Author Archive

    Do specialized teaching roles help or hurt students?

    June 28, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    The success of our schools—and of our education system at large—hinges on teachers. From decades of research we know that teachers influence student outcomes more than anything else a school has to offer. Given the importance of teachers, many of the prominent ideas for improving education focus on increasing teacher impact through better recruitment, preparation, […]

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    Show me the evidence: Do new staffing arrangements actually work?

    June 14, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    As future-thinking schools experiment with ways to personalize learning—such as blended, project-based, exploratory, and mastery-based learning—it seems only logical that they also reconsider how they organize their instructional teams. This hypothesis guided our research with Public Impact over the last year, and culminated in a white paper released last month. Given the persuasive anecdotes and achievement results we saw from the […]

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    A new approach to personalized learning reveals 3 valuable teaching insights

    May 31, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    Personalized learning’s rationale has strong intuitive appeal: We can all remember feeling bored, confused, frustrated, or lost in school when our classes didn’t spark our interests or address our learning needs. But an intuitive rationale doesn’t clearly translate to effective practice. For personalized learning to actually move the needle on improving student experiences and elevating […]

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    Innovative staffing to personalize learning: How new teaching roles and blended learning help students succeed

    May 24, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    DOWNLOAD PAPER EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In today’s classrooms, teachers face a tall order. They want to differentiate instruction, develop students’ social-emotional skills, and strengthen the bonds among students and caring adults. But addressing all these needs for dozens of students at a time is a herculean task. Many schools have started to help teachers use blended […]

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    The secret element in blended learning

    May 9, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    By definition, online learning is part of any blended learning classroom. It is the key innovation for enabling student-centered learning at scale. Given this fact, it’s easy to get caught up in thinking of technology—devices and software—as blended learnings’ core, defining feature. Yet the most powerful and important element in blended learning doesn’t have a touch […]

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    Should schools ban spiral notebooks?

    February 6, 2018 | by Thomas Arnett

    From the first-hand experiences of millions of students and teachers worldwide, it’s clear that paper notebooks are a deterrent to quality education. For generations, students have used them in class to scribble or doodle, pass messages to their friends, or construct wads, planes, and spitball projectiles. Given the numerous ways students can use their notebooks […]

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