Part Two in this series focuses on identifying the cause of low performing students Although New Dorp (a public high school in Staten Island, New York) teachers had observed students failing for years, they never connected low performing students to specific flaws in their own teaching. They watched passively as Deirdre De­Angelis got rid of the bad apples on the staff;...

A Change In Formal Writing Instruction In 2009, when Monica DiBella entered New Dorp, a public high school near a grimy beach on Staten Island, her academic future was cloudy. Monica had struggled to read in early childhood, and had repeated first grade. At elementary school, she received more than 100 hours of tutoring. By fourth grade, she’d fallen behind her classmates again....

Mobile device's role in education: what works? Simply using mobile devices in the classroom does not guarantee a rise in comprehension or even the attention of students. So what types of mobile technology use make the most sense for classrooms? E-readers. Part of the issue with traditional textbooks is that they’re so quickly outdated, both regarding subject matter and which formats...

Do mobile devices really improve learning outcomes? Mobile devices as teaching tools are becoming a more and more common part of the American education experience in classrooms, from preschool through graduate school. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 58% of U.S. teachers own smartphones — 10 percentage points higher than the national average for adults. Those teachers are building that tech-savviness into...

Rethinking grade levels & school design for personalized learning A Chicago school’s openness to multiage classrooms gives both students and teachers extra choice and support by TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON   CHICAGO — At the end of the first-floor hallway in the West Belden campus of the Chicago International Charter School network, across two connected rooms that used to be a library, almost 60 children spread...