Rural schools, especially smaller ones, offer enormous opportunities for teachers to get to know their students and to cultivate their academic talents. However, students with potential in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) face specific obstacles to having their talents fully realized in rural schools. Joni Lakin, Tamra…

Many kindergarten teachers have encountered children who enter school lacking the ability to control their behavior, but they may not understand the social and biological processes behind these children's disruptive behavior. The author reviews research into early childhood brain development to explain how trauma and chronic stress can make it…

Educator Lauren Porosoff discovered the value of contextual behavioral science by accident, when accompanying her psychologist husband at a professional conference. Additional study of the subject convinced her of its benefits to educators and students -- and showed her the value of study outside her field. She encourages educators to seek out…

The capacity to navigate conflict and solve problems will persist as an essential skill of the future, even if today's students will be doing jobs that haven't been invented yet. What are we doing in schools right now to ensure students have these skills? For nearly a decade, a program called Speak Truth has taught students to use their voices,…

The prevailing cultural narrative about middle school is that those years are extremely difficult, and the best students can hope for is to endure them until finding relief in high school. Nancy Deutsch argues that these years are, in fact, a time of great potential if schools can abandon their stereotypes about young adolescents and create school…

After 30 years of practicing, researching, and teaching project-based learning (PBL), Steven Wolk offers insight into what he has learned. He discusses what PBL is and responds to common misunderstandings about how it works. He describes how PBL units are structured, the role of direct instruction in PBL, how students learn content and skills…

Critics and supporters have expressed concern that social-emotional learning (SEL) has not been adapted to children suffering from trauma. While SEL has been identified as a mechanism through which trauma-informed schools can be created, this does not make SEL implementation, in and of itself, trauma-informed. Erica Pawlo, Ava Lorenzo, Brian…

Despite progress in recent years, members of the LGBTQ+ community remain underrepresented and underserved in the school system. Ferial Pearson and Steven Gill draw on research literature and their own experiences as out queer educators to recommend a set of actions educators can take to reduce harm to members of these communities in school. They…

Despite training in phonics and phonemic awareness during literacy methods courses, preservice teachers indicate having a limited understanding of how to apply these two critical components of reading in their own classrooms. As preservice teachers enter the classroom, they will need support from principals, literacy professionals, and colleagues…

Leadership gurus often put creating a "shared vision" at the top of their pyramid of what successful leaders do. These visions are best when they are an anchor or a North Star -- unwavering goals that the district works toward. Author Jon Saphier proposes this North Star for districts: Make every school an engine for continuous…

The development of agency is often described as critically important for all students. Countless school mission statements speak of the need to help young people become independent thinkers, for example. Colleges and universities expect high school graduates to be self-driven learners. And business leaders are forever calling upon K-12 education…

Middle school teacher Michael Yell and education professor Geoffrey Scheurman discuss a decades-long partnership of ongoing professional development opportunities that involve teachers, university faculty, and teacher candidates working together to create personalized, meaningful, and sustained initiatives that enhance the growth and skills of all…

A mixed-methods study of a large social-emotional learning (SEL) program revealed notable disparities in the ways that teachers and students perceived the program's impact. Teachers believed the initiative empowered students, while the students themselves described the program as one that emphasized compliance. Madora Soutter summarizes her…

Joseph Mahoney, Joseph Durlak, and Roger Weissberg compare results from four large-scale meta-analyses of student outcomes related to participation in universal, school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. Their examination includes 356 research reports with rigorous designs and outcome data at post or follow-up from hundreds of…

A new body of research shows that project-based learning (PBL) can be effective in improving students' academic performance and attempts to define some of the key practices that are essential to PBL. Kristin De Vivo summarizes key findings of four studies that covered multiple grade levels and subjects. The studies found that PBL is effective…