Opinion

Three ideas to bring science teaching and learning back into the first-grade classroom with the goal of developing better readers and writers.

As a teacher, I didn't want my class to be known as "Mr. Vincent's Fifth Grade." Rather than making myself the focus, I set out to give my students ownership over our collective brand, says guest columnist Tony Vincent, an educator who lives in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and a featured speaker at DA's FETC 2020.

Many parents are rightly concerned about the possibility that their children may one day abuse alcohol. A parent can be proactive by getting involved in alcohol abuse prevention efforts at their child's school, says guest columnist C. Kevin Synnott, a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University.

Education professionals at all levels must be part of the solution to create a high level of academic excellence, says guest columnist and longtime educator Eugene Butler Jr., a retired assistant superintendent of Tucson USD in Arizona.

In the past decade, the terms makerspace, hackerspace and fablab have appeared on the horizon. These are new names for what people have always done—come together to fix things, make new things and learn from each other, says DA guest columnist and FETC featured speaker Sylvia Martinez, who is co-author of Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom.

Simple technology and invisible security allow parents to focus on what's important: connecting with their kids' education, says guest columnist Ali Arsan, founder and CEO of Edlio.