Episode 19: Future Trends in K-12 Educational Attainment

Are you doing these critical things to help your child succeed academically? Take the quiz now to find out the important actions you can take to enhance your child's education. Go to my website, liberationthrougheducation.com quiz and take the quiz today. Welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with with school educators and administrators, as well as the microdiscriminations that I faced while raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. If you're looking to find out more about the current topics in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. In today's episode, I'll be discussing the latest trends and ideas for improving educational attainment for all students. What are the current trends that are being discussed and sought after as educators and researchers continue to provide educational attainment for all students? There are a number of areas that are being explored, including a continued focus on student problem solving skills, technological advances including gamification and data security. Let's start out with the definition of what educational attainment is, followed by a brief discussion about what some US Companies think schools could be doing better. I will then delve into a discussion about technological advances and other current trends and issues. Educational attainment is simply a term that refers to the highest level of education that someone has completed. Some of the top US Companies think schools should focus on problem solving skills and they propose ways that K12 schools could help bridge any skills gaps in that area. A senior director at Southwest Airlines indicated that students could develop problem solving skills by being on teams and by providing them with real time feedback. The executive indicated that problem solving involves building resilience because it's rare that you'll solve a problem on the first attempt. Solving complex problems involves work and repetition, so give students real world problems to solve, allow them to fail, and then encourage them to try again. Developing interpersonal communication skills through collaborative learning is another way to promote problem solving skills. These skills include relationship building, networking and communicating with people, and they still remain important skills in the workplace whether you are working in person, working in a hybrid environment, or working remotely. Several Executives indicated that K12 schools should continue their efforts to link with students learning to their real world applications beyond the classroom because once the knowledge that they are amassing is applied in their everyday lives, they become more engaged in instruction, which then translates into deeper learning. The technical and analytical skills that are required in STEM programs will help to build a future workforce that is technologically savvy. One female chief human resource officer at Paychex Co. Suggested a critical skill and that was the ability to manage ambiguity. This involves identifying and assessing risks, making decisions without knowing all the details and facts, and remaining calm and focused. The ability to maneuver in an environment that requires change is a critical skill set. She went on to further explain that problem solving skills involved intellectual curiosity. That curiosity drives creativity and innovation. We which can set a company apart from competitors in their marketplace. K12 schools could help bridge the skills gap by allowing students to work on projects that involve cross functional work where they just aren't in a group that they know and understand. This will force students then to work on their relationship, building muscle by understanding diversity of perspective, opinion and experiences. Let's shift the discussion now into gamification. Gamification utilizes game like elements that are added to a lesson or an activity that may not inherently involve a game. Gamification, when used in a classroom setting would look something like this. An educator would put students in groups to compete on or offer rewards for correct answers. It is one tool that educators use to keep students engaged and this is especially important in a world that is increasingly digital. Game based learning, on the other hand, involves placing education material inside of a game. Basically, the game teaches concepts to students and then allows them to practice, usually in a risk free setting. Minecraft Education Edition is an example of a game based learning application. A 2018 report by the Institute for the Future that was coordinated with Dell technologies estimated that 85% of the children entering today's K12 schools will eventually find themselves in jobs that don't currently exist. This makes teachers jobs even more challenging. Technology is ubiquitous and is fairly intuitive for the Gen Z generation. Utilizing their technological skills is one way most school districts are exploring the new education landscape. Done correctly, education uses gamification because that's the state of the world. It works because kids love games. Games involve rules and play. The classroom setting provides the rules centered environment and when educators bring structured play to it, they can then teach through the game. So here's how this is also applied to K12 education. There are several ways to use technology to improve teaching and learning. Technology played a critical role in sustaining school during the pandemic, but making all of the developments that were required during that time translate into better use of technology in schools is no easy task. Education Week's annual Technology Counts report highlights five challenges of better utilizing technology in schools. The first challenge is ensuring remote learning is effective by having teachers demonstrate energy and entertaining engagement making students feel welcome, involved and connected immediately developing strategies to engage students in greater collaboration providing hands on learning in the classroom and integrating that into virtual environments and having students and educators effectively utilize synchronous time and asynchronous time. The second challenge is integrating social emotional learning with the technology. Social media, virtual learning, online gaming and ubiquitous devices present new social challenges for children. The social emotional skills necessary to flourish in the increasingly tech centric world is include empathy, perspective taking and self management and self awareness. The third challenge is limiting screen time. Not counting additional instruction, the amount of time teenagers and tweens spend looking at computer screens rivals how much time they would spend working on a full time or a part time job. Educators as well as children's health experts want to provide students more support to prevent the overuse of technology from leading to unhealthy behaviors in the classroom. Research has shown that students learning challenges rose along with their increased screen time. In fact, 80% of educators stated student behavior worsened with more screen time. However, context and content are critical distinctions to make when evaluating the use of digital devices. For example, teaching students to use higher quality digital content can improve behavior. The fourth challenge is being vigilant about protecting student data. The personal Data breach of 820,000 current and former students in the New York City School District due to the vendor Illuminate Education highlights that more work needs to be done to protect student personal information. This vendor apparently failed to encrypt data on his classroom management scheduling pupil data platforms and these were required by the contract between the company and the New York City school system. The data breach caused a disruption for almost three weeks. It is everyone's responsibility to ensure data privacy, including the superintendent, the curriculum office, the professional development trainers and educators. There are a number of federal and state legislative measures that are aimed at up leveling cybersecurity in the nation's schools. One measure is the federal K12 Cybersecurity act of 2021 that was signed into law by President Biden in October of 2021. This measure basically directs the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to study cybersecurity risk and develop recommendations that include cybersecurity guidelines to assist schools in facing those risks. There were 30 states that that passed measures last year designed to strengthen cybersecurity either directly or indirectly in K12 schools as well as higher education. The Trusted Learning Environment SEAL program provides strong protections of student data privacy at the school district level. The SEAL program requires an extensive application process for focused on five areas of school district practice, including leadership, business, data security, professional development, and the classroom. This SEAL is valid for two years and encourages best practices. The fifth and final challenge in this area is using artificial intelligence effectively. Artificial intelligence is used in schools for everything from teaching math to optimizing bus routes. The challenge is evaluating the data and design processes that those products rely on as far as being skewed by racial bias. The goal is to prioritize racial equity in AI design with the idea of providing both schools and companies with a common language and process for evaluating whether manufacturers of education technology tools are taking the necessary steps to identify and question their own biases and assumptions to ensure that the data used to train the artificial intelligence systems are not tainted by bias and to provide educators and families with more visibility into how the product actually works and any risk that they might pose Electronic devices for students in the classroom was introduced 25 years ago. In 2013 and 2014 alone, schools nationwide purchased more than 23 million digital devices for use in the classroom, including laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks. When schools closed due to the pandemic, school districts that had a one to one program for providing electronic devices in the classroom had an advantage over the school districts that had to scramble to locate and distribute devices to students at home. However, simply putting devices into the hands of students does not automatically translate into academic advantages. 1 what seems to make the difference is having a dependable infrastructure, a strong teaching vision regarding the educational role of the devices, and relevant professional development for teaching educators the best practices for using electronic devices in the classroom. Ideally, having this ready access to digital devices allows students to take more ownership of their own learning by having access to material, materials and resources outside of the traditional school day. And teachers can then flip their classrooms by having students learn new concepts and information at home and then use the classroom time to bring about discussions and projects building on the new information that was learned outside of the classroom setting. The risk and possible negative consequences of having a one to one device program program is, not surprisingly, data privacy and data security. Another concern is the increased screen time and how establishing a balance in this is critical. There are ways to manage your child's screen time and these are action steps that you can take to help mitigate the screen time usage. There are four tips or ideas from educators and remote learning experts that can help. Number one. Recognizing that not all screen time is equal. Educational games are not the same as social media. 2. Focus on the learning goal first, then the format second, using an electronic device is only one option to learning. Number three remember that the old fashioned stuff still works like pencils, pens, crayons, manipulatives and books. And Number four Encourage hands on learning experiences I mentioned earlier about issues with data privacy in this podcast, here are seven questions that you should be asking your child's school and how it handles data privacy. Number one which websites, services and apps will my child's classroom use this year? Number two how does the school handle directory information? Number three what is the school's approach to school safety and what does it mean for my child's privacy? Number four does the school administer surveys? If so, who safeguards those data? 5. What are the rules for recording devices in my child's school? Number six Overall, how is my child's information secured? And number seven how does the school train teachers and staff staff to protect my child's information? In case you weren't able to quickly jot down these questions, they are available in a downloadable PDF on my website www.liberationthrougheducation.com. here are this episode's takeaways. Focusing on trends and issues like problem solving skills that current students and future workers will need is important in order to promote a successful workforce. Utilizing technology in the classroom has its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, it helps to promote and reinforce learning concepts which I've already previously discussed. On the other hand, there are critical data security and data privacy issues that have to be dealt with. These are not only personal information issues that are kept at school, but also the personal information that's accumulated by software vendors that the school district has contracts with. Schools received billions of dollars for funding new laptops, tablets, 3D printers, hotspots and other technology devices in order to make it possible for millions of students to learn from virtually these monies were provided in federal relief cash. Yet in a few short years, the devices that were bought with federal agency funds are going to be outdated and even stop working altogether. This is going to create a big problem for many school districts and the families they serve. The investment into these technologies goes beyond the cost of of laptops and tablets. There's also consideration of how the teachers are trained to use the devices as well as how children are being taught to use them. School districts need to think ahead toward four or five years from now in order to implement a technology replacement strategy. Otherwise, they may be stuck with a whole lot of devices that don't work and have no money to buy replacements. Since electronic devices have become so integrated within the learning community in schools, this is certainly a consideration for education leaders. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please subscribe to my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you. So please leave me a comment, a review, or a rating and share this podcast with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Additionally, you can connect with me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. By the way, if you have a burning question about an issue or specific topic topic that you'd like for me to explore and discuss, shoot me a quick email@kimliberationthrougheducation.com to let me know what your question is and be sure to stay tuned. On the next episode of my podcast, I'll be reviewing another book from the Banned Book List. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day. Love my show. Consider being a regular subscriber. You can subscribe for as little as $3 per month. Just go to Forward Slash Podcast Support. There's no contractual obligation. You can cancel at any time. If you choose to subscribe, I'll give you a special shout out thanking you in an upcoming episode. Remember, that's tinyurl.com com podcast support to subscribe.