in queering my perspective and made me think more about who I was, who I was becoming and who I wanted to be.
In retrospect, retreating to self-selected literature was probably the queerest, most radical thing I could do at the time. In those days, my reading experiences at school stalled my understanding of my emerging queer identity and limited my knowledge of others that might have shared my experiences. I never fully saw this part of who I was becoming reflected back to me.
In “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding-Glass Doors,” Rudine Sims Bishop proposes that educators consider the relationship between reader and texts as possible "mirrors" and "windows," highlighting reader identities and experiences through critical discovery. Specifically, she wrote that:
“Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection, we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.”
Today, during a time of increased attempts at book censorship and curriculum challenges, Bishop’s words remind me of one of the reasons why I entered the teaching profession: to nurture the type of English class that my high school self needed by building a community with students where they have space to explore and engage with literature that validates and affirms their identities — moving from a place of survival where LGBTQ+ youth are denied their humanity to one of thriving where they are affirmed and celebrated is a critical and necessary shift.
Creating Mirrors and Windows
In my English classroom, I strive to offer texts that serve as both mirrors and windows for my students, empowering them to see their own lives reflected in the narratives we read and to gain insights into the experiences of others. Over the last five years, I built a dual-enrollment English language arts program, incorporating the critical work of Tricia Ebarvia, Lorena Germán, Kimberly Parker and Julia Torres, the educator team behind #DisruptTexts.
During this program, I invite my students to complete a reflective survey, focusing on previous experiences in their English coursework and identifying perceived gaps. Then, I ask students the following questions:
Who writes the stories?
Who is missing from the stories?
Who benefits from the stories?
This exercise is meant to help them reflect on and express the missing parts of their reading experiences in school, name issues directly and engage in conversations that frame our inquiry together. We then use these responses to solidify the course syllabus as a living document that prioritizes the voices and narratives absent from their previous experiences in the English department.
Every year, student responses reveal that students are troubled by the absence of reading materials in school that reflect and include marginalized groups, including LGBTQ+ books and authors. In the weeks and months that follow, I curate reading lists for students based on their survey responses. In this way, I strengthen and personalize our purpose for reading and let students chart their own learning path in more critical and creative ways.
As students engage in these texts, we revisit Dr. Bishop’s framework to explore how mirrors and windows appear for them and reflect on the selected literature. Sometimes, they encounter clear and accurate representations, noting that they have never read something that revealed such parts of themselves or their experiences. Most significant was the role of windows, where students developed a language to make sense of their own experiences and identities, as well as others.
By the end of the year, thoughtful conversations and college-level projects emerged in our classroom community. Students explored important aspects of genre and the author’s craft and made connections to other literary and media-based texts. They also posed lingering and emerging questions and identified critical links to current social, cultural and political realities.
As a culminating experience at the conclusion of the course, students design a two-week unit of study to address further gaps and silences through mirrors and windows in literature. Drawing from primary and secondary resources, students curate a project of their choice to integrate into the syllabus for incoming students in the subsequent year.
These learning experiences in the English classroom not only provide students with meaningful representation in their book choices but also cultivate deeper intellectual and emotional practices. They learn to engage critically, embrace curiosity and wonder and imagine new possibilities for themselves, their peers and their communities.
Affirming Identities Through Literature
Given the wide range of texts available today, students' identities should be validated through engagement with meaningful mirrors and windows of their choice. Providing ample mirrors and windows means that teachers understand the importance of students having access points in the curriculum to see themselves and understand others, fostering a more inclusive and affirming learning community.
Browsing the shelves in Barnes and Noble that afternoon, I remembered my students by remembering myself. My journey from anxious bookstore visits in high school to becoming an educator who advocates for more inclusive literature underscores the importance of culturally responsive teaching.
These experiences continue to shape my commitments in the classroom, emphasizing that teachers must recognize the full humanity of their students. By prioritizing literature that reflects a full spectrum of identities, students are empowered to embrace their most authentic selves and envision life-affirming possibilities through the transformative power of stories.
As a school counselor, Leighanne Mainguy can never be sure what’s in store for her each day.
Some days, she arrives at her elementary school to learn that a student is in crisis and needs her full attention; she’ll clear her schedule. Occasionally, a tragedy in the community will leave students and staff shaken, and Mainguy will move swiftly to lend support.
The job can be heavy and hard. With so many young people today facing mental health challenges, such as anxiety, depression and stress, school counselors are in high demand. Yet their capacity is limited: School counselors in the U.S. have an average caseload of 385 students, based on the latest data available. (Mainguy’s caseload is slightly better than that, and the American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one counselor to 250 students.)
But the job also comes with regular doses of levity, joy and laughter — moments that Mainguy describes as “soul building.”
Every week, a student may interact with dozens of adults in their school, from counselors to custodians, bus drivers to paraprofessionals, food service workers to school nurses. These individuals are integral to a school community but rarely as visible as, say, teachers and principals.
In a new series, “Role Call,” EdSurge is elevating the experiences of the myriad school staff members who help shape the day for kids. This month, we’re featuring school counselor Leighanne Mainguy, who shares how she came into this work, what people get wrong about it, and what she wishes she could change.
The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Name: Leighanne Mainguy
Age: 49
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Role: School counselor
Current age group: PreK-5
Years in the field: 12
EdSurge: How did you get here? What brought you to this role?
Leighanne Mainguy: So I didn't start counseling until I was 38. I've always been a helper by nature. When I was a kid, I found a lot of joy in that. When I went to college, right out of high school, I got my degree in psychology and knew I wanted to do something in that realm, but circumstances didn't allow for that for quite some time.
For years, I was helping my husband through college, and we were having kids. We were living in Michigan, and I had a good job working in corporate America. Then we moved to Nevada, and with my husband’s support, I started a master’s program. In most states, you have to have your master’s degree to work as a school counselor.
I could have been a mental health professional as well — I could have gone into something like that. But I'll be honest with you, I love the school environment. I love working with kids. Plus, it's given me an opportunity to spend a lot of time with my husband and four children because they were in the school district (my husband is a teacher).
It's something that I think I was meant to do, but how I got here was just a long, long process.
When people outside of school ask you what you do — say, at a social event — how do you describe your work?
So in my profession, especially for people my age and older, the term used to be “guidance counselor.” We prefer to be called school counselors now, because previously a “counselor” would be considered somebody who supported you in finalizing your credits, who you might've only seen in high school and helped you maybe decide on which direction you were going to go after high school.
Now, many school counselors do tier one counseling, which is working with all students; tier two counseling, which might look like small group support; and then we might do tier three, which is individual counseling for short periods of time. I don't recall that ever being the case when I was a kid. I think I saw my guidance counselor once or twice, maybe, my senior year. Now we're in elementary schools, we're in middle schools, we're in high schools. So it's just a more well-rounded job.
Most of the time, I get a pretty good reaction to telling someone I’m a school counselor. They're like, ‘Cool, that's awesome. You're an educator.’ But if somebody allowed me to get that deep into it, that’s what I’d say.
What does a hard day look like in your role?
Hard days can be super emotional. I think most counselors are pretty good at compartmentalizing the bigger issues so we don't take it home at night, but we get to deal with some of the hardest things that a kid, or even a staff member, will see.
I've had kids come in the day after one of their parents died. I’ve had to talk to kids about some pretty horrific things that have happened in their homes. On top of that, days when we have to implement suicide protocols (after students have expressed thoughts of self-harm) are probably the most emotionally draining. We take that very seriously.
I mean, some days are kind of crazy just because you have a lot of busyness. I never know what my day is going to look like. I could come in one morning and have a plan to do three lessons and talk to five kids, and then find that a student is having some suicidal ideation first thing in the morning and have to support them through managing that, getting in touch with their family and managing the aftermath of that with their teachers.
Bigger events can be really difficult as well. We had a huge, traumatic event in our district with the Route 91 shooting in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017. That affected a lot of families in our community. Over 500 people were shot and 59 died.
Those are big days where you're like, ‘OK, scrap it.’ You shift gears, you’ve got to manage everything. You’ve got to take a step back [and ask yourself], ‘How are we going to support our students as a school? How are we going to support our staff?’
What does a really good day look like?
Field Day is always a really great day. We've had some professional athletes come — from the Golden Knights and the Raiders. They have these events where, like, 50 kids get to practice with the Raiders out in our field. We have picnics where parents come into our school, and we all go out in the field and eat with the students.
Anytime that it can feel like we’re a community, anytime we can do something big with the kids, and you just see them smiling and enjoying themselves, I would say those are my best days. There's nothing like seeing a kid light up, to see a kid giggle. It's soul building to see them have fun.
What is an unexpected way that your role shapes the day for kids?
School counselors are out and about all the time at our school. The day starts, and we're in the hallways with the kids. I think knowing that there are other people in the school besides their teacher that care enough to know their name, know about their families, ask about how their soccer game went last night, know that they have a big test coming up — I think, for some kids, that’s unexpected. For some parents, that’s unexpected. And I think that makes them feel important and seen and heard.
What do you wish you could change about your school or the education system today?
I wish that more people were willing to ask questions about what we do — like you are doing — and listen to our answers.
There are a lot of assumptions about the education field currently — not just about teachers, but about my role too.
I guess if I could change something, it would be that people would listen better, because I think so many of the people [making decisions about] public schools haven’t spent any time in them, and aren’t asking good questions about what we need to support our students.
Your role gives you unique access and insight into today's youth. What is one thing you've learned about young people through your work?
They just give me hope, as an adult. I think that we get super clouded in the day-to-day stuff — paying your bills and being an adult, it can be a lot. I'm not even going to get into politics and all the really scary things that can happen. But kids give me joy and hope.
I know that's not insight, necessarily, but they remind me of all the good things in life. Even though I get to hear some of the worst things that have happened to them, they remind me of all the good things in this world. So I guess maybe my insight is that us adults need to be a little more present in our day and learn to be a little bit more like kids.
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“Are you a boy or a girl?” the 5-year-old asked, staring at me as she waited for my response. I froze. Having worked primarily with middle and high schoolers, I wasn’t yet used to the blunt inquisitiveness of our younger students. I was caught off guard.
It was 2022 and I had recently been hired as the principal of an all-girls elementary school in New York, and it was my first visit to the school to meet students, staff and families.
“I’m a girl,” I said, smiling through my discomfort, before slinking away to chat with another student. The moment was brief, but it stuck in the pit of my belly throughout the day.
When I arrived home, I debriefed the day with my wife. I told her about the exciting moments from my visit — learning about the school culture, seeing teachers in action, and meeting my incredible new students. When I mentioned my experience with the pre-K student, she sensed my unease and asked me how I was feeling about it.
As I reflected, I found myself wondering aloud what it would be like leading an all-girls elementary school as a masculine-presenting queer woman. I was worried that the community would not accept a woman who wears suits and ties to lead their daughters’ school, that I would be too different. My wife reassured me that my individuality was valuable and my students would love and respect me as they always had when I was a teacher.
Since becoming principal of an elementary school, I have been asked the same innocent, yet awkward, question by multiple students and have still not found out the perfect response. But each time I’m asked, it reminds me of the fact that young people are constantly exploring identity and part of my job is to foster a community where curiosity, individuality, and diversity are seen as assets.
To create this kind of inclusive community, I want to develop a thoughtful response that challenges students to cultivate their own worldview — one that gets them thinking about why this question is coming up for them and helps them understand how they can ask questions about identity with care.
Identity exploration is a key element of childhood and adolescence and working with young people requires us to support it. There’s a body of research showing the importance of identity development and a positive self-concept for social and emotional growth. Since our school is an all-girls institution, gender identity is something we think a lot about — and it starts early. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children typically develop a sense of their gender identity by 4 years old. As children explore, they often express curiosity about aspects of their own identity and the identity of others in their community.
Most of the staff and students at our school identify as girls or women. But none of us is the same. We each show up and represent our identity in unique ways. There’s no singular expression of girlhood or womanhood. How, then, in a space that is organized around a shared gender identity, can we create an environment that embraces diversity and difference?
As a leader, I believe in order to create this type of environment, I have to start with myself.
While considering how to respond when a student asks a question about my identity, I’ve been thinking about where my insecurity stems from and I’ve recently come to realize that it’s fueled by traumatic experiences I had when I was a student. Today, I am a school leader, but I was once a child who was looking for a safe space to become myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that at school. Instead, I experienced rejection and bigotry, living through years of racist and homophobic bullying. Clearing the emotional rubble created by those experiences, I now have an important perspective on what our young people are going through in school today.
My own feelings of being misunderstood in my youth, as well as the homophobia I’ve lived through for being open about my identity as a queer educator, inform my passion for creating spaces where our girls can just be, without the fear of having to fit into a specific mold. I feel a great sense of responsibility to lead a school community that expands the definition of what it means to be a girl, supporting whatever identities our students bring to the classroom each day, and empowering our students to become adults who are beacons of our community.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that every student should question their gender. Instead, I’m proposing that all students deserve a safe space to explore their identities, ask questions, discuss identity openly and learn about individuals who are like them — and not like them.
When I model vulnerability and authenticity as a leader, I invite others to do the same. The challenge? Leaders like me are not really encouraged to be vulnerable. As a young Black queer woman in school leadership, embracing vulnerability has felt frightening at times.
Facilitating open conversations about identity is important and can lead to validation and support, but there can also be potential backlash. For example, I’ve worked in schools for nearly a decade and in every space I’ve taught in, we’ve gotten pushback from families about celebrating, or even acknowledging Pride Month in reaction to activities promoting inclusivity for LGBTQ+ people because they feel it is inappropriate. Each time, I assure families that we value an inclusive curriculum and anything we’re teaching is in service of supporting our students.
These sentiments are hurtful personally, but that’s not my main concern. It’s not just about me. It’s about my students and my staff and the kind of environment we cultivate for them. An environment where everyone can bring their full selves to school. Our students deserve to have a school where they’re being challenged to learn about their own identities and the identities of others.
Our school was founded to provide the empowering experience of an all-girls education in a public school environment. The International Coalition of Girls’ Schools, which researches the impact of girls’ schools across the globeargues that girls’ schools are uniquely positioned to develop girls into leaders precisely because we are honest with our students about the real world. Sheltering our girls from exploring conversations about identity, flattens their voices into a two-dimensional box. Girlhood — or womanhood — is not monolithic. The beauty of a space dedicated to women and led by mostly women is in the variety of who we are, how we show up, and how we support our girls.
I want to create a learning environment that nurtures curiosity and promotes diversity, not one that encourages everyone to be the same. To do that, I have to stand in who I am despite the potential backlash, knowing the space I am creating for my students to one day stand in who they are proudly.
Moving forward, if a student asks me if I’m a boy or a girl, or any other question about identity, I will pose a question to open up the conversation before I share my response. I will ask them why they are asking and why this is coming up for them. I will take their curiosity as an opportunity to encourage them to articulate their own ideas about identity because girls’ schools do not teach girls what to think, but how to be critical thinkers and agents of change.
When Los Angeles Unified School District launched a districtwide AI chatbot nicknamed “Ed” in March, officials boasted that it represented a revolutionary new tool that was only possible thanks to generative AI — a personal assistant that could point each student to tailored resources and assignments and playfully nudge and encourage them to keep going.
But last month, just a few months after the fanfare of the public launch event, the district abruptly shut down its Ed chatbot, after the company it contracted to build the system, AllHere Education, suddenly furloughed most of its staff citing financial difficulties. The company had raised more than $12 million in venture capital, and its five-year contract with the LA district was for about $6 million over five years, about half of which the company had already been paid.
It’s not yet clear what happened: LAUSD officials declined interview requests from EdSurge, and officials from AllHere did not respond to requests for comment about the company’s future. A statement issued by the school district said “several educational technology companies are interested in acquiring” AllHere to continue its work, though nothing concrete has been announced.
A tech leader for the school district, which is the nation’s second-largest, told the Los Angeles Times that some information in the Ed system is still available to students and families, just not in chatbot form. But it was the chatbot that was touted as the key innovation — which relied on human moderators at AllHere to monitor some of the chatbot’s output who are no longer actively working on the project.
Some edtech experts contacted by EdSurge say that the implosion of the cutting-edge AI tool offers lessons for other schools and colleges working to make use of generative AI. Most of those lessons, they say, center on a factor that is more difficult than many people realize: the challenges of corralling and safeguarding data.
“The first job of Ed was, how do you create one unified learning space that brings together all the digital tools, and that eliminates the high number of clicks that otherwise the student would need to navigate through them all?” the company’s then-CEO, Joanna Smith-Griffin, said at the time. (The LAUSD statement said she is no longer with the company.)
Such data integration had not previously been a focus of the company, though. The company’s main expertise was making chatbots that were “designed to mimic real conversations, responding with empathy or humor depending on the student's needs in the moment on an individual level,” according to its website.
Michael Feldstein, a longtime edtech consultant, said that from the first time he heard about the Ed chatbot, he saw the project as too ambitious for a small startup to tackle.
“In order to do the kind of work that they were promising, they needed to gather information about students from many IT systems,” he said. “This is the well-known hard part of edtech.”
Feldstein guesses that to make a chatbot that could seamlessly take data from nearly every critical learning resource at a school, as announced at the splashy press conference in March, it could take 10 times the amount AllHere was being paid.
“There’s no evidence that they had experience as system integrators,” he said of AllHere. “It’s not clear that they had the expertise.”
In fact, a former engineer from AllHere reportedly sent emails to leaders in the school district warning that the company was not handling student data according to best practices of privacy protection, according to an article in The 74, the publication that first reported the implosion of AllHere. The official, Chris Whiteley, reportedly told state and district officials that the way the Ed chatbot handled student records put the data at risk of getting hacked. (The school district’s statement defends its privacy practices, saying that: “Throughout the development of the Ed platform, Los Angeles Unified has closely reviewed the platform to ensure compliance with applicable privacy laws and regulations, as well as Los Angeles Unified’s own data security and privacy policies, and AllHere is contractually obligated to do the same.”)
“LAUSD maintains an enormous amount of sensitive data. A breach of an integrated data system of LAUSD could affect a staggering number of individuals,” said Doug Levin, co-founder and national director of the K12 Security Information eXchange, in an email interview. He said he is waiting for the district to share more information about what happened. “I am mostly interested in understanding whether any of LAUSD’s edtech vendors were breached and — if so — if other customers of those vendors are at risk,” he said. “This would make it a national issue.”
Meanwhile, what happens to all the student data in the Ed chatbot?
According to the statement released by LAUSD: “Any student data belonging to the District and residing in the Ed platform will continue to be subject to the same privacy and data security protections, regardless of what happens to AllHere as a company.”
A copy of the contract between AllHere and LAUSD, obtained by EdSurge under a public records request, does indicate that all data from the project “will remain the exclusive property of LAUSD.” And the contract contains a provision stating that AllHere “shall delete a student’s covered information upon request of the district.”
Related document: Contract between LAUSD and AllHere Education.
Rob Nelson, executive director for academic technology and planning at the University of Pennsylvania, said the situation does create fresh risks, though.
“Are they taking appropriate technical steps to make sure that data is secure and there won’t be a breach or something intentional by an employee?” Nelson wondered.
Lessons Learned
James Wiley, a vice president at the education market research firm ListEdTech, said he would have advised AllHere to seek a partner with experience wrangling and managing data.
When he saw a copy of the contract between the school district and AllHere, he said his reaction was, “Why did you sign up for this?,” adding that “some of the data you would need to do this chatbot isn’t even called out in the contract.”
Wiley said that school officials may not have understood how hard it was to do the kind of data integration they were asking for. “I think a lot of times schools and colleges don’t understand how complex their data structure is,” he added. “And you’re assuming a vendor is going to come in and say, ‘It’s here and here.’” But he said it is never that simple.
“Building the Holy Grail of a data-informed, personalized achievement tool is a big job,” he added. “It’s a noble cause, but you have to realize what you have to do to get there.”
For him, the biggest lesson for other schools and colleges is to take a hard look at their data systems before launching a big AI project.
“It’s a cautionary tale,” he concluded. “AI is not going to be a silver bullet here. You’re still going to have to get your house in order before you bring AI in.”
To Nelson, of the University of Pennsylvania, the larger lesson in this unfolding saga is that it’s too soon in the development of generative AI tools to scale up one idea to a whole school district or college campus.
Instead of one multimillion-dollar bet, he said, “let’s invest $10,000 in five projects that are teacher-based, and then listen to what the teachers have to say about it and learn what these tools are going to do well.”
In U.S. schools, teachers bear a significant responsibility for shaping what and how students learn. Often, they invest significant effort in researching and developing their own instructional materials. Additionally, many teachers supplement district-mandated materials with internet-sourced content. Both of these inevitably lead to a variability in educational quality and consistency. This approach also requires considerable time, with teachers spending an average of seven hours weekly searching for and five hours creating materials.
Recognizing these challenges, many states and school districts in the United States are increasingly prioritizing the adoption of high-quality instructional materials (HQIMs) to support teachers and enhance student learning outcomes. This shift is part of a broader effort to align with practices seen in top-performing nations such as Finland, South Korea and Canada, which employ rigorous, content-rich curricula at national or provincial levels, contributing to their strong student performance.
The purpose of HQIMs is not to diminish the teacher's role but to enhance it. Research indicates that while teacher quality is critical for student achievement, the choice of instructional materials has a similarly significant impact.
HQIM might sound like a vague term or even a marketing phrase, but it is surprisingly well-defined. According to EdReports, a leading curriculum reviewer, HQIMs share several key characteristics: standards alignment, evidence-based pedagogical approaches, a commitment to equity and inclusion, and comprehensive teacher support, including both initial training and ongoing professional development.
Recognizing the importance of curriculum in student success, the demand for HQIMs has increased, leading states and districts to prioritize these tools. Imagine Learning has developed a portfolio of core curricula, including Imagine Learning EL Education, Imagine IM, Twig Science and Traverse, which aim to exemplify the principles of HQIMs. These programs focus on enhancing the teacher and student experience through inquiry-based learning, hands-on activities, digital investigations, and real-world connections.
Examples of high-quality multimedia to engage students in Imagine Classroom curricula.
Guiding Principles
Through collaboration with various states and districts and rigorous evaluation by independent assessors, Imagine Learning has developed an approach to HQIMs based on six guiding principles:
Standards alignment: Meticulously crafted curricula aligned with state and national standards
Best-practice pedagogy: Research-backed teaching methods and strategies to promote student engagement and understanding
Equity and inclusion: Diverse perspectives and resources to meet the needs of all learners
Teacher and student experience: Intuitive and easy-to-implement curricula, facilitating enriching learning experiences
Measuring student learning: Comprehensive tools to track growth and personalize instruction to individual needs
Professional learning: Ongoing support and training opportunities to help teachers refine their skills and practices
Certainly, saving teachers time is a big part of the appeal of HQIMs. As one social studies teacher said of Traverse, “It’s so valuable because of the sources that have been selected. Most of them are really great quality and have already been pared down. I think that’s incredibly important, not just for engaging students but also for saving teachers time. It takes a ton of time for teachers to find sources.”
The Imagine Classroom portfolio of core curricula empowers educators and students with HQIMs.
Making Language Arts Connections: Imagine Learning EL Education employs a content-based approach to literacy instruction, using compelling real-world texts to engage and excite learners.
Driving Student Inquiry in Social Studies: Powered by high-quality media and driven by inquiry, Traverse is a digital-forward, one-stop social studies curriculum with flexible, customizable content.
The final principle — professional learning — is crucial. Providing high-quality resources is not enough; teachers also need support in using them effectively. To maximize the impact of HQIMs, it is essential to combine these materials with in-program teacher support, implementation guidance and ongoing professional learning. Schools benefit from comprehensive professional learning offerings that build on the pedagogical principles of the core products, incorporating authentic demonstrations, meaningful collaboration, and structured planning. For example, following the implementation of Imagine IM in one Colorado school, the principal noted, “We did that first training the very first year [with Imagine Learning], and our teachers wanted more and more. And every time we give them a little bit more, they continue to grow and add to what they received in previous professional developments.”
Equally important is how HQIMs can help create equitable and inclusive learning environments where all students can access rigorous, standards-aligned content. This consistency is crucial in mitigating the "educational lottery," where student success often depends on their learning environment. High-quality, standardized, yet differentiated content ensures every student receives grade-appropriate assignments and high expectations, fostering academic growth and closing achievement gaps. Diverse perspectives within curricula can also promote inclusivity, enrich classroom discussions and broaden understanding of different cultures and viewpoints. Following the implementation of Imagine Learning EL Education at his school, a school counselor reported to us, “Students feel like, ‘Yo, I can learn from this because that person looks like me or that person acts like me.’ It's amazing for them. They feel included and like they are part of the story, which influences their love of reading and storytelling, and desire to learn more.”
Enhancing the Teacher’s Role
The purpose of HQIMs is not to diminish the teacher's role but to enhance it. Research indicates that while teacher quality is critical for student achievement, the choice of instructional materials has a similarly significant impact. Adopting HQIMs is a cost-effective strategy for improving educational outcomes compared to other reforms, such as class-size reduction. HQIMs provide a robust framework to support teachers in delivering effective and engaging lessons. These materials free teachers from developing content from scratch, allowing them to focus on pedagogy and personalized student support. By ensuring all students receive consistent, high-quality content, HQIMs empower teachers to maximize their impact. As states and districts continue to embrace high-quality instructional materials, we expect to see more students reaching their full potential and more teachers empowered to excel.
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