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"If you've ever felt stuck in a job and are considering a new career, figuring out exactly what you want to do - and how you'll get there - can be overwhelming. What if you could identify and test out different career possibilities, and even game out and compare how they would unfold over the next five years? You can using a solution-focused method called "Design Thinking," which helped product designers create Apple's built-in mouse and other consumer electronics. Sound far-fetched? It's not."

"Want to play something very hard but you don't have the skills? No problem, here's the solution "

Education exists in an uneasy domain and the teaching professional is forced to navigate between a multitude of conflicting tensions. Our education systems are dominated by abundance of voices all shouting for attention and offering a solution to the problems they have diagnosed. Each individual claims expertise and insights gained from years as a student is sufficient experience to allow one to speak with authority. - Educators need to find their voice. 

"When I ask teachers what their biggest struggles are, one issue comes up on a regular basis: student motivation. You are able to reach many of your students, but others are unreachable. No matter what you try, they have no interest in learning, no interest in doing quality work, and you are out of ideas. For a long time, I had no solutions; the problem was too complex. I have had my own unmotivated students, and I never had any magic bullets for them. Still, the issue kept coming up from my readers. So I decided to do some research, to try to find what the most current studies say about what motivates students. This is what I found:"

"With the release of the film Bully and daily news reports about the devastating impact on students who have been relentlessly bullied, teachers find themselves on the front line in addressing bullying. It is time to move into action. Not In Our School offers solutions-based strategies and tools for change to a network of schools that are working to create safe, inclusive and accepting climates. The core ideas and actions of Not In Our School include: "

"Problem-solving skills are necessary in all areas of life, and classroom problem solving activities can be a great way to get students prepped and ready to solve real problems in real life scenarios. Whether in school, work or in their social relationships, the ability to critically analyze a problem, map out all its elements and then prepare a workable solution is one of the most valuable skills one can acquire in life. Educating your students about problem solving skills from an early age in school can be facilitated through classroom problem solving activities. Such endeavors encourage cognitive as well as social development, and can equip students with the tools they'll need to address and solve problems throughout the rest of their lives. Here are five classroom problem solving activities your students are sure to benefit from as well as enjoy doing:"

"Online reviews of edtech tools tend to focus on technical features with little mention of how teachers can apply each product to the classroom. This can make the process of deciding on an edtech solution overwhelming for new and established teachers alike. To address this challenge, local NJ superintendent Nicholas Diaz (@nicholasadiaz ) presented edtech tools favored by teachers in his district, and called on educators in the audience to share their favorite edtech tools with the greater community.  We've created flashcards for each edtech tool recommended by the NJ teachers and school leaders who participated. It is our hope that teachers consult them when deciding which edtech tool to try next. "

"Math matters for computer science because it teaches students how to use abstract language, work with algorithms, self-analyze their computational thinking, and accurately modeling real-world solutions."

"These resources are suitable for use with pupils aged 13-16. BBC Radio 1 presenter Dev looks at how computational thinking can help solve problems in the real world. Practical solutions, abstraction and algorithms, and encouraging digitally competent citizenship. Alongside each short film, there is more information about the content of the film, and suggestions of how it could be used in the classroom."

""The Big Guide to STEM" is a free e-book containing resources and STEM ideas from educators on integrating STEM/STEAM into the classroom. It also contains a collection of top 10 STEM lists: * Top 10 STEM apps * Top 10 STEM tech products * Top 10 STEM blogs and online communities * Top 10 STEM websites * Top 10 STEM events * Top 10 STEM Software Solutions * Top 10 Resources for STEM Funding * Top 10 STEM Resources for Girls This is a great resource for any teacher at all, but especially those working with STEM courses or projects."

"As society anticipates a future filled with artificial intelligence, experts are theorizing ways that we humans can outperform the computers that are being programmed to perfection. Some believe educators should focus on building soft skills like empathy and interpersonal communication so humans and robots can complement one another. However, other education thought leaders are ready to beat computers at their own game by teaching people to think like intelligent machines. Why do so many of our kids struggle with math problem-solving? Because they don't know where to start; they don't know how to decompose the problem. Heidi Williams The term for getting humans to think like computers has been coined Computational Thinking, and the idea is taking off. Author Heidi Williams can attest to its popularity after her book on the subject, No Fear Coding Computational Thinking Across the K-5 Curriculum, sold out at the International Society for Technology in Education conference. Inside the book, Williams breaks down computational thinking standards into four parts: 1. Formulating problems through data analysis, abstract models and algorithmic thinking; 2. Collecting, analyzing and presenting data; 3. Breaking down problems into parts and extracting information to understand the system in place; and 4. Using algorithmic thinking to develop sequences and testing automated solutions."

"The term learning engineering was coined more than 50 years ago by Herbert Simon, a Nobel Laureate and Carnegie Mellon professor. Today there is renewed interest in the discipline, which merges scientific methods and engineering principles with learning. A new Guild Research report, Learning Engineering: A Primer, by Ellen Wagner, PhD, explores how learning engineering is expected to impact L&D. It may be of specific interest to instructional designers, who may already be incorporating or honing some of the skills that learning engineers require."

"As the school year draws to a close, I am looking forward to the laidback freedom of summer with its less hectic schedule and longer daylight hours. If I'm being completely honest, there's something really incredible about turning off my alarm clock for the foreseeable future. For me, it's time to recharge, to reflect and to prepare to return to the classroom and library renewed with energy and ideas. As an educator, I'm also keenly aware of the potential for kids to suffer from the summer slide-a loss of academic progress over the course of the summer months. According to a study done by the Colorado Department of Education, children in low-income households fall behind an average of 2 months in reading during the summer. And, summer slide is cumulative, with these learning losses building up each summer. The basic solution? Stay engaged in learning: read, write, do some math."

With the emerging threat of COVID19 and the closure of schools, teachers are scrambling to move to online learning environments. This will bring with it a myriad of challenges the short time frame is not going to help the situation. While we are fortunate that there are many technological solutions for the provision of remote learning, the more significant challenges will revolve around how we interact with our learners.

It seems that thanks to COVID19, educators, parents and students are in a rush. It seems the rush started moments after the decision was made to promote social distancing by offering remote learning. From quality learning in classrooms focused on deep learning we shifted into top gear. Packets of work were prepared, online tools rapidly expanded, new options for content delivery were examined and quickly deployed. We wanted to make sure that our students would be kept busy. Parents wanted their children to be busy. - Maybe slow looking is the solution?

"An increasing number of K-12 schools are transforming classrooms, libraries or other spaces into Informal workshop environments where students can tinker or invent, and with good reason. According to The NMC/CoSN Horizon Report: 2016 K-12 Edition, "Makerspaces are also increasing student exposure to STEM subjects and technical disciplines. Learners are applying maker skills to address some of the world's pressing challenges with innovative solutions." But how do makerspaces get started? THE Journal spoke with several experts, who shared their insights into the makerspace planning phase - not just designing or equipping the space itself but preparing the students and staff so that they're able to make the best possible use of it."

"n Texas, a 13-year-old boy built a robot that could rescue victims of natural disasters. In Georgia, a 15-year-old girl developed a device that alerts parents who have have left their child in the car. And in California, a 13-year-old boy created a Braille printer that would be almost six times cheaper than the currently available model. Young people aren't just the future. They're the present, innovating and creatively solving problems in a range of fields. Students across the country, from every background, have the ability to build new products that could change lives around the world. That's what educators at the forefront of the "Maker movement" believe. Leaders of this initiative are changing the American educational landscape by engaging kids in discovery-based learning from a young age, encouraging them to learn not just by watching, but by doing - to not only consume, but also create. Photos: National Maker Faire Takes Washington EXPAND GALLERY Maker spaces - studios and labs designed for students to pursue projects of their choosing - are popping up around the country in schools, universities and informal learning environments such as community centers and libraries. In these labs, students are challenged to develop solutions to real-world problems, from designing and prototyping to refining and marketing."

"Some nights, it's like you can't get your brain to shut up long enough for you to fall asleep. You're mentally reviewing the day you just completed while also previewing the day ahead; sometimes, your mind may even reach way back into the archives and pull up something embarrassing you did back in high school. So fun! Racing thoughts can be a sign of a serious mental health condition like anxiety. But these nights also happen to everyone from time to time -- and once we're too old for bedtime stories, it's not always clear what to do. There's no one solution that will work for everybody, of course, so instead, we've rounded up suggestions from eight sleep experts. At the very least, it's something to read next time you can't sleep"

"Ed tech company Learning.com is partnering with Codesters, a platform for K-12 computer science instruction, to develop EasyCode Pillars, an online interactive curriculum that incorporates coding challenges and game design into the classroom to cultivate students' coding skills. This digital literacy resource is designed to offer students a dynamic, hands-on coding experience, while providing teachers with an easy instructional solution for use in the computer lab or in the classroom."

""Many board members noticed that you were on your phone a lot," he said. "If you can hold out on texting friends or checking your Twitter feed until the breaks, that would be great." Mission failed. Now I did feel like an idiot. But I was also quite angry. The thing is, I hadn't checked my Twitter feed for over two hours. I'd been taking notes. I walked down the hall and began to think. I realized that my friends and I are glued to our phones all day long. That's just the way we are. Phones are crucial to our identities and lifestyle. Telling people in my generation to put our phones away is not a solution. Just ask our teachers how that has worked for them. Even so, the workplace is not ready for how often we are going to pull out our phones. Rather than fight it, I think the other generations are going to have to learn to let go and adapt to us. The reality is that social media breaks take less than 15 seconds and can be re-energizing. That's less time than the widely accepted practice of taking breaks for coffee or snacks. That said, there is no denying that we will need to be mentored so we know when even a 15-second break is unacceptable. The good news is that teachers have been trying to coach us about this for years. We can learn and we can adapt, if the other generations adapt, too."