Teacher Ron Hustvedt is selling a smart product. In his classroom at the Salk STEM Magnet School in Elk River School District in Minnesota, Hustvedt encourages his history students to buy into his brand of inquiry-based learning. This year’s National Council of the Social Studies Outstanding Teacher of the Year at the middle school level […]

Jay County—a rural district in Indiana—has the highest child poverty rate (35 percent) in the state. We’ve suffered like most of the rural areas. While our unemployment rate is just a little over 4 percent, there aren’t a lot of high-paying jobs. Many of them are low-level manufacturing and agriculture jobs, so people are leaving […]

Exciting students about learning is the No. 1 reason schools are experimenting with virtual reality. It’s a rapidly advancing technology the most district expect to use in the near future. Other benefits educators have cited? It reduces the costs of field trips and encourages creativity. See the infographic at right—and this related story—for more details.

Young adults in Fulton County, Georgia, who have learning and developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy and autism, continue to gain career support from their school district even after they’ve completed high school. The Learning Independence for Employment (LIFE) program connects students age 18 to 22 with jobs at Atlanta-area employers, such as Georgia State […]

These days, McKenna Smith is back in the classroom. She’s a high school student in Missouri’s Nixa Public Schools, but had been unable to attend classes since elementary school because of chemotherapy treatment. But Smith didn’t miss as much interaction with teachers and classmates as she could have because she connected with them remotely—via robot. […]

Here are three approaches to social-emotional learning Washoe County Schools, Nevada District social-emotional learning standards address five crucial competencies—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and decision-making. The district has defined indicators for development in each area, such as “demonstrates knowledge of personal strengths, challenges and potential.” Each school in the district has a social-emotional learning […]

“When do you do what?” The counselors at Mooresville High School of Mooresville Graded Schools near Charlotte, North Carolina, heard that question often from college-bound students during the fall application season. The college planning software the district used prior to spring 2016 helped the 1,876 Mooresville students prepare documents, but did not provide information or […]

A focus on teaching social-emotional skills—persistence, resilience, communication and other non-cognitive abilities—has led to an obvious jump in reading and math scores in Nevada’s Washoe County School District. Washoe’s students are now “less likely to be suspended, more likely to attend school, and they graduate at a much higher rate than students who didn’t have […]