Another great year of ISTE has come and gone—as always, the EdTech conference left a lasting impression on everyone who was able to attend. Whether you’re a teacher, administrator, or technology specialist, ISTE 2018 offered countless new ideas, products, and connections to be discovered.

Between extracurricular activities, classes, and increasing workloads, students have a lot on their plate. With such hectic schedules, it can be difficult to clear the outside influences and pressures to focus on the task at hand. However, the situation can be improved if habits are changed to seize the maximum out of each study session. Here are our top five tips for fast and effective learning: 

Summer is here and it’s time to kick back, relax, and unwind after a long year of teaching!

But once you’ve recharged, why not use some of your free time over the break to learn something new? Check out the selection of Quick Learn sessions being offered this month:

Over the past few years, the term “genius hour” has caught fire and become more common in classrooms. If you have heard this term before but weren’t sure what it means, here is a short primer about the topic.

The origins of genius hour are pretty simple. In Daniel Pink’s book Drive, he discusses some insightful research about motivation. He cites three key areas that are most effective in motivating people (and students): autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He asserts that traditional incentives for behavior—things like rewards and punishments—only work with certain types of tasks, like rote learning or repetitive tasks. For tasks that require depth of thinking, creativity, and problem solving, we are much more motivated by having a sense of purpose, a feeling of autonomy, and a hope of mastery.

Schools are comprised of teams, and these teams working together create the “team” that is the entire school. Although teachers are often stereotyped as preferring to work alone isolated in their classrooms, most teachers love working within a team—at least within a strong team. Weak or ineffective teams can be frustrating and potentially toxic. Because of this, the aspects of a strong team are critical for teams and leaders to know and understand.

There isn’t a step-by-step list of how to develop strong teams, but there are some universal guidelines and expectations that can help teams to become more effective. Here are some of the key ingredients for a strong team:

We made it—summer is finally here! Sometimes I feel like the Energizer Bunny throughout the year since I just keep going and going and going. While everyone is excited to have a break, it does seem like our summers keep getting shorter and shorter, so we need to make the most out of the time we have. And just like the Energizer Bunny, every battery needs a little recharging. Here are some tips to help you recharge this summer:

The school year is off to a great start and all school teams are working together without issues. Everyone has a positive attitude each and every day. Teachers leave meetings with a sense of efficacy and support all the decisions that come from administration.

Well, maybe not exactly. But we can dream, right? I have been part of 18 different school years thus far in my career, and each year is filled with highs and lows. At times, there is a positive energy in the school and the culture is great. Other times, it feels a little more like “work” and there are top-down decisions that are hard to support. 

Clayton County Public Schools and Boxlight Take Tech Transformation to New Heights

Focused on improving student outcomes and teacher efficiency, the fifth largest school district in Georgia is installing Boxlight’s innovative technology in approximately 3,200 classrooms.

Congrats, graduate—you did it! All those long nights, hard work, and blood, sweat, and tears. This is the moment you have been waiting for: College life ending and your teaching career beginning. As you get ready to enter this next phase of life, here are some tips to help you with your first year of teaching.

Cars must have gasoline to run, and in a similar way, school teams must have trust to operate effectively. In both cases, any momentum will come to a screeching halt if the “fuel” that drives the system isn’t present. 

Why does trust matter so much in schools? The answer is complex. Teachers tend to operate in their own classrooms to teach finite sets of students. We know that this isn’t always best for student learning, but it is the defacto manner in which most schools operate. School leaders know that collaboration between teachers helps to improve outcomes. When best practices are shared from classroom to classroom, teachers improve and so does student learning. But this isn’t natural for most teachers—and this is why trust is so critical.