At the end of September, McREL’s work operating the Region 11 and Region 12 Comprehensive Centers (R11CC and R12CC) through federally funded 5-year grants supporting state education agencies concluded. We’re proud of our teams and the capacity they’ve built across 7 states, and we’re honored for the opportunities to learn, work, and collaborate with so many talented educators and leaders.
One year when I was teaching, a student managed to acquire a photo of an answer key during semester finals. Through Snapchat, that answer key quickly circulated through the student body and teachers had less than 24 hours to decide what to do. They were torn about giving the test, knowing they couldn’t rely on the accuracy of the results.
The Trinity School Design Network (TSDN) project, a multiyear cohort-based principal fellowship program, is an example of the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and perseverance. In five years, the project—supported by McREL’s research and program evaluation team—survived a global pandemic, major personnel changes, funding cutbacks, and revised goals, and successfully supported a group of principals who have grown as leaders and become agents of positive change for their schools.
As graduation bells ring in U.S. schools and classes race toward the school year’s end, we’d like to take a moment to celebrate all the educators who inspire their students, families, and colleagues every day. We’re grateful for the amazing work you do and are honored for the opportunities to work alongside you.
In an article I wrote last year in Education Leadership, I posed this thought experiment: Imagine your best friend owns a restaurant that’s failing miserably, so they come to you for advice. Where would you begin? Likely, before worrying about the decor, coupons, advertising, or location, you’d start with what’s on the menu, right?
To better support its CSI and TSI schools’ improvement efforts in a systemic manner, the ND Department of Public Education reached out to the Region 11 Comprehensive Center to create an overarching plan and uniform framework to set statewide expectations and monitor if the work was resulting in real change.
In our work with schools across the U.S. and around the world, we often hear teachers say that more of their students than ever appear to be chronically disengaged from learning. Their bodies come to class, but their hearts and minds seem to be somewhere else. Perhaps it’s lingering effects of online learning during the pandemic, or the distractions of smartphones. Whatever it is, what can we do to win them back? Through our analysis of hundreds of research studies, we’ve come up with five things teachers can do to increase student engagement with their learning.
