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Articles 1 - 15 of 15
Full-Text Articles in Education
Virtual Tools Show Promise For Moving The Needle On Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Family Engagement, Tamra Mitchell, Socorro Herrera
Virtual Tools Show Promise For Moving The Needle On Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Family Engagement, Tamra Mitchell, Socorro Herrera
The Advocate
The school building closures of spring 2020 fundamentally disrupted education in Kansas, but out of this disruption emerged the need and opportunity for schools and educators to be creative and innovative. At a time when every parent in our state was either employed as an essential worker and working longer hours, trying to work from home, or trying to navigate the loss of their job, they were also trying to support their children with continuous learning. This required Kansas schools to think differently and try new strategies for truly engaging families. One promising innovation that many schools piloted was to …
Selling Your Library To The College Community: A Look Into Promoting An Underused Library To Ensure Student Support, Tyler J. Johnson
Selling Your Library To The College Community: A Look Into Promoting An Underused Library To Ensure Student Support, Tyler J. Johnson
Kansas Library Association College and University Libraries Section Proceedings
Academic libraries have a major impact on their community. Yet, academic libraries often face challenges regarding funding, overall usage, and relevancy to the institution in the eyes of stakeholders. This requires academic librarians to work even harder to promote their library to the community. The term sales may have a negative connotation among many people, but academic librarians have been suggesting that librarians adopt certain sales techniques to support their communities. This article delves into the need for librarians to use certain sales techniques to promote the library to their community with a focus on ensuring student support. Specifically, this …
Vanessa Siddle Walker: Honoring Keepers Of Knowledge By Using Their Stories To Improve Education, Melissa Holmes, Eileen Wertzberger, Kay Ann Taylor, Lori Goodson
Vanessa Siddle Walker: Honoring Keepers Of Knowledge By Using Their Stories To Improve Education, Melissa Holmes, Eileen Wertzberger, Kay Ann Taylor, Lori Goodson
Educational Considerations
Dr. Vanessa Siddle Walker, a renowned historical researcher in the field of education, is a leading voice in the history of school desegregation in the United States. In this interview, she discusses positioning black educators as significant agents of change in the collective narrative of schools and highlights how their organized action and strategic advocacy has led to social justice and equity for black students. Her research informs how our schools have worked in the past, and how lessons from our past can serve to mobilize resources for the equitable education of all children today.
The Importance Of Planning Intellectually Challenging Tasks, Ali Althuwaybi
The Importance Of Planning Intellectually Challenging Tasks, Ali Althuwaybi
Educational Considerations
Since the emergence of the 21st century, advances in information, communication, and technology are changing teaching and learning in numerous ways. Today, teachers are essential for this momentum shift. The identification and design of appropriate and effective instructional tasks and applying them in the classroom will affect teaching and learning. However, this goes beyond offering curriculum and teaching materials to educators. Teachers should be able to stimulate passive curriculum materials and transform them into intriguing instructional tasks if they can specify resources, processes, and outcomes. Current literature underscores the need to support teachers in engaging in operational planning activities that …
Collaborative Autonomy: Exploring The Professional Freedom Of Three Science Teachers, Michael Ralph, Darian Robbins, Stephen Young, Laurence Woodruff
Collaborative Autonomy: Exploring The Professional Freedom Of Three Science Teachers, Michael Ralph, Darian Robbins, Stephen Young, Laurence Woodruff
Educational Considerations
Education reform efforts must support and protect professional autonomy for classroom teachers. When policymakers attempt to make systemic change in ways that reduce the professional autonomy of educators, student learning suffers. Teachers need the freedom to identify their professional goals, seek resources and collaboration opportunities in pursuit of those goals, and act on feedback regarding their progress in meeting those goals. We present three stories from teachers who share a department engaged in collaborative autonomy. These accounts provide guidance for how professional autonomy can be defended by those pursuing systemic change.
Redesign Resiliency During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jay Scott
Redesign Resiliency During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jay Scott
Educational Considerations
Voices from a state-wide school redesign initiative share their challenges and successes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kansans Can: Redesigning Schools, Brad Neuenswander
Kansans Can: Redesigning Schools, Brad Neuenswander
Educational Considerations
Kansas, like many states that are coming off of an era of accountability under the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, is looking at more meaningful ways to value and measure student success. We have asked ourselves questions such as: are we focusing on the right measures; is our accountability system aligned to our educational priorities and values; or is it the educational system itself that needs to change in order to produce a more meaningful set of outcomes? These are questions that need answers before any educational reform initiatives can be addressed. The Kansas State Department of Education leadership, …
School And Community Relations In The Kansans Can School Redesign Project, Tamra Mitchell
School And Community Relations In The Kansans Can School Redesign Project, Tamra Mitchell
Educational Considerations
Since July of 2017, approximately 72 Kansas school districts and approximately 183 schools have volunteered to redesign their schools around four redesign principles as part of the Kansans Can School Redesign Project. The earliest cohort of volunteer schools were led by the two redesign specialists through a planning process that included engaging community stakeholders in developing a shared vision for their redesigned and innovative school. Many of the earliest launch schools proved to be very successful in engaging stakeholders to collect authentic feedback early in the process. However, some school districts were surprised by pushback from stakeholders early in the …
Kansans Can: Redesigning Education In Kansas, Randy Watson
Kansans Can: Redesigning Education In Kansas, Randy Watson
Educational Considerations
In fall 2014, the Kansas State Board of Education charged me with gathering information from Kansans as to what they wanted in their school system. After months of studying the research conducted from listening tours and matching that data to current educational research, the State Board of Education launched a new vision for education in October 2015.
This vision had clear metrics for success – Lead the World. Those metrics were all focused on a single point of obtainment – the Success of Each Student. The vision was clear, difficult to achieve, compelling and viewed attainable by 2026. In fall …
Leadership During Change, Mischel Miller
Leadership During Change, Mischel Miller
Educational Considerations
The national education system, similar to the Kansas education system, has seen little change since the 1800s(Throckmorton, 1967). In fact, over 50 years later, there have been few changes. Children come to school around the age of five to enter kindergarten and then move through the current system by age and grade level. These children sit in rows, are addressed by the expert teacher, are given information, and are expected to memorize and regurgitate the material in a standardized testing process. Schools in Kansas predominately open their doors in August and close in May (KSDE, 2018), perpetuating the long history …
Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools, Kelly Arnberger
Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools, Kelly Arnberger
Educational Considerations
“Through redesign you have the opportunity do whatever you choose to do to make your school reflect the needs and desires of your community. I believe our public-school teachers can do the great things we keep hearing private and charter schools do if we would just let them.” Randy Watson said something to that effect at Dighton in January, 2017. We would now have permission to make our school reflect the true mission, vision, and values of our community without constraint. Sounds great! At least many of us in attendance listening to Dr. Watson that day thought so. We chose …
Post-Pandemic To Post-Secondary Success, John Heim
Post-Pandemic To Post-Secondary Success, John Heim
Educational Considerations
Ten years ago, the Kansas Association of School Boards Board of Directors authorized a statewide research project to determine how Kansans felt about their public schools. Local boards were encouraged to bring their communities together and ask them some basic questions about what they like and dislike about education in Kansas. One hundred districts ranging in size from Blue Valley to Republic County facilitated community meetings. Over 1,000 Kansans participated and the most commonly reported concern reported was that there was too much emphasis on testing.
With the new “Kansans Can” vision, local districts were asked to look beyond indicators …
Losing As And Fs: What Works For Schools Implementing Standards-Based Grading?, Matt Townsley, Tom Buckmiller
Losing As And Fs: What Works For Schools Implementing Standards-Based Grading?, Matt Townsley, Tom Buckmiller
Educational Considerations
Learning goals such as the Common Core State Standards are helping educational leaders to better understand the critical role assessment and grading plays in the teaching and learning process. In response to the growing body of empirical research on the topic of accurate grading practices, a number of schools are moving away from letter grades and adopting standards-based grading which separately report learning goals from work habits. The purpose of this essay is to document what works when K-12 schools implement standards-based grading through a deep dive into related literature and to suggest areas for future consideration. With this improvement …
Redesign: A Case Study Of Change In A Kansas School District, Fred Van Ranken, Lori Goodson
Redesign: A Case Study Of Change In A Kansas School District, Fred Van Ranken, Lori Goodson
Educational Considerations
USD 240 Twin Valley School District, consisting of Bennington Grade School and Bennington Junior High/High School in Bennington and Tescott Grade School and Tescott Junior High/High School, was one of seven districts initially selected in August 2017 as part of the first cohort of Kansas State Department of Education's Kansas Can School Redesign Project. This article shares the journey, told by the superintendent and a researcher, of USD 240 as part of the ongoing program which now involves multiple cohorts of districts developing their own pathways toward improvement.
What Does A Successful 24 Year Old Look Like?: Reflections From The State Board Of Education, Jim Porter
What Does A Successful 24 Year Old Look Like?: Reflections From The State Board Of Education, Jim Porter
Educational Considerations
“What does a successful 24 year old look like?” This is a critical question that must be successfully addressed if Kansas is to “Lead the World in the Success of EACH Student.”
For many decades we have attempted to fit the student in to the system and many students have been successful, however, many have not. What would happen if the system were built around the individual student? What would happen if student’s interests, passions and talents were controlling when determining the best educational plan for each student?
By developing Individual Plans of Study based on student interests, abilities and …