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"Education-bashing has become something of a national sport in the United States. From hurling criticism about slipping test scores, socio-economic disparity, dropout rates, to raising concerns about poor teaching standards and school resources, the popular narrative is that U.S. schools are failing children. There's good reason for the pile-on: in many cases, the problems are real. While most of the conversation around education reform centers on how to address these existing issues, another point of view has been gaining momentum over the last several years. It's a point of view that is less focused on fine-tuning the current system for high performance-since the system was built in 1893 with the goal of churning out "good workers"-and more about rethinking education entirely and how it meets the world's rapidly changing economy in the information age. This topic is explored in depth in the feature-length documentary, Most Likely to Succeed, which premiered at Sundance and will appear at the Tribeca Film Festival April 24. In the film, director, writer and producer Greg Whiteley casts a light on the shortcomings of established education methods by focusing on one school that's defying convention, San Diego's High Tech High. While following two ninth-grade classes for a year, with classroom instruction unlike anything you've ever seen, the doc offers some inspirational ideas for how to help students rise to the occasion of an innovation economy that requires critical thinking."

"What if a child's success in school were measured not in IQ but in strength of character? That's the question Paul Tough tries to answer in his book How Children Succeed-Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character."

"This past fall (2015), I was lucky enough to be a part of the K-8 Computer Science Standards Committee for the state of Arkansas. Arkansas is the first state in the US to require all students in K-8 learn computer science standards. These standards will be embedded in other curriculum areas, CS will not be a stand alone subject. All of Arkansas's high school's must have CS courses available for interested students as well. The Computer Science Standards (Linked HERE from the ADE Website) begin with a set of Computer Science Practices. These practices exhibit the "habits of mind" that it takes to succeed in the area of Computer Science. Many teachers will agree that these are also great habits to succeed in every subject."

"A spike in blood pressure. A racing heart rate. Sweaty palms. For many adults, this is what they feel when faced with difficult math. But for kids, math anxiety isn't just a feeling, it can affect their ability to do well in school. This fear tends to creep up on students when performance matters the most, like during exams or while speaking in class. One reason for a kid's math anxiety? How their parents feel about the subject. "A parent might say, 'oh I'm not a math person, it's okay if you're not good at math either,' " Sian Beilock, cognitive scientist and President of Barnard College, says. "It can send a signal to kids about whether they can succeed." But new research from Beilock and her team shows that parents don't have to overcome their fear of math to help their child succeed, as long they changed their attitudes about the subject."

"In today's day and age, Google, Twitter and Pinterest are three of the largest employers in the United States and internationally. Are students gaining the skills that one might need to eventually apply to one of those tech giants, if they chose to do so? In the year 2017, what hard and soft skills should students be developing in order to succeed in the 21st century workplace? What about in the year 2020? 2050? Let's stick with the "now," for a moment. In a recent interview, EdSurge explored which skill sets lead to career success for students-but we didn't talk to anyone in K-12 or higher education. In fact, we interviewed three individuals-Alexandrea Alphonso, Ryan Greenberg, and Trisha Quan-from each of those aforementioned tech companies. While the thoughts and feelings of each of the folks we interviewed do not represent the opinions of their employers, each of these technology leaders offered their thoughts in this exclusive Q&A on equity and access, areas that formal education didn't prepare them for, and their advice for teachers working to prepare students for an ever-changing workplace."

"Being a boy can be a serious liability in today's classroom. As a group, boys are noisy, rowdy and hard to manage. Many are messy, disorganized and won't sit still. Young male rambunctiousness, according to a recent study, leads teachers to underestimate their intellectual and academic abilities. "Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools," says psychologist Michael Thompson. "Boys are treated like defective girls.""

Identity theft is where criminals obtain personal information such as your date of birth, bank account numbers, your mother's maiden name, your pet's name and so on. These personal details are often used as questions by companies for you to prove who you are over the telephone. So, if the thief can answer these questions there is a good chance they will succeed in impersonating you. This is bad news, as they could purchase things in your name, take out loans, even take money from your accounts!  

Author Daniel Pink discusses what it will take for students to succeed in an outsourced and automated world--and how schools should change their approach to education accordingly.

"While the experience of the Marathon Valley Academy in the first year of its iPad program has been mostly positive, there were still plenty of headaches - mainly dealing with keeping the devices functioning and up to date. For all their usefulness as a learning tool, the tablets are relatively fragile, and in the rough and tumble environment of a school nearly one in five of them broke during the course of the year."

"One of the challenging tasks facing teachers in today's learning environments is increasing students engagement. I said challenging because our students' attention span is very short and unless you make your learning tasks appealing to them you will never succeed in keeping them on task. Some attribute this to the heavy presence of digital media in teens life and also to the negative practices that came as a result of this over indulgence in the digital such as multitasking. Below is an interesting graphic created by Mia Mac Meekin in which she features 27 activities teachers can use to increase students engagement and participation. Enjoy"

"Learning from failure has become a popular idea in education recently, partly because it feels like common sense to many people. In a general way, the idea of "picking yourself up after a fall" has long existed in American culture as in many other parts of the world. Teachers are hoping that if they can instill this idea in their students, the small, everyday setbacks inherent to learning new things won't feel so emotionally charged to students, who might instead see them as part of the path to greater understanding and ultimate success. But turning the difficult experience of failure into a positive isn't as easy as telling students to change their mindsets; it takes careful lesson design, a strong classroom culture and an instructor trained in getting results from small failures so his or her students succeed when it matters."

"While the Maker Movement continues to grow, it hasn't yet gained its greatest traction, which currently sits untapped in the minds of the students in front of us. Through forming partnerships with community makerspaces or building a school makerspace, educators and decision makers everywhere have the rare chance to help bring this truly all-inclusive learning experience into their schools, districts, and communities in order to help all students. Here are four ways that the "new industrial revolution" will help your students succeed and help breathe life back into your craft."

"here was a time when knowing how to program was for the geekiest of geeks. That's not exactly the case today. As most entrepreneurs, freelancers and marketers will tell you, learning how to program can help you succeed. Over the past year, I've been learning to code. It's helped me to become a much better entrepreneur -- I can dive in when my team needs to fix a few bugs on the site.  You don't even need to shell out a ton of money or put yourself in debt to learn how to code, either. These 12 places offer coding courses for free:"

"This is the seventh in a series of blog posts highlighting the digital literacies our students will need to succeed. The first posts covered financial literacy, visual literacy, media literacy, historical literacy, numeracy, and data literacy. This post will provide you with some ideas on how to infuse information literacy and digital literacy skills into the curriculum."

"The gap between the skills people learn and the skills people need is becoming more obvious, as traditional learning falls short of equipping students with the knowledge they need to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum report New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology. Today's job candidates must be able to collaborate, communicate and solve problems - skills developed mainly through social and emotional learning (SEL). Combined with traditional skills, this social and emotional proficiency will equip students to succeed in the evolving digital economy."

"Computer coding is becoming an increasingly popular activity for today's technology oriented kids. Even kids who do not plan to grow up and become computer programmers are enjoying the control and autonomy that coding delivers. Coding encourages kids to be creative, think logically and develop critical thinking skills that they will need throughout their lives. The skills young students develop through these early coding experiences can also help them to succeed in their education. With coding, kids get to try out new solutions to problems and tinker around with what can happen in various situations. The following seven visually oriented and child-friendly apps can help to teach even the youngest children how to code."

"Individual Education Programs (IEP) can be difficult to put in place at the best of times. IEP's are sometime a source of concern and frustration. The more informed people are about the IEP process the better the IEP can be. Parents will normally work with teachers to develop a plan to help the students succeed in school. The IEP assists this process by describing the goals the whole team sets for a student during the school year, as well as any special support needed to help achieve them. Here are a number of apps that make managing and collecting data for the IEP Process just that little bit easier."

"Most educators, policymakers, and parents agree that today's students need a mix of knowledge, skills, and dispositions to prepare them to be successful and engaged citizens. Given that students need a mix of these things, iknowledge, educators, policymakers, and parents are also askng, "How do we know if students are learning both what we are teaching and what they need to know to succeed?""

"A few months ago, I posted an article by Shelly Blake-Plock called 21 Things in Education That Will be Obsolete in 2020, which lists some of the ways in which the face of schools will change in less than a decade. In this op-ed, which originally appeared in the Baltimore Sun, he describes what exactly needs to be done to get to there. "

"Differentiated instruction (DI) is a vast system in which it is difficult for many teachers to find a foothold for supporting students in a meaningful way. Teachers want and expect everyone to succeed, yet the means to that end can be foggy at best. How can we ensure that planned learning experiences have a significant and positive impact on student learning? We can answer this question with three important guidelines that will transform student learning experiences through meaningful differentiation. "