AI, cellphones, and security – those are a few of the issues highlighted in this IEN’s scan of the predictions about education in 2025. To see the predictions for previous years, review the scans of the “looking ahead” headlines from2024, 2023,2022, 2021 part 1, 2021 part 2, and 2020. To discuss the trends and possibilities for education in the new year join Getting Smart’s annual town hall What’s Next in Learning 2025.
The education sources we follow in the US often provide predictions for schools, students, and teachers in the new year, but it’s been harder to find articles looking ahead from other parts of the world. The Ministry of Education in New Zealand, however, did offer a summary of What’s new for 2025 and the Education Review Office produced a series of best practice guides “to help educators effectively implement incoming changes for 2025.” In the US, to put developments in the new year in context, back in 2017, the National Center for Education Statistics shared Projections of Education Statistics 2025 which can be compared to their Report on the Condition of Education 2024.
Education predication from the US and around the world
“As we look forward to 2025, we hope that public schools will be a lot more conducive for learning. This means cleaner and properly ventilated classrooms, better classroom materials, and improved facilities for both teachers and students.“
“After disappointing results in maths and French tests at the 2024 rentrée, the Education Ministry announced there would be a “complete overhaul” of the curriculums for these subjects in 2025, ranging from maternelle to troisième (infant school to the fourth year of secondary).”
A girl watches during an immigrant rights workshop at Academia Avance charter school in Los Angeles in 2017.
“Education leaders should focus on integrating AI literacy, civic education, and work-based learning to equip students for future challenges and opportunities. Building social capital and personalized learning environments will be crucial for student success in a world increasingly influenced by AI and decentralized power structures.”
“K-12 schools are likely to face several challenges in 2025, including strained budgets due to the expiration of federal aid, cybersecurity threats and staffing shortages, particularly in special education. Additionally, the influx of AI in classrooms and the rise of book bans and curriculum restrictions are key trends to watch for in the upcoming year.”
“Chartwells K12 has identified 10 emerging food trends for school cafeterias in 2025, highlighting a shift toward diverse and nutritious options that align with the preferences of younger generations. Customizable bowls, inclusivity in the form of allergen-friendly and plant-based options and crunchy items are a few of the listed trends.”
“New California state laws will protect the privacy of LGBTQ+ students, ensure that the history of Native Americans is accurately taught and make it more difficult to discriminate against people of color based on their hairstyles.”
What’s in the education news as the school year begins in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere? This week, in part 2 of IEN’s annual back-to-school scan, we share the headlines from across the US and around the world that touch on issues like the costs of supplies and other materials for parents as well as teachers; hot weather and other disruptions; shortages – particularly of bus drivers in the US; and a variety of other topics. In Part 3, we will gather together some of the many stories discussing cell phone bans, particularly in the US and Canada. Last week, Part 1 of this year’s scan provided an overview of some of the many election-related education stories that have appeared in the press as students return to school Politics, Policies, and Polarization: Scanning the 2024-25 Back-To-School Headlines in the US (Part 1).
Back to school could mean back to the hot seat for Big Tech.Social media platforms TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat spent last school year embroiled in a lawsuit accusing them of disrupting learning, contributing to a mental health crisis among youth and leaving teachers to manage the fallout.When students return to class this September, experts say the clash between tech and textbooks will be reignited
Families with multiple children, in particular, are struggling to balance their budgets as they manage not only the cost of school supplies but also additional needs such as furniture and other essentials for their children.
Legislation going into effect this school year will bring changes to California campuses. One new law requires elementary schools to offer free menstrual products in some bathrooms and another requires that all students, beginning in first grade, learn about climate change.
Each of the district’s high schools was allocated at least two metal detectors to screen their students, with larger schools getting four, like Cypress Bay High School in suburban Weston, which has more than 4,700 students. But even at smaller schools, kids were stuck waiting — leaving students and parents with more than the usual first-day nerves.
For some historical perspective on how the issues have evolved since the school closures of the COVID-19 pandemic, explore the back-to-school headlines from previous years:
In this month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview, Jackie Pelota discusses the role of research in remdying education inequality. Pelota is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Educational Leadership and policy department at the University of Texas at Austin. The LtC series is produced by Elizabeth Zumpe and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A pdf of the full interview will be available on the LtC website.
Lead the Change (LtC): The 2025 AERA theme is “Research, Remedy, and Repair: Toward Just Education Renewal.” This theme urges scholars to consider the role that research can play in remedying educational inequality, repairing harm to communities and institutions, and contributing to a more just future in education. What steps are you taking, or do you plan to take, to heed this call?
Jackie Pedota (JP): At this pivotal moment, it is more crucial than ever to align our research with action and reflection, bridging the gap between theory and practice. Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, Israel’s counterattack and invasion of Gaza has led to the death of over 30,000 mostly civilian Palestinians, including young children. Students, faculty, and others across campuses have shown their support for the Palestinian people in the aftermath. These overwhelmingly peaceful campus protests took a turn for the worse in April 2024 when they were met with aggressive tactics, retaliation by administrators (e.g., withholding degrees), and police violence. On April 24th, 2024, I witnessed this police violence against students and faculty first-hand at my own campus of the University of Texas at Austin, and it was horrifying.
Students, primarily Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and other minoritized students, bravely stand at the forefront of ongoing protests, actively participating in democratic processes and demanding justice for the Palestinian people. These students work tirelessly to posit alternative futures, repair harm, and alleviate suffering. Yet, they have been met with unprecedented violence and harsh resistance from the very leaders and administrators who promised to support them–and who likely urged them to “change the world” in speeches when they first stepped onto campus at orientation. As an early career scholar and someone who aspires to hold a faculty position one day, it has been disheartening to witness this decoupling of academic researchers’ ideas from their everyday actions.
We in the Educational Change field can learn so much from these students if we listen to them. They are applying what they have learned. They are putting theory into practice to push for substantive change.
Thus, we must ask ourselves: How can we, as scholars, produce research that creates more just, equitable, and liberatory educational systems? To better align these research aims with everyday actions, I think the bare minimum we all can do is to hold space to hear from these students, taking their concerns seriously and advocating via our institutional channels for leaders to drop disciplinary charges. I also believe it is important for me to use my privilege as a scholar to uplift these students’ experiences and, in my research, draw attention to the underlying driving force behind these institutional actions—the well-funded right-wing political infrastructure that is increasingly shaping policies and practices within higher education.
“There is an urgent need to affirm, support, and empower faculty, especially faculty of color, to uphold principles of academic freedom and racial inclusion.”
In the months leading up to the 2025 AERA annual meeting, I hope to see more students, faculty, scholars, and leaders stand in solidarity. If we truly believe in higher education’s role in sustaining a multi-racial democracy, we all should be finding ways to support these students—working with, not against them. We will be working for decades to repair the trust that has been shattered for so many students at colleges and universities across the country. However, we can start this work now. At AERA and beyond, there is hope that we, as Educational Change scholars, will answer the call to produce research while actively repairing our educational systems for those who have been most marginalized by these very systems.
LtC:Your work has involved examining increasing pressures from state legislation restricting teaching and scholarship focused on race and racial inclusion in higher education. What are some of the major lessons that practitioners and scholars of Educational Change can learn from your work and experience?
JP: Currently, I am studying how faculty are changing their practices in response to a wave of legislative efforts to curtail the curriculum, research, policies, and practices focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in higher education. As of May 24th, 2024, 85 bills have been introduced to state legislatures across the country, with 14 successfully passing into law, limiting racial inclusion efforts, free expression, and academic freedom (Lu et al., 2024). Ongoing efforts spearheaded by external right-wing organizations and think tanks, like the Manhattan Institute, represent a coordinated campaign to roll back long-fought civil rights advancements within higher education via the erosion of academic freedom (Kamola, 2024).
Through interviews and observations over the last three years, my colleagues and I have found that, without adequate institutional support, many faculty change their teaching and research on race to protect themselves even when laws are not yet in effect (Pedota, 2023). In response to political and legal threats, faculty, particularly faculty of color, find themselves navigating a complex and shifting landscape with little to no guidance from senior leaders and department-level administrators (Pedota, 2023). Moreover, the communication and guidance faculty receive from higher education administration often reflect an overinterpretation of vague bill language (Reilly, 2024). This results in guidance that is more restrictive than necessary, a dynamic called repressive legalism (Garces et al., 2021). These overly cautious responses are partly driven by public university leaders fearing political backlash and funding cuts (Moody, 2023).
“Without adequate institutional support, many faculty change their teaching and research on race to protect themselves even when laws are not yet in effect.”
When faculty are left alone to interpret and respond to these legal pressures, many act from a place of self-preservation and safety to ultimately suppress racial inclusion work otherwise protected under academic freedom (Pedota, 2023). As faculty of color are the most visible of targets for potential disciplinary action or professional attacks, they feel even more pressure to change their teaching approaches, cancel courses, remove course content, and pause research (Golden, 2023). Ultimately, proposed bills targeting race scholarship and DEI work, even when not enacted into laws, are taking a psychological toll, resulting in poor working environments and the loss of faculty from impacted states (Melhado, 2023; Pedota, 2023). These curricular impacts and departures substantially threaten higher education and democracy, as faculty of color play a vital role in cultivating critical thinking, innovation, and democratic participation (Milem et al., 2005).
Thus, there is an urgent need to affirm, support, and empower faculty, especially faculty of color, to uphold principles of academic freedom and racial inclusion. It is imperative for all faculty to be in solidarity and work as a collective to leverage and uphold academic freedom. My work thus offers timely insights that will benefit faculty as they navigate the current sociopolitical context. Notably, my prior and ongoing work demonstrates the need to create long-term ongoing structures and processes to better educate not just faculty but also college-level administrators on their rights and protections under academic freedom (Pedota, 2023). Previous studies confirm faculty’s uncertainties around academic freedom, highlighting the need to specifically bolster faculty of color’s understandings and access to its rights and protections (Hutchens & Miller, 2023; Kateeb et al., 2012; Rangel, 2020).
The research also illuminates how external actors (e.g., advocacy organizations, civil rights groups, professional associations) are essential for bolstering faculty’s work. However, many faculty are unsure how to begin cultivating these connections, and faculty of color largely feel unsupported and unacknowledged by external actors’ efforts (Pedota, 2023). These external organizations should proactively work with faculty on the ground in impacted states to share information and build organizing capacity.
LtC: Your research has used participatory methods, including oral history, to examine dynamics of organizational change focused on racial equity in higher education institutions. What might practitioners and scholars take from this work to foster better school systems for all students?
JP: I have long been drawn to oral history as a methodology for transformational change. Oral history is the practice of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the unique, first-hand experiences and memories of individual people and communities involved in past events (Oral History Association, n.d.). Many organizations, like Voice of Witness, have pushed the field of oral history further with the goal to democratize storytelling, allowing communities to share their stories in their own words, illuminating contemporary issues in a deeply personal and impactful manner. This approach to oral history, which aligns most with my own, challenges harmful stereotypes, showcases the diversity of experiences, and positions those with lived experiences as experts on racial equity issues, fostering a greater understanding and empathy among listeners.
I have been involved with many local and national oral history projects over the past six years that mostly focused on the experiences of Latino/a/x individuals and communities. For instance, when the Black and Latino cultural centers at my undergraduate institution were at risk of being consolidated into one multicultural center, folks within the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program sprang into action to document and archive the rich and important histories of these spaces to combat this proposed erasure. These efforts amplified the voices of those who had experienced injustice firsthand at a predominantly white institution and underscored the essential role of these cultural centers in ensuring their histories and communities ultimately survive and thrive. In this way, deeply personal narratives, like those gathered through oral history, can be effective in highlighting and humanizing systemic issues within education.
Through my work, I have seen how oral history can promote racial equity by demonstrating storytelling as a powerful tool for social change. This approach to research promotes deeply listening to and learning from marginalized communities—communities that have been deliberately silenced or remain unheard. From my experience with the Voces of a Pandemic Oral History project through the Voces Oral History Center at the University of Texas at Austin, I learned that oral history requires an ethics-driven approach to storytelling to ensure narrators have power and choice in the storytelling process, viewing them as collaborators rather than subjects.
In this oral history project, many narrators were still processing the hardship and trauma experienced during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Listening and learning from communities in this context required me to create and maintain a safe and brave space for folks and employ a trauma-informed approach to interviewing. For instance, interviewers must be cognizant of how trauma can manifest and be vigilant as they interview narrators, providing moments to breathe and be attentive to what that person needs at that moment. Voice of Witness’s Ethical Storytelling Principles and other resources like “Say It Forward: A Guide to Social Justice Storytelling” can provide guidance on these issues, ensuring that stories are told responsibly and respectfully.
Ultimately, by using oral history to document and share powerful first-person testimonies, we can foster a more inclusive and equitable society, where the experiences and insights of those impacted by injustice are not only heard but valued and acted upon to promote change within education. As such, I believe that the many principles that undergird oral history have much to offer practitioners and scholars.
LtC:Educational Change expects those engaged in and with schools, schooling, and school systems to spearhead deep and often difficult transformation. How might those in the field of Educational Change best support these individuals and groups through these processes?
JP: Through my work with student affairs practitioners, college students, alumni, and advocacy organizations, I have learned that disrupting and transforming historically inequitable educational systems requires broad collaborative networks. It is not enough to solely work with people inside of P-20 educational systems, like students and administrators. Transformational work requires coalition building, brave leadership, and redistribution of resources to minoritized groups who remain disadvantaged by current organizational arrangements. To organize for transformational work, scholars must develop and leverage the influence and expertise of those within the broader community, such as families, community leaders, local non-profits, faith-based organizations, and national advocacy and civil rights groups.
On January 1st, 2024, both HB 1 and SB 17 went into effect in Texas, banning the use of state funds for DEI-related efforts, including designated offices, trainings, and diversity statements in faculty hiring. Within this current restrictive context, I have seen the power that the broader community can have to pressure and influence policymakers and institutional leaders. I am part of a coalition of students, alums, faculty, unions, civil rights groups, advocacy organizations, professional associations, and grassroots collectives who work across Texas to combat the legislative efforts by state policymakers to undo decades of racial progress in an increasingly diverse state. In this work, I have witnessed how establishing networks and coalitions outside of formal educational spaces allows those working within these constrained and often oppressive systems to more freely exchange ideas, share experiences, and provide mutual support. Such spaces are especially important during a time when many students, staff, and faculty are receiving little to no information. This coalition has also fostered a sense of community and collective responsibility, making advocating for educational change less challenging and more empowering by knowing you have a group of committed folks behind you.
I believe that scholars within the field of Educational Change should be seeking out and engaging in these kinds of civil rights coalitions and other similar community-based grassroots collectives. Scholars have an important role to play in such coalitions, sharing insights from their scholarship that could inform strategies and approaches for systems change. Transforming educational systems in our deeply divided and inequitable society is a long-term and ongoing process that will require fervent research-informed advocacy and activism for years to come. Ultimately, such change depends upon building a community and a critical mass of stakeholders invested in racial equity.
LtC: Where do you find hope and inspiration for the possibilities of Educational Change going forward?
JP: As someone who studies DEI efforts at this moment, I often feel like my work is a continual uphill battle just to end up in the same place I started. It requires constant effort just to hold our ground, leaving less time and energy for transformational advancements. Those who have been engaged in Educational Change work for a while likely understand these sentiments and can relate. And yet, there is always hope.
During times when Educational Change work feels particularly daunting and almost impossible, I draw hope and inspiration for grassroots activists in the South. I was born and raised in Miami and have lived in South and North Florida for most of my life. I have seen how media outlets and those on social media have characterized politics and policies in the state of Florida with little to no attention to the brave grassroots activism historically led by People of Color.
In the most difficult and dehumanizing of conditions, grassroots organizations like Dream Defenders have persevered to fight for change across Florida. Despite passed anti-DEI legislation, the folks at Dream Defenders remain steadfast in their #Cantbanus campaign, organizing school walkouts and legislative advocacy days to fight against political attacks on public education. Even within the current environment, the Dream Defenders believe change is possible. If they can believe this in the most challenging of environments, then so can I. Their efforts help me see change as a long-term project—where the movement for racial equity is about both the short and long game. The unwavering commitment of Southern activists reminds me that, despite the difficulties, our collective efforts in DEI and educational change can and will pave the way for a more equitable future.
References
Garces, L. M., Johnson, B., Ambriz, E., & Bradley, D. (2021). Repressive legalism: How postsecondary administrators’ responses to on-campus hate speech undermine a focus on inclusion. American Educational Research Journal, 58(5), 10321069.https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312211027586
Hutchens, N. H., & Miller, V. (2023). Florida’s stop WOKE act: A wake-up call for faculty academic freedom. Journal of College and University Law, 48(1).
Milem, J. F., Chang, M. J., & Antonio, A. L. (2005). Making diversity work on campus: A research-based perspective (pp.1–39). Association American Colleges and University.
Rangel, N. (2020). The stratification of freedom: An intersectional analysis of activist-scholars and academic freedom at U.S. public universities. Equity & Excellence in Education, 53(3), 365–381. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2020.1775158
This month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview features the new leaders of the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association, Patricia Virella, Tayeon Kim, Lauren Bailes, and Elizabeth Zumpe. This week IEN shares excerpts from those interviews focusing on the connections between their work and the work of the SIG and the wider field of educational change. The LtC series is produced by Elizabeth Zumpe and sponsored by the Educational Change SIG. A pdf of the full interview will be available on the LtC website.
Lead the Change Interview with Patricia Virella
Lead the Change (LtC): What are some of the ideas that you hope the field of Educational Change can learn from your work to inform practice, policy, and scholarship?
Patricia Virella (PV): Over the past year, I prioritized immersing myself in school environments, spending approximately 30 days actively engaging with students, teachers, and staff. This hands-on experience allowed me to gain profound insights into the unique challenges that students are facing in today’s educational landscape, including mental health issues, ongoing crises, and persistent inequities. Witnessing the resilience and joy demonstrated by students in the face of these challenges was incredibly inspiring. It reinforced the importance of understanding the realities of schooling in the present moment. All of us must pause and truly comprehend the current state of education before forging ahead with our plans and initiatives. This firsthand exposure has deepened my commitment to advocating for comprehensive support systems that address the multifaceted needs of students and educators alike. It has also fueled my passion for promoting holistic approaches to education that prioritize well-being and equity. I am driven to leverage these insights to inform my work and to champion initiatives that empower schools to create environments where every student can thrive.
LtC: What excites you about the field of Educational Change, and how might we further those ideas through the work of the Educational Change SIG?
PV: The idea of change is inherently exhilarating. While change often implies embracing entirely new approaches, I also ponder whether it involves a return to foundational concepts and theories that have yet to manifest their full potential, such as liberation, transformation, and experiential learning. This dual perspective prompts me to consider how we, as a collective of academics, can effectively support change that embodies the spirit of equity. I recognize that achieving equity can sometimes feel elusive, but it does not have to remain this way. My commitment to exploring the multifaceted nature of change and equity has deepened my resolve to advocate for inclusive and transformative practices within academic and institutional settings. By critically examining the intersections of change and equity, I am dedicated to fostering environments where all individuals have equal opportunities to thrive and contribute meaningfully. I am driven to channel these reflections into actionable strategies that promote systemic change and advance the realization of equity within educational and academic spheres.
Dr. Patricia M. Virella is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Montclair State University. Dr. Virella’s research focuses on implementing equity-oriented leadership through leader responses, organizational transformation and preparation. Dr. Virella also studies equity-oriented crisis leadership examining how school leaders can respond to crises without further harming marginalized communities.
Lead the Change Interview with Taeyeon Kim
LtC: What are some of the ideas that you hope the field of Educational Change can learn from your work to inform practice, policy, and scholarship?
TK: My research offers several contributions to the field of Educational Change, focusing on three main areas: revisiting policy through the voices of equity leaders, critically examining policies and systems by centering racially and linguistically marginalized communities, and promoting cross-cultural dialogue using transnational and decolonial perspectives. Given that my work was previously featured in the Lead the Change series (See the Lead the ChangeOctober issue of 2023), I would like to highlight some insights from my recent publication on leadership learning.
As a leadership educator, I view learning as a core tenet of leading educational change. My scholarship on educational leadership and policy has led me to explore how to guide meaningful learning for aspiring leaders who pursue equity and social justice. My recent work, published in the Journal of School Leadership (Kim & Wright, 2024), presents a conceptual-pedagogical framework that on guides students through emotional discomfort when learning about inequities and injustice. This research underscores the importance of emotion in learning, which can drive change at both individual and social levels. When negative emotions are not properly addressed and processed, meaningful learning cannot occur, undermining leaders’ efforts to redress inequities, injustice, and harm. However, with appropriate guidance, emotional discomfort can be a valuable source for transformative learning and changes (see Mezirow 1997). Traditional scholarship on educational change often relies on rationalistic approaches; however, my recent study emphasizes the role of emotions and the holistic aspects of learning in effecting change. It also highlights the crucial role of facilitators and educators in developing equity leaders.
Thus, my work reveals that effective leadership learning involves addressing the emotional dimensions of learning about social justice issues. By integrating these emotional and holistic aspects, educational leaders can foster more profound and lasting changes in their practice, policy, and scholarship. This approach can help prepare leaders, better equipping them to navigate and address the complex challenges of inequity and injustice in education.
LtC: What excites you about the field of Educational Change, and how might we further those ideas through the work of the Educational Change SIG?
TK: The field of Educational Change is particularly exciting due to its emphasis on partnerships and interdisciplinary approaches, and its appreciation for international perspectives. As a transnational scholar, I often notice that AERA’s discourse tends to be US-centric and predominantly features scholarly thoughts and contexts published in English. This observation underscores the importance of the Educational Change SIG’s foundations and history, as it can potentially extend the boundaries of our educational scholarship.
To advance the field, I urge educational change scholars to critically engage with issues of geopolitics, coloniality, and global whiteness (e.g., Chen, 2010; Mignolo, 2008; Leonardo, 2002) that influence knowledge creation and dissemination. When we embrace “interdisciplinary” and “international” perspectives, it is crucial to interrogate whose knowledge is being prioritized and how it is being represented.
“To advance the field, I urge educational change scholars to critically engage with issues of geopolitics, coloniality, and global whiteness.”
With our new leadership team, I aim to extend the field of Educational Change through several focuses. First, I urge the field to integrate diverse onto-epistemological understandings. The field can benefit significantly from including non-Western, indigenous, and other marginalized ways of being and thinking. By incorporating these perspectives, we can challenge the dominance of Eurocentric paradigms and enrich our understanding of educational practices and policies. Second, educational change scholars need to consider the power dynamics involved in knowledge production and dissemination. This means questioning who has access to academic platforms, whose voices are amplified, and whose are marginalized. Future activities organized by the Educational Change SIG could better support multilingual scholarship and inclusive platforms that are accessible to scholars from various regions and backgrounds, ensuring that a variety of voices are heard and valued. This will eventually promote cross-cultural and transnational collaborations. Finally, integrating critical theories such as postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and feminist theory can provide valuable lenses through which to examine and address systemic inequities in education. These theories can help scholars and practitioners understand the historical and structural factors that perpetuate educational inequalities and identify pathways to more just and equitable educational systems.
By taking these steps, the Educational Change SIG can play a pivotal role in promoting a more inclusive and globally informed approach to educational change, ensuring that the field continues to evolve and respond to the complex needs of educational communities worldwide.
Taeyeon Kim is an assistant professor in the department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her scholarship explores intersections of policy and leadership, with a particular focus on how educational leadership can challenge unjust systems and humanize educational practices to empower marginalized students and communities.The Educational Change SIG would like to acknowledge and congratulate Taeyeon Kim as the recipient of the 2024 Educational Change SIG Emerging Scholar Award. Her work was featured in the Lead the Change in October, 2023.
Lead the Change InterviewLauren Bailes
LtC: What are some of the ideas that you hope the field of Educational Change can learn from your work to inform practice, policy, and scholarship?
LB: I aim to share with the field a clear emphasis on systems change for equity, especially in the ways we think about who leaders are. My research focuses on identifying the systems, practices, and mindsets that perpetuate inequities in the careers of educational leaders. Most of my work problematizes the notion of ‘pipelines,’ especially in educational leadership and how career experiences like preparation, promotion, and evaluation are differentially distributed by race and gender (e.g., Bailes & Guthery, 2020; Bailes et al., 2023). When we consider careers to be pipelines, we might wrongly believe those pipelines are neutral, and that everyone has an equal chance of entering or flowing through the pipeline. That is fundamentally untrue: Women and People of Color, as well as people with intersectional identities, experience sorting at every career juncture, even when they are equivalently qualified relative to white or male peers. Further, these career inequities often result in adverse outcomes for faculty and students—especially faculty and students of color.
“Most of my work problematizes the notion of ‘pipelines,’ especially in educational leadership and how career experiences like preparation, promotion, and evaluation are differentially distributed by race and gender.”
A second thing I hope to share is the critical importance of partnering with current practitioners and myriad ways of incorporating their perspectives to deepen, clarify, and implement approaches to and findings of research. The profound systems changes required to shift unjust organizational practices are unlikely to come only from the academy. While research like mine can and does inform practice, I value, seek, and incorporate the perspectives of folks who have experienced injustice in their career trajectories. They are uniquely capable of showing me what I might be missing and how to better capture and learn from what they have experienced or what they know might work to change the system. I also want to be clear that there is much I am still learning from colleagues in this SIG and throughout our field. I’m looking forward to deepening those connections and bringing my own learning to bear on my research and partnership efforts to shift systems in service of equity.
LtC: What excites you about the field of Educational Change, and how might we further those ideas through the work of the Educational Change SIG?
LB: I think there is a broad appetite—among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and families—for change in education. That appetite often results in misguided and harmful movements toward neoliberalism, isolationism, or the erosion of schooling as a public good, but there may be opportunity for broad and supportive coalitions for some of the interventions, innovations, and structures that do preserve and enhance equitable and accessible education for every student.
Lauren P. Bailes is an associate professor of education leadership in the School of Education at the University of Delaware, where she is the coordinator of UD’s EdD in Educational Leadership. After teaching middle school language arts in New York City, she earned her doctorate at The Ohio State University. Now, she researches school leadership preparation, promotion, and evaluation; school organizational characteristics; and the intersection of school leadership and policy. Lauren’s favorite days are still the ones spent in schools alongside teachers and leaders.
Lead the Change Interview withElizabeth Zumpe
LtC: What are some of the ideas that you hope the field of Educational Change can learn from your work to inform practice, policy, and scholarship?
EZ: Prevailing ideas about Educational Change tend to come from scholars and policymakers who work far from the realities of schools. Too often, these ideas rest upon wildly false assumptions about existing capacities in schools, overlooking how many operate amid chronic adversity. Chronic adversity occurs when schools regularly face inadequate resources to meet their community’s needs, unproductive pressures to improve, and a lack of support for the profession. When designed from afar, educational reforms tend to presume that school challenges stem from educators’ ‘lack’ of motivation or competence and that improvement thus depends upon intensive intervention from the outside.
My research offers a different perspective: school improvement amid adversity as a struggle to develop collective agency (Zumpe, 2024). Agency is an inherent driver of human motivation and of educational improvement. But agency can become constrained when people are regularly subjected to demands for which they do not have adequate resources and experience inevitable failure.
As part of one RPP described above, I collaborated closely with a school facing challenging circumstances (Zumpe, 2024). At the start of our collaboration, we realized that our partnership’s theory of action had not considered this school’s needs and context. Across years of being labeled as ‘failing’ and facing daily struggles to ‘reach’ students and cover classrooms, the school’s leaders had tried various initiatives to improve. However, most of their efforts faltered and sputtered out, leaving conflict and cynicism behind. By their own account, the faculty struggled with the “basics” to get along well enough to launch and sustain improvement.
When the school’s leadership team invited me to help, I tried to capture their efforts to develop a foundational capability to work together to solve problems, which I called collective agency. Through participant observation with several work groups, I traced how their collective agency became enabled and what shut it down. I also launched and studied a new group using action research.
Comparing groups, I found that efforts to develop collective agency collapsed when educators faced overwhelming and complex problems for which they could see no solutions within reach. In these situations, they avoided their problems, pointed fingers at each other, and expressed a sense of helplessness that nothing could be done. On the flip side, efforts to develop collective agency surged when someone charged the group to ‘do something,’ and when this initiative was combined with a simple solution that the group felt they had the capacity to enact. In these situations, members affirmed each other, perceived the group’s potential for success, and pulled together to make progress towards addressing a problem.
These findings suggest a need for policies and reforms aimed at enabling school improvement in the ‘next level of work’ (City et al., 2010). To do this, we need to partner with educators in challenging circumstances to define and frame goals for improvement within reach and incrementally build organizational problem-solving capacity. Policymakers and scholars need to recognize educators as partners in research and development, without whom our educational system cannot remedy or repair.
LtC: What excites you about the field of Educational Change, and how might we further those ideas through the work of the Educational Change SIG?
EZ: I find hope in the growing number of education researchers seeking answers to existential questions about the role of research in education. Many educators and scholars are deeply concerned about the future of our planet and our democratic values. Looking around at the pernicious grip of racism, the fracturing of civic values, and the erosion of our public education system, many scholars are asking, how does our research relate to this? What are we – as scholars– doing about it? Out of our collective angst comes a growing willingness to expand how we think about academic research and to innovate.
I am excited by the growing number of scholars, especially early career scholars, working to build a more humanistic and justice-forward academic culture. Within our Educational Change SIG and scholarly communities working in RPPs and continuous improvement in education, I am inspired by efforts to actively build a culture in which academics care about each other as people, carry our status with humility, open ourselves to be vulnerable as learners, and treat social impact as a core value.
To further those ideas, I think the Educational Change SIG should reimagine how we organize and schedule AERA sessions with the intention involving more PK-12 practitioners. One way the SIG can do this is to develop a conference call and session formats that encourage and elevate practitioners’ voices and expertise. The SIG might consider offering sponsored conference registration awards for presenting practitioners. The SIG executive committee can also advocate with AERA to schedule specially designated conference sessions for practitioners that are held during after work hours.
I think the Educational Change SIG should support the diversification of our membership and international learning as a facilitator of cross-national and trans-global exchange. One way to do this is by furthering our existing partnerships with the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (https://www.icsei.net/about-icsei/) and journals that explicitly seek scholarship with an international perspective, including the Journal for Educational Change. I would also like to see our SIG do more to promote and support international participation in AERA and other remote events for scholarly exchange throughout the year.
Elizabeth Zumpe is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma. A former K-12 public school teacher for over a decade with National Board Certification, Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of California, Berkeley.
References
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder and Herder.
Virella, P., & Liera, R. (2024). Nice for what? The contradictions and tensions of an urban district’s racial equity transformation. Education Sciences, 14(4), 420.
Chen, K. H. (2010). Asia as method: Toward deimperialization. Duke University Press.
del Carmen Salazar, M. (2013). A humanizing pedagogy: Reinventing the principles and practice of education as a journey toward liberation. Review of Research in Education, 37(1), 121-148.
Kim, T., & Mauldin, C. (2022). Troubling unintended harm of heroic discourses in social justice leadership. Frontiers in Education, https://doi:10.3389/feduc.2022.796200
Kim, T., & Wright, J. (2024). Navigating emotional discomfort in developing equity-driven school leaders: A conceptual-pedagogical framework. Journal of School Leadership, 10526846241254050.
Leonardo, Z. (2002). The souls of white folk: Critical pedagogy, whiteness studies, and globalization discourse. Race Ethnicity and Education, 5(1), 29–50. doi:10.1080/13613320120117180
Mezirow J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1997(74), 5–12.
Mignolo, W. D. (2008). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. In M. Moraña, E. Dussel & C. Jáuregui (Ed.), Coloniality at large: Latin America and the postcolonial debate
Bailes, L. P., Ahmad, S., Saylor, M., & Vitale, M. N. (2023). Quality or control: High-needs principals’ perceptions of a PSEL-based evaluation system. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 18(4), 622-648.
Bailes, L. P., & Guthery, S. (2020). Held down and held back: Systematically delayed principal promotions by race and gender. Aera Open, 6(2), 2332858420929298.
City, E. A., Elmore, R. F., Fiarman, S. E., & Teitel, L. (2009). Instructional rounds in education (Vol. 30). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
J., & Steup, L. (2021). Research-practice partnerships in education: The state of the field. William T. Grant Foundation.
Mintrop, R., & Zumpe, E. (2019). Solving real life problems of practice and education leaders’ school improvement mind-set. American Journal of Education, 125(3), 295-344.
Mintrop, R., Zumpe, E., Jackson, K., Nucci, D.,& Norman, J. (2022). Designing for deeper learning: Challenges in schools and school districts serving
What’s changing in the China’s education system? What might change in the future? Those are some of the questions that Thomas Hatch asked Yong Zhao about in preparation for a visit to China last month. Zhao was born in China and now works all over the world, including in China, exploring the implications of globalization and technology on education. In part two of this interview, Zhao offers his impressions of recent changes in addressing students’ mental health and discusses the broader context of the Chinese education system and some of the challenges and opportunities for changes in the future. In the first part of the interview, Zhao shared his observations about some of the educational innovations he’s seen, and he’s been involved in China.
Thomas Hatch (TH): In the first part of our conversation, you shared a number of examples some new schools and educational developments in China. In other places like Finland, the US, and even in places like Vietnam and Singapore, I’ve also seen more attention to students’ mental health. Have you seen any initiatives related to supporting students’ healthy development or mental health and well-being in China?
Yong Zhao (YZ): I think that is happening because they’re adding more psychiatrists, more psychologists or “psychological teachers” to schools. Those never existed in China until recent years. So that’s a beginning. But also, traditionally, teachers of Chinese have had a responsibility for psychological support, though they may not have specific training for it. But the approach in Chinese culture is also different from the western way of constructing psychological and mental well-being. In the West, I think we sometimes misunderstand psychological issues because we just describe them, we measure them, we test them. And we have a handbook that defines what’s considered mental health. I’m quite worried about this. Is this a good thing to do?
It’s similar with what’s considered special education in China. Asian countries definitely have a very different definition. There the term applies primarily to those who have a major disability. But now the Western movement of attending to ADHD and learning differences is slowly spreading, though they are not being addressed in schools.
TH: When you say you think that the approach to psychological well-being and health is different in China, how would you describe it?
YZ: First, I’m not a researcher in that area, so I cannot describe it, but I’m very worried about the Western definition going into China and getting applied in that cultural context. I’ve always worried about what is China and what is the Western way of doing things? I’m struggling with this.
Yong Zhao
But one thing I want to emphasize is people always think I’m critical of China, but I’ve said, “I’m critical of everybody.” This is very important. I don’t think anyone has got it right. If someone had it right, we could retire. And some people say, “you’re pro- America.” And the truth is, I’m more critical of American education than other places. I think there is an interesting question about whether the Western way is the right way of doing this. when you think about well-being, I’m not sure because when you look you can see there is widespread misuse of special education, misuse of mental health issues, and I think there are a lot of problems that arise with psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Many things are happening
“I’m critical of everybody. This is very important. I don’t think anyone has got it right. If someone had it right, we could retire.“
TH: One of my goals is to understand what’s changing within a Chinese context and to think about the cultural, economic, and geographical conditions or “affordances” and what they can tell us about the possibilities of educational change. Can you give us your sense of the Chinese conception of development overall and the purposes and aims that underlie Chinese education?
YZ: Right now, I think China is quite misunderstood. People are easily influenced by media stories. You and I started this conversation talking about how schools don’t change, but like Larry Cuban has said, changes are like a breath on the window in the wintertime. You breathe on the window, and something happens, but then you’re gone, and it’s gone. We need to keep that in mind. Schools do not change, but they’re always changing. This is what I love about it. It’s happening all the time. Every week, for example, I receive emails from someone who is discussing innovation somewhere. Innovation is still there. But how come most schools don’t change? But schools actually do change because they do little things. When you refer back to the grammar of schooling, the grammar in schools hasn’t changed in a long time. But at the same time, there are activities that are changing. So, we need to consider how big a change is a change. That’s another thing to think about.
“Schools don’t change, but they’re always changing. This is what I love about it. It’s happening all the time. Every week, for example, I receive emails from someone who is discussing innovation somewhere. Innovation is still there. But how come massive schools don’t change?“
We also have to think about the diversity of the student population and who is benefiting from doing what. That’s another thing we normally don’t talk about. We talk about education innovation for all students, but not necessarily everybody benefits from the same allocation of time. I’ve not written this yet, but I’m working on this now. Another reason education doesn’t change is that whenever you change a school, you change the entire school, but the needs of the local community are always diverse. Whatever you change it into becomes a monopoly, so you never meet everyone’s needs. What I’m trying to do is to say schools should build many schools within a school, so you actually have diversity, allowing certain schools to grow within your school to meet the needs of the community. That’s my recent theory; trying to go in that direction.
TH: Your comments about change and the grammar of schooling are fascinating because the “grammar” hasn’t changed, but only if you look back within the modern, industrial era. Because if you think back beyond 100 or 120 years — if you go back far enough – some key aspects of schooling have definitely changed. So, it’s a question of perspective. If today, instead of trying to produce changes that we’re going to see tomorrow, we’re actually looking ahead to 40 or 50 years, we might be much more successful if we can be strategic in terms of enabling schools to shift over the long-term. As you look ahead and think about what could or what might happen in terms of Chinese education, do you see ways that it is changing or that it could change in the future?
YZ: What is going to happen in China? First of all, in any foreseeable future, China will not drop the Gaokao, the national exam to select students for university. The Chinese people value college credentials very much. I used to joke about how much Chinese love credentials. Even if they don’t know how to drive, they want to buy a driver’s license, they just want that damn thing. So that will not change. But the Chinese government has been trying very hard to adjust the numbers of students going to high schools and universities and to vocational high schools. Now, at the end of 9th grade, the students are divided into two groups by the Gaokao. It’s like the German system used to be. The highest scorers on the test go to the general high school and then they go to college. Another group goes to the vocational, technical high school, and then you go to the workforce. There’s a lot of problems with that, and right now they’ve changed the quotas so that more students are supposed to be sent to vocational schools. So, they’re trying to adjust that.
But my view is this. I think I wrote in my book “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon” that in China, the big problem is that no matter what you do, people will think there is always one best college – for example, Tsinghua or Peking University – and you can only take in so many kids no matter what you do. So, no matter how you change the exam, there are only so many kids who can go in. That is a huge problem. So, the Gaokao will dominate for a long time, and you will have a lot of kids dropping out of the education system before 9th grade if they’re not getting on the path to the best universities. It’s just that, basically, there’s no point to stay in the system. So, that’s not going to change.
What is going to change? Is after school, weekends. I also think that because of the access to technology and the quick spread of AI, you will have a group of students who, in a sense, are already pre-selected to get into general high schools and to prepare for the colleges. But you will also have a lot of students who have decided “I’m not going to college. I can’t go to college.” Those places with those students might see some changes, and those schools that have those students are not visited and are not understood by people. You know, if you go to a county level, they have high schools, and those high schools don’t have the best students because the best students have been sent to the provincial capital. I don’t think people understand the experiences of those kids who aren’t going to college, what their life is, and you might see some significant changes in those places.
“If you go to a county level, they have high schools, and those high schools don’t have the best students because the best students have been sent to the provincial capital. I don’t think people understand the experiences of those kids who aren’t going to college, what their life is, and you might see some significant changes in those places.”
TH: That’s fascinating, and it connects with Clayton Christensen’s notion that disruptive innovation emerges when there are people who are unserved, and I think you’re identifying in China that there are students who in a sense are not served by their schools or colleges. It could be fascinating to see what might develop there, particularly given the development of technologies and the spread of internet and AI.
YZ: There’s another thing that will affect China a lot, and that’s the drop-in birth rate. Right now, China is graduating over 11,000,000 college students, but the birth rate last year in China was closer to 9 million. As a result, a lot of elementary schools and kindergartens are closing because they don’t have enough students. But now there are groups of private colleges, smaller colleges, and they’re actually trying very hard to get kids in because that’s how they make money. Imagine what would happen if you opened all those places and take in every kid into college?
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.
What’s changing in China’s education system? What might change in the future? Those are some of the questions that led Thomas Hatch to spend almost a month in China this spring. In preparation for that visit, he talked with Yong Zhao to get his perspective on what’s been happening in education in China in the past few years. Zhao was born in China and now works all over the world, including in China, exploring the implications of globalization and technology on education. In the first part of this two-part post, Zhao shares his observations about some of the educational innovations he’s seen in China and about some of the work he’s been involved in there. In part two, Zhao offers his impressions of recent changes in addressing students’ mental health and discusses the broader context of the Chinese education system and some of the challenges and opportunities for changes in the future.
Thomas Hatch (TH): You’ve written extensively about China in the past, but I’m particularly interested in what’s happening in the Chinese education system over the last few years. Are you seeing some innovations or changes in classrooms and schools in China since the COVID-19 pandemic and the school closures?
Yong Zhao (YZ): I think there’s a huge hunger for innovation in China. Let me give you an example. I was just talking to a group of school principals and heads of the Education Commission in the Chaoyang District in Beijing. It’s the largest district in Beijing, and it’s where most of the embassies and many foreign companies are located. We were planning to do a summer camp for students from different countries based on my education philosophy, which is very much child-centered, focused on uniqueness, personalization, project-driven instruction, and problem-solving. We wanted to make the camp very big, involving kids from different countries, and they were open to the idea. Alongside the camp, we planned to organize learning festivals to discuss topics like artificial intelligence and what I call “Re-globalization.”
We started this conversation in January, and the issue is that very few schools outside China are willing to send their students and teachers here at the moment, so we’re planning to do it next year. But this kind of summer camp is something I began working on before COVID, in May 2018 in Chongqing. Every year since, we’ve been running similar innovative programs in the summer. Even during COVID, we tried it out. The first year in Chongqing, we had students from US schools, Australian and British schools, with hundreds of students and teachers staying in the same dorms, interacting.
In addition, in the public schools in Chongqing, we have students enrolled in a special course I helped design called ICEE, which stands for innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship education. It’s expanding in the public schools even though students have to pay extra to participate, which shows that parents and schools are interested in it. Beijing Academy is another school that is particularly innovative. I was partially responsible for co-designing that school. We formed a global advisory group, including people like Richard Elmore and Kurt Fischer and Ron Beghetto. It was an international collaboration. They built a brand-new school based on our advice. It just celebrated its 10th anniversary in Beijing. Now they have over 9 or 10 campuses.
I think this shows that many parents and students and teachers actually want change. You cannot make massive changes like, for example, saying, let’s forget about the major policies like the double reduction policy, but many people are still trying to find ways to change. It also shows that working in the Chinese education system might be one of the most difficult things in the world. On the one hand, you have to do this. On the other hand, you have to do that. But ultimately, your school’s reputation matters, and innovation as a school leader in China is crucial.
“I think working in the Chinese education system might be one of the most difficult things in the world. On the one hand, you have to do this. On the other hand, you have to do that. But ultimately, your school’s reputation matters, and innovation as a school leader in China is crucial”
TH: So, on the one hand, you can’t do anything, but on the other hand, you have to do something…
YH: Yes, exactly. It’s fascinating. I’m puzzled by this system, you know? Right now, I’m getting older. When I was younger, I didn’t really think a lot about it, but I cannot think of how human societies can be organized like that. You cannot do anything, but you have to do something. It’s a fascinating way to think about it, isn’t it?
TH: It is! But if we step back for a second and try to characterize what’s happening with educational innovation overall right now, my understanding is that the education ecosystem in China has contracted. There were more innovative schools and smaller schools starting, more tutoring programs, more after-school programs. But now, following the school closures and the double reduction policy, in a sense, this seems to be period of consolidation. People I’ve talked to say it’s not a prime time for innovation. Is that the way you see it? (For more on the double reduction policy see “Surprise, Controversy, and the “Double Reduction Policy” in China” and “China reiterates implementation of ‘double reduction’ policy”)
YZ: Yes, your description is right from a general, outside perspective. You can see the contractions. Even the Gaokao has become more nationalized. It was decentralized, with some differences across regions, but it’s gotten more centralized. Now they’re all saying they are using the national tests and very few provinces use their own. The curriculum has become more centralized too with more centrally required courses and teaching materials. But honestly, I think the beauty of the Chinese ecosystem is that, at the same time, children are children, and parents understand that their children, growing up, need innovative education.
They do see the power of artificial intelligence, and AI is becoming more prevalent. They also see new geopolitical conflicts, or what I call “re-globalization.” China always has this happening, and what’s underground is different. Yes, some international schools have closed, and private schools are becoming public. But at the same time, public schools have to become more innovative. The desire for innovation is always there. It’s bubbling up everywhere, but it’s happening. Many local schools have to think about innovation, and even the government, if you look at the most recent speech by the Minister of Education, talks a lot about AI. They are thinking about it in every part of teaching and teacher training. I don’t know how well it’s been implemented, because it’s still very new, but the same is true in the US. China also issued a call last year for schools that were willing to be part of experiments with AI in education. The central government awarded several hundred of these grants to create pilot sites and to spread the message to other places. So, it’s a lot more complex in China than what many people think. The whole system is evolving.
“Yes, some international schools have closed, and private schools are becoming more public. But at the same time, public schools have to become more innovative. The desire for innovation is always there…it’s a lot more complex in China than what many people think. The whole system is evolving.”
TH: Despite that, have you seen some schools or initiatives or afterschool programs or other things that you think are particularly interesting or innovative in the Chinese context?
YZ: In the book Let the Children Play, Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle described an approach in the Zhejiang Province near Shanghai that developed genuine playhouses for preschool and kindergarten (Anji Play). It was really play-driven, play-based, and it started in one kindergarten and then it spread around the whole province. It wasn’t country-wide, but it was a model recognized by the Chinese Ministry of Education, and they began to promote it across the country. I don’t know how it’s going now, but that is something that I think it’s definitely worth looking at.
There are also a number of schools that are trying to do something different. The Beijing City International School just had me visit for three days. Their student population is over 90% Chinese students, and they are struggling with the fact that parents have invested significant amounts of money, expecting their children to attend prestigious universities like Harvard and Columbia. But they also want to change, so they had me over to discuss transitioning to personalized education. Whenever someone has me presenting, they are willing to be challenged.
The Beijing National Day School and a couple of other public schools are also known for being innovative. Another interesting school is the one called #80 Secondary School in Beijing. I was just there, and I was impressed. If you are a good student in some areas, then you don’t have to take certain courses. They would allow you to explore on your own, which shocked me. It’s a Chinese government high school, and it’s quite powerful.
Thomas Hatch: Coming from Teachers College, where there’s a history of connection with China through John Dewey’s visits, I’m fascinated to see that there has been a long-term interest in China in progressive education. As I began to get ready for my trip, I’ve realized there are a number of educators in China over the years, who have become very well known for being innovative and supporting innovative education. Can you talk about any of those enduring traditions related to alternative education?
Yong Zhao: It’s a very interesting question. But first of all, let’s not underestimate the power of the Gaokao – the college entrance examination. Similar pressure is widespread, happening not only in China but also in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Let’s not forget that the Gaokao and the imperial exam tradition, dominates and controls parents’, students’, and teachers’ minds. But continuously, there has been talk about change in China, and I’ve found that the conversation about needing a different kind of student from the “Gaokao type” has never stopped. It’s always been there.
Even in the 1950s, Mao was very against the Gaokao exam. Regardless of who he was or what he is – I’m not debating that – he was actually very innovative in education. Ideologically, he never really wanted exams. During the Cultural Revolution, people think he destroyed the Chinese education system. But on the other hand, he was basically saying education does not need to be so pedantic, does not need to be traditional and academic in an ivory tower. He started education in my village. That’s how I went to school. He said education needs to be shorter. It only has to be 10 years and it can happen in rural villages or in factories. If you think about that, that’s very much the progressive tradition. But the long tradition of using exams to select government officials has also always stayed in the Communist education philosophy, and the tradition of using exams to select and reward people is a long-standing cultural problem.
Next Week: Schools do not Change, But They’re Always Changing: A Conversation with Yong Zhao on the Evolution of the Chinese Education System (Part 2)
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.
This week IEN discusses the evolution of the Olympia Schools, founded as a small kindergarten in 2003 by Ms. Minh An Pham and several other parents. Since that time, Olympia has grown to encompass a kindergarten and a primary, middle, and high school with a combined enrollment of 1,200 on a common campus in Hanoi. The post is based on a conversation between Thomas Hatch and Minh An Pham (Co-founder, Board of Directors), Quoc DanTran (Head Of Mathematics Department, Vice-head of Academic Council), Dr.Thuc AnhVo (Head of Foreign Languages Department; English teacher),and Thanh HaLe (Head of Science & Technology Department).
The power of love, dissatisfaction, and determination
The founding and development of the Olympia Schools is a familiar but inspiring story. The story begins with love and a deep belief in education. It requires some money or material resources but relies on determination, connections, and social capital. Along the way, success builds on a whole series of critical decisions – and sometimes “fortunate accidents” – that contribute to micro-innovations and adaptations that make it possible for the school to find a supportive community and create the conditions where alternative approaches to education can take root.
Dream House 2003
The story of the Olympia School begins in 2003 in Hanoi, when Ms. Minh An Pham and three of her friends were looking for kindergartens for their children. It was almost ten years since the Vietnamese government had begun loosening some requirements related to education and other sectors. Economic development was in full swing, and more and more international companies were finding their way to Vietnam. All four friends got jobs at one of those international companies and Ms. Pham told me that experience gave them opportunities to see the confidence and independence of their co-workers’ children. That exposure reinforced their concern that – although many Vietnamese students excel in academics – they often seemed to lack what she called “life skills.” As Ms. Pham put it, it seemed as if Vietnamese students had lost their confidence in speaking up and sharing their ideas. She attributed that to a school system based on a Confucian education tradition that emphasized memorization, examination, and respect for teachers, coupled with a tendency for Vietnamese parents to constantly compare how their children were doing and how they ranked academically.
With a growing international community and increasing opportunities for international work, Ms. Pham and her friends wanted to make sure that their children gained both academic and life skills and that their children could learn English along with Vietnamese. When they looked around to find a school that could meeting those goals, however, they did not see any public kindergartens that met these criteria. There were a few private options that Ms. Pham and her friends thought seemed more like day-care centers than schools, and there was one private kindergarten imported from Singapore. But even that – very expensive – option only ran from 9 – 3 PM, still not long enough to take care of their children while the four women worked. Seeing no other options, the four friends began to think about creating a kindergarten of their own.
With a growing international community and increasing opportunities for international work, Ms. Pham and her friends wanted to make sure that their children gained both academic and life skills and that their children could learn English along with Vietnamese.
The power of social networks
Their first steps toward developing a school came with the help of another colleague at work. Although Ms. Pham had graduated from a teacher training institution in Vietnam, she went straight into the business world after graduation. As a consequence, she had never worked in schools and was not that familiar with early childhood education. But, Ms. Pham told me, the four friends were fortunate to work with a woman whose mother was a well-known educator who specialized in kindergarten. As Ms. Pham described it, “she was our first teacher,” and introduced the four friends to a number of educational experts who helped them learn about other early childhood approaches, including the “Reggio approach” that originated in Reggio Emilio, Italy. As they visited local schools and traveled to observe private kindergartens in places like Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore, they focused more and more on schools that emphasized “developmentally appropriate practice” as well as some schools that were inspired by Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. On the one hand, Ms. Pham explained, these approaches provided broad support for children’s development and encouraged children to be independent. On the other hand, they also fit well with the Vietnamese national kindergarten curriculum. Notably, the national curriculum was already divided into areas that concentrated on physical, musical, and ethical development, and the four friends felt those subjects aligned well with the different strengths and abilities highlighted in theory of multiple intelligences.
They expanded their group of advisors as they were introduced to more and more people, including several working with not-for-profits like Save the Children, who had extensive experience in Vietnam. Those advisors looked at the plans to combine MI-based and developmentally appropriate curriculum with the Vietnamese national curriculum and concluded: “this is doable.” With that green light, Ms. Pham bought textbooks and gathered teaching materials and, with the help of their network of experts, reviewed and aligned them with the national curriculum. They rented a small house in an alley of Hanoi and worked with a designer to renovate it; they drew on the connections and expertise of their advisors to recruit and hire teachers; and, after an intense six months, opened their doors to the “Dream House” kindergarten and welcomed a small group of six students – four children of their own and two children who lived nearby. To make it all possible, Ms. Pham worked the evening shift at her job and spent the whole morning at the kindergarten.
Key developments in the first years
The four friends were fortunate to have the means and the relationships to get the school off the ground, but, as Ms. Pham explained, they also had to credit their houses to the bank, draw on their salaries to make sure they had enough money to pay the teachers, and “every time a student quit the school, we worried so much that we would not have enough money to keep going…” Nonetheless, the school grew year-by-year, from 6 students to 12 students, from 20 students to 60, as the first cohort expanded and progressed through the grades.
Dream House Primary and Secondary Schools 2007
By 2007, they were able to start the year with both a group of primary school students and a group of secondary school students. Along the way, several key decisions helped to create the time in the day and the space in the curriculum that they needed to stay true to their original vision of a developmentally based, holistic, education aligned with the national curriculum. First, they decided to teach Vietnamese and English in an integrated way. As Ms. Pham explained, she had seen private schools in Ho Chi Minh City that were teaching English, but only as a separate subject. “Our innovation,” Ms. Pham said, “was to teach English along with the other subjects.” That meant teaching key skills and concepts in math, science, and history in Vietnamese and then teaching the related English vocabulary in the same class. This innovation created space in their schedule because they did not have to find time to teach a separate English course. Furthermore, the subject teachers teaching in Vietnamese could co-teach with their colleagues teaching English, making coordination and communication easier. Perhaps most importantly, from the students’ perspectives, instead of having to make connections between concepts and vocabulary taught in different classes, they encountered an integrated curriculum that reduced confusion.
“Our innovation,” Ms. Pham said, “was to teach English along with the other subjects.” That meant teaching key skills and concepts in math, science, and history in Vietnamese and then teaching the related English vocabulary in the same class.
Second, although Vietnamese public schools generally ran for a half-day (usually from about 7:30 AM to 12 PM, 6 days a week), Dream House decided to run a full-day program, from 8 AM – 4:30 PM. That decision created additional time during the school day that allowed them to meet the national curriculum requirements, add and integrate the teaching of English, and incorporate the teaching of their own “life skills” curriculum. In particular, the national curriculum requirements for social science included both ethics and society and nature, but Dream House chose to split social science up by teaching nature during their science classes and then teaching ethics and society in their life skills class. As Ms. Pham put it, “we reconfigured all the subjects in the school day and made it a comprehensive approach, integrating Vietnamese and English.”
Movement games of kindergarten in Dream House
With those critical decisions and strategic choices, the basic structures for their primary, middle, and high school were in place. Capping off this period of development, what began as Dream House, moved to a new, larger campus in 2010. As part of a competition to come up with a new name, the Olympia School was born, the winning teacher paper declaring it a symbol for wisdom and success.
Next week: The “School of Change”: The Olympia School Story (Part 2)
This week, IEN explores what instructional coaching with teachers look like from “micro-“ and “macro-perspectives.” This post is the first in a series featuring excerpts of interviews with presenters participating in the Educational Change Special Interest Group sessions at the upcoming Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association in Philadelphia in April. This post includes presenters from the session titled: “A Roundtable Discussion to Examine a Synthesis of Micro- to Macro-level Coaching Research.” These interviews are part of the Lead the Change series produced by AERA’s Educational Change Special Interest Group. The full interviews can be found on the LtC website. The LtC series is produced by Alex Lamb.
The Micro-level Work of Coaching: Examining the Content and Purpose of Coach-Teacher Interactions — Lynsey Gibbons, University of Delaware, Abby Reisman, University of Pennsylvania
LtC: The 2024 AERA theme is Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action. How does your research respond to this call?
Lyndsey Gibbons & Abby Reisman (LG & AR): Instructional coaching has been widely utilized as a strategy both for school reform and improving learning opportunities for students by providing teachers with ongoing, job-embedded professional learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017). Instructional coaches are uniquely positioned to assist teachers to develop justice-oriented teaching that works toward transforming personal and power relationships in classrooms, as well as support them to interrogate the larger policies and practices of schooling (Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008). One way coaches do this is through supporting teachers to understand and respond to the roles of language, identity, culture, and power in learning (Baldinger, 2017; Marshall & Buenrostro, 2021). Coaches can also support teachers to interrogate policies and practices and make changes when they produce inequities or cause harm.
Lyndsey Gibbons (left) & Abby Reisman (right)
The larger theory of action of instructional coaching rests on resources that are made available to teachers through social interactions with coaches (Coburn & Russell, 2008). Coaching is job-embedded in nature, and coaches can take an active role in the work of teaching. As such, coaches can orchestrate professional interactions that make visible the complex reasoning work in justice-oriented teaching (Saclarides & Munson, 2021), such as considering when to ask a student to revoice another student’s contribution and the implications of such a choice. Professional discourse is central to how teachers learn and shapes what they have an opportunity to learn (Lefstein et al., 2020). Professional discourse is essential for productive discussions about justice-oriented teaching and learning because it allows teachers and coaches to name critical aspects of instructional practice and student learning. Coaches can help establish professional discourse to name aspects of teaching and help make it visible to teachers.
Professional discourse is essential for productive discussions about justice-oriented teaching and learning.
Particular features of social interactions can be more or less conducive to accessing appropriate resources and creating a normative environment that supports and enables change in teachers’ instructional practices. In our session, we will explore the features of coach-teacher interactions that provide productive learning opportunities to teachers. For example, we found that history teachers whose coaches focused on posing open-ended questions and anticipating students’ responses grew more in their discussion facilitation than teachers whose coaches focused on historical thinking skills. Identifying features of coach-teacher interactions is critical to supporting the professional learning of coaches, as well as researching the effectiveness of coaching. Guiding questions for our roundtable discussion include: How can coach-teacher interactions be shaped to consider how to dismantle racial injustice in the classroom and beyond? How do coaches’ orientations toward teacher learning and toward justice influence their interactions with teachers? We then will consider how we might craft a research agenda moving forward that attends to examining coaching interactions that support teacher learning.
LtC:What are some of the ideas you hope the field of Educational Change and the audience at AERA can learn from your work related to practice, policy, and scholarship?
In this session, we are intentionally bringing together scholars who study teacher learning, instructional coaching practice, and policies that impact coaching. By design, we will be examining practice and policies around coaching, as well as consider future directions for scholarship. The workgroup will break into three smaller groups to grapple with the logics, conceptualizations, and visions that shape their work researching coaching. The smaller groups will identify research gaps and consider new approaches. For example, a gap that might be identified is how coaches can help teachers attend to students’ identities and strengths as they plan for and enact instruction, as well as how coaches can help teachers learn to navigate the social and political dimensions of teaching (Marshall & Buenrostro, 2021). We then will come back together as a whole workgroup to synthesize discussions across domains to consider future, potentially collaborative, research agendas. We hope this session will be the genesis of long-term conversations organizing scholars who study coaching. Stemming from these initial conversations could be considerations for a special issue in a journal or creating a practitioner-facing document informing policies around coaching.
Widening Our Lens to Consider Coaching Models and Programs: The Benefits and Challenges of Programmatic Thinking — Jacy Ippolito, Salem State University, Rita M. Bean, University of Pittsburgh
Lead the Change (LtC):The 2024 AERA theme is Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action. How does your research respond to this call?
Jacy Ippolito & Rita M. Bean (JI & RMB): Our joint work has traditionally focused on the roles, responsibilities, and impact of instructional coaches (and literacy coaches specifically) across grade levels and school settings. In our latest book (Ippolito & Bean, 2024), we propose a new framework for understanding and synthesizing coaching research findings. The framework is an initial response to the Kraft et al. (2018) meta-analysis call to identify effective elements of coaching programs with simultaneous attention paid to both specific instructional practices and larger school and district contexts. Towards this end, our Content and Context Framework (CCF) for coaching reframes the notion of effective coaching. Instead of thinking of coaching success as solely the product of individual coaches’ work, we instead detail the ways in which coaching efficacy may be more accurately described as the alignment of instructional content with coaching programs and processes, all within a supportive school and district context.
Jacy Ippolito (left) & Rita M. Bean (right)
This more content- and context-dependent way of thinking about coaching success paves the way for coaches, teachers, and leaders to identify more clearly the ways in which issues of equity, diversity, and racial justice are influenced by coaching in schools. If coaching work is unable to influence the instructional core by creating more equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students, then we might be hard-pressed to say that the coaching program is successful. Likewise, if school and district contexts (i.e., leadership structures, coaching policies, systematic evaluations of coaching) are unable to fully support a coaching program that has diversity and equity as a core mission, again we might be unable to call a coaching program entirely successful.
If coaching work is unable to influence the instructional core by creating more equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students, then we might be hard-pressed to say that the coaching program is successful.
As we have begun to look across the past ten years of coaching research (Bean & Ippolito, 2023)—literacy coaching specifically, as well as research on instructional coaching more broadly—we found very few studies to date address content, coaching, and context simultaneously (e.g., Galey-Horn, 2020; Zoch, 2015). If alignment of these three domains is what we hypothesize may provide the best opportunities to address issues of equity and to dismantle racial injustice in classrooms, then we must incentivize future coaching researchers to attend carefully to content, coaching, and context together in larger-scale studies. Implications of this work are far-ranging, from influencing future research to shifting the ways that coaching programs are constructed, refined, and evaluated over time.
LtC: What are some of the ideas you hope the field of Educational Change and the audience at AERA can learn from your work related to practice, policy, and scholarship?
JI & RMB: Instructional coaching has long been heralded as a gold standard for job-embedded professional learning for educators (Kraft et al., 2018). At its best, coaching is: personalized; responsive to teachers’ needs; attentive to school and district needs; sensitive to students’ unique learning successes and challenges; and implemented over long periods of time to help teachers shift instructional practices in meaningful ways. However, coaching research suggests that many coaching programs do not quite live up to their promise of supporting broad and deep changes in teaching and learning.
Our Content and Context Framework (CCF) for coaching suggests that part of the reason that many coaching programs do not fully succeed is due to a misalignment or inattention to content, coaching, and context simultaneously. For example, when all three elements are aligned, coaches can provide content-specific guidance to teachers that furthers schools’ and districts’ goals while simultaneously supporting teachers’ own identified needs. In cases where content, coaching, and context are misaligned, coaches and teachers’ work may run counter to school and district goals, and/or school or district needs (e.g., for coaches to step in as classroom substitutes) may subvert coaching work completely. A number of implications arise from our framework’s suggestion that coaching success results from the alignment of purpose and practices across content, coaching, and context.
For researchers, the implications of this framework include conducting studies that focus equally on classroom-level teaching and learning, coaching practices, and school/district contextual factors. Smaller-scale studies of individual coaches and/or coaching programs can be mined for guidance on the direction and questions of larger-scale longitudinal studies and meta-analyses. Future coaching research, regardless of scale, may best serve the field by always including: (a) data collected from and about teachers’ and students’ work in classrooms; (b) coaching practices and collaborations with both teachers and leaders; and (c) information collected from/about school and district leaders, school/district policies, and related coaching and professional learning initiatives. Such comprehensive research on coaching work—attending equally to content, coaching, and context—is what the field most needs to support future policy and practice.
For U.S. policymakers, implications include providing better guidance to schools, districts, and states about the interdependence of content, coaching, and context. Coaching guidance can no longer be provided as if content- and context-factors were neutral or irrelevant. Based on emerging content- and context-specific coaching research (e.g., Hannan & Russell, 2020), policymakers may be better equipped to provide funding and guidance to support the success of coaching practices best suited to different disciplinary initiatives (e.g., coaching practices within literacy vs. math initiatives) and different contexts (e.g. within large urban school districts vs. smaller rural districts). Ultimately, we must move away from one-size-fits-all policies for coaching, and instead move towards more nuanced content- and context-dependent guidance.
Finally, for practicing coaches and leaders, our framework suggests that the development, refinement, and evaluation of coaching programs must consider the alignment (or misalignment) of content, coaching, and context. This suggests that teachers, coaches, and leaders must partner even more closely to define coaching roles, responsibilities, and routines. School and district leaders must work with coaches to develop role descriptions, coaching schedules, and menus of service that are content- and context-specific. Finally, coaches and teachers must develop common communication and collaboration practices that are content- and context-specific, to meet teachers’ and students’ needs most effectively.
The 30,000 Foot View: Mapping the Institutional Landscape of Coaching — Sarah L. Woulfin, University of Texas at Austin
Lead the Change (LtC): The 2024 AERA theme is Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action. How does your research respond to this call?
Sarah L. Woulfin (SLW): My research responds to this year’s AERA theme by paying close attention to how infrastructure and leadership shape instructional reform efforts in ways that exacerbate—or disrupt—inequities in educational organizations. For instance, my research on the policies and practices of coaching has explored how district and school leaders structure and conceptualize coaching as a tool for reaching equity-oriented objectives. I’m currently co-facilitating professional development sessions for principals and coaches on equity-oriented coaching. And my research on the implementation of turnaround reform considers how school leaders promote curriculum use to improve outcomes for Black and Brown students.
Dr. Sarah L. Woulfin
The daily practices of leaders and teachers can ‘add up’ to make significant changes.
LtC: What are some of the ideas you hope the field of Educational Change and the audience at AERA can learn from your work related to practice, policy, and scholarship?
SLW: One major branch of my work addresses the role of people in the implementation of education policy. In particular, the daily practices of leaders and teachers can “add up” to make significant changes. I hope the AERA and Educational Change audiences devote more attention to the power of and possibilities for individuals to catalyze crucial change to improve schools and communities. Additionally, the field should consider how to support the policy knowledge development of educators ranging from district leaders and principals to coaches and teachers. That is, how do we ensure that all educators hold the capacity to analyze and ask needed questions about reforms they are experiencing.
LtC: What excites you about the direction of the field of Educational Change, and how might we share and develop those ideas at AERA 2024?
SLW: I am excited about the ways the Educational Change field is examining a wide array of policies and programs, including discipline, attendance, school counseling, and EdTech in addition to accountability-oriented and instructional reforms. I believe this points to the utility of an Educational Change perspective for analyzing numerous aspects of districts and schools. And I encourage featuring scholarship that expands our understanding of educational change while looking at diverse reform efforts.
References (Gibbons & Reisman):
Baldinger, E. M. (2017). Maybe it’s a status problem”: Development of mathematics teacher noticing for equity. In E. O. Schack, J. Wilhelm, & M. H. Fisher (Eds.), Teachernoticing: Bridging andbroadeningperspectives, contexts, andframeworks (pp. 231–250). Springer.
Biancarosa, G., Bryk, A. S., & Dexter, E. R. (2010). Assessing the value-added effects of literacy collaborative professional development on student learning. TheElementary School Journal, 111(1), 7-34.
Coburn, C. E., & Russell, J. L. (2008). District policy and teachers’ social networks. Educational Evaluation and PolicyAnalysis, 30(3), 203-235.
Darling-Hammond, L., Hyler, M. E., & Gardner, M. (2017). Effective teacherprofessional development. Learning Policy Institute.
Duncan-Andrade, J. M. R., & Morrell, E. (2008). The art of critical pedagogy:Possibilities for moving from theory topractice in urban schools (Vol. 285). Peter Lang.
Ippolito, J. & Bean, R. (2024). The Power of Instructional Coaching in Context: A Systems View forAligning Content and Coaching. The Guilford Press.
Kazemi, E., Granger, J. C., Lind, T., Lewis, R., Resnick, A. F., Gibbons, L. K. (in preparation). Children Thrive WhenTeachers Thrive. Harvard Education Press.
Kraft, M. A., Blazar, D., & Hogan, D. (2018). The effect of teacher coaching on instruction and achievement: A meta analysis of the causal evidence. Review ofEducational Research, 88(4), 547-588.
Lefstein, A., Louie, N., Segal, A., & Becher, A. (2020). Taking stock of research on teacher collaborative discourse: Theory and method in a nascent field. TeachingandTeacherEducation, 88, 102954.
Marshall, S. A., & Buenrostro, P. M. (2021). What makes mathematics teacher coaching effective? A call for a justice-oriented perspective. Journal of TeacherEducation, 72(5), 594-606.
Robertson, D. A., Padesky, L. B., Ford Connors, E., & Paratore, J. R. (2020). What does it mean to say coaching is relational?. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(1), 55 – 78.
Saclarides, E. S., & Munson, J. (2021). Exploring the foci and depth of coach teacher interactions during modeled lessons. Teaching and TeacherEducation, 105, 103418.
References (Ippolito & Bean):
Bean, R. M., & Ippolito, J. (2023, December). Interactions of content, coaching, and context in recent literacy coaching research. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Literacy Research Association (LRA), Atlanta, GA.
City, E. A., Elmore, R. F., Fiarman, S. E., & Teitel, L. (2009). Instructional rounds ineducation. Harvard Education Press.
Galey-Horn, S. (2020). Capacity-building for district reform: The role of instructional coach teams. Teachers College Record, 122(10), 1-40.
Hannan, M. Q., & Russell, J. L. (2020). Coaching in context: Exploring conditions that shape instructional coaching practice. TeachersCollege Record, 122(10), 1–40. Ippolito, J., & Bean, R. M. (2024). The power of instructional coaching in context: A systems view
This week, Thomas Hatch shares IEN’s annual scan of headlines that are trying to anticipate key trends and development for education in the New Year. For comparison, review the previous scans of the “looking ahead” headlines from 2022, 2021 part 1, 2021 part 2, and 2020. Last week’s post featured articles that looked back on the key issues and stories from 2023; previous posts looking back on the year in education also can be found for 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019 part 1, 2019 part 2.
In some ways, the predictions for schools and education in 2024 reflect “more of the same” – continuing discussions of the influence of technology and AI on education; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on attendance, academic outcomes, and wellbeing; the challenges of education financing as pandemic funding runs out; and problems caused by teacher shortages and divisive politics:
This is a critical year as the nation grapples with the long-term effects of the pandemic amid a technological revolution, a still-unfolding refugee crisis, and a presidential election that could intensify political tensions.
Educators should expect debates over school choice, teacher pay measures, artificial intelligence, and standardized testing in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill in 2024
Budget projections will be easier and more reliable, at least for the calendar year, as the economy continues settling fairly smoothly to a slower pace with inflation easing and interest rates drifting down with it… absent the usual unforeseeables like new wars, oil shocks and pandemics — public finance is returning to something resembling business as usual.
One of the biggest forces impacting education in 2024 will be labor shortages—and not just in the classroom. Pressures on the wider U.S. workforce caused by a lack of employees with the requisite skills will drive more collaboration between K12 schools and employers… It will also drive a surge in popularity in career and technical education programs.
“While the rest of us are buying gym memberships we probably won’t use, school leaders are facing far more ambitious New Year’s resolutions: regaining academic ground, tightening those belts, weathering divisive politics, and ensuring more students show up to class.”
“New York’s Board of Regents has called for increased investments in the state’s information technology infrastructure, a bolstered educator pipeline, and additional money to update the state’s learning standards.”
“AI is the phrase on everyone’s lips heading into 2024, with 19 education technology experts believing its advantages will range from virtual tutors and faster student feedback to engaging, compelling presentations and better data analysis for teachers. Other predictions include more immersive and multisensory learning experiences, flexible learning locations, and leveraging and reaching community-based help groups.”
Every year, during the week of Thanksgiving in the US, IEN highlights opportunities to support some of the organizations that we have featured that are making a difference in children’s lives and in their educational opportunities. This year, we also want to emphasize the drastic needs to support children who are suffering from war, famine, natural disasters, climate change, and disrupted education, and to highlight ways to donate to some of the organizations that are working to respond to those crises, particularly in places like Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and East Africa.
International Education News 