Here are a few of the education stories we’ve bookmarked recently.
Three Ways To Avoid Bias In Decision-Making
Leadership strategist, Jarret Jackson writes a piece revolving around the notion of bias and how it affects one’s judgment and decision-making process. In an attempt to help one veer from their inherent biases, Jackson provides three techniques for people to use to try to be thoughtful, open and unbiased as they can possibly be.
Will This Be a Lost Year for America’s Children?
This feature from New York Times staff writer Emily Bazelon revolves around the implications of remote learning, vanishing resources, and inequity across the country. Bazelon brings five experts together for a roundtable to talk about the lasting impact of this current extended and unparalleled period of upended education within the U.S.
Is Learning on Zoom the Same as In Person? Not to Your Brain
It is a known fact that Zoom calls have come to define both learning and working in this age of COVID-19. However, people have recently begun to realize that all these remote video calls are causing massive amounts of fatigue. This new phenomenon, which has been coined Zoom fatigue, is explored in this episode of The Edsurge Podcast, where Stephen Noonoo, K-12 Editor speaks with Brenda Wiederhold, clinical psychologist about it and how educators can combat it.
Feeling Overwhelmed and Overlooked, Special Educators Need SEL to Navigate the Pandemic
Since the moment school buildings closed and remote learning began, many people have been focused on social-emotional learning (SEL). However, educators’ own SEL has also been affected during this time. This Edsurge feature analyzes survey data from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and EdTogether collected from 250 educators of students with learning differences to truly understand how they are innovating SEL in their professional and personal lives.
Building a Better Bookshelf for School Leaders
If reading diverse and culturally relevant books can help individuals become more in tune with the world and people around them, why can’t educators and school leaders read YA or middle grade books to understand their students better? In this piece for Edutopia, Kathryn Fishman-Weaver, Director of Academic Affairs and Engagement, Mizzou K–12, explores how she became a more effective principal by reading books that spoke to the diverse lived experiences she saw throughout her school’s communities.
Stacking interventions to institutionalize equity in schools
After reading a national study that reported the staggering rates of the suspension of Black students in comparison to white students, Mike Gaskell, Ed.D and veteran middle school principal, knew there had to be a better and more equitable solution to disciplining students. In this eSchool News article, Gaskell talks about why effective school interventions should be put into place and how the interventions he implemented in his school lowered the overall suspension rate, bringing the school’s Black student proportion in line with white students. Furthermore, Gaskell provides five strategies to help school leaders and educators like himself to fight systemic discrimination and promote equity among schools.
