

Alpha Reads


From Headache to Helpful— Teachers on Using TikTok in the Classroom
From 60-second micro lessons to brain breaks, teachers are finding creative ways to meet students where they are. Increasingly, that’s on TikTok.
Teen Hackers Try to Convince Parents They Are Up to Good
Teenagers across the country are forming hacking clubs and trying to spread the word that hacking doesn’t always mean breaking into government servers or stealing bank data. Convincing teachers and parents of that isn’t always easy.
We live in a noisy world. Whichever industry you’re in, there are thousands of other people like you trying to get noticed. Unless you distinguish yourself, you’ll never get a chance to show how different you actually are. To stand out, you need to develop what I call a “spiky” point of view.
Human Systems
Three educators suggest alternatives to federally mandated standardized testing during this year undercut by COVID-19.
Author Daniel Susskind talks about the role of education in a world where machines are taking over many of the tasks done by human beings.
Promising beginnings, disappointing outcomes.
5 tips to help children become more emotionally flexible.
Living in Seattle, we were the epicenter of not only the first coronavirus hotspot in the United States, but the first school closures.
Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has been delivering competitive advantage to businesses across a wide spectrum of industries.
There are longstanding debates about testing in education. Some say we test kids too much and should do away with things like the SAT.
Somewhere along the way, the balance in our schools has been lost. The aftermath of the pandemic provides an opportunity to put it right.
How do I know that he’ll be able to work independently when he gets to college?
Avoiding bad decisions is just as important as making good ones. Knowing the warning signs and having a set of rules for your decision-making process limits the amount of luck you need to get good outcomes.
An essay on what Nintendo does and doesn’t want to be, why, and what this means for its future
A new class of education companies is emerging to make all or many of these shifts. They all differ in their implementation, but they have three things in common.
Focus on prioritization and process, not the assignment itself.
The increase comes as the majority of the roughly 900 colleges using the service have waived standardized testing requirements.
Since the Advanced Placement (AP) program began in the 1950s, tens of millions of students have taken their exams in school, with paper and pencil, …
Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 instructional material backed by the likes of TCV, Kleiner Perkins, Reach Capital and Owl Ventures, announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series D round.
A teacher writes that the activity gives students an opportunity to hear an adult model reading skills and can motivate them to take time to read for pleasure.
Innovative Teaching Strategy Offers Engaging, Real-world Experiences for Students that Could Prove Helpful after a Year of Learning Loss Due to Covid-19.
By linking math to students’ interests, educators can better engage them in their learning, writes one elementary school teacher.
Spending on artificial intelligence in education will rise from $800 million to $6.1 billion over the next four years, according to projections from HolonIQ.
As conspiracy theories spread and misleading news stories are shared, educators are trying to battle misinformation with media literacy education.
Former Amazon execs on what startups can learn from the “invention machine” of leadership principles and business processes that will outlast Bezos.
Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm with $16.5 billion in assets under management, has poured millions into an edtech startup that sells virtual STEM lab simulations to institutions.
Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora.
She says she’s “done” when she’s not. And when I try to intervene, it ends in tears.
Black students are faring far worse during the pandemic than others, new test data out of Ohio show, with COVID-19’s disruptions setting them back as much as a half year’s worth of learning and widening longstanding racial achievement gaps.
Educators, parents and students say there’s a chance to take stock and reinvent education.
In the early ’80s — when Euan Bonner was just five or so — he and his dad would tinker with their Commodore 64, copying code from magazines into the PC so …
Most four-year institutions already did away with entrance exams for the fall 2021 admissions cycle.
How lockstep math lessons leave students behind
Talking out loud to oneself is a technology for thinking that allows us to clarify and sharpen our approach to a problem.
A 2019 study found that the SAT essay was useful for students of color and for those whose primary language isn’t English.
One year after coronavirus was first diagnosed in the United States, and on the first full day of a new administration in Washington, here’s what is giving us hope for the years ahead.
The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, a speech given in 1995 by legendary investor Charlie Munger, with full audio and a complete transcript.
There is a certain mystique to the Montessori world, which is just as much philosophy as it is pedagogy. For starters, it has its own vocabulary.
Jeff Bezos’ $2 billion investment to establish a Montessori-inspired network of preschools may be shrugged off by many as the world’s richest man …
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the relationship between college-bound students, families, and the institutions themselves. Only time will tell how the pandemic will alter university trends for future generations. However, these five trends will be of greatest impact in 2021.
There are 10 design shifts that represent an opportunity in learner experience and supporting learning tools that can improve the life trajectories of billions.
Creativity can seem like a mysterious process. But many of the most creative people understand that you can actually break it down into a simple formula, involving what researcher Douglas Hofstadter calls “jootsing.” Here’s how understanding systems can help us think more creatively.
We selected the best online tutoring services for K-12 students with the advice of experts. Here are the best tutoring websites for kids of all ages.
Our choices reflect and determine who we are.
Though they have the potential to excel in many fields, we’re neglecting a large body of students with a unique set of skills.
College essays by Success Academy seniors tell stories of inspiration and heartbreak.
The health crisis has some questioning whether a degree is worth the money, new research shows. Efforts are underway to fix that.
The colleges that are in danger financially may surprise you.
The flight to quality in higher education continues, with big increases in applications at prestigious schools, with declines at schools with lesser reputation.
The smartest people in the world use mental models to make intelligent decisions, avoid stupidity, and increase productivity.
Some say it’s the only way. Others say no way.
We reviewed hundreds of educational studies in 2020 and then highlighted 10 of the most significant — covering topics from virtual learning to the reading wars and the decline of standardized tests.
Learning loss is everywhere — and so are reports detailing the setbacks. As some schools reopen, edtech product use declines.
We are biased in how we form memories from experiences. Our recollection is incomplete, and this is what the peak-end theory seeks to explain.
Reading scores were about the same as last fall, but officials warn the overall picture is incomplete, with one in four students not taking the fall 2020 assessments.
When it comes to learning loss during COVID-19, the question is not whether it has happened, but how much. A new report out from NWEA, a non-profit …
Instead of fixing public education, the left tries to end testing at schools it deems inequitable.
Picture this: It’s Monday and Ms. D’Angelo, a seventh-grade science teacher in the South Bronx, gives her students a homework assignment about food …
First Principles thinking breaks down true understanding into building blocks we can reassemble. It turns out most of us don’t know as much as we think we do.
Looking to solve an ongoing remote hurdle experienced by many schools, a Texas district is piloting the company’s Starlink tech to provide high-speed home internet to rural students and teachers.
The world’s most popular language-learning app, Duolingo’s valuation has spiked during the pandemic.
The election appears to be over, but how might the distrust and vitriol that has so infected our civic life of late recede? It turns out that history is our guide. Our history — one that is rarely taught, dissected or relished.
In this post, I explore the importance of soft skills, including empathy and kindness. I also share the four steps I’m taking as part of my deliberate practice to develop this soft skill of kindness.
How-to videos have been some of the most popular content on YouTube over the years, and now, to grow engagement and the pool of users that it appeals to, the upstart video app TikTok is getting in on the action, too.
This spring, while educators were pivoting to new teaching frameworks from home, I witnessed students shifting into new roles too.
Many testing sites have remained closed or at partial capacity since the spring.
Harvard Business School Professor Jeff Bussgang shares his insights on the future of education.
Eighty percent of students in a new survey said their teachers gave them more assignments when classes went virtual, but 60 percent of them said most of the work was easy or covered material they already knew.
Online education has many worried, but even parents whose children are learning in person are concerned.
While the first few years of life aren’t ones we tend to remember in great detail as adults, research has increasingly highlighted how vital this time is. But just how much do our early years shape our life? Becoming You, an upcoming AppleTV.
This is the latest article in The 74’s ongoing ‘Big Picture’ series, bringing American education into sharper focus through new research and data. Go Deeper: See our full series. American schools received the latest ominous dispatch Wednesday from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with twelfth-grade results from the 2019 exam showing stasis in math.
Due to the pandemic, substituting online kindergarten for the critical first year of formal education will have consequences for decades.
Curiosity might be the most important disposition of the new age. Unlocking curiosity may the key to innovating.
Joffe’s database of online learning tools answered a pandemic-era demand: About a quarter of families and teachers want more online resources
As scientists around the world race to find a treatment for the coronavirus, a young girl among them stands out.
The behemoth National Education Association seeks to squash popular pandemic microschools.
With the labor market and college campuses reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, the arrival of new online learning platforms teaching in-demand tech …
Ed-tech start-up Engageli has raised $14.5 million to build a videoconferencing platform. Unlike Zoom, the platform has been purposefully designed with college and university faculty members and students in mind.
In today’s new environment of online, remote learning, the need for teachers and school administrators to get immediate feedback on student progress is of paramount importance.
School districts with new projects or renovations underway are in a form of limbo. They don’t know if students will be there when the doors open or the ribbon is cut. They are reexamining designs they approved months ago, exploring whether environments will meet the requirements of a post-COVID world.
If you are only used to driving cars, it is hard to appreciate just how huge a force drag can be. The reason is that drag increases as the square of speed, so an object will experience 100 times …
The coronavirus, the limits of ed tech, and the often-unscientific way schools teach basic reading skills could mean catastrophe.
Monopoly, oligopoly, cartel. All three of those words can describe the (not so) modern education system today, given the cost structures, economics, and accreditation capture — in everything from who can and can’t start a new university (when was the …
Remote school may look different to ‘normal’ school, but children are still being taught; they are still learning and many are still actively engaged in the curriculum.
Interviews with more than 75 people expose the deep problems threatening the College Board’s billion-dollar testing monopoly. The great-granddaddy of standardized tests may not survive.
When COVID-19 struck last spring, I was grateful that my kids’ public school was able to get remote learning up and running quickly. My 14-year-old son fell into his distance learning schedule fairly seamlessly.
The growing influence of algorithms on our lives means we owe it to ourselves to better understand what they are and how they work. Understanding how the data we use to inform algorithms influences the results they give can help us avoid biases and make better decisions.
The clamor to equip teachers to respond flexibly to another uncertain school year has brought to the forefront a problem that has impeded schools for years, albeit in a less obvious way: Teachers need an updated skill set for the modern world.
A 35-year longitudinal study.
Inside the inventor’s world-changing plans to inhabit outer space, revolutionise high-speed transportation, reinvent cars — and hopefully find love along the way.