As school begin to address the challenge of reopening schools, a greater concern of how to address learning loss created during remote instruction has taken center stage. Now, more than ever, administrators, teachers and families continue to question how best to meet the learning needs of their students, especially after losing more than a quarter of the 2019-2020 academic year to the current pandemic. One recent study, conducted by NWEA, predicts that students will experience a learning loss of 30% in reading and as much as 50% in math as a result of the pandemic. Left untamed, these types of academic setbacks could have significant negative implications for students who were previously preforming on grade level and even more disastrous for students who were already behind. This article hopes to discuss the how differentiation practices can be leveraged to address lost learning during pandemic remote instruction, while also highlighting procedural steps to effectively accelerate learning.

As you know, Massachusetts' teachers holding a Provisional license* are expected to advance to an Initial license during their fourth or fifth year of teaching. The traditional route to licensure (Route 1) requires grad school, intensive study and student-teaching scenarios. For some people, like Katherine Flynn, this felt like a ‘step back’. An experienced Special Educational Needs teacher, just three classes away from her Masters in teaching, Katherine started to research alternative ways to achieve licensure – quickly:

"What you get for your money with Class Measures is worth way more than anything you could get at grad school." 

Before his move to Massachusetts, Stephen Pettit had been a teacher for a long time. His route to teaching was a more unusual one. Despite having always wanted to teach, Stephen graduated from his undergraduate degree in the early 1970s and was advised not to go into teaching, because at that time there was a glut of teachers and no one was hiring. So he began a very successful career in the steel industry, working his way up over the next 30 years:

Nineteenth century American social reformer Henry Beecher once said, “The head learns new things, but the heart forever practices old experiences.” For centuries, philosophers as well as scientists have strived to intellectually to explain how the brain processes as well as incorporates new information. Consequently, the how/what the brain learns has dramatic implications for how students perceive themselves. Although it has only been in the last few decades that strides in cognitive science have revealed new information about how non-cognitive factors influence student learning. This has provided tremendous insight and generated new implications for classroom instruction.

In this article entitled “Contested Knowledge: A Critical Review of the Concept of Differentiation in Teaching and Learning” written by Sasha Taylor, the paper outlines her case for how differentiation has led to increasing inequality in the classroom. It starts with an introduction to her definition of differentiation, theories and knowledge, implementation, benefits, and then outlines the factors she believes impacts differentiation – socio-economic background, gender, culture.

School leaders tasked with school improvement face a daunting challenge. As the bottom 5% of schools within the U.S are identified in need of school improvement based on, among other factors, proficiency on standardized tests, school leaders and their constituents face often unique and alarming sets of circumstances when confronting such problems. Oftentimes available improvement strategies can appear numerous, overwhelming, extravagant and time consuming. Time, in many cases, is not an unlimited resource gifted to school improvement leaders and personnel. The brilliance of quality action planning, when done strategically, offers school leaders a targeted cost-effective game plan to address the unique needs within a school building. This article will examine and discuss key factors leaders should consider in order to facilitate action planning that delivers authentic results.

In their article entitled, “Constructivism and Differentiation: Research and Practical Strategies for Assessment”, provided by the Lookstein Content Team, they detail a justification for the use of differentiated assessment in Jewish Day Schools. This perspective is continuously validated through the use of psychological and scholarly research, mainly a discussion of constructivism and instructional practices that, according to the author, best supports the acquisition of knowledge. Their premise revolves around the idea that the most effective form of instruction is one that is “hands on...that encourages students to be actively involved in learning.”

The comprehensive needs assessment, or program evaluation, of a school is actually a pretty difficult review to get right. Getting it wrong impacts your staff, your culture, and ultimately your students. So, in this guide we explore seven things that, in our experience, you need to do to ‘get it right’ and optimize the value (and meaning) your school derives from the process….

The rapidly growing number of English Language Learners, as well as the linguistic diversity found within many of those student groups, presents a unique set of challenges for today’s educators. Through the use of effective co-teaching implementation, educators can strategically address the individual needs of their respective ELL populations while maximizing student achievement for all.