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ASCD Express is the association's free e-newsletter. Published two to three times a month, this resource seeks to give educators practical, actionable strategies and information from the most reputable sources—the colleagues and experts working in the education field. ASCD Express content is developed and curated for brevity and relevance to the real experiences of working educators.
ASCD Express seeks brief, practical content. Article submissions typically range from 600 to 1,000 words, and multimedia submissions should be no longer than 10 minutes. Please send submissions to express@ascd.org.
We welcome research-based submissions 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 publishing in ASCD Express. When submitting articles, please write the issue theme in the subject line of your e-mail to express@ascd.org.
Why don't students use feedback? Sue Brookhart writes that if students don't know how to use feedback, or don't understand the learning goal they're applying it to, they're likely to see feedback as evaluative rather than informative. Like a final grade, feedback under these circumstances marks an end to learning, not an opportunity to extend. How do you avoid feedback that frustrates and fizzles? What are the conditions before, during, and after giving feedback that propel students to improve their work? What's your criteria for useful feedback and what are your strategies for managing a consistent feedback loop?
Submissions closed
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five youths ages 13–18 experiences a serious mental health condition, and of chronic cases of mental illness, 50 percent begin by age 14. Yet, on average, it takes 8–10 years from the onset of symptoms until intervention. How can schools play a stronger frontline role in identifying potential issues and helping affected students thrive both academically and socially? This issue will look at conditions affecting children and teens, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, and addiction. It will also explore the effects of trauma and stress on students. What staffing and training challenges do schools face in supporting students with mental illnesses? How can educators help students succeed in school despite adverse childhood experiences? Articles will explore specific solutions for schools, including screening, training for teachers, working with parents and families, and partnerships with local hospitals and health clinics.
When schools replace the term “drop out” and instead refer to “push out,” they acknowledge the factors that contribute to a student's decision to leave school. They also recognize how certain practices may perpetuate systematic inequities in terms of a student's race, class, or gender. Most notably, school discipline, "with its heavy reliance on exclusionary practices—dismissal, suspension, or expulsion—becomes a predictable, cyclical, and ghettoizing response,” writes Monique Morris, author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. Student behavior may be acting out a response to trauma or general disenfranchisement within school. Experts like Morris argue that counteracting the pushout problem requires healing, relationship-focused classrooms that provide an unbiased and inclusive curriculum and show students the path from where they are to career and college ambitions. Has your school reflected on policies and practices that fuel student disengagement? What adjustments have you made, and what results have you seen? What steps are you taking to better support black girls and other particularly vulnerable groups?
How can schools move beyond conventional assessment approaches and develop more expansive methods that gauge both deep understanding of content and whole-child development? The question is particularly pressing in light of new criteria for student-progress measures under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act. This issue will explore how educators are rethinking "assessment." What key skills and dispositions—like persistence, critical thinking, self-regulation, and the ability to empathize and communicate with others—should schools be measuring? How can educators do a better job of measuring the skills and capabilities that employers say students will need? We welcome articles on international assessment models and alternative methods like performance-based assessments, digital portfolios, computer-adapted testing, and authentic presentations. Submissions looking at research on the potential of new assessment approaches, as well as implementation challenges, are also encouraged.
From articulation to action, the classroom can be a space where students become skilled at identifying, researching, and responding to issues they care about. Students who feel heard and that their voices matter have been shown to be more invested in school because it is a place where they have agency and what they do is intrinsically linked to their own values. So how do you design learning with student voice in mind? What types of practice are essential to developing strong student voices? In what ways does your school invite and nurture student leadership? We want to hear from teachers and students about the ways in which schools are and could amplify student voices.
You can tell as soon as you enter the school building—and even more when you go into the classrooms. Certain schools exhibit a positive energy that is instantly recognizable: Students are actively engaged, teachers are enthusiastic, administrators are making things happen, and parents are happily lingering. The mood is bright and welcoming. But how do schools get this way, and what effect does it have on student learning? This issue will explore how school leaders cultivate vibrant school cultures that combat initiative fatigue and maintain high staff morale despite the many, often conflicting, demands on schools today. Articles will examine critical aspects of school climate like communication, teacher hiring and support, collaboration, trust, community engagement, diversity, facilities, and curriculum—focusing on what levers leaders have to drive change, what resources they can turn to, and what common barriers exist. We welcome case studies on school-climate transformations, as well articles that delve into recent research on the relationship between school culture and academic progress.
Design thinking is not just for STEM or Silicon Valley but has application across grade levels and content areas. Design thinking "begins with the premise of tapping into students' curiosity and allowing them to create, test, and re-create until they eventually present what they made to a real audience (sometimes global but often local)," writes author John Spencer. What are the essentials for a worthy design-thinking project? Several models exist for applying design thinking. Which do you use and how do you help students develop the skills that drive each step of the process? How do you get students to buy in and keep them engaged even when they struggle? How have you unpacked content standards to reveal opportunities for design thinking? What do feedback and assessment look like in classrooms applying design thinking to learning? We'd like to hear how you're helping students of all ages use design thinking to solve a variety of problems.
According to NAEP results, only 27 percent of students perform at or above proficient levels in writing. And anecdotal reports from many teachers indicate that students are weak in writing. This issue will explore strategies for effective writing instruction with a focus on the connections between writing, reading, and thinking. How can schools integrate meaningful writing opportunities across the curriculum? What are the most effective ways to motivate reluctant writers and support students who struggle with writing, including English language learners and students with disabilities? What are the promises and pitfalls of leveraging technology in the writing process? How can writing in different content areas and across genres enhance students' skills and academic growth? We're also seeking new strategies that help teachers assess student writing.
Whether English language learners (ELLs) are new to the country or new to the classroom, how to support them is on every teacher's mind. According to recent federal data, ELLs make up almost 10 percent of the U.S. student population and fall well below their non-ELL peers in terms of national assessments and graduation rates. All ELLs face the double bind of having to simultaneously learn language and content, but they may also experience social and economic strains that make them more vulnerable than their peers. How can every teacher make language learners feel valued and supported? How do schools create space for language learners to share their stories, forge relationships, and emerge as leaders within the school? What do schools that have closed the gaps for language learners do differently? How do you design learning that supports content and language acquisition?
As Baby Boomers retire, the teacher workforce is changing dramatically—as are the instructional and professional demands on educators. This issue will look at how teacher-preparation initiatives are evolving to train the next generation of teachers. We want to explore how school leaders are leveraging and adapting to new models of teacher development and support. What new approaches are teacher-preparation programs using to attract candidates and better prepare them for the realities of the classroom? What is the role of technology in changing how teacher training is delivered and organized? Are residency models viable alternatives to more traditional programs? What strategies attract diverse and academically select candidates? What roles can career-changer and grow-your-own programs play in school and district staffing strategies? And how can districts partner with teacher-preparation programs to address shortages, particularly in high-need subjects and schools?
Emotions are the rudder that steers thinking, write neuroscientists Immordino-Yang and Damasio. Our emotional states influence motivation to learn and perception of tasks. If a student is having a bad day, for example, they are going to perceive everything through that emotional lens. Additionally, for learning to transfer from the classroom to real world applications, students need to form an emotional connection to what they learn. What does the unbreakable bond between feelings and learning mean for how you teach? How do you check in with the emotional climate of your classroom, and what strategies help students become aware (but not governed) by their emotional state? What do you do differently for students who are having those bad days? How do you design curriculum and learning experiences that connect with students?
A recent report from the Learning Policy Institute gives a global perspective to the revolving door in the U.S. teaching profession. "Compared to high-achieving jurisdictions like Finland, Singapore, and Ontario, Canada—where only about 3 to 4 percent of teachers leave in a given year—U.S. attrition rates are quite high, hovering near 8 percent over the last decade, and are much higher for beginners and teachers in high-poverty schools and districts." What conditions drive good educators out of the classroom and what's different in the countries, districts, and schools where teachers stay? This issue seeks to shed greater light on the problem of educator burnout—and how to address it. Personal reflections welcome.
We could always use more time, but working longer hours is often not possible, practical, or sustainable. When you can't add time, what's your best advice for stretching or being smarter within the time you have? How have you rearranged instructional time for maximum impact? Which classroom routines help you make the most of instructional time? Does your schedule reflect your priorities? Which tools—digital or analog—have helped you become a more organized educator? How can school leaders carve out time for teacher collaboration? In the crushing pace of the school day / year, how do you make time to pause, reflect, and reconnect with your intentions?
No longer just a numbers game, math class is increasingly centered around conceptual understanding and reasoning. "Language is the entirety of the mathematics classroom," says Megan Rowe, a math teacher at Borah High School in Idaho. Students need to be able to use language to formulate, synthesize, and communicate their mathematical thinking.
What are your strategies for supporting discourse-based mathematics? What activities and routines get students talking with each other as they work toward a solution? What skills are essential to helping students communicate mathematical ideas orally, with representations, and in writing? How do you make talking in math accessible to all students, including those who are learning English?
When learning sticks, students are able to retrieve new knowledge when they need it and apply it in new contexts. How do you design lessons so that students reflect deeply and make memorable associations with content? What strategies help students rehearse new knowledge in ways that transfer to working and long-term memory? We'd like to know how you help students remember what's important when it matters.
"I want students to love being in school." "I want students to feel safe and valued." "I want students to know I expect the best from them." These may be some of your hopes for students' first impressions of you and your classroom. How do you establish these individual or school-wide values in the first weeks of school? What helps you set the tone – from relationships to routines to policies – and sustain these values all year long?
Classroom management remains a central challenge—and opportunity—for educators. This issue will examine specific and big-picture approaches to improving classroom management, including how to build relationships and community, address both positive and problem behaviors, design conducive classroom spaces, and create supportive climates for learning and whole-child development.
Relevant, probing questions keep academic discourse and generative thinking flowing in the classroom. Establishing a climate for questioning takes work and is not merely a matter of putting engaging materials in students' hands (though that's a good first step). What critical thinking skills, and what methods for practicing them, help students root out relationships, big ideas, and paradoxes within the topics they study? How do you create space for all students to contribute meaningful questions during discussions? How do you engage students in authentic tasks that apply and extend their questions? How do you plan lessons or units to allow for the spontaneous turns student inquiry can take?
As we learn more about what drives and supports students, social-emotional learning (SEL) has become a growing area of interest in K–12 education. But what does SEL look like in real-life schools? How are educators and schools integrating SEL into the curriculum, and what changes does this involve in instructional practice and support? What impact does SEL have, and how are schools measuring it?
Submissions due closed
This issue extends our exploration of strategies for effective writing instruction with a focus on the connections between writing, reading, and thinking. How can schools integrate meaningful writing opportunities across the curriculum? What are the most effective ways to motivate reluctant writers and support students who struggle with writing, including English language learners and students with disabilities?
This issue will explore the rise of job-embedded, teacher-led professional development—and the challenges and opportunities it presents to schools. We’ll look at how teachers are taking professional learning into their own hands through professional learning communities (PLCs), Edcamps, microcredentialing, video study, and social media. What works in creating and supporting such practices in schools?
From Henrietta Lacks to Flint's water crisis and back, science and social justice have always gone hand in hand. Teachers can make this connection clearer, and help students find their passion for scientific inquiry, through purposeful investigations that are rooted in community problems. How do you help students see the science behind every headline and issue that matters to them? How can students find science problems that pique their interest? What are your strategies for planning purposeful STEM activities that align content, the scientific practices outlined in Next Generation Science Standards, and relevance for your student population? How do you remove barriers to STEM access for students of color, girls, or multilingual students?
Submissions due: September 15
Every student deserves challenging work to grapple with. Productive struggle helps students build perseverance; metacognition about which strategies are working and which aren't; and intrinsic motivation to pursue learning, not just easy answers. Orchestrating these types of learning environments requires a keen eye for differentiation and the ability to step back and let students drive their own learning. How do you create tasks that have challenging access points for all students? How do you help students see the value in, and level up their skills for, engaging in productive struggle? How have you learned to "do less" as a teacher so that students own their learning?
Submissions due: October 1
Revisit the most liked, clicked, and shared ideas we published in 2018. We hope this collection serves you well and energizes your work in the New Year.
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