Edu Change & Student Advocacy

     For years, teachers and educators have pined for students to be more involved, engaged and interested in their learning and education. Well, that time has come and we better be ready.      Recently, I received an e-mail from a 7th grader detailing to me why he’s ready to not only start high school today, but what his expectations are for the learning experience once there. I will return to the words and inspiration from the 7th grader in a minute.      Education writer Marc Prensky identified this shift years ago when he wrote the now classic Engage Me or Enrage Me where he identified the changing tide in students as learners.      We are seeing the end of a student generation that operated in or even excelled at the world of compliance. Essentially, their expectations from school and learning were much different than now and arguably lower than what see represented in the shift. This is the last of the generati...

     DATA – one might be hard-pressed to find a more overused word in education during the last 15 or so years. Right?      Traditionally over the last 15 years, this buzzword has been hotly associated with the high stakes-testing environment and was primarily referring to how students did on a variety of standardized tests.      Sometimes, we also collected and evaluated data related to grades, GPA’s, graduation rates, dropouts, attendance and more.      But as education works to become more relevant, I think the time has come to collect and analyze data that could be much more meaningful and applicable to all stakeholders including students.      Here are a few examples of the type of data that we begin gathering in this new paradigm: · Student Survey Data on everything from teacher support, course satisfaction and engagement, course ideas, project ideas, instructional practices, school safety, techno...