Schools adopt design-thinking strategies
Some schools are beginning to incorporate in the classroom a strategy called design thinking, which aims to help students think creatively about solving complex challenges. Sam Seidel, director of K12 strategy and research at Stanford’s d.school, says effective design thinking requires more teacher training.
The movement against standardized testing has slowed down, says Monty Neill, executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. Patricia Levesque, CEO of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, says the debate could be revived, describing such issues as “cyclical.”
Is it a school library or a bookstore?
Some school librarians are considering replacing the traditional Dewey Decimal System of organizing books with a bookstore system in which books are organized by genre. Middle-school librarian Jennifer Taylor says this “genrefication” makes it easier for students to find the books that appeal to them.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is backing an initiative aimed at rethinking school schedules. The foundation issued a $2.2 million grant to Abl, an education-technology company, to drive the “Unlocking Time” initiative.
How districts can address the homework gap
The Consortium for School Networking recently released a toolkit showcasing several ways school districts are working to overcome the homework and digital resources gap. Districts are mapping Wi-Fi-enabled sites to serve as homework hot spots, promoting low-cost options for home internet and installing Wi-Fi on school buses.
Teresa Donnellan is an editorial assistant at SmartBrief.
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