What Summer School Can and Can't Do
There's a lot of conversation in education about how to use this summer to make up for lost academic time in COVID. But depending on the student and the situation -- summer school may or may not be the right solution. Catherine Augustine, a senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation, has spent many years examining what makes summer school effective. She advises that while summer school isn't magic, it can also be beneficial for some children. Additionally, she breaks down some of the differences between summer school and extended learning, and offers guidance to families trying to figure out what to do with their children this summer.
21 Apr 202117min
Raising Addiction-Free Kids
Jessica Lahey wondered how to keep kids from developing addictions to drugs and alcohol. She thought about it in her job as an educator at an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab for adolescents. She also pondered this as a parent and an alcoholic. Lahey knows that preventing substance abuse isn't cut and dry. In her new book, The Addiction Inoculation, she explores substance abuse risks and what parents need to know to keep their children safe.
14 Apr 202124min
Lessons on Leading During COVID
DC Public School Chancellor Lewis Ferebee was making strides on student academic gains, growing enrollments and creating the positive environment that he wanted for the nearly 50,000 students in the district. Then COVID happened. Like many education leaders, he faced unprecedented challenges to deliver distance learning, properly ventilate school buildings, extend supports and reopen schools. Ferebee shares what it has been like to lead the district though this time and some of the unique steps he has taken, as well as what has worked and what hasn't.
7 Apr 202120min
Gender Matters: Challenges Facing Women in Education
The pandemic has exposed gender inequities that don't often get talked about in education. It doesn't matter whether women work in early childhood, or higher education, or somewhere in between, these inequities play out similarly across the field. Jennie Weiner, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, studies how to make education -- especially leadership -- more inclusive and equitable. While education has long been a "highly feminized profession," Weiner explains the unique way this has worked against women in the field. She shares the importance of gender as we work toward an antiracist society and strive for a more just world. She also suggests steps toward change.
31 Mar 202125min
Transitioning into Adulthood
How has the end of adolescence changed or has it at all? Harvard Professor Nancy Hill and Lecturer Alexis Redding set out to better understand changes in adolescent development across generations. When they discovered an untapped archive from the 1970s, they expected to uncover huge changes, especially considering how the world shifted in the past 50 years. Instead they found common ties among the generations. They share how these generational similarities offer insight into how we can better support adolescents at home and in college. They also debunk this idea that today's adolescents are "coddled" and "overparented."
24 Mar 202125min
Disrupting Whiteness in the Classroom
Systemic racism has deeply permeated all aspects of our schools to the point it's gone viral. Racist curriculum and racist acts of teachers have trended on social media, even though it's long been a problem in schools. Bree Picower, an associate professor at Montclair State University, says it's more than 'just a few bad teachers' and really a complex problem that needs to be managed on multiple levels from teacher education programs to the classroom. She's a teacher educator who has studied how curriculum choices perpetuate White supremacy and the strategies educators can use to disrupt them.
17 Mar 202121min
Student Testing, Accountability, and COVID
President Biden's recent insistence that standardized testing should happen this year has been met with reluctance in many states. Harvard Professor Andrew Ho explains the importance of moving forward with standardized testing and what it can tell us about the impact of COVID on students. Ho is a psychometrician who studies educational assessments. He explains why we must consider this more an "educational census" rather than an "assessment" and how to achieve that. He also discusses how much we actually know about learning loss, and how testing may offer insight into targeting supports.
10 Mar 202119min
Propaganda Education for a Digital Age
Think that propaganda is an outdated thing of the past? Well, think again. Propaganda is everywhere -- in the news, entertainment, politics, education, social media and more. Renee Hobbs, a media literacy expert, says it's vital that adults and children better understand how to identify and analyze propaganda. Hobbs, the director of URI's Media Education Lab, and the author of "Mind Over Media," is leading the way in what propaganda education looks like in our classrooms. She shares the history of propaganda education in America, and some of the ways pedagogy can incorporate lessons on propaganda in almost every subject today.
3 Mar 202123min
