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No. The simple answer is no, testing for learning loss is extremely unfair. Not only are we exploiting our students through monetary means, but these tests never show what a student truly knows. During covid there were many students without access to internet, laptops or curriculum. Thankfully we have organizations such as FairTest fighting for some reform in these tests. It has been an uphill battle for the last 40 years as they're competing against giants. There are massive institutions frothing at the mouth ready to make some money off of our children. I do hope to see some change in our testing system as it is crucial to take care of our youth. These tests are extremely harmful and having taken these myself I can tell you they're miserable. I would never want any of my students to endure that pain.

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Executive director of FairTest weighs in on standardized testing reform
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The Nation's Report Card

As I prepared to interview Harry Feder, the new executive director of FairTest, the latest Nation's Report Card was published. As a result, our chat felt especially timely.

The Nation's Report Card, or NAEP (The National Assessment of Education Progress), is a congressionally mandated test designed to track student data over time. This latest NAEP tested reading and math for students aged nine to compare data from pre-pandemic 2020 to 2022. The results found that reading and math scores both declined, the first ever for math and the largest for reading since 1990.

What should educators take from this report?

"These results told us that, yeah, Covid sucked," Feder says with a matter-of-fact shrug. "Covid screwed up kids. And Covid screwed up kids of color and poor kids more...but we knew that without the results."

According to NAEP results, lower-performing students declined more than high-performing students, Black students scored lower than White students, and higher performers had more access to resources such as technology during Covid learning.

"These tests give us information, but honestly, it just tells us what we already knew," Feder says. "The lesson to be learned from this is not that we need more testing instruments to tell us what we already knew. We need teachers in the classroom with ideas and curriculum, knowing their students and deeper learning exercises that standardized tests are actually a barrier to."

"At the end of the day, we want to support the professionals on the ground instead of monitoring them."

Testing, Data, and Covid

Before becoming FairTest's Executive Director, Feder had an extensive background in education, but to many teachers (like me) tired of outside voices dictating education, his most important credential is his twenty-two years as a New York City public school teacher. When he asserts that any good teacher knows how their students are doing through continual formative assessments, it's clear that he respects the power of educators. He's dedicated to assessment reform, a passion that comes through our screen as he leans in and jumps to answer my questions with historical background, data from around the country, and an understanding of how political winds affect education.

Feder believes that, in general, standardized tests and canned curriculum are "lazy and cheap instruments" which tell teachers that they aren't respected as professionals. Furthermore, they "create perverse sets of incentives" and an obsession with measurements that detract from the core purposes of education.

However, he doesn't dismiss all tests at face value; data can be helpful. His views align with FairTest's mission of education, advocacy, strategic assistance, and network development.

"I'm all for sampling so we can get a broader picture of how we're doing, but to use those tests in a micro way to try to manage education is too much useless information, and it gets in the way," Feder says. "At the end of the day, we want to support the professionals on the ground instead of monitoring them."

The NAEP isn't even one of the more problematic tests out there.

"The NAEP is actually an example of a useful standardized test because there are no high stakes attached, and kids who are taking it don't even know what it's for," Feder explains. "It's matrix sampling, you don't test everybody, and if it's designed correctly, we get a picture of how a state or nation is doing."

This makes sense, even to a testing-wary, frustrated educator like myself. Testing data from assessments like NAEP can add value as one touch point in the larger picture of our educational system. For example, knowing that students of color fared worse during pandemic education should solidify social justice leaders' resolve to dismantle systems of oppression in our schools.

But, how the data is interpreted or even weaponized is going to be telling.

"We're at this moment where the forces behind high stakes testing understand that there's pushback," Feder says hopefully. "We're at a moment of inflection."

Feder hopes the collective lesson we learn from Covid is that students don't need more tests; they need teachers supporting them. But, the collective takeaway from the NAEP data could just as easily cause panic about learning loss and rush people towards testing as a solution.

"My fear is that there are a lot of forces out there pushing for the wrong lesson to be learned," Feder admits. "It is the job of FairTest and other organizations to make sure the right lesson is learned: resources need to be put into teaching and education, not evaluation and assessment."

Is It Fair to Test Learning Loss? An interview with the executive director of @FairTestOffice Click To Tweet

FairTesting's Mission: Testing Reform

Since 1983, FairTest has worked to "promote equitable and reasonable assessment of teachers, students, and school systems."

FairTest sees reforming standardized testing as a two-pronged approach.

"One, We have to eliminate the barriers to developing authentic assessment-and every time you throw in another standardized test, it screws everything up. The second thing is to actually support teachers, schools, and districts who want to do this and get other places together to exchange information."

Feder has been involved in testing reform for years as an academic leader of the New York Performance Standards Consortium and practitioner of project-based learning. As a result, he knows the effects of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the current legislation, ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), all too well.

"No Child Left Behind was a badly written law that created an impossible regime of incentives," Feder says with exasperation. "ESSA tried to make space for more authentic assessment, but many states lost their momentum and maintained their regime of testing. The federal law forced states to get up to standard very quickly, but these things take time."

Part of FairTest's work is to find what individual states are doing under ESSA and provide data for other educators to connect and advocate.

For example, competitive state assessment grants are federal funding opportunities to increase the quality of assessments, and the New York Performance Consortium has been working to create an assessment system that creates a fuller picture of students.

FairTest has been working on testing reform for almost forty years. Unfortunately, it has been an uphill battle, especially in the K-12 system.

Some of the biggest gains the organization has made have actually been in higher education, around SAT, ACT, opt-outs, and testing optional college admissions.

Feder attributes this reform distinction between levels of education to the systems themselves.

"From an advocacy standpoint, [college is] much easier. You have a closed community of college admissions folks. [K-12] Education policy is much more complicated; there's a lot of interest, such as the slew of tech companies trying to make money off public education."

Anyone who doubts this can ask teachers who see the impacts of the testing and publishing industrial complex in their classrooms every day. There's a long list of companies (Curriculum Associates, Newsela, Brainpop, Pearson, Harcourt, College Board, just to name a few) eager to assess and "support" students.

Teaching (and Testing) is Political

So, where do we go from here when people who want to make money off public education hold so much power? How can educators make a difference toward equitable assessment?

Feder recognizes that asking teachers to get involved politically outside of their already demanding jobs is a heavy lift.
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"Teachers need to advocate at the state and local level," Feder says, passion clear in his voice. "Reforms like those in New York are largely a result of teacher advocacy. Teachers need to organize, and FairTest can help."

FairTest is currently working on a project with NEA on testing reform. Their website has data factsheets, model legislation, and tools for networking.

"Teachers need to not be shy and have a voice. It's a difficult time to be a teacher, but I think the answer is not to give up and engage politically on the issues. Teachers need to not just take up the classroom space and academic space, but the political space."

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Is It Fair to Test Learning Loss? - The Educators Room

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Have you signed up for The Educator's Room Daily Newsletter? Click and support independent journalism! As I prepared to interview Harry Feder, the new executive director of FairTest, the latest Nation's Report Card was published. As a result, our chat felt especially timely.

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Engaging Staff, Students, and Families: A Schoolwide Approach

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Engaging Staff, Students, and Families: A Schoolwide Approach

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This article was all about building up a community. I firmly believe that school should feel like a safe and accepting place because that's when we see the best in people. Teachers and parents should work together for their students/children. We can't let school just become a workplace, it should be a means of transmitting individual culture and sharing ideas. Transparency between the staff and parents makes it easier for both sides to understand. Sometimes you will have to teach the parents. People just lack trust these days and it is crucial to show and build trust with everyone in the school to make it the best possible learning environment. When students feel safe, seen and accepted they will cooperate more. It is something I have not only seen in myself but fellow students as well. When we can talk without the fear of judgement is when the best ideas are created. I plan on making my classroom a place students want to be. Schooling is required by law but that does not mean it can't be fun!

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Engaging Staff, Students, and Families: A Schoolwide Approach

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A look at how school leaders can get started bringing their community together to work toward shared goals.

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Encouraging Executive Functioning Skill Development in Middle School

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Encouraging Executive Functioning Skill Development in Middle School

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I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction. It lets teachers be creative and bring in their own hobbies and interests to connect with students. It can teach extremely valuable skills and offers a break from the regular curriculum, which is much needed. It offers a chance to create and problem solve, two things that are usually hammered out of students. I needed emotional support and guidance when I was a hormonal 13 year old and I am jubilant to see some students getting that help/guidance. Middle schoolers do not care about STEM schooling, they're too busy being loud, getting their attention is crucial and this may be the best way to do it.

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Executive Functioning Skills

A fun multiweek project can support the development of the crucial skills that drive academic success for middle school students.

Fly View Productions / iStock

Over the course of my 25-year teaching career in both the public and private sector, I have grown to see that many of the challenges faced in the classroom don't stem from academic, behavioral, or social and emotional sources, but rather from struggles with executive functioning skills (response inhibition, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, task initiation, planning and prioritization, organization, time management, goal-directed persistence, flexibility, metacognition, stress tolerance).

At my school, we've created a course for our middle school students that explicitly focuses on deepening their understanding of these skills and of their importance in daily life.The students engage in self-analysis and practice specific skills in a variety of settings.

Focus on Student Needs and offer Engaging Activities

Our program includes mixed-grade groupings (sixth, seventh, and eighth graders together), engaging hands-on activities, and a variety of ways for the students to demonstrate their understanding. The class meets once a week for an hour. Each trimester, we redesign the course based on current needs. Our two most successful trimesters included the following two units of study:

During each hourlong class, teachers paused the activity at moments appropriate for metacognitive reflection in order to engage the students in discussion about which executive functioning skills were being used. Students kept a reflection journal in which they analyzed their own process throughout each activity and reflected on their strengths and areas for growth. As a final project, students created a video in which they analyzed their executive functioning development.

Over the course of the trimester, the students worked to design, build, and practice running their game. They reflected on their experience by reading an article about executive functioning skills and made connections with their work. As a final project, they prepared a presentation about the executive functioning skills needed both to create the games and to play them. After receiving feedback during a trial run, they made any necessary improvements in the functionality of the game and the clarity of the presentations. We then held the carnival for parents and for fourth-and fifth-grade students.

7 Crucial Elements of the Program's Success

2. Use creative scheduling to prioritize small group size and full team involvement. To have this program work, we knew the groups needed to be as small as possible. Plugging this course into the schedule for all teachers and students during the same period came first, and any other courses and meetings were scheduled around it.

3. Teachers should model metacognition of the content. We used planning and prioritization by making a trimester-long calendar and sharing it with the students. We explicitly discussed with them how we used our mental flexibility when larger institutional concerns caused changes to our schedule.

We modeled goal-directed persistence by holding a trial run of the carnival with invited guests who tested out the games, listened to the presentations, and provided feedback before the actual event. We used the language of the course in other areas of the school day, helping the students to make connections and to strengthen their working memories. We have visuals in every classroom with brief definitions of each skill so that teachers and students can refer to them regularly.

Creating Meaningful Experiences Is Possible With Little Support

Even in schools where it is prohibitively challenging to find administrative support, control over scheduling, or a team with whom to work, it is still possible to create meaningful experiences of this kind for students.

Teaching about the executive functioning skills could be used as a vocabulary-building exercise in English language arts and then followed up on in writing exercises. In a math class about graphing, students could take one of the readily available quizzes to determine one's executive functioning strengths and areas for growth, and that data could be graphed and analyzed. These are just two examples. Be creative! The awareness and understanding of these skills have supported positive changes in the ways our students perceive themselves as students and thinkers.

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Encouraging Executive Functioning Skill Development in Middle School

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Executive Functioning Skills A fun multiweek project can support the development of the crucial skills that drive academic success for middle school students.

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Some Schools Are Prioritizing More Sleep for Kids. Is It Making a Difference?

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Some Schools Are Prioritizing More Sleep for Kids. Is It Making a Difference?

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It is no secret that sleep is the key to cognitive function. I used to fall asleep in class nearly every morning. I had awful anxiety and could not fall asleep. Going to pre calculus at 8 A.M. on six or less hours of sleep felt impossible. I failed the class because of it. Now this is in part to my own shortcomings and lack of effort, however any class I had that early I usually did worse in. Better and healthier sleep directly correlates to better brain function. Why cheat our students of reaching their full potential? The students were more willing and enthusiastic with the later starts. Any of the issues parents face picking or dropping off their kids are not insurmountable and there is a work around. Like all educational issues everyone is caught up in their own world and their own issues that they're not even willing to change or adjust. That attitude is what is going to continually make our students suffer and fall short.

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For most of her 15 years teaching science at Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Tracy Landboe accepted that many students in her first period class would fall asleep with their heads down on their desks. It had nothing to do with her instruction. It was simply that her first period started at 7:30 a.m.

"Basically, I was teaching zombies," Landboe told Edutopia.

Thankfully, that changed.

In 2016, Seattle Public Schools moved start times for high school students back to 8:45 a.m. The change was based on a large and growing body of research that suggests insufficient sleep among adolescents has significant ramifications for their mental health, alertness, and academic success.

Seattle's decision came on the heels of an influential report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which concluded that "evidence strongly implicates earlier school start times (i.e., before 8:30 a.m.) as a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep." Several districts in the Denver metro area followed suit in 2017 and 2019, and this year California became the first to change start times statewide, implementing a new law that prohibits high schools from starting classes earlier than 8:30 a.m. New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts legislators are considering similar changes.

AJ Katzaroff, a biology and forensics teacher at West Seattle High School, noticed a stark difference in students almost immediately. "They were more fun to work with because they absolutely had more sleep," she said. "They had more cognitive processing ability to do the intellectual work of the classroom."

Katzaroff and Landboe were among teachers in Seattle whose classrooms participated in a 2018 study measuring the impacts of the district-wide change in start times. Two groups of 80 students wore wristwatches that measured their sleep and wake patterns, kept sleep diaries, and filled out questionnaires related to their sleep and mental health over two-week periods in 2016 and 2017. The results showed a median increase of 34 minutes of sleep for students after the start-time change and a 4.5 percent increase in median grades for students who attended both schools. At Landboe's school, in whose population nearly 90 percent of students are considered economically disadvantaged, there was a 12 percent decrease in absences and 31 percent decrease in tardies.

The findings aligned with previous research showing that later start times improve the physical, mental, and emotional health of adolescents; boost academic performance; and reduce destructive behaviors like drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and sleepy driving- leading to significantly fewer car crashes.

Despite the benefits, as well as data suggesting that later start times lead to better-rested teachers and parents-and have minimal effects on the sleep and academic performance of elementary school students who see their start times move up to accommodate older peers-making the change isn't usually popular. A 2022 nationwide poll of parents, teachers, and other school personnel found that a plurality of parents (44 percent) and teachers (36 percent) didn't think school should start later.

"Anybody who's doing it has to recognize it's a big culture shift," said Clark Burke, superintendent of the Manteca Unified School District in California, which moved start times back in 2021. Burke said the change came with additional headaches for commuters, working parents, and students involved in after-school activities-a familiar litany of concerns that tend to come up when changes to school start times are discussed in local communities. "It takes a lot of adjustments from the community, staff, and students," Burke said, cautioning other states and districts considering the change. "It shifts priorities; so there is a need for communities to determine what their priorities really are."

Putting students front and center
Horacio de la Iglesia, professor of biology at the University of Washington and coauthor of the Seattle sleep study, says that if the priority of schools is to help adolescent students learn, then the logistical issues shouldn't outweigh the vast benefits that students will gain from more sleep.

"Change is always hard, and the early start time for secondary schools is something that is sort of entrenched in our culture. It's very hard to convince people-parents, even teachers-that this is going to be a good move," Iglesia said. Still, he thinks the research published in the last decade on later sleep times makes a strong case for districts to push past this initial resistance. "I'm still surprised that the rest of the U.S. has not implemented this change," he said.

Although many have gravitated to the academic gains his study revealed, Iglesia said, the most important finding is the more than 30 minutes of sleep that students in Seattle gained per night. According to Iglesia, the extra time is crucial because of a change in sleep rhythms that sets in around puberty. During adolescence, a child's biological need for sleep shifts later by a couple of hours, driven by changes in the release times of the chemical precursors to sleep-melatonin and cortisol, primarily-along with other physiological adjustments that alter what scientists call sleep pressure. As a result, Iglesia said, teens are no longer ready to fall asleep at 9 p.m, 10 p.m., or even 11 p.m. Instead, they naturally fall asleep at midnight-or later, no matter how early you send them to bed.

A school start time of 7:30 a.m. that might work for a 10-year-old jolts a 13-year-old from a sound, biologically predetermined sleep phase. A recent article in Scientific Americannotes that this means teens who wake up that early will miss out on both restorative sleep and REM sleep. Restorative sleep helps repair the body and may improve immune function. Meanwhile, REM sleep is crucial for consolidating events and learning into memories. "So when a 10th grader who naturally goes to bed around 11 p.m. has to wake up at 6 a.m. for school, that teen is losing not only hours of sleep but hours of quality sleep," the article states. "And even if they sleep in on the weekends, they won't fully catch up."

The biological alterations to sleep cycles disappear as adolescents transition into adulthood. Yet, Iglesia notes, we have largely designed school start times as if our teens are already adults. "Essentially, we're making our teenagers wake up at the time when we think we should be waking up," he said. "But really, if you have period one at 7:30 a.m."-which means students need to get up by 6:30 a.m.-"that's like asking an adult to wake up at 4:30 a.m. and be ready to process complex information by 5:30 a.m."

Iglesia said that later start times are a "simple measure" to counteract this, and they increase the amount of time that students sleep from five or six hours a night to seven or eight. "Of course, it may not do the job alone. But it certainly helps and has no negative side effects in the way that a sleeping pill might."

In her classroom in Seattle, Katzaroff said, she noticed that more first-period students are willing-and able-to engage in the rigorous work of her class now. "When you put kids into those content-heavy classes where they've told themselves stories like, I'm not good at science, and on top of that they're so tired they can't engage, it is no wonder why they check out," she said. "But if they're less tired, as a teacher you can fight off some of those stories they've told themselves about what they can handle. You can get through a bit more and say, 'You can actually do this.'"

Katzaroff said that in the months after the enactment of the new policy, she regularly overheard students gushing about the change and also heard it while driving an after-school carpool that includes students who go to schools outside the district. "The ones who still start at eight hate it. They talk about it in the car. 'You don't have to be there until 8:50? I'm jealous. I have to get up so early.'"

Even Burke, who admits he is skeptical about the new policy in California, and questions whether it actually leads to real gains in sleep time, admits that his students, for the most part, seem happy about the change. "They actually like it. I would say there are definitely some social-emotional benefits for them. They're feeling good, feeling more rested."

A period of adjustment
When Rob Anderson, superintendent of the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado, first made the case to his school board to change start times in 2019, he tried to be realistic. "I told them: This is going to be difficult. There will be folks that will be excited, but there will also be folks that are upset," he said. "Basically, my message was: Don't expect anybody to throw you a parade."

Anderson said he'd gathered as much about the process from paying attention to places like Seattle, but also nearby Cherry Creek School District, which pushed back start times for high schools in 2017. He noticed the same crop of concerns reappearing and also noticed that the most successful districts seemed to address those concerns head-on when making the case for why the start-time changes were needed.

Many of the most vocal critics of later start times, school leaders agree, tend to focus on the changes to extracurricular activities and athletics. If school ends later, they say, the effects cascade through a family's day: Football or band practice begins later, kids get home later, and then they do homework and eat dinner later.

In Seattle, Katzaroff said that in addition to the concerns around extracurriculars, there was consternation around the fact that high school teachers who were used to ending their day early would no longer have time to schedule afternoon appointments or errands. As a parent, Katzaroff said that later start times also created the need for adjustments when it came to finding after-school care for her elementary school kids, whom she was no longer able to pick up on her own. Burke said that in California he faced a lot of pushback from parents-particularly those who left for work at 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. and could no longer drop their kids off. A nationwide bus driver shortage, meanwhile, has complicated the efforts to reorient intradistrict bus schedules around the later start times.

Anderson is convinced that this sort of pushback stops more districts from changing their own start times across the country. But based on his experience, none of the obstacles are insurmountable.

"It was tough at first. But now, we're in our fourth year of implementing this. It's just the way we do business now," he said. "And you know what? No one has ever showed up to school early to protest our later start times. They sleep in."

Keys to implementation
Christopher Smith, superintendent of the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado, took part in the planning of his district's move to later start times in 2017 and has overseen it since taking the reins as superintendent in 2021.

Smith said that one key to making the transition work is to commit internally as a district and discuss all potential implications. It was only after meticulously sketching out what the change would look like that he said his district opened the floor to engaging with parents and the larger community to ask for input and feedback: "What are your ideas? What should we think about as we implement this plan that we have?"

During the input stage, Smith said, it is important that everyone communicating with parents really knows and understands the science behind the proposed change. "From the beginning, we communicated that this isn't only a good thing for academics and sleep, but also for physical health, and for mental health of students-something many of our parents were concerned with."

Neil Anderson, executive director of the Boulder Valley School District and a former high school principal at the time of his district's late-start rollout, agreed. As a principal, he said, his district prepared him to speak clearly about the benefits of the time change, knowing that his community would find him more persuasive than a statement or mailed-home bulletin. "Many parents come to principals to be the communicators and sense makers for them."

Anderson recalled "raw" meetings during early listening sessions. But he said the meetings were useful because they allowed the district to improve their plan. When it came to athletics, for example, he made sure to provide flexibility to coaches to ensure that practices started and ended on time and never disrupted learning by requiring kids to miss class time at the end of the day, for instance. For teachers with children, he worked individually with their schedules to ensure that final periods ended before the end of the school day, giving them time to pick up their kids. He also created a physical space for their children to be in school and be monitored by adults while their parents finished their teaching or planning duties.

For parents who needed to drop students off earlier, despite the later start, Anderson said, his school opened doors at 7:30 a.m. so that anyone who needed to come in early could. "We wanted to honor our parents' constrictions."

Busing issues have been harder to solve-and in some cases the impacts are ongoing. "We have some lingering traffic implications," said Superintendent Anderson in Boulder. "But we're able to make it work. We just have to allocate resources and make them a priority."

On the expenditure side, school leaders told Edutopia they did not see their budgets rise much due to bus changes. Research suggests that small increases in funding to busing and other expenditures (less than $200 per student) are needed to make later start times a reality-and that this initial investment comes with a 9:1 benefit-to-cost ratio for high school students and 40:1 ratio for middle school students, once you factor in savings to nationwide public health expenditures and the potential increased earnings of students in the future.

During its rollout of changes to school start times, the Cherry Creek School District partnered with National Jewish Health to collect data from students, parents, and teachers. The results not only showed a 45-minute increase on average in sleep for high school students, but also revealed that the change had minimal impacts on student participation in extracurricular activities-a major concern for the district.

"It was really important that we partnered with a research organization and we were able to push back out to the community what we found," Smith said. "We were able to say, 'Hey, we made this decision-it might have been uncomfortable, but look at what we're seeing.'"

Like other leaders who spoke to Edutopia, Smith said the initial pushback to the new start times never lasted long. "Things that seemed like they were going to be big deals really weren't after a few months," he said. "Eventually, people just got used to it."

In 2022, Seattle, which had struggled to implement the new policy, considered moving some of the start times back toward their previous times. Katzaroff said the pushback was immediate. "The community was like: No way!" she said, which suggested to her that whatever initial concerns there were, they'd largely been overcome.

"On a case-by-case basis, I'm sure there are some people who say, I'd like more afternoon time, or something like that," she said. "But as a community, I don't think there is a lot of will to change things back. Honestly, I think most of my high school students would like to start later than we already do."

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Some Schools Are Prioritizing More Sleep for Kids. Is It Making a Difference?

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For most of her 15 years teaching science at Roosevelt High School in Seattle, Tracy Landboe accepted that many students in her first period class would fall asleep with their heads down on their desks. It had nothing to do with her instruction. It was simply that her first period started at 7:30 a.m.

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New Teachers Are a Long-Term Investment 

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New Teachers Are a Long-Term Investment 

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As someone stepping into the education field it feels like it is against me. I have heard many stories of teachers quitting, I have even see it at the schools I went to. Cultivating a culture in which newer teachers are supported is essential. To have a sense of community and unity is crucial too. Many new teachers can feel ostracized and left out. It is a difficult profession to step into and there is no doubt about that. But it can be made a lot easier through the aid of more experienced teachers. It is also crucial for faculty to make more effort to keep these teachers around. It is not a profession we should be scared to enter. We need to create and maintain good teachers for the betterment of our schools.

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Administration & Leadership

The first few years for new teachers can be make-or-break, and school leaders can help ensure that they want to keep teaching.

There's a universal truth among educators that the first year as a teacher is indisputably the hardest. We enter our careers with fresh idealism and vigor, often to be harshly confronted with a system that seemingly relies on survival of the fittest.

Teachers transferring to a new school are also vulnerable. In my fourth year teaching, I transferred to a new school district and was hired at my alma mater. I felt confident. I had three years under my belt, and I already knew the culture of the school. A month into the school year, I was huddled in my closet absolutely melting down. I was overwhelmed, doubtful, and drowning, and the only life raft I'd been given was a zip file of lessons from a former teacher.

Later in my career, I sat on a hiring committee. As we discussed a potential candidate, an administrator said, "She'll never make it. This school will eat her alive." I've never forgotten that. What culture are we creating and perpetuating if we feel we need to hire the most callous, resilient, or seasoned teachers? That comment was a reflection of the gaps in teacher induction programs and how school leaders and coaches aren't meeting these needs, something that was reinforced when I worked as an instructional coach. Induction programs are created and driven by a prescriptive system rather than a human evaluation of the true needs of our new hires.

Teacher retention and teacher wellness directly impact our school culture, and our student communities and school leaders and administrators have the opportunity to better support new colleagues and create a connected, happier, and more sustainable workplace. Here are four actionable ways that school leaders can positively support new teachers.

Consider new teachers when scheduling for the following year

Even before a new teacher is hired, administrators can provide them with an approachable class and curriculum in order to ease their transition.

Instead of scheduling new hires into whatever classes and spaces are left over, leaving them planning multiple preps without collaborative partners, teaching classes outside their area of expertise, and so on, school leaders can strategically build a more amenable schedule for their new teachers.

1. Give new teachers manageable grade levels and courses.

2. Room new teachers with or near collaborative colleagues.

3. Provide common prep time that aligns with mentor teachers or coaches.

Evaluate ways to minimize extra obligations

We know the importance of healthy mental states for our teachers, and the mental load for a teacher at a new school is particularly heavy. They're working tirelessly to understand common practices and policies and learn the school and community culture, all while teaching in a new place, and possibly for the first time. Add in induction meetings, evaluations, and formal observations, and you have a recipe for overload.

The predominant need of first-year teachers is a safe place for emotional support and connection, and bringing our new teachers into a supportive community is a powerful way to support their transition and social and emotional well-being. Administrators can play a meaningful role here by replacing formal evaluations and pedagogical development in year one with more personal and time-efficient support.

Monthly lunches: Instead of setting year-one induction meeting requirements, have monthly lunch gatherings with new teachers. These are great opportunities to transmit school culture and information and prepare them for their first parent conferences, back-to-school nights, school spirit weeks, grading norms, and discipline politics, to name a few. Pedagogical development and cycles of improvement will be more effective in year two, when teachers feel more established and connected with their school.

Connected conversations: One of the most powerful things an administrator can do for their new teachers is to assure them that they're on the same team, and one way to do this is to create opportunities for teachers to reflect on their growth and areas for improvement through casual conversations. Carve out time to connect meaningfully with new teachers. Pop into the classroom during a break, and ask your teachers how they're doing, what they need; share a treat; or even tell a funny story to laugh about together.

Create a physical space of welcome for new hires

The importance of creating a welcoming physical space for new teachers can't be overestimated. Time and again, I've witnessed new teachers spending their first work week scouring campus for a desk, a chair, keys to the copy room, or even some paper. Preparing a classroom with basic essentials or creating a "home" space for teachers who share a classroom communicates that they belong. Administrators can set aside a small budget for "welcome" items for their new teachers. Some of the best welcome items for new teachers include these:

1. A sign on the door or desk with the teacher's name

2. A school sweatshirt (and any other school swag available)

3. A "staff yearbook" with pictures and names of the staff

4. Basic desk essentials (stapler, tape, markers, extra paper, etc.)

5. A welcome note signed by the staff

Cultivate community and belonging

In addition to a welcoming physical space, new teachers need camaraderie and a sense of inclusion in their new community. Teacher gatherings are one of the most impactful drivers of belonging and community for our new teachers. A Harvard Business Review study showed that when employees feel that they're part of a caring and supportive community, there's greater employee retention and engagement.

At the school level, administrators can arrange community-building and staff-recognition opportunities to help new teachers connect with their colleagues. Setting aside a small portion of the budget for community-building events or teacher appreciation not only lifts the task from other teachers but also sends a powerful message of appreciation. Here are some ideas for budget-friendly staff events:

1. Provide a breakfast gathering for the staff before school.

2. Plan a staff movie night in the gym.

3. Organize a staff and family day at a park or on campus.

4. Set up an after-school staff walk or hike.

5. Schedule an extended lunch day with food for the staff.

While building an inclusive system of support for new teachers is multifaceted and can feel overwhelming to administrators, if school leadership dedicates the first year to the emotional and personal needs of their new hires, it will translate directly to their success in the classroom and their career longevity.

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Administration & Leadership The first few years for new teachers can be make-or-break, and school leaders can help ensure that they want to keep teaching. There's a universal truth among educators that the first year as a teacher is indisputably the hardest.

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Using Collective Leadership to Make  a Major Shift in Your District

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Using Collective Leadership to Make  a Major Shift in Your District

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This article was all about making change in policy and how to go about it. This was a super helpful article to me because I plan on fighting for the best education possible. I believe it should be equitable, fair and full of opportunity to all students. The people in charge making these decisions have little regard for what happens in schools and only care to control the money. Working together and having a common goal and need for improvement will propel our schools forward. I am here to make change, whether it be in my students day to day lives or if it is a long lasting change of structure I am going to make improvements.

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Administration & Leadership

Change is much easier when administrators lean on collective leadership and get early buy-in from key stakeholders.

In the past school year, our district decided to make a major shift in the way we teach children to read. This came in response to an abundant amount of research, including the 2000 National Reading Panel report, that supports guided oral reading with the teacher as the method overwhelmingly proven to help children become better readers.

Research also shows that students who have been taught decoding skills respond and grow as readers when exposed to higher-level texts. Ultimately, we wanted to grow strong readers by expanding their reading opportunities.

Fortunately, the district had recently made some inroads with adopting structured phonics and decoding instruction in grades K-2; however, we lacked a knowledge-building reading program, which is the critical second half of Scarborough's Reading Rope, a visual representation of the skills that are required for reading.

This was a massive shift in mindset requiring strategic planning and collective input from all stakeholders: administration, teachers, and school board. The following outlines how we tackled this challenge to put our school district on the path to structured literacy.

5 Steps to Making a Significant Policy Change

1. Ask what we know. The first step on this journey was to determine where the teachers' and principals' mindset was with our current reading program. A survey was distributed to K-6 educators asking them where they rated our benchmark literacy program. On a four-point Likert scale, 78 percent rated it at a one or two!

Follow-up discussions with principals and teacher groups identified that they had been concerned about the way we taught reading for a number of years. Teachers and reading specialists voiced concern that our approach to teaching literacy was lacking. From a leadership perspective, this was integral information because people wanted change.

2. Assemble a team. A core literacy team, the Canon-McMillan Literacy Task Force, was established, consisting of a K-4 principal, a grades 5-6 principal, our two reading specialist co-department heads, K-4 teachers, and the assistant to the superintendent for K-6.

The job for this task force was to research knowledge-building reading programs, help provide education on structured literacy to the K-6 level as well as the board of education, and recommend a program to be piloted by a larger group of K-6 teachers.

3. Inform the community and seek board approval. The task force gave a thorough presentation to our school board's curriculum committee members in a public meeting explaining our current status and the need to move to a research-supported structured literacy approach. The curriculum committee was in full support of the move after the presentation.

It's important to establish a relationship of transparency and trust with the board, as the board represents the community at large. An educated board is an informed board.

4. Put the new program to a test. After visiting neighboring school districts and researching materials, we decided to hold a pilot of two programs from Amplify's Core Knowledge Language Arts, one for grades 3-5 and another for sixth graders. The pilot group consisted of teachers from each of our five elementary and two intermediate school buildings. The pilot teachers received a full day of training and continued support in structured literacy prior to the pilot.

Increased levels of student confidence

Increased levels of participation

Increased interest and finding connections outside of school

"Struggling" readers participating and doing well in class

After teaching one extensive unit, the pilot teachers came together to share experiences. The meeting was emotional and inspiring, with one successful story after another about how students who were once struggling were now seeing success with the new program.

There were several common themes:

Two sixth-grade teachers shared how they were going to recommend a pupil focus meeting to discuss poor academic performance for a student who was struggling in his English language arts classes. However, they saw a complete turnaround in his performance during the pilot.

5. Fully implement the new program. The input from the pilot teachers clearly indicated that a knowledge reading program was what we have been lacking. We are excited to fully adopt this program with all our teachers starting in the 2023-24 school year.

If you are in a leadership position, take the steps necessary to assess your stakeholders' situation, collect input, and involve your people. Educational leadership is all about how you can lead people. There is no better way of doing that than including and valuing their input, no matter how challenging the task ahead.

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Using Collective Leadership to Make a Major Shift in Your District

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Administration & Leadership Change is much easier when administrators lean on collective leadership and get early buy-in from key stakeholders. In the past school year, our district decided to make a major shift in the way we teach children to read.

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We are steady approaching the age of AI and it is going to be integrated into our schools. It can simplify lesson plans, add to good ideas and is generally just a good, helpful tool. However I feel it will be extremely difficult to stop our students from using it. There is already a huge problem with cheating as it is becoming easier and easier, with new tools arising every day. AI comes with an endless list of problems and solutions, it is still developing and we wil have to wait and see how it plays out and how it is integrated into our school system.

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Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can help educators find activities that are set up to teach designated skills.

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It doesn't seem that the students are the issue. It is the systems in place, we nearly set up teachers to fail. They are underpaid, overworked and not appreciated. The public view and treatment of teachers has drastically declined, it used to be a profession held in high regard. Now we have parents scoffing at that idea. The public opinion of teachers is that they really don't matter like they used to. Even more teachers want to leave because of the pandemic. Our legislators continue to demean our educators. Over half of the profession plans to leave in the next two years. It is not the teachers or the students who are the problem. We as a society and country continue to fail our educators. Teachers will stay because they love their students, everything else is what makes it exhausting. We need change now more than ever, before we continue to lose our teachers.

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Deciding to leave any job can be hard, but for teachers, exiting the classroom can be downright heartbreaking.

Teaching is, in its essence, about relationships-understanding students' needs, fostering their passions, figuring out what makes them tick. To give up that work, for many, would be a deep loss.

"It's the students' faces, it's their excitement to learn," said Akilah Williams, a 5th grade teacher in Georgia's Clayton County school district, outside Atlanta. "The students are what keep me here."

And yet about 8 percent of teachers leave the profession every year, federal data have long shown. Younger teachers, and those early in their careers, are among the most likely to leave teaching. And while trends in turnover do vary regionally, special education teachers and science and math teachers tend to be at high risk for turnover.

All of that was true before the coronavirus pandemic began last year. How the fallout from COVID-19-the unparalleled physical, financial, and emotional stressors, and the upending of what work looks like-ultimately affects those statistics on a national scale won't be clear for some time.

"This year has been very difficult for me," said Williams, who recently participated in a filmed series for Roadtrip Nation in which classroom teachers interviewed inspiring educators who've persisted in this field. "I'm the teacher that when students get here, you can give me a high-five, hip bump, a handshake, or a hug. ... It stifled me so to know my students were just sitting at computers."

(Education Week has a joint grant with Roadtrip Nation to pursue reporting on teacher retention.)

To understand more about why teachers consider leaving-or actually do make the jump-and the impact of the pandemic on their decisionmaking, the EdWeek Research Center surveyed about 700 teachers and 300 school leaders online in March 2021. The nationally representative results provide a backbone for this series of stories, which are meant both to illuminate the barriers to keeping great teachers and offer some solutions.

Here's some of what the data tell us:

More teachers are thinking about leaving now than before the pandemic

When asked about the likelihood that they'll leave teaching in the next two years, 54 percent of teachers said they are "somewhat" or "very likely" to do so. That's compared to just 34 percent of teachers who said they would have answered that question with "somewhat" or "very likely" if they'd been asked in the fall of 2019 (before the pandemic began).

That's not too surprising, given that 84 percent of teachers also said teaching is more stressful than it was before coronavirus closures.

It's important to remember, though, that many teachers who say they're considering leaving won't actually do so. Many teachers simply can't afford to lose their pay and benefits; some older teachers will decide they're close enough to a pension to hang on.

"There are so many forces and so much stress and pressure on teachers, many of them do really want to leave," said Tuan Nguyen, an assistant professor in the college of education at Kansas State University, who's studied teacher attrition. But "intentions aren't the same thing as behaviors."

Teachers stay because they love their students

When asked which factors play the biggest role in keeping them in the teaching profession, teachers were most likely to point to "love for students."

Caring for young people is, of course, what draws many to the profession, and more than 2 in 5 teachers said it's a top reason they stay. Retirement benefits and love for subjects taught were the next two most frequently chosen answers.

As one Indiana middle school teacher surveyed wrote: "We are pulled in [so] many ways by outside forces. There are committee meetings, PLC meetings, teacher meetings, IEP meetings, grade level meetings, team meetings, subject area meetings, and the list goes on and on, plus every meeting requires more emails. Teaching students is wonderful. It is all the OTHER that is exhausting."

Pay makes a big impact

The survey asked teachers what their school or district could do that would make a major difference in reducing the likelihood they would leave the K-12 teaching profession in the next two years. The most frequently chosen answer? Increase salaries.

School leaders agreed there, with nearly 7 in 10 saying pay raises would make a major difference in keeping teachers.

And yet some states had to scrap planned salary increases when the pandemic hit.

Those pay hikes could return as economies recover. And some states, like Utah and Georgia, are already giving teachers small hardship bonuses of $1,000 or more.

"In general, we do have evidence that teachers who receive higher salaries are more likely to stay in teaching than teachers with lower salaries," said Nguyen of Kansas State. And while a couple thousand dollars won't usually move the needle on retention, he said, this year things may look different.

"It's not just about the money, but also the recognition that they've had to work so hard this year," he said. "I think that makes a big difference."

Teachers and administrators see things differently

Asking the two groups what keeps teachers in the profession reveals some disparate thinking. Nearly 1 in 3 teachers said retirement benefits are one of the biggest factors in getting them to stay, while just 6 percent of school leaders said the same about teachers. And 35 percent of school leaders said supportive administrators are one of the biggest factors in getting teachers to stay, but just 11 percent of teachers felt the same.

Administrators also seem to underemphasize the impact of reducing administrative burdens such as paperwork, meetings, and hall duty-27 percent of administrators said this is something schools could do to keep teachers, and 43 percent of teachers said the same.

There are countless other variables that affect whether teachers stay or go. Child-care and other family responsibilities can compel teachers, 80 percent of whom are women, to take time off or ultimately leave their careers.

For Black male teachers, who make up just 2 percent of the workforce, isolation and being pigeonholed as disciplinarians can lead them to consider opting out.

Schools and districts want to keep good teachers, and in this special report we'll also explore some of the creative ways they're trying to do just that. Some districts are giving teachers more flexibility in how and where they do their jobs, including offering continued options for virtual teaching and meetings. Others are looking to improve their mentorship programs for new teachers. And some schools are making teachers' mental health a priority by creating support groups and reducing barriers to getting insurance-covered counseling services.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the report is that even while many teachers feel underappreciated and worn out, there are some concrete steps administrators can take to increase the odds they'll stay-but it all starts with listening.

"I think sometimes administrators might think teachers are just being dramatic," said Jennifer Atkins, a 7th grade English/language arts teacher in Victoria, Texas, who has been teaching remote and in-person students concurrently since last summer. "They need to take what we say and not assume we're overexaggerating. It really is difficult this year."

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Why Teachers Leave-or Don't: A Look at the Numbers

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New EdWeek survey results reveal why teachers consider leaving the profession, and how the pandemic has changed their decisionmaking.

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A huge part of teaching is being able to reach your students emotionally. Being an empathetic person is crucial to aiding anybody, your kids should feel safe, welcomed and appreciated in your classroom. The best way to do this is through empathy. Kids are not going to process the world and their emotions the same. You need to be able to slow your world down and step into their shoes. Empathy might be the biggest part of teaching, more than classroom management or subject knowledge. The ability to reach out your hand and touch the hearts of your students is what will make you the best possible teacher. Leading your life with love and empathy will garner only great things. This extends to every aspect of your life. Having a big heart and wanting to help are not bad traits. You just need to be able to protect yourself too.

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When children feel loved, cared for, and valued, they are better able to process information and voice their opinions.

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Why the 100-Point Grading Scale Is a Stacked Deck

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Why the 100-Point Grading Scale Is a Stacked Deck

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The article dives into the history and uses for this grading scale. It has been in place for a good hundred years and doesn't really have a place anymore. School is set up to train employees and employees get graded based off of their performance. Deadlines in school are set to prepare you for what the workplace you choose may ask from you. However this article found that roughly 53% of workplaces have flexible deadlines. This already negates the purpose of this grading scale. It is competitive, rigid and unforgiving. All of our K-12 journey is based off of performance and numbers. We then wonder why our students are depressed and disengaged. We need to find a replacement for this system as a 75% average isn't really a fair average. Getting all A+ requires near perfection. Thinking a students has an easy or predictable life is unfair and unrealistic.

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Grades are a staple of American education, but they're a fairly modern invention. The earliest formal grading emerged in 1785 when Yale University, already 11,000 students strong, began stratifying grades into four groups: , second Optimi, Inferiores, and Perjores (roughly translating to best, second best, less good, and worse). However, these grades weren't given in individual classes or subjects-they were assigned during senior year, as students were preparing to graduate. Rather than a measure of learning, grading in the U.S. began as a last-minute method for ranking.

It wasn't until 1837, when Harvard began using a 100-point rubric, that the modern grading system began to take shape. At the time, the distribution of scores resembled a bell curve, with typical scores clustered around the average of 50, and scores above 75 or below 25 existing as rare events, relegated to the tails of the distribution. The new grading model posed thorny problems: As schools proliferated, there was little consensus as to what a score of 50 meant, and while a 50 in an advanced class might indicate proficiency, a 50 in a remedial course might represent only the most basic level of understanding.

After decades of experimentation, K-12 schools in the U.S. began to shift to the A-F grading system, eschewing the bell curve in favor of a simplified, five-level hierarchy that was meant to take stock of an individual's learning, irrespective of their peers. In a class of 25 students, there was no reason why 20 of them could not receive As-or Fs. While bias could certainly creep into assessments, there was consensus that an "A" grade was superior, while a "C" grade reflected average performance. At that critical juncture of our grading history, the 100-point and A-F grading systems were independent: The former was designed to rank students within a university setting, the latter to normalize academic marks in public school settings.

The detente didn't last. As schools sought to standardize grading further, the two systems, along with the 4.0 scale-a newcomer that emerged out of Yale's original Latin rankings-eventually "fused together," according to a 2013 study. "This move was slow, of course-the product of a decentralized system with few formal coordination mechanisms," the researchers explain. But as the grading systems cycled through "mutations and resistance," the 100-point scale wrapped itself around the other models and was pulled out of shape. The new average grade-in letters, a "C"-shifted and recentered around the 75-point mark instead of 50.

Downstream, the effects on students were mostly unanticipated.

A HISTORIC SKEW

The end result of that journey-the 100-point grading system in its current permutation-is a "badly lopsided scale that is heavily gamed against the student," say the researchers James Carifio and Theodore Carey, who studied topics like cognitive psychology and assessment at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. When the original 100-point scale prevailed, grades were centered around the midpoint, and a failing grade and a passing grade had equal weight. But when the grading systems merged and the centerpoint shifted upward, there was simply less area in which to succeed: Roughly 60 percent of the grading scale was now dedicated to failing marks, and the implications of a very low grade or a zero became catastrophic.

Consider the following scenario: A student gets an 82, 85, and 90 on their first three assignments-they're a solid B student, with the potential to make a straight A. If they miss their next assignment, their average plummets to a 64. Even if they scored 90s on the next seven assignments-a clear plurality of outstanding work-they'd still end up with an 80, the equivalent of a B- or C+ in most grading systems.

In contrast, a B student receiving a zero 100 years ago would have merely dropped into the upper-40s range, an abbreviated setback that would still earn them a C, giving them ample latitude to recover.

THE ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY QUESTION

To compensate for the flaws of the 100-point grading scale, many districts now turn to minimum grading, automatically resetting zeroes to 50, for example. Critics of the approach say that no-zero policies fail to prepare kids for the real world and encourage students to coast and wait for opportune moments to buckle down. Students will inevitably put in minimal effort, the argument goes, when they know there's a safety net and a chance to rebound in the future.

But Carifio and Carey found the opposite to be true. In a comprehensive 2015 study, they analyzed seven years' worth of data for more than 29,000 high school students, looking at the impact that minimum grading had on test scores, grade inflation, and graduation rates. Compared with their counterparts in schools with traditional grading schemes, students who benefited from minimum grading actually put more effort into their learning, earning higher scores on state exams and graduating at higher rates.

In fact, for many students, according to the researchers, receiving a zero was demoralizing-not corrective. "The assigning of even a small number of catastrophically low grades, especially early in the marking term, before student self-efficacy can be established, can create this sense of helplessness," Carifio and Carey explain, putting students in an impossible situation and discouraging them for the rest of the grading period. Giving students a lifeline out of a ruinous situation keeps them engaged and motivated to do better, the research suggests.

The claim about real-life norms is also dubious. There are times when deadlines must be strictly enforced, but for the most part, employers are typically forgiving of extensions and late work, recognizing that "assigned deadlines can be stressfully tight, compromising output quality," according to a 2022 study, which also found that 53 percent of workplace deadlines were flexible. In fact, "deadline estimates are often overly optimistic," and adhering to them too stringently can dramatically increase burnout.

SHIFTING THE CONVERSATION

Aside from mandatory minimums, there are other options that address the historical error while providing clear consequences for consistently incomplete or unsatisfactory work. For example, teachers can drop a student's lowest grade (or both the lowest and highest grades), offer students the opportunity to make up work with or without penalties, or tweak the minimum grading policy so that it only applies to one or two assignments. Standards-based grading, which uses a 1 to 4 scale to highlight specific areas of academic and social growth, is a bigger investment but remains a viable alternative to traditional grading; portfolios give students opportunities to reflect on their work.

That's not to say that any alternatives to the 100-point grading system are perfect. Perhaps the problem lies in grading itself, since students tend to fixate on their scores and not their learning goals. In a 2021 study, for example, researchers discovered that deprioritizing an assignment's grade-by giving students feedback on an assignment a few days before their grade-increased performance on future assignments by two-thirds of a letter grade. "Research has shown that an excessive focus on grades can interfere with the student's ability to self-assess-a crucial cognitive process in the feedback loop," the researchers explain.

Middle school math teacher Crystal Frommert saw a similar pattern with her students, noticing that they were obsessed with grades, often at the cost of learning. As a minor act of resistance, Frommer doesn't hand back a test with a grade-instead, she provides achievable feedback and then asks her students to reflect and make corrections. She's careful to provide notes on how well they've learned the material but never discusses points (which are still logged and submitted to the school).

"This irritated the kids at first, but over time they began to focus on their actual performance," writes Frommert. For students who have a burning desire to know their grade, however, she'll schedule a conference the next day to help ensure a more productive, fruitful conversation.

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Why the 100-Point Grading Scale Is a Stacked Deck

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Grades are a staple of American education, but they're a fairly modern invention. The earliest formal grading emerged in 1785 when Yale University, already 11,000 students strong, began stratifying grades into four groups: , second Optimi, Inferiores, and Perjores (roughly translating to best, second best, less good, and worse).

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Why Ages 2-7 Matter So Much for Brain Development

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Why Ages 2-7 Matter So Much for Brain Development

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We beat the creativity out of our youth. 2-7 is a crucial developmental period for children, it is when they first start to interact with the curious world around them. Elementary education serves to build good habits and develop a love for learning. It needs to go beyond this by showing students that emotional intelligence is important too. The world needs more loving, caring individuals. Showing kids how to care for not only their emotional needs but the kids around them too is crucial. This will create better environments in school classrooms and will follow them for the rest of their life. Elementary is no precursor to "real" education. It is when kids start to learn and get excited about learning as well as life. It is the very foundation for the rest of schooling and education.

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Why Ages 2-7 Matter So Much for Brain Development

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Rich experiences—from play to the arts and relationships—fundamentally shape a young child’s development.

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Exploring Before Explaining Sparks Learning

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Exploring Before Explaining Sparks Learning

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I think this may be the best approach to teaching elementary students and even beyond. The curiosity of the world and all it has to offer is crucial to success in education. Unfortunately we are seeing less and less of this in our youth. This can spark so much positive interest and learning. Kids need to learn to problem solve and work past roadblocks. This style will do just that. Once they figure out the How, you tell them the Why. This is more of a full picture result. This will leave students with a deeper understanding and even appreciation for the things they're doing. This could even benefit middle/high schoolers as well. It could show them what they really enjoy doing and make selecting a major or career much easier. Some walk the path laid out for them and there isn't anything wrong with that, but this could help clear up confusion for students who don't know where to go.

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New elementary science teachers can build student engagement and enhance learning by using the explore-before-explain approach.

New teachers learn quickly that there are only so many hours in the day, so it's vital to maximize instruction to achieve the most significant gains possible. An explore-before-explain mindset is a set of beliefs holding that the best learning environments activate students' ideas and offer them firsthand experiences, learning science by doing science. Once students have developed accurate understandings based on explorations, teachers enhance understanding through explanations that occur at the right time for learners.

Becoming an explore-before-explain teacher requires thinking about teaching and learning in new ways. I've found from working with teachers that planning with specific outcomes ensures that we're promoting more equitable, robust, and memorable experiences. Many teachers who already use hands-on learning find that they can scale their lessons. Others flip their instructional script to explore-before-explain and home in on the most salient part of the lesson to make the best use of instructional time.

Below, I offer four suggestions for curriculum planning and instructional design for becoming an explore-before-explain teacher.

Plan backward

Plan science instruction with the key destinations in mind. Identifying the desired evidence-based claims in planning helps focus teaching on developing students' conceptual understanding and transfer of learning through purposeful science investigation-the fundamental ideas behind A Framework for K-12 Science Education.

Example: Many elementary teachers have students mix baking soda and vinegar to explore how materials change during a chemical reaction but fall short of having students construct evidence-based claims (a critical element of Understanding by Design and an essential destination of explore-before-explain teaching).

What data would students collect about how the materials change?

What evidence-based claim could they construct about the mass of materials before and after the reaction? (See Exploring a Chemical Reaction.)

Consider how an explore-before-explain approach could engage students in the active meaning-making needed to promote long-lasting conceptual understanding:

When teachers purposefully target students' evidence-based claims in their backward design planning, the explanation occurs in light of understandings that students have constructed through exploration. The above video shows that purposeful and intentional learning by doing from a common experience helps students make the evidence-based claim that mass (weight) is considered during a chemical reaction. Teachers can enhance student ideas by introducing the concept of conservation of mass.

Engage students' ideas

Students come to us with different experiences and knowledge. Beginning new lessons with students' ideas and experiences creates a need-to-know situation that activates learning and sets up explorations for students.

Example 1: You might begin a unit on motion by engaging students in predicting the direction a marble travels when dropped from various heights and angles: How could students explore-before-explain and collect data as evidence for their sensemaking? (See Exploring Marble Roll.)

Despite their initial ideas, students can make evidence-based claims that the path an object travels directly results from the forces acting on the object-in this case, gravitational forces pull the object down, but the track determines the direction of the force and motion. Teachers can enhance student understanding by looking at other factors influencing motion (pushes and pulls, friction, etc.).

What predictions might your students have for whether a watermelon and grape sink or float?

How does an explore-before-explain sequence allow students to test their predictions about sinking and floating with different everyday materials and help them make evidence-based claims about the mass-to-volume ratio? (See Exploring Watermelon and a Grape.)

Example 2: Discrepant events help capture students' natural inquisitiveness, questions, and problem-solving abilities. For instance, students have misconceptions about weight and size alone determining whether an object sinks or floats.

Students can make evidence-based claims that sinking and floating are related to both an object's weight and its size (mass-to-volume ratio, density). After they make evidence-based claims, teachers can help students explain the differences between observations and measurements like mass and volume and physical properties such as the mass-to-volume relationship (e.g., density).

Enhance understanding

Students often need enhancement activities to help them explain the conclusions they've made and transfer their learning to new situations. Teachers can plan for the essential scientific vocabulary and terms for concepts and processes related to students' firsthand experiences that fill gaps from the explorations and are necessary for successful science understanding.

This is when readings, discussions, and lectures become rich learning experiences because they connect ideas and students' frameworks for understanding.

Example: The Disciplinary Core Ideas, Crosscutting Concepts, and Science and Engineering Practices from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are good places to start when identifying essential academic vocabulary for developing classroom discussions. In addition, the NSTA outstanding trade book list can effectively introduce academic vocabulary in light of students' explorations.

Promoting reflection on learning

Our planning should offer students opportunities to think about what they've learned and how far they've come intellectually-that is, engage in metacognition, which significantly affects learning, a key finding of How People Learn. Evaluation from a learner's perspective is tied to their sensemaking and offers them a chance to assess how ideas have developed and what strategies will lead to more reliable and valid evidence-based claims.

How well did I perform? What was most challenging? What grade do I deserve?

What was most interesting or surprising about this (topic or phenomenon)? What strategies worked well for me during this learning experience? I used to think that __________, but now I understand that __________.

What will I try next time to improve?

Example: Students should have opportunities to accurately self-assess using questions such as these:

Leading change

The skills, strategies, and behaviors that explore-before-explain teachers must develop may take some time and might not be perfect at first. The most accessible place to start is to find a tried-and-true, hands-on activity that leads to accurate scientific understanding.

Then teachers can shift their instructional script and move exploring to before explaining scientific content, a strategy that benefits both new and experienced teachers.

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Exploring Before Explaining Sparks Learning

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New teachers will find that the explore-before-explain approach in elementary science builds student engagement and fosters learning.