What do schools need to do to keep students healthy during the future phases of the Covid-19 pandemic?
We recently found a list of recommendations from healthychildren.org. We like it because it covers both the well-known measures that schools should take, and also less-than-obvious steps that are easy to overlook. We recommend that you take a few minutes to review this list.
Here are some highlights. Read more
Teachers and educators, how are you doing psychologically as year 2022 begins?
It’s a difficult period. As one teacher we know recently observed, “I was ready to be all done with the pandemic. I was ready for December 2021 to be the end of an extremely difficult period. I was expecting the mood in my classroom to suddenly become sunny and bright. I thought we would all breathe a collective sign of relief. But no, we just have to take a deep breath, find some new psychological sources of strength, and keep dealing with all kinds of difficulties. Enough already.” Read more
“Study: Lessons of COVID-19 underscore need for better teacher support,” an article that Barri Bronston of Tulane University published in Phys.org on November 21, 2021, notes that not only students have suffered from the pandemic. Teachers too have been chronically under-supported by their school systems. Read more
Daina Petronis, who teaches high school English in Toronto, recently offered some insightful observations on how student attitudes can affect their readiness to make good career decisions and lead better lives.
She shared her views in a new Student Research Foundation video we know you will want to watch. Read more
High school teacher Trevor Muir believes that soft skills that are developed in project-based learning could be even more vital to success in technology-intensive fields than hard skills like chemistry or mathematics.
Trevor explained why in a recent video he shared with the Student Research Foundation. Read more
The Student Research Foundation Invites teachers to take part in our new teacher survey on student readiness
If you teach high school, chances are one question has often been on your mind . . . Read more
As educators, we know that students are experiencing stress and uncertainty as they return to classrooms. But what are their greatest fears?
Thanks to recent research conducted by the Student Research Foundation that you can review and share in a new infographic, we have some answers to that question. Our findings are based on comments about remote learning that high school students made on social media during Spring 2020. Their comments reflect what they missed most when learning from home. Read more
“Teachers say working with students kept them motivated at the start of the pandemic,” an article that Beth Daley wrote in The Conversation on October 7, 2021, reports reassuring findings about teachers’ strong dedication to their students.
Ms. Daley reports that before the pandemic began, she had begun a study of teachers’ enthusiasm for performing different job duties. At that point, her study found that of all the tasks teachers undertake on the job, working with students was the most satisfying. While her study was underway, Covid-19 struck and classrooms shut down. But her study found that at that time, teachers remained strongly motivated to continue teaching because they wanted so much to support their students. Read more
As you know, a major scandal involving college admissions has been making headlines since 2019. A number of very wealthy parents – some of whom are celebrities – paid vast sums of money to a college admissions counselor of sorts, who then pulled all kinds of strings to get their kids into elite institutions that included USC, Stanford, Yale, and others.
How did that counselor help those students get into top colleges? In some cases, he found ways to assure that they would earn top scores on standardized tests. (In one case, he allegedly stated that one student required special accommodations on a test, then he had that student take the test in a private location where he could answer questions for her.) Read more
“Children are getting sick from COVID-19. Children are also having to go to the hospital at an increased rate due to rising rates of transmission of the Delta variant, especially in communities with low vaccination rates. CDC recommends all schools require universal masking and use additional prevention strategies regardless of how many students, educators, and staff are currently vaccinated. Masks are critical, but masks alone are not enough. Along with promoting vaccination for educators, staff, and students 12 years and older, schools must use several strategies at the same time to keep everyone as safe as possible. Examples of these strategies include improving ventilation and ensuring physical distancing. Federal resources are available to support these efforts.”