Hot Button Issues

You don’t have to search for long to find educators talking about ChatGPT these days, and the conversation is all over the place. Of course, it’s understandable why everyone’s talking about ChatGPT, with its tremendous potential for both academic advancement and misuse. After all, education has never faced a challenge like this. Right?

We’re only just beginning to comprehend the implications and lessons of the pandemic’s impact on education--among them, the advantages and limits of remote education. For all its challenges, however, the quick shift to a remote--and thus more independent--learning model came with a pedagogical silver lining. After all, educators have long advocated for and pursued initiatives that emphasize the importance of cultivating greater student autonomy in the learning process. Of the many lessons to be taken from the pandemic, the move to remote learning has a lot to teach us about how to better cultivate more independent learners.

If everyone hates standardized testing so much, when are we going to cancel it in all its forms once and for all? For now, that's not quite on the agenda. But that doesn't mean the struggle won't continue. The hope is that teachers can use the standards and the tests that go along with them to help them craft lessons for their students without falling short on creativity or student performance.

Spoiler alert: the teen brain isn't like the adult brain. Sure, it's pink and squishy, and it bears a passing resemblance to a giant wad of chewed-up bubblegum. In those ways it's pretty similar. But as teens navigate their daily lives, their brains light up differently from the brains of adults. In part, that's because their brains aren't done developing. Of course, evidence suggests that human brains are never totally done growing and changing, and that "brain development in various forms goes on throughout the lifespan". Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.