The authors explain that the commonly held concept of project-based learning (PBL) as a student investigating a topic or creating something individually (a passion project) is only part of the PBL story. Projects in which students collaborate and do something to make a difference in their community are also a way to structure PBL and build agency.…

Students need "critical data literacy" skills to help make sense of the multitude of information available to them, especially as it relates to high-stakes issues of social justice. The authors describe two curriculum modules they developed--one on income equality, one on immigration--that help students learn to analyze data in order to…

It is time to mobilize whole child advocates behind the neuroscience of learning and development, write education professors Sara Rimm-Kaufman and Jacqueline Jodl. Here, they describe four key research findings on the brain and learning--and how to translate them into practice in order to support the whole child.

One experienced school administrator shares two common misconceptions about teaching and learning that he once thought were the gold standards, then reflects on how adaptive leaders must continuously learn themselves, shifting their practices when and where it is necessary to provide the best education for students.

"A common and fair critique of online professional learning is that a lot of it is not very engaging," says professional development leader and expert Mike Flynn, who gives readers tips on how to wow their audiences with amazing online PD sessions.

With the pandemic and incidents of harsh police brutality now filling the news (and many lives), how can teachers help young children make their way through a period that, if it were a movie, might be rated R for violence and harsh imagery? With examples from his own classroom, Minkel shares four ways we can be there for kids: teach them to…

Civics education shouldn't be confined to dusty textbooks, as evidenced by this assortment of projects. In one unit, elementary students play out the presidential election--from campaigning to inauguration day--using the Storypath approach. In another project, 5th graders explore the controversy about Confederate monuments by studying a local…

New brain imaging methods are helping us better understand how children learn, writes neuroscientist John Gabrieli. But "education neuroscience" has become the source of both promise and debate.

Most teachers try to avoid having students experience uncertainty in their schoolwork. But if we want to prepare students to tackle complex problems (and the uncertainty that accompanies such problems), we must give them learning experiences that involve feeling unsure and sometimes even confused. Beghetto presents five strategies that help…

In the last 50 years, research in psychology has informed educational practice, and recently educational neuroscience has also become a source of research-based guidance on education. The authors discuss four significant examples of how combining findings from psychology and neuroscience gives us insight into which approaches are most effective in…

Learning progressions detail the incremental steps that students take as they learn to master a skill. These progressions are based on developmental research about how students learn and how their thinking develops as a result of instruction. A typical progression not only describes the stages that students must master, but it also shows what…

"In many ways, images are the vehicle of comprehension, thought, and action. We integrate parts of images, we remember images, we manipulate images." This quote from James E. Zull clarifies the rationale for a discussion protocol called Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), in which teachers focus students' attention on an image and ask…

To spur agency and critical thinking, educators can take steps to position students as knowledge builders rather than just consumers. Drawing on Indigenous pedagogy and her own work on the value of "street data" in education, author and consultant Shane Safir discusses the importance of creating more space for student voice in…

"The current school landscape sucks," writes educator and hip-hop artist Gabriel "Asheru" Benn. At least that would be the opinion of most teenagers when you ask them. The problem isn't that our schools aren't good or that our teachers aren't knowledgeable or even likeable. Rather, it's the "rote, transactional" ways…

For students to feel empowered in their learning, they must understand the language, purpose, and goals of assessment. Dueck argues that students need to understand what they are supposed to be learning and determine whether they actually learned it. Clear objectives and cooperative assessments can help with these objectives.