Tag: Classroom

  • These teens can do incredible math in their heads but fail in a classroom

    These teens can do incredible math in their heads but fail in a classroom

    When I was 12, my family lived adjacent to a small farm. Though I was not old enough to work, the farm’s owner, Mr. Hall, hired me to man his roadside stand on weekends. Mr. Hall had one rule: no calculators. Technology wasn’t his vibe. 

    Math was my strong suit in school, but I struggled to tally the sums in my head. I weighed odd amounts of tomatoes, zucchini and peppers on a scale and frantically scribbled calculations on a notepad. When it got busy, customers lined up waiting for me to multiply and add. I’m sure I mischarged them.

    I was thinking about my old job as I read a quirky math study published this month in the journal Nature. Nobel Prize winning economists Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, a husband and wife research team at MIT, documented how teenage street sellers who were excellent at mental arithmetic weren’t good at rudimentary classroom math. Meanwhile, strong math students their same age couldn’t calculate nearly as well as impoverished street sellers.

    “When you spend a lot of time in India, what is striking is that these market kids seem to be able to count very well,” said Duflo, whose primary work in India involves alleviating poverty and raising the educational achievement of poor children.  “But they are really not able to go from street math to formal math and vice versa.”

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    In a series of experiments, Duflo’s field staff in India pretended to be ordinary shoppers and purposely bought unusual quantities of items from more than 1,400 child street sellers in Delhi and Kolkata. A purchase might be 800 grams of potatoes at 20 rupees per kilogram and 1.4 kilograms of onions at 15 rupees per kilogram. Most of the child sellers quoted the correct price of 37 rupees and gave the correct change from a 200 rupee note without using a calculator or pencil and paper. The odd quantities were to make sure the children hadn’t simply memorized the price of common purchases. They were actually making calculations. 

    However, these same children, the majority of whom were 14 or 15 years old, struggled to solve much simpler school math problems, such as basic division. (After making the purchases, the undercover shoppers revealed their identities and asked the sellers to participate in the study and complete a set of abstract math exercises.)

    The market sellers had some formal education. Most were attending school part time, or had previously been in school for years.

    Duflo doesn’t know how the young street sellers learned to calculate so quickly in their heads. That would take a longer anthropological study to observe them over time. But Duflo was able to glean some of their strategies, such as rounding. For example, instead of multiplying 490 by 20, the street sellers might multiply 500 by 20 and then remove 10 of the 20s, or 200. Schoolchildren, by contrast, are prone to making lengthy pencil and paper calculations using an algorithm for multiplication. They often don’t see a more efficient way to solve a problem.

    Lessons from this research on the other side of the world might be relevant here in the United States. Some cognitive psychologists theorize that learning math in a real-world context can help children absorb abstract math and apply it in different situations. However, this Indian study shows that this type of knowledge transfer probably won’t happen automatically or easily for most students. Educators need to figure out how to better leverage the math skills that students already have, Duflo said. Easier said than done, I suspect.  

    Related: Do math drills help children learn?

    Duflo says her study is not an argument for either applied or abstract math.  “It would be a mistake to conclude that we should switch to doing only concrete problems because we also see that kids who are extremely good at concrete problems are unable to solve an abstract problem,” she said. “And in life, at least in school life, you’re going to need both.” Many of the market children ultimately drop out of school altogether.

    Back at my neighborhood farmstand, I remember how I magically got the hang of it and rarely needed pencil and paper after a few months. Sadly, the Hall farm is no longer there for the town’s children to practice mental math. It’s now been replaced by a suburban subdivision of fancy houses. 

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595 or barshay@hechingerreport.org.

    This story about applied math was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Students Explore STEM with Engineers

    Students Explore STEM with Engineers

    Middletown, PA – Phoenix Contact engineers head back into the classroom this week to teach sixth-grade science class at Middletown Area Middle School in Middletown, Pa. The classes are part of Phoenix Contact’s National Engineers Week celebration.

    Phoenix Contact has worked with the school every February since 2007. The engineers lead hands-on lessons that make science fun. The goal is to inspire young people to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

    The lessons include:

    • Building catapults
    • Racing cookie tins down ramps
    • Building an electric motor
    • Learning about static electricity with the Van de Graaff generator

    “Our engineering team created this outreach program many years ago, and the partnership with Middletown Area School District has stood the test of time,” said Patty Marrero, interim vice president of human relations at Phoenix Contact. “National Engineers Week is a special time for them to share their passion for technology with students. It’s also our chance to thank our engineers for the creativity and innovations that drive our company forward.”

    About Phoenix Contact

    Phoenix Contact is a global market leader based in Germany. Since 1923, Phoenix Contact has created products to connect, distribute, and control power and data flows. Our products are found in nearly all industrial settings, but we have a strong focus on the energy, infrastructure, process, factory automation, and e-mobility markets. Sustainability and responsibility guide every action we take, and we’re proud to work with our customers to empower a smart and sustainable world for future generations. Our global network includes 22,000 employees in 100+ countries. Phoenix Contact USA has headquarters near Harrisburg, Pa., and employs more than 1,100 people across the U.S.

    For more information about Phoenix Contact or its products, visit www.phoenixcontact.com, call technical service at 800-322-3225, or email info@phoenixcontact.com.

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  • Increasing Classroom Engagement – Faculty Focus

    Increasing Classroom Engagement – Faculty Focus

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  • James Madison psychology professor cleared of wrongdoing after extensive probe into classroom comments

    James Madison psychology professor cleared of wrongdoing after extensive probe into classroom comments

    As anyone who has taken a psychology course likely knows, discussing parts of human psychology can inevitably lead to some uncomfortable places. Whether it’s discussing sensitive topics like the psychology of psychopathic violence, the ethics of human experimentation, or the sex-based roots of the concept of “hysteria,” psychology courses are often unavoidably provocative. That is especially so for doctoral courses. 

    For Gregg Henriques, a faculty member in James Madison University’s Clinical and School Psychology Doctoral program, these sorts of uncomfortable topics were a fundamental part of understanding the full range of human psychology. Henriques had taught in the program for more than 20 years, where he established his bona fides as a passionate, if colorful, professor.

    That career longevity is part of the reason why Henriques was shocked to learn that a Title IX complaint had been filed against him by an anonymous student in April 2023. The complaint alleged that over the course of three classes and four months in early 2022, Henriques made two dozen harassing comments that created a hostile environment in his doctoral courses. 

    Among the objectionable comments were phrases like “emotions are like orgasms,” which was meant to analogize the experience of human emotion to the sexual response cycle, and “pinky dick” as a way of referring to inferiority complexes and overcompensation in a class on psychodynamic theory. Henriques also landed in hot water  for acknowledging his own fundamental human desire to have sex during a lecture on Sigmund Freud. 

    Yes, Henriques often had a colorful way of describing psychological concepts. But he only used such phrases to convey concepts to his students in memorable ways. Faculty members enjoy wide protections regarding their pedagogical speech in the classroom because the First Amendment protects speech “related to scholarship or teaching.” That’s especially so when they approach difficult or controversial issues in the classroom, since even offensive speech that is “germane to the classroom subject matter” — including Henriques’s provocative descriptions of psychological concepts here — is protected.

    We live in an age where heterodoxy is often called ‘harm’ and where every word out of a professor’s mouth is uttered beneath the brooding and Orwellian omnipresence of the Title IX Office. 

    Despite Henriques’ stellar reputation established over decades of teaching, James Madison plowed forward with the investigation. Henriques reached out to FIRE’s Faculty Legal Defense Fund, which provides faculty members at public universities with experienced First Amendment attorneys, free of charge. FLDF quickly set Henriques up with Justin Dillon, an accomplished attorney who helped Henriques navigate the investigatory process. 

    Over the course of nearly a year, JMU called Henriques into several meetings with investigators about the complaint. With the help of his FLDF attorney, Henriques was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing in January 2024, as the university determined that his comments were pedagogically relevant and did not constitute sexual harassment. 

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    “I owe Justin and FIRE a tremendous debt of gratitude,” Henriques said. “As soon as he took the case, he homed in on the key issues, grasped the logic of why I taught the way I did and saw its value and legitimacy, and started to effectively game plan our approach. He was a tremendous help in navigating the system, understanding the procedures, and ensuring my rights were protected.”

    “It’s hard to overstate the difference that I have seen the FLDF make in the lives of terrific professors like Gregg Henriques,” Dillon said. “We live in an age where heterodoxy is often called ‘harm’ and where every word out of a professor’s mouth is uttered beneath the brooding and Orwellian omnipresence of the Title IX Office. The FLDF helps keep the world safe for ideas, and I am so honored to be a part of it.”

    With his pedagogical rights vindicated, Henriques is now back in the classroom, able to teach knowing that FLDF and FIRE have his back. But he is just one of the hundreds of scholars punished for their speech. 

    If you are a public university or college professor facing investigations or punishment for your speech, contact the Faculty Legal Defense Fund: Submit a case or call the 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533).

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  • After FIRE lawsuit, California community colleges will not enforce DEI mandate in classroom

    After FIRE lawsuit, California community colleges will not enforce DEI mandate in classroom

    FRESNO, Feb. 10, 2025 — After a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression challenged regulations mandating the evaluation of professors based on their commitment to “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA), the California Community Colleges system and a community college district attested in court that the regulations do not require community college professors to teach and endorse the state’s pro-DEIA views in the classroom.

    In March 2023, the California Community College system amended its tenure and employee review guidelines to “include diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility standards in the evaluation and tenure review of district employees.” The new regulations stated that faculty members “shall employ teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles” and mandated they “promote and incorporate culturally affirming DEIA and anti-racist principles.”

    That August, FIRE filed suit against California Community Colleges and the State Center Community College District on behalf of six Fresno-area community college professors who oppose the highly politicized concepts of “DEIA” (more often called “DEI”) and “anti-racism” and thus did not want to incorporate them into their teaching.

    Forced to defend the regulations in court, the state chancellor and district quickly disclaimed any intention to use the state guidelines or the district’s faculty contract to police what professors teach in the classroom or to punish them for their criticism of DEI. 

    Specifically, the Chancellor’s Office “disavowed any intent or ability to take any action against Plaintiffs” for their classroom teaching. The district likewise confirmed that none of the plaintiffs’ “proposed future actions” for their courses violate the rules or the faculty contract. It added that plaintiffs are not “prohibited from presenting” their “viewpoints or perspectives in the classrooms” and will not “be disciplined, terminated, or otherwise punished for doing so.” 

    In particular, the Defendants denied they would punish Plaintiffs for any of their proposed speech, including “assigning certain literary works, such as Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letters from Birmingham Jail,” using “methodologies and course materials in their classroom” intended to encourage debate and discussion about the merits of DEI viewpoints, criticizing concepts like “anti-racism,” or supporting a color-blind approach to race in their self-evaluations. 

    On Jan. 28, U.S. District Judge Kirk E. Sherriff relied on those assurances to hold as a legal matter that because of the college officials’ disavowals, the professors had not suffered a harm sufficient to challenge the regulations’ constitutionality. In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Sherriff emphasized that neither the DEI Rules nor the faculty contract “mandate what professors teach or how any DEIA principles should be implemented.”

    “FIRE filed suit to prevent California’s community colleges from evaluating our faculty clients on the basis of their classroom commitment to a political ideology, and that’s exactly the result we’ve achieved,” said FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner. “As a result of our suit, the state and the district promised a federal judge they won’t interfere with our clients’ academic freedom and free speech rights. The classroom is for discussion and exploration, not a top-down mandate about what ideas must take priority. We’ll make sure it stays that way.”

    “FIRE will be watching like a hawk to ensure that the state chancellor and district live up to their word,” said FIRE attorney Zach Silver. “If they force any professors to parrot the state’s DEI views, or punish them for criticizing the state’s position, we’ll be ready to stand up for their rights.”

    COURTESY PHOTOS OF PLAINTIFFS FOR MEDIA USE

    Despite unobjectionable-sounding labels, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “anti-racism” frameworks often encompass political topics and ideology that are contested and controversial. The glossary of DEI terms put out by California Community Colleges, for example, stated that “persons that say they are ‘not a racist’ are in denial,” while denouncing “colorblindness” as a concept for “perpetuat[ing] existing racial inequities.”

    DEI requirements are also highly controversial within academia. FIRE’s most recent faculty survey indicated that half of faculty think it is “rarely” or “never” justifiable for universities to make faculty candidates submit statements pledging commitment to DEI before being considered for a job (50%) or to be considered for tenure or promotion (52%).

    Since FIRE filed its lawsuit in 2023, many top universities and university systems have voluntarily moved away from mandatory DEI, including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Arizona system. Most recently, the University of Michigan dropped the use of diversity statements in hiring and firing in December 2024 following a viral New York Times article that detailed how the school’s DEI practices stifled academic freedom and discourse at the school.

    FIRE sued on behalf of six professors, James Druley, David Richardson, Linda de Morales, and Loren Palsgaard of Madera Community College, Bill Blanken of Reedley College, and Michael Stannard of Clovis Community College. (Professors Stannard and Druley withdrew from the case in 2024 upon retiring from teaching.)

    “Wherever you stand on the debate over DEI, the important thing is there is a debate in the first place,” said Palsgaard. “I’m happy that thanks to our lawsuit, we know that debate will continue in California, both inside and outside the classroom.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org

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  • Online Teaching Challenges Using Virtual Classroom Software

    Online Teaching Challenges Using Virtual Classroom Software

    What is a virtual classroom software?

    A virtual classroom is a digital replica of a traditional classroom, the only difference is that it uses technical tools to interact with students in real-time. The virtual classroom software for teachers helps higher education institutions to manage classes remotely using interactive tools for collaboration, brainstorming, ideation, and discussion. All this is followed by instant assessments and result publications to measure the learning that happened in the session.

     

    The sudden school closures and the need of Virtual classroom software for teachers

    There can never be a PAUSE mode for Education nor Learning. But what if a situation demands it? Let’s take the example of our current COVID-19 scenario.

    The UNESCO states that globally, over 1.3 billion children are out of the classroom, across 186 countries, as on March 2020.

     

     

    There are schools and universities closures everywhere, forcing educational institutions to look for an option to deal with the crisis.

    Thanks to the distinctive rise in the online teaching environment and virtual classroom software, what we could now call the only future of higher education and universities.

    Even the traditional universities and higher eds that were once tabooed to using online teaching are now racing to adapt their programmes and classes to online alternatives. The situation may be pressing, but retorting to any technology wouldn’t help.

    An intuitive, high-end, modern, virtual classroom software for teachers would serve the purpose—a tool that acts as a bridge to offering uninterrupted teaching/learning even during the difficult times.

    Creatrix Campus is end-to-end higher education software that brings campus online on-the-go. You could plan online exams, assignments, execute tasks, conduct online quizzes, group discussions, polling, all virtually.

    Creatrix Campus virtual campus management system has always helped faculty indulge in successful ways of teaching, revolutionizing digital education.

    There’s data analysis, visualization, forecast of assessments that predict learning outcomes, personalized learning pathways for students, and much more. We have figured out 12 successful ways by which Creatrix facilitates successful online teaching and learning, virtually. Here are they;

     

    How to Create an Engaging Virtual Classroom Environment with Virtual classroom software for teachers

     

    top-ways-to-teach-online-with-virtual-classroom-software

     

    1. Get scheduled first

    Now, this is a great feature to start an online classroom—setting up schedules and a set of predefined rules.

    Faculty are allowed to create schedules that most suits their online sessions. Creatrix Scheduling allows schedule creation based on faculty and student preferences.

    Multiple class schedules could be created for different time periods with options to add, edit or cancel schedules, and assign student groups, all this without conflicts.

    There’s enough flexibility here. While any new and complicated topic can be scheduled up in the forenoon, the rest can make up for the afternoon session. Achieving a balanced timetable schedule is also possible with faculty management software that will accommodate all changes instantly and meet your criteria.

     

    2. Build a course and student community

    The next crucial step in virtual teaching lies in the creation of a course and student community. The faculty is the moderator and the courses she creates are the community. On logging in, the faculty would see the list of batches he handles on her personal dashboard.

    The act of the faculty clicking on a particular batch is alike to the real-life scenario of getting into a classroom, with the bunch of students waiting to be marked attendance, hear their performance reports, and submission of assignments, etc. Before the class commences, the faculty marks attendance of the day.

    Nothing goes lacking in this sort of online teaching. Faculty plans well ahead of the classes with a solid curriculum management system from Creatrix.

    The faculty strategically adapt to the industry trends as well as the unique needs of the students. There’s enough option to track the daily progress of the students in line with the curriculum.

     

    3. Digitize the course contents

    At Creatrix we know the real purpose of a virtual LMS; we make learning enjoyable, accessible, and meaningful to students, improving their learning outcomes.

    The faculty takes control of the class, adding course materials to suit her course’s plan. Creatrix virtual Learning Management System (LMS) is brings in a lot of tools for applying various learning models in a wide range of digital formats.

    Instructors are allowed to create, upload, the course’s content, back it up with videos and files, deliver them to students, assign tasks and assessments, administer and track their progress, followed by record-keeping. There’s complete transparency on all these processes.

    The topic planned and covered are kept track of and those that need attention are extended for longer hours. The simplified workflows in Creatrix helps to focus students by giving constructive feedback and personalized recommendations.

     

    4. Adopt collaborative tools to maximize participation

    Virtual teaching is successful only when there’s maximum student participation. Creatrix has many collaborative and communication tools to keep the students glued to the actual teaching process.

    Creatrix virtual LMS allows students to team up on live sessions and video conferencing through external integrated tool.

    Faculty can put forward techniques including quizzes, debates, interactive discussions, etc. There are options to share additional resources for any topic by uploading videos, share relevant PDFs, PPTs, website links, etc. The sessions could be made more fun by bringing in polling, surveys, and map each topic with learning outcomes.

     

    benefits-of-digitizing-course-contents-using-virtual-LMS

     

    Creatrix Campus’s Virtual LMS comes with adaptive teaching models like blended learning, self-paced learning, collaborative learning, and flipped learning to arouse student participation. The lesson planner option in Creatrix helps users to plan and execute both physical and virtual classes for the same course.

     

    5. Focus on keeping the students engaged

    Online remote classes at any cost should be made interesting, mainly because the faculty-student is not in direct interaction. Classes hence have to be delivered in such a way that it builds engagement for learning.

    Creatrix has the Digital Whiteboard tools which come with a virtual pointer to facilitate brainstorming activities. In addition, there are discussion forums and messaging, which is another way of keeping students engaged. 

    Just like how Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Reddit act as amazing discussion forums, Creatrix LMS does the same. 

    The activity wall acts as a message board for further collaboration; students get to post doubtful questions, create polls, and share documents with faculty and his peers.

    There are enough ways a faculty could add advantage to online teaching by sharing learning videos, texts, podcasts to students.

     

    6. Introduce self-learning techniques

    Not all courses in the syllabus would call for a synchronous way of teaching. Some subject’s objectives maybe just research and self-learning. Creatrix virtual LMS creates a self-learning environment that gives enough room for real-time student engagement and self-reflection.

    On completion of topics, student take up auto-assigned, online assessments and quizzes that are used to track their understanding level on the current topic. Uploading videos related to the topic expands the learners to self-learn.

    The progress the student makes can be seen in their personalized dashboards on their real-time status bar reports displaying current, past, and future course progresses, along with the tasks due.

    The faculty’s journey is similar to a facilitator who provides relevant resources and course materials, create tutorials, short lessons, all made possible through online course repositories.

    Students could take part in live streaming and self-paced learning (video upload), conveniently accessible from a single point.

     

    7. Centralize the communication efforts

    There should be an organized way of communication keeping both the students and their parents/guardians informed about the teaching happening.

    This allows the stakeholders to stay informed with auto-notified alerts and reminders about deadlines on assignment submission, feedback, as well as missed topics. They get real-time status via email, SMS, and push notifications.

     

    8. Customize the testing and assessments for personalized learning outcome

    This is an unmissable feature in any online teaching. Assessments help to gauge the learner’s proficiency. Customizing them is incidentally what most software systems lack.

    With customized assessments, faculty have the option to personalize tests for students with different attainment levels. This gives the option to focus on weaker students in a much better way.

    Creatrix has options to conduct both online and offline Assessments/assignments in the form of quizzes, MCQs, long papers, articles, followed by instant onscreen evaluation. Based on the learning outcomes mapping, the system would then intimate the students attainment levels, individually.

      

    9. Get gamified

    A good online teaching platform should work on making things simple for the learners. They won’t really enjoy teaching that’s monotonous, after all, their eyes are starring the digital devices all day long.

    Pick out elements of game playing to add spice to your teaching. Students look for such a twist in their learning experience.

    Assign tasks and projects online, track the submission rates, and provide them badges or scores.

    Integrate with the course schedule and bring forth activity-based learning in line with the Curriculum. This will help instructors and students track topics better. Students, on the other hand, will have access to course information times during absenteeism. Wouldn’t that be great?

     

    10. Link to Incidents Tracking

    There are also options to deal with tardy behavior. Online teaching doesn’t mean you have to compromise on bad behavior incidents, students cheating during online exams by conducting online proctoring etc. A university management software with conduct management system make sense here.

     

    link-to-incidents-tracking

     

    Instantly parents get notified in real-time via email, SMS alerts, and push notifications.
    Besides capturing incidents, rules could be configured, discipline letters created, referrals initiated, analyze trends, and generate reports for faster decision-making to resolve behavior problems.

     

    11. Reporting

    With real-time reporting, instructors should be able to generate real-time reports, right in their hand. They get to know the stand of their students and work on their continuous improvement gradually.

    The instructor could track those students who are accessing the course content and who isn’t.

    Creatrix classroom management software is capable of generating real-time reports including students’ demographics, assignments, attendance, assignments, fee payments, grades, discipline incidents, coursework, assignments, etc.

    All these reports from the virtual classroom software help at deriving insights into learning for a bigger picture of the institutional reporting.

    The best thing about using Creatrix Online LMS is student’s progress data is right in their hands. They have the ability to track their own progress, their dips and ups with the progress status bar on their personal dashboard.

    They get to view the current, past, and future course progresses, along with the tasks due.

     

    12. Mobile support, 24*7

    Wrap up all the above-mentioned features into an all-time accessible mobile app!  A mobile tool is a necessity to support students with uninterrupted learning these days.

    Creatrix Online Learning Management System (OLMS) gives any time, anywhere access to learning where students team up for live sessions via mobile devices and tablets.

    They get the feel of in-the-classroom training with options to view the session’s content visually and communicate via text chat and audio; they can submit assignments, view grades & course materials, and interact with each other just the way they would do in the real classroom.

     

    Conclusion

    It’s high time we try and reset higher education learning to meet the present 2020 demands by giving uninterrupted online learning.

    A virtual classroom software for teachers is the call of the day; a tool like Creatrix Campus is sure to break the shackle that disrupts the flow of higher education by waking up to a better tomorrow.

    Let the higher education institutions get into virtual learning mode and blend with technology for incessant learning even during a crisis like Covid-19 and beyond. Connect with team Creatrix Campus to learn more about virtual classroom software for teachers!

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  • How AI Has Gone To The Dogs

    How AI Has Gone To The Dogs

    One highlight from FETC’s Startup Pavilion is Florida-based Scholar Education, which uses AI chatbot dogs to help tutor students and give feedback to teachers. How it works: A friendly AI-powered classroom assistant provides academic guidance and encourages engagement. The AI dogs will deliver daily reports to parents so they can see feedback on their kids’ learning, creating a direct line of communication between home and school. See it in action for yourself:

    Kevin Hogan
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    Want to share a great resource? Let us know at submissions@eschoolmedia.com.

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  • Being Genuine in the Classroom  – Faculty Focus

    Being Genuine in the Classroom  – Faculty Focus

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  • West Virginia Executive Order on ‘DEI’ unconstitutionally limits university classroom discussions.

    West Virginia Executive Order on ‘DEI’ unconstitutionally limits university classroom discussions.

    West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order yesterday to eliminate certain diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in state agencies and organizations that receive state money. While the state may limit certain programs or activities of state agencies, the executive order is written so broadly that it applies to classroom instruction in higher education. As such, the executive order violates the First Amendment and must be rescinded or amended to make clear that it does not affect what’s discussed in college classrooms. If the order is not rescinded or amended, West Virginia’s public institutions must protect faculty academic freedom rights and make sure that classroom teaching is not affected. 

    If you are a faculty member whose teaching may be impacted by Executive Order 3-25, FIRE is here for you.

    Provision 1.b. sweeps in an enormous amount of expression protected under the First Amendment protected expression at West Virginia’s universities and colleges. It provides: 

    [No] entity receiving state funds, shall utilize state funds, property, or resources to . . . Mandate any person to participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities, procedures, or programming to the extent such education, training, activity, or procedure promotes or encourages the granting of preferences based on one person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over that of another.

    This language violates the First Amendment, reaching college classroom instruction and discussion. It is viewpoint-discriminatory, prohibiting faculty from sharing any material that “promotes or encourages” a view while allowing them to criticize that viewpoint. And while other states’ anti-DEI efforts have included language that might protect discussions in university and college classrooms, West Virginia’s does not — instead, it applies to any agency receiving state funds. West Virginia’s public universities cannot both comply with the executive order and their obligations under the first Amendment. 

    Governor Morrisey should rescind or amend the Executive Order to make clear that it does not affect higher education classroom instruction. 

    Whatever authority states might have to regulate other state agencies (including K-12 education and non academic higher education programming), the university classroom context is different. The First Amendment protects the right of faculty members at public universities and colleges to discuss pedagogically-relevant material in their courses, even if that material is offensive to students, colleagues, the public, or lawmakers. As the Supreme Court held in Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York (1967), state officials cannot use the law to impose an “orthodoxy over the [college] classroom,” where students learn “through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas,” not “authoritative selection,” wrote Justice William Brennan.

    FIRE has defended this important right across the ideological spectrum in courts across the country, successfully suing over Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” and maintaining an ongoing challenge against California’s requirement that faculty incorporate ‘anti-racist’ viewpoints into their classroom teaching.

    Executive Order 3-25 violates those First Amendment rights. Under Executive Order 3-25:

    • A law professor teaching constitutional law cannot present Supreme Court opinions arguing in favor of race-conscious admissions at universities and colleges, including the dissenting opinions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College or the plurality or majority opinions in Bakke and Grutter.
    • A college professor cannot recount other arguments in favor of affirmative action or racial preferences, which remain legal in many other circumstances outside of the university context.
    • A professor discussing reparations — including proposals recently introduced in the United States Senate — can only criticize reparations, but could not present arguments in favor, even if they want to dissect those arguments.
    • A history professor would have to think twice before presenting materials relating to historic immigration policies that limited immigrants by national origin, as that might “promote” preferences based on national origin.
    • A political science professor cannot present materials arguing in favor of continuing to limit Selective Service (i.e., the military draft) registration requirements to men, or limiting combat roles to men, as those arguments would “promote” preferences based on sex.

    Diversity, equity, and inclusion statements FAQ

    Issue Pages

    Vague or ideologically motivated DEI statement policies can too easily function as litmus tests for adherence to prevailing ideological views on DEI.


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    Worse still, it is impossible for an educator to know what might “promote or encourage the granting of preferences” with regard to a particular student. For instance, since students reading the Supreme Court decisions in Bakke and Grutter may find their arguments convincing, even teaching about these landmark cases would risk violating the executive order. This cannot be reconciled with the First Amendment and academic freedom rights of West Virginia students and professors.

    The plain language of the provision clearly conflicts with West Virginians’ constitutional rights. Governor Morrisey should rescind or amend the Executive Order to make clear that it does not affect higher education classroom instruction. If you are a faculty member whose teaching may be impacted by Executive Order 3-25, please contact FIRE: https://thefire.org/alarm.

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  • A crisis of trust in the classroom (opinion)

    A crisis of trust in the classroom (opinion)

    It was the day after returning from Thanksgiving break. I’d been stewing that whole time over yet another case of cheating, and I resolved to do something about it. “Folks,” I said, “I just can’t trust you anymore.”

    After a strong start, many of the 160 mostly first-year students in my general education course had become, well, challenging. They’d drift in and out of the classroom. Many just stopped showing up. Those who did were often distracted and unfocused. I had to ask students to stop watching movies and to not play video games. Students demanded time to talk about how they were graded unfairly on one assignment or another but then would not show up for meetings. My beleaguered TAs sifted through endless AI-generated nonsense submitted for assignments that, in some cases, asked only for a sentence or two of wholly unsubstantiated opinion. One student photoshopped himself into a picture of a local museum rather than visiting it, as required by an assignment. I couldn’t even administer a simple low-stakes, in-class pen-and-paper quiz without a third of the students miraculously coming up with the same verbatim answers. Were they cheating? Somehow using AI? Had I simplified the quiz so much that these were the only possible answers? Had I simply become a victim of my own misplaced trust?

    I meant that word, “trust,” to land just so. For several weeks we had been surveying the history of arts and culture in Philadelphia. A key theme emerged concerning whether or not Philadelphians could trust culture leaders to put people before profit. We talked about the postwar expansion of local universities (including our own), the deployment of murals during the 1980s as an antigraffiti strategy and, most recently, the debate over whether or not the Philadelphia 76ers should be allowed to build an arena adjacent to the city’s historic Chinatown. In each case we bumped into hard questions about who really benefits from civic projects that supposedly benefit everyone.

    So, when I told my students that I couldn’t trust them anymore, I wanted them to know that I wasn’t just upset about cheating. What really worried me was the possibility that our ability to trust one another in the classroom had been derailed by the same sort of crass profiteering that explains why, for instance, so many of our neighbors’ homes get bulldozed and replaced with cheap student apartments. That in a class where I’d tried to teach them to be better citizens of our democracy, to discern public good from private profit, to see value in the arts and culture beyond their capacity to generate revenue, so many students kept trying to succeed by deploying the usual strategies of the profiteer—namely cheating and obfuscation.

    But could any of them hear this? Did it even matter? How many of my students, I wondered, would even show up if not for a chance to earn points? Maybe to them class is just another transaction. Like buying fries at the food truck and hoping to get a few extra just for waiting patiently?

    I decided to find out.

    With just a few sessions remaining, I offered everyone a choice: Pick Path A and I’d instantly give you full credit for all of the remaining assignments. All you had to do was join me for a class session’s worth of honest conversation about how to build a better college course. Pick Path B and I’d give you the same points, but you wouldn’t even have to show up! You could just give up, no questions asked, and not even have to come back to class. Just take the fries—er, the points—and go.

    The nervous chatter that followed showed me that, if nothing else, my offer got their attention. Some folks left immediately. Others gathered to ask if I was serious: “I really don’t have to come back, and I’ll still get the points?!” I assured them that there was no catch. When I left the room, I wondered if anyone would choose Path A. Later that day, I checked the results: Nearly 50 students had chosen to return. I was delighted!

    But how to proceed? For this to work I needed them to tell me what they really thought, rather than what they supposed I wanted to hear. My solution was an unconference. When the students returned, I’d ask each of them to take two sticky notes. On one they’d write something they loved about their college courses. On the other, they’d jot down something that frustrated them. The TAs and I would then stand at the whiteboard and arrange the notes into a handful of common themes. We’d ask everyone to gravitate toward whatever theme interested them most, gather with whomever they met there and then chat for a while about ways to augment the good and eliminate the bad. I’d sweep in toward the end to find out what everyone had come up with.

    So, what did I learn? Well, first off, I learned to temper my optimism. Although 50 students selected Path A, only 40 showed up for the discussion. And then about half of those folks opted to leave once they were entirely convinced that they could not earn additional points by remaining. To put it in starker terms, I learned that—in this instance—only about 15 percent of my students were willing to attend a regularly scheduled class if doing so didn’t present some specific opportunity for earning points toward their grades. Which is also to say that more than 85 percent of my students were content to receive points for doing absolutely nothing.

    There are many reasons why students may or may not have chosen to come back. The size of this sample though convinces me that college instructors are contending with dire problems related to how a rising generation of students understands learning. These are not problems that can be beaten back with new educational apps or by bemoaning AI. They are rather problems concerning citizenship, identity and the commodification of everything. They reflect a collapse of trust in institutions, knowledge and the self.

    I don’t fault my students for mistrusting me or the systems that we’ve come to rely on in the university. I too am skeptical about the integrity of our nation’s educational landscape. The real problem, however, is that the impossibility of trusting one another means that I cannot learn in any reliable way what the Path B students need for this situation to change.

    I can, however, learn from the Path A students, and one crucial lesson is that they exist. That is very good news! I learned, too, that the “good” students are not always the good students. The two dozen students who stuck it out were not, by and large, the students I expected to remain. I’d say that just about a third of the traditionally high-performing students came back without incentive. It’s an important reminder to all of us that surviving the classroom by teaching to only those students who appear to care is a surefire way to alienate others who really do.

    Some of what the Path A students taught me I’ve known for a long time. They react very favorably, for instance, to professors who make content immediate, interesting and personal. They feel betrayed by professors who read from years-old PowerPoints and will sit through those courses in silent resentment. Silence, in fact, appeared as a theme throughout our conversation. Many students are terrified to speak aloud in front of people they do not know or trust. They are also unsure about how to meet people or how to know if the people they meet can be trusted. None of us should be surprised that trust and communication are entwined. Thinking more fully about how they get bound up with the classroom will, for me, be a critical task going forward.

    I learned also that students appreciate an aspect of my teaching that I absolutely detest: They love when I publicly call out the disrupters and the rule breakers. They like it, that is, when I police the classroom. From my standpoint, having to be the heavy feels like a pedagogical failure. My sense is that a well-run classroom should prevent most behavior problems from occurring in the first place. Understandably, committed students appreciate when I ensure a fair and safe learning environment. But I have to wonder whether the Path A students’ appetite for schadenfreude reflects deeper problems: an unwillingness to confront difficulty, a disregard for the commonwealth, an immoderate desire for spectacle. Teaching is always a performance. But maybe what meanings our performances convey aren’t always what we think.

    By far, though, the most striking and maybe most troubling lesson I gathered during our unconference was this: Students do not know how to read. Technically they can understand printed text, and surely more than a few can do better than that. But the Path A students confirmed my sense that most if not a majority of my students were unable to reliably discern key concepts and big-picture meaning from, say, a 20-page essay written for an educated though nonspecialist audience. I’ve experienced this problem elsewhere in my teaching, and so I planned for it this time around by starting very slow. Our first reading was a short bit of journalism; the second was an encyclopedia entry. We talked about reading strategy and discussed methods for wrangling with difficult texts. But even so, I pretty quickly hit their limit. Weekly reading quizzes and end-of-week writing assignments called “connect the dots” showed me that most students simply could not.

    Concerns about declining literacy in the classroom are certainly not new. But what struck me in this moment was the extent to which the Path A students were fully aware of their own illiteracy, how troubled they were by it and how betrayed they feel by former teachers who assured them they were ready for college. During our discussion, students expressed how relieved they were when, late in the semester, I relented and substituted audio and video texts for planned readings. They want help learning how to read but are unsure of where or how to get it. There is a lot of embarrassment, shame and fear associated with this issue. Contending with it now must be a top priority for all of us.

    I learned so much more from our Path A unconference. In one of many lighthearted moments, for instance, we all heard from some international students about how “bonkers” they think the American students are. We’ve had a lot of laughs this semester, in fact, and despite the challenges, I’ve really enjoyed the work. But knowing what the work is, or needs to be, has never been harder. I want my students to see their world in new ways. They want highly individualized learning experiences free of confrontation and anxiety. I offer questions; they want answers. I beg for honesty; they demand points.

    Like it or not, cutting deals for points means that I’m stuck in the same structures of profit that they are. But maybe that’s the real lesson. Sharing something in common, after all, is an excellent first step toward building trust. Maybe even the first step down a new path.

    Seth C. Bruggeman is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public History at Temple University.

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