Write for ASCD Express
Published every two weeks, ASCD Express, launched in fall 2005, seeks to give a new generation of educators in the United States and around the world the practical information they need to be the best-informed in the field.
Because of the nature of the Web and the demands made on typical educators—too much information and too little time to read it—ASCD Express seeks short, practical articles (about 600 words).
We welcome research-based articles as well as your own examples from the classroom and advice about how to adapt successful strategies or overcome challenges whether as a teacher, administrator, or specialist.
Read our list of upcoming themes, and consider submitting your article to ASCD Express.
2009–2010 Themes
denotes a theme that corresponds to that month's issue of Educational Leadership.
October 15: Developing School Leaders
Leading a school has become so complex that it's no longer possible for principals to do it on their own. Schools need to embrace new and smarter ways of leading. How can principals empower teachers and staff members to become leaders? How do teachers collectively take responsibility for the well-being of the school? This issue will examine innovative models of shared leadership, new and evolving leadership roles, and the kinds of supports that school leaders need to hone their skills and remain energized to lead.
Submissions Due: August 17, 2009
October 29: Who Will Lead the Way in the Age of Globalization?
The global village is here, so how should schools be preparing students to succeed in a world where economic competition will grow fierce across national lines? Global education experts say that technology, tolerance, and talent, not to mention creativity, will drive success in diverse worldwide communities. What are schools already doing to show that they understand the implications for their students of the ever-changing, tech-driven world of the information revolution and global economy? This issue will look at how schools can better equip their students to deeply understand content so that they can better understand problems and one day serve the needs of a changing world.
Submissions Due: September 4, 2009
November 12: Multiple Measures, but What Kinds?
Teaching to tests rarely promotes good instruction and basing all decisions on a single test is unwise. But if many assessment measures are acceptable, how can we make sure that schools are accountable? What roles do teachers, principals, superintendents, and others have in designing and implementing balanced assessment systems? Topics in this issue will include the connection between formative and summative assessments, assessment that promotes learning as well as measures it, the value of national and international assessments, and training in assessment practice.
Submissions Due: September 18, 2009
November 24: Believing In and Motivating Every Student
Motivating students starts with believing that every student in your class can be successful. Even though acting on the high expectations teachers should have for students—in the academic arena as well as social and behavioral areas—presents challenges, it’s a moral imperative that all schools must strive to fulfill. This issue shares strategies, innovative efforts, and sound advice for reaching students at both the academic and personal levels to help teachers and administrators better engage and encourage students to fulfill their potential to excel. Topics will include best practices for diverse classrooms and special populations.
Submissions Due: October 2, 2009
December 10: Helping ELLs Acquire Academic Content
Well-developed ESL programs don’t necessarily take care of the needs of English language learners (ELLs) who have transitioned into mainstream classrooms. Once out of nuts-and-bolts language programs, ELLs still need linguistic and academic support based on a detailed understanding of students’ language development. How can a teacher faced with students at different levels of language proficiency meet everyone’s needs? This issue will explore and explain strategies for content and academic language acquisition using instructional strategies aimed at language development and the broader personal engagement of ELLs.
Submissions Due: October 14, 2009
December 22: Health and Learning
Research shows that healthy children learn more, so how can schools forge a healthy environment? This issue will examine programs ranging from creating school-based community health clinics to keeping physical education part of the school day; from implementing discipline policies that make hallways and classrooms free of physical or emotional violence to teaching students about nutrition and fitness; from helping students maintain a healthy body image to helping them avoid self-destructive behaviors. We also welcome research on the links among physical and mental health, student motivation, and achievement.
Submissions Due: October 26, 2009
January 7: A New Curriculum for a New Century
Now a decade into the 21st century, it’s time to stop talking about a new curriculum and start developing and using one. Already under great pressure to educate for a highly technological, fast-changing global economy, schools need to consider how curriculum and its delivery should change to meet the needs of students living in a world undergoing revolutionary changes. Through current examples and provocative expert insights, this issue will offer ways to jumpstart the critical conversations about the school curricula and teaching formats necessary for a new century, including content; assessment; program structure and instruction; and the habits of mind students, teachers, and administrators need to get it all done.
Submissions Due: November 9, 2009
January 21: Turning to National Standards
The drumbeat for national standards has grown perceptibly stronger in recent years, with leadership coming from state governors. Some states have recently teamed up to define voluntary national standards in reading, math, and science. How can national standards aid school reform efforts and promote a common base of knowledge for all students? What are the challenges to implementing standards? Topics in this issue could also include analyses of how national standards have worked in other countries and the potential implications of their successes or challenges for the United States.
Submissions Due: November 23, 2009
February 4: Meeting Students Where They Are
Kids come to school with varying abilities, interests, learning styles, background knowledge, and social and emotional needs. How can educators accurately assess students’ current instructional needs and differentiate instruction to meet those needs? How can we connect the curriculum to students’ interests, goals, and passions? Topics in this issue will include identifying students’ background knowledge, interests, strengths, and learning styles; understanding and building on students’ diverse cultural backgrounds; and overcoming challenging school structures that make it difficult to get to know students.
Submissions Due: December 7, 2009
February 18: Defining Issues in Educational Leadership
Before, during, and after ASCD's 2010 Annual Conference in San Antonio, Tex., ASCD Annual Conference Scholars will be pushing the envelope on using social networking as professional development during lively blog exchanges, conference calls, and face-to-face meetings to discuss the crucial issues of leadership in education. These educators, led by Tom Hoerr and Jen Morrison, will write about the array of challenges today's education leaders face and share positive ways educators around the world are prioritizing and addressing them.
This special issue is closed to outside submissions.
March 4: Reading to Learn
Good readers can use their skills to gain knowledge of any subject. How can teachers help students learn to extract information and construct meaning from what they read, no matter what the subject? What new or expanded reading comprehension skills are necessary in the 21st century? What can educators do to enable all students to learn from any kind of text they encounter, whether it's poetry or prose, fiction or nonfiction, on paper or online? We welcome submissions on teaching English language learners to read as well as strategies for older students who read below grade level.
Submissions Due: January 6, 2010
March 18: Does Gender Matter in Education?
In an age of equality of the sexes, what role does or should gender play in the learning environment? Do the stereotypes of boys presenting more discipline problems in the classroom and girls shying away from shining academically in mixed-gender classrooms—especially when it comes to math and science—still ring true? Administrators, teachers, researchers, and students themselves share how gender can affect the learning environment and what public, private, charter schools are doing to deal with it. Articles will analyze issues around mixed-gender and single-sex schools and classrooms, offering insights into gender issues and schooling.
Submissions Due: January 20, 2010
April 1: Reconfiguring School
How can schools stretch the traditional model that confines learning to a six-hour day and five-day week—and to one building? Out of both necessity and conviction, many schools are reshaping or increasing learning time, whether through four-day weeks, year-round schooling, digital learning communities, or after-school programs. Others are expanding learning beyond the school building through virtual schools, outdoor education, and place-based models that connect learning to the community. We welcome descriptions of successful practices, suggestions for new models, and analyses of why schools need to think beyond the traditional.
Submissions Due: February 3, 2010
April 15: The Content of Their Character: What Schools Can Still Do
Even in societies with divisive politics and social issues, most people can at least agree that being truly human requires acquiring and living out certain virtues, values, or character traits. What roles have schools played in transmitting those values? Are schools doing enough, or are families and society abdicating too much responsibility to schools? Schools as microcosms of society are ideal places to support values students learn from their families. New technologies also give today’s students a sense of connectedness to the global community, but the same devices give them anonymity and distance that have produced notorious cases of cyberbullying and sexual license. In the age of the quick digital lookup, how can we uphold the virtues of hard work and original thinking? We welcomes articles about programs that promote the development of virtues by showing how these values translate into positive actions in the classroom or playground, at home, or within the wider community.
Submissions Due: February 17, 2010
April 29: Response to Intervention in Practice
Response to Intervention (RtI) is a multistep approach to helping struggling students before they fail. RtI combines assessments; researched-based interventions; and continuous troubleshooting that includes supporting the teacher, student, and family. And RtI is catching on in schools as a comprehensive way to deal with both general education and special education populations. How has RtI made a difference in how your school serves struggling students?
Submissions Due: March 3, 2010
May 13: How the Teaching Profession Is Changing
What is being done to bring the best teachers into the classrooms where they are most needed? How are schools helping both new and veteran teachers flourish and grow in their careers? What kinds of incentives spur teachers to improve? What new abilities and expectations are the younger generation of teachers bringing to the profession? This issue will explore teacher recruitment and retention, teacher evaluation, career paths, and other policies that help teachers succeed and encourage professional growth.
Submissions Due: March 17, 2010
May 27: Educational Leaders: A Work in Progress
ASCD Annual Conference Scholars, led by Tom Hoerr and Jen Morrison, will share what they've learned from each other and from sessions at ASCD's 2010 Annual Conference in San Antonio, Tex., after having discussed issues in leadership for the last six months through social networking tools and in person at the ASCD Annual Conference. These educators will reflect on specific issues today's education leaders face as they tell their own stories about what they've done and will be doing to meet those challenges in their own practices, school, and districts.
This special issue is closed to outside submissions.
June 10: Virtually Educated
Whether students are taking online courses with an unseen instructor at a virtual school or attending class as an avatar in Second Life, the online delivery of education is all around us. Underneath the commercial hype and glitzy technology, what are the advantages and drawbacks of online education? Will some form of virtual education become the norm? This issue will look at a variety of virtual education programs in schools in the United States and other countries. How are educators and their students using new Web platforms, like Twitter, or “older” ones, like blogs, to increase student understanding and engagement or extend learning beyond the classroom?
Submissions Due: April 14, 2010
June 24: Career Education as a School Responsibility
Education pundits call the bachelor’s degree the new high school diploma, so getting on the college train seems to be an eventuality for more and more high school graduates. Or is it? As high school commencements take place, not a few students, parents, and school leaders may be wondering, Couldn’t schools being doing more to ensure that kids are better prepared for a job now? What should secondary schools be doing to help students explore career choices and connect school subjects to real-world work? How can high schools team up with community partners to offer robust internships that give students knowledge and hands-on experiences in fields they may one day be employed in? How can partnerships between colleges and high schools provide students with footholds in a future career? What highly valued job skills, such as collaboration and communication, should schools teach?
Submissions Due: April 28, 2010
July 8: New Approaches to School Data
How are new ways of gathering and reporting data changing how schools evaluate students and, in some cases, their teachers? Should report cards be reconfigured to reflect a teacher’s or school’s deeper understanding about their students? How can teachers use data to encourage learning and students’ desire to improve instead of stigmatizing failure and setting it in stone? Articles will focus on new ways schools are reporting comprehensive student progress that take into account the whole child. Some schools are using database technology, portfolios and performance assessments, and project-based learning among other innovations to gather data reporting student achievement. What are secondary schools doing to offer specific proof that their graduates’ credentials support reality?
Submissions Due: May 12, 2010
July 22: Engaging Parents and the Community in Schooling
When it comes to parent and community involvement in schools, school leaders recognize that it takes staff time and sound organization to pull off these efforts, whether a school is hosting tutors, offering internships, or running a parent center that helps strengthen learning and family life. What kinds of initiatives work well to harness family and community resources? How do they get funded? What is the payoff for students but also for the wider community? We welcome stories about innovative programs that break down the barriers between school and community and provide mutual enrichment for all concerned.
Submissions Due: May 26, 2010
August 5: Urban Schools That Work
Top-notch urban public schools have been around for years—even centuries, if we include some storied schools in Massachusetts and New York. But to deal with the effect on students of the pervasive urban issues of poverty, crime, transience, family dysfunction, and school overcrowding or mismanagement of resources, school staff require almost superhuman strength. Despite the odds, what are K–12 schools in large, diverse cities doing to overcome challenges and give their students the well-rounded education they desperately need to succeed in the world? How are urban schools defying the stereotypes by increasing academic achievement in core subjects, inspiring and training staff for the unique challenges of urban school careers, and graduating students truly ready for college or employment?
Submissions Due: June 9, 2010
August 19: Fostering Thinking Skills for Today’s Students
Higher-order thinking skills have been part of education ever since Bloom gave them an explicit hierarchy in 1956. In recent years, such complex thinking skills have become tied to state content standards, making it necessary for every educator to understand them. Does higher-order thinking—such as logic and reasoning, problem solving, and creativity—go beyond Bloom? What are the best ways to teach students how to think? In which subjects do complex thinking skills fit best, and do certain activities promote or hone their usage? How do teachers know their students have developed sufficient thinking skills and an understanding of how to apply them? This issue will look at how to develop, use, and assess higher-order thinking at the elementary and secondary levels.
Submissions Due: June 23, 2010
September 2: Classroom Management 101
Managing a class of 24 or 30 personalities requires a masterful ability to manage group dynamics; focus on individuals; execute sound judgment; and perhaps, most of all, inspire, engage, and motivate children or young adults to learn with a forward-looking vision. What basics of classroom management do new teachers need to quickly master to build a solid foundation for the rest of the school year? How can teachers retool approaches to discipline to make fairness and flexibility operative rather than uninspired rigorism? What affect can districtwide practices like looping have on building relationships and curricular depth so that transitions become less of a problem? This issue will share best practices or innovations for organizing materials, promoting collaboration for learning, teaching negotiating skills, and fostering a positive classroom culture.
Submissions Due: July, 9, 2010
September 16: Not Your Grandmother’s Professional Development
Today’s K–12 educators need more know-how, training, and enhanced qualifications to be highly-qualified at their jobs. Standards-based education has set a higher bar for teaching all students, so teachers must know how to reach and inspire students along personalized paths to learning. How is today’s professional development evolving to meet the changing needs of educators contending with diverse education needs, the effect of technology in schools, and the perennial demands of educating? This issue will explore innovative forms of professional development, including technology usage, ongoing and embedded professional development, and efforts to better reach school staff via workshops and conferences.
Submissions Due: July 21, 2010
September 30: Setting Up Teachers for Success
New teachers and struggling teachers seem to have a lot in common, but for different reasons. Nonetheless, schools and districts are duty-bound to support classroom teachers who either lack the experience or haven’t yet seemed to unlock the trade secrets of classroom discipline, curriculum and lesson planning, finding the right resources or effective instructional strategies, or building authentic relationships with students. A teacher who falls short in any one of those areas courts problems. How can teachers get the advice, training, and long-range planning that will keep them and their students satisfied that their hard work in the classroom is paying off? This issue will showcase what administrators, colleagues, and struggling teachers themselves can do to ensure that they are teaching well and serving the needs of all their students.
Submissions Due: August 4, 2010