problems and solutions of teacher education

5 Big Challenges Facing K-12 Education Today—And Ideas for Tackling Them

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Big Ideas is Education Week’s annual special report that brings the expertise of our newsroom to bear on the challenges educators are facing in classrooms, schools, and districts.

In the report , EdWeek reporters ask hard questions about K-12 education’s biggest issues and offer insights based on their extensive coverage and expertise.

The goal is to question the status quo and explore opportunities to help build a better, more just learning environment for all students.

In the 2023 edition , our newsroom sought to dig deeper into new and persistent challenges. Our reporters consider some of the big questions facing the field: Why is teacher pay so stubbornly stalled? What should reading instruction look like? How do we integrate—or even think about—AI? What does it mean for parents to be involved in the decisionmaking around classroom curriculum? And, perhaps the most existential, what does it mean for schools to be “public”?

The reported essays below tackle these vexing and pressing questions. We hope they offer fodder for robust discussions.

To see how your fellow educator peers are feeling about a number of these issues, we invite you to explore the EdWeek Research Center’s survey of more than 1,000 teachers and school and district leaders .

Please connect with us on social media by using #K12BigIdeas or by emailing [email protected].

1. What Does It Actually Mean for Schools to Be Public?

Over years of covering school finance, Mark Lieberman keep running up against one nagging question: Does the way we pay for public schools inherently contradict what we understand the goal of public education to be? Read more →

2. Public Schools Rely on Underpaid Female Labor. It’s Not Sustainable

School districts are still operating largely as if the labor market for women hasn’t changed in the last half century, writes Alyson Klein. Read more →

3. Parents’ Rights Groups Have Mobilized. What Does It Mean for Students?

Libby Stanford has been covering the parents’ rights groups that have led the charge to limit teaching about race, sexuality, and gender. In her essay, she explores what happens to students who miss out on that instruction. Read more→

4. To Move Past the Reading Wars, We Must Understand Where They Started

When it comes to reading instruction, we keep having the same fights over and over again, writes Sarah Schwartz. That’s because, she says, we have a fundamental divide about what reading is and how to study it. Read more→

5. No, AI Won’t Destroy Education. But We Should Be Skeptical

Lauraine Langreo makes the case for using AI to benefit teaching and learning while being aware of its potential downsides. Read more→

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Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that could make a difference

Eduardo velez bustillo, harry a. patrinos.

In 2022, we published, Lessons for the education sector from the COVID-19 pandemic , which was a follow up to,  Four Education Trends that Countries Everywhere Should Know About , which summarized views of education experts around the world on how to handle the most pressing issues facing the education sector then. We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy.

Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades .

1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures

Low quality instruction is a major constraint and prior to COVID-19, the learning poverty rate in low- and middle-income countries was 57% (6 out of 10 children could not read and understand basic texts by age 10). More dramatic is the case of Sub-Saharan Africa with a rate even higher at 86%. Several analyses show that the impact of the pandemic on student learning was significant, leaving students in low- and middle-income countries way behind in mathematics, reading and other subjects.  Some argue that learning poverty may be close to 70% after the pandemic , with a substantial long-term negative effect in future earnings. This generation could lose around $21 trillion in future salaries, with the vulnerable students affected the most.

2. Countries are not paying enough attention to early childhood care and education (ECCE)

At the pre-school level about two-thirds of countries do not have a proper legal framework to provide free and compulsory pre-primary education. According to UNESCO, only a minority of countries, mostly high-income, were making timely progress towards SDG4 benchmarks on early childhood indicators prior to the onset of COVID-19. And remember that ECCE is not only preparation for primary school. It can be the foundation for emotional wellbeing and learning throughout life; one of the best investments a country can make.

3. There is an inadequate supply of high-quality teachers

Low quality teaching is a huge problem and getting worse in many low- and middle-income countries.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the percentage of trained teachers fell from 84% in 2000 to 69% in 2019 . In addition, in many countries teachers are formally trained and as such qualified, but do not have the minimum pedagogical training. Globally, teachers for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects are the biggest shortfalls.

4. Decision-makers are not implementing evidence-based or pro-equity policies that guarantee solid foundations

It is difficult to understand the continued focus on non-evidence-based policies when there is so much that we know now about what works. Two factors contribute to this problem. One is the short tenure that top officials have when leading education systems. Examples of countries where ministers last less than one year on average are plentiful. The second and more worrisome deals with the fact that there is little attention given to empirical evidence when designing education policies.

To help improve on these four fronts, we see four supporting trends:

1. Neuroscience should be integrated into education policies

Policies considering neuroscience can help ensure that students get proper attention early to support brain development in the first 2-3 years of life. It can also help ensure that children learn to read at the proper age so that they will be able to acquire foundational skills to learn during the primary education cycle and from there on. Inputs like micronutrients, early child stimulation for gross and fine motor skills, speech and language and playing with other children before the age of three are cost-effective ways to get proper development. Early grade reading, using the pedagogical suggestion by the Early Grade Reading Assessment model, has improved learning outcomes in many low- and middle-income countries. We now have the tools to incorporate these advances into the teaching and learning system with AI , ChatGPT , MOOCs and online tutoring.

2. Reversing learning losses at home and at school

There is a real need to address the remaining and lingering losses due to school closures because of COVID-19.  Most students living in households with incomes under the poverty line in the developing world, roughly the bottom 80% in low-income countries and the bottom 50% in middle-income countries, do not have the minimum conditions to learn at home . These students do not have access to the internet, and, often, their parents or guardians do not have the necessary schooling level or the time to help them in their learning process. Connectivity for poor households is a priority. But learning continuity also requires the presence of an adult as a facilitator—a parent, guardian, instructor, or community worker assisting the student during the learning process while schools are closed or e-learning is used.

To recover from the negative impact of the pandemic, the school system will need to develop at the student level: (i) active and reflective learning; (ii) analytical and applied skills; (iii) strong self-esteem; (iv) attitudes supportive of cooperation and solidarity; and (v) a good knowledge of the curriculum areas. At the teacher (instructor, facilitator, parent) level, the system should aim to develop a new disposition toward the role of teacher as a guide and facilitator. And finally, the system also needs to increase parental involvement in the education of their children and be active part in the solution of the children’s problems. The Escuela Nueva Learning Circles or the Pratham Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) are models that can be used.

3. Use of evidence to improve teaching and learning

We now know more about what works at scale to address the learning crisis. To help countries improve teaching and learning and make teaching an attractive profession, based on available empirical world-wide evidence , we need to improve its status, compensation policies and career progression structures; ensure pre-service education includes a strong practicum component so teachers are well equipped to transition and perform effectively in the classroom; and provide high-quality in-service professional development to ensure they keep teaching in an effective way. We also have the tools to address learning issues cost-effectively. The returns to schooling are high and increasing post-pandemic. But we also have the cost-benefit tools to make good decisions, and these suggest that structured pedagogy, teaching according to learning levels (with and without technology use) are proven effective and cost-effective .

4. The role of the private sector

When properly regulated the private sector can be an effective education provider, and it can help address the specific needs of countries. Most of the pedagogical models that have received international recognition come from the private sector. For example, the recipients of the Yidan Prize on education development are from the non-state sector experiences (Escuela Nueva, BRAC, edX, Pratham, CAMFED and New Education Initiative). In the context of the Artificial Intelligence movement, most of the tools that will revolutionize teaching and learning come from the private sector (i.e., big data, machine learning, electronic pedagogies like OER-Open Educational Resources, MOOCs, etc.). Around the world education technology start-ups are developing AI tools that may have a good potential to help improve quality of education .

After decades asking the same questions on how to improve the education systems of countries, we, finally, are finding answers that are very promising.  Governments need to be aware of this fact.

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Consultant, Education Sector, World Bank

Senior Adviser, Education

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6 things to know about U.S. teacher shortages and how to solve them

Cory Turner

Nicole Cohen

First-grade teacher Kimberly Pate is 52 and worked for nearly two decades as a classroom assistant. She is a student in the Mississippi Teacher Residency where she'll get a master's degree plus dual certification in elementary and special education, all for free. Imani Khayyam for NPR hide caption

First-grade teacher Kimberly Pate is 52 and worked for nearly two decades as a classroom assistant. She is a student in the Mississippi Teacher Residency where she'll get a master's degree plus dual certification in elementary and special education, all for free.

As of October 2022, after the school year had already begun, 45% of U.S. public schools had at least one teacher vacancy. That's according to limited federal data .

For several months, NPR has been exploring the forces at work behind these local teacher shortages. Interviews with more than 70 experts and educators across the country, including teachers both aspiring and retiring, offer several explanations. Here's what to know:

There are more teachers now than before the pandemic – but certain kinds of teachers are still in short supply.

Nationally, "we have more teachers on a numeric basis than we did before the pandemic, and we have fewer students" due to enrollment drops, says Chad Aldeman, a researcher who studies teacher shortages.

What we do (and don't) know about teacher shortages, and what can be done about them

But according to a deep-dive into the available data , "The biggest issue districts face in staffing schools with qualified teachers is... a chronic and perpetual misalignment of teacher supply and demand."

Qualified special education, science and math teachers are among the hardest to find, according to federal data.

High-poverty and high-minority school districts are often hit harder by teacher shortages.

Schools that serve high-poverty neighborhoods and/or a "high-minority student body" were more likely to have reported vacancies in October 2022, federal data show.

Many districts "have dozens of teachers applying for the same positions," education researcher Tuan Nguyen explains. "But in a nearby district that is more economically-disadvantaged or has a higher proportion of minority students, they have difficulty attracting teachers."

It turns out, shortages are a lot like school districts themselves. They often begin and end at arbitrary lines that have more to do with privilege and zip code than the needs of children.

Teacher pay has stagnated, while the cost of a four-year degree has nearly doubled.

According to federal data , teachers in the U.S. earned an average of $66,397 in 2021-22. But that number hides enormous variation in school funding and teacher pay from state to state. (The average salary in Connecticut is $81,185, while the average in Mississippi is just $47,162.)

At the same time, most school districts still require at least four years of college to be a teacher. And while federal data show inflation-adjusted teacher pay has been stagnant since 1990, the inflation-adjusted cost of college has nearly doubled , from about $15,000 a year in 1990 to $29,000 in 2020.

For nearly a decade, fewer people have been going to school to become teachers.

The rising cost of college is forcing an uncomfortable cost-benefit analysis on aspiring teachers. Ominously, between 2010 and 2018, enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs dropped by roughly a third .

One important caveat to that decline, and an early sign of good news, is that since 2018 "the data suggest that [enrollment numbers] are getting better, not worse," says Aldeman.

There's been a decline in Americans' esteem for teaching.

Perceptions of teacher prestige have fallen in the last decade. Those are the findings of the aptly-titled paper " The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession ," written by two education policy researchers. Among the researchers' findings:

• Interest in teaching has fallen among high school seniors and college freshmen to the lowest level in the last 50 years.
• "Teachers' job satisfaction is also at the lowest level in five decades," the authors write.
• These drops aren't simply the result of pandemic stress. "Most of these declines occurred steadily throughout the last decade suggesting they are a function of larger, long-standing structural issues with the profession," the authors say. "In our view, these findings should be cause for serious national concern." 

There's a lot states and school districts can do to better support teachers, and invest in the next generation.

Schools can offer big hiring bonuses for teachers in hard-to-staff subject areas, like special education and math. They can also provide support through mentorship programs that pair new teachers with veteran educators.

There's also a national movement around Grow Your Own (GYO) programs, in which teacher candidates are cultivated from the local community. The hope is a community member will be more personally invested in the school system, and more likely to stick around. Drawing teachers from the community also makes it easier for students to see themselves and their life experiences reflected in their teachers.

Schools in Jackson, Miss., have partnered with the Mississippi Department of Education to provide candidates with a no-cost master's degree and dual certification in elementary and special education. In return, the new teachers promise to stay and teach in Jackson for three years.

"It's really a no-cost pathway. It is a Cadillac package," says Courtney Van Cleve, who heads teacher talent acquisition for the Mississippi Department of Education.

According to New America , at least 35 states have some sort of GYO policy on the books and/or fund a GYO program.

The challenge is these programs cost money, and in many places, that money won't come — or keep coming — unless lawmakers on both sides of the aisle understand the urgency of the teacher shortage problem.

Publication

Global report on teachers: addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession

The world faces a critical shortage of teachers, hindering the achievement of SDG 4 and the Education 2030 agenda. This first Global Report on Teachers stresses the urgency of this challenge and calls for immediate action. 

Exposing a projected deficit of 44 million primary and secondary education teachers by 2030, the report examines the complexity of the crisis, from sub-Saharan Africa’s need for 15 million more teachers to a decline in the attractiveness of the profession and subsequent retention challenges in higher-income countries. 

Filling a void in the field and grounded in new data, the report calls for international cooperation and increased education investment, offering a roadmap to empower teachers and to find policy solutions to ensure every learner is taught by a qualified, motivated and well-supported teacher.

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The global education challenge: Scaling up to tackle the learning crisis

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Alice albright alice albright chief executive officer - global partnership for education @alicealbright.

July 25, 2019

The following is one of eight briefs commissioned for the 16th annual Brookings Blum Roundtable, “2020 and beyond: Maintaining the bipartisan narrative on US global development.”

Addressing today’s massive global education crisis requires some disruption and the development of a new 21st-century aid delivery model built on a strong operational public-private partnership and results-based financing model that rewards political leadership and progress on overcoming priority obstacles to equitable access and learning in least developed countries (LDCs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Success will also require a more efficient and unified global education architecture. More money alone will not fix the problem. Addressing this global challenge requires new champions at the highest level and new approaches.

Key data points

In an era when youth are the fastest-growing segment of the population in many parts of the world, new data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) reveals that an estimated 263 million children and young people are out of school, overwhelmingly in LDCs and LMICs. 1 On current trends, the International Commission on Financing Education Opportunity reported in 2016 that, a far larger number—825 million young people—will not have the basic literacy, numeracy, and digital skills to compete for the jobs of 2030. 2 Absent a significant political and financial investment in their education, beginning with basic education, there is a serious risk that this youth “bulge” will drive instability and constrain economic growth.

Despite progress in gender parity, it will take about 100 years to reach true gender equality at secondary school level in LDCs and LMICs. Lack of education and related employment opportunities in these countries presents national, regional, and global security risks.

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September 12, 2017

Esther Care, Patrick Griffin

April 11, 2017

Among global education’s most urgent challenges is a severe lack of trained teachers, particularly female teachers. An additional 9 million trained teachers are needed in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.

Refugees and internally displaced people, now numbering over 70 million, constitute a global crisis. Two-thirds of the people in this group are women and children; host countries, many fragile themselves, struggle to provide access to education to such people.

Highlighted below are actions and reforms that could lead the way toward solving the crisis:

• Leadership to jump-start transformation. The next U.S. administration should convene a high-level White House conference of sovereign donors, developing country leaders, key multilateral organizations, private sector and major philanthropists/foundations, and civil society to jump-start and energize a new, 10-year global response to this challenge. A key goal of this decadelong effort should be to transform education systems in the world’s poorest countries, particularly for girls and women, within a generation. That implies advancing much faster than the 100-plus years required if current programs and commitments remain as is.
• A whole-of-government leadership response. Such transformation of currently weak education systems in scores of countries over a generation will require sustained top-level political leadership, accompanied by substantial new donor and developing country investments. To ensure sustained attention for this initiative over multiple years, the U.S. administration will need to designate senior officials in the State Department, USAID, the National Security Council, the Office of Management and Budget, and elsewhere to form a whole-of-government leadership response that can energize other governments and actors.
• Teacher training and deployment at scale. A key component of a new global highest-level effort, based on securing progress against the Sustainable Development Goals and the Addis 2030 Framework, should be the training and deployment of 9 million new qualified teachers, particularly female teachers, in sub-Saharan Africa where they are most needed. Over 90 percent of the Global Partnership for Education’s education sector implementation grants have included investments in teacher development and training and 76 percent in the provision of learning materials.
• Foster positive disruption by engaging community level non-state actors who are providing education services in marginal areas where national systems do not reach the population. Related to this, increased financial and technical support to national governments are required to strengthen their non-state actor regulatory frameworks. Such frameworks must ensure that any non-state actors operate without discrimination and prioritize access for the most marginalized. The ideological divide on this issue—featuring a strong resistance by defenders of public education to tap into the capacities and networks of non-state actors—must be resolved if we are to achieve a rapid breakthrough.
• Confirm the appropriate roles for technology in equitably advancing access and quality of education, including in the initial and ongoing training of teachers and administrators, delivery of distance education to marginalized communities and assessment of learning, strengthening of basic systems, and increased efficiency of systems. This is not primarily about how various gadgets can help advance education goals.
• Commodity component. Availability of appropriate learning materials for every child sitting in a classroom—right level, right language, and right subject matter. Lack of books and other learning materials is a persistent problem throughout education systems—from early grades through to teaching colleges. Teachers need books and other materials to do their jobs. Consider how the USAID-hosted Global Book Alliance, working to address costs and supply chain issues, distribution challenges, and more can be strengthened and supported to produce the model(s) that can overcome these challenges.

Annual high-level stock take at the G-7. The next U.S. administration can work with G-7 partners to secure agreement on an annual stocktaking of progress against this new global education agenda at the upcoming G-7 summits. This also will help ensure sustained focus and pressure to deliver especially on equity and inclusion. Global Partnership for Education’s participation at the G-7 Gender Equality Advisory Council is helping ensure that momentum is maintained to mobilize the necessary political leadership and expertise at country level to rapidly step up progress in gender equality, in and through education. 3 Also consider a role for the G-20, given participation by some developing country partners.

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• “263 Million Children and Youth Are Out of School.” UNESCO UIS. July 15, 2016. http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/263-million-children-and-youth-are-out-school.
• “The Learning Generation: Investing in education for a changing world.” The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. 2016. https://report.educationcommission.org/downloads/.
• “Influencing the most powerful nations to invest in the power of girls.” Global Partnership for Education. March 12, 2019. https://www.globalpartnership.org/blog/influencing-most-powerful-nations-invest-power-girls.

Global Education

Global Economy and Development

June 20, 2024

Elyse Painter, Emily Gustafsson-Wright

January 5, 2024

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9:00 am - 10:00 am EST

The Seekers

• Posted November 7, 2022
• By Lory Hough
• Entrepreneurship

In the education world, it’s easy to identify problems, less easy to find solutions. Everyone has a different idea of what could or should happen, and change is never simple — or fast. But solutions are out there, especially if you look close to the source: people who have been impacted in some way by the problem. Meet eight current students and recent graduates who experienced something — sometimes pain, sometimes frustration, sometimes hope — and are now working on ways to help others.

SEEKER: Elijah Armstrong, Ed.M.'20

“This motivated me to become an activist in the space of disability and education,” he says. “Education is supposed to act as a gateway for students, but far too often, for people with disabilities, it acts as a barrier.”

His experience led him to start a nonprofit while he was in college at Penn State called Equal Opportunities for Students “as a way to help tell the stories of marginalized students in education.” Then last year, he won the 2021 Paul G. Hearne Emerging Leader Award, an award given by the American Association of People with Disabilities that recognizes up and coming leaders with disabilities. With his prize money, Armstrong started his own award program: the Heumann-Armstrong Educational Awards, named partly for disability rights activist Judy Heumann. The award is given annually to students (sixth grade and up) who have experienced ableism — the social prejudice against people with disabilities — and have fought against it.

“Students with disabilities face barriers in education that aren’t faced by their non-disabled peers,” he says. “At all levels of education, students are forced to do intense emotional and logistical labor to fight for accommodations or go without accommodations at all. This is on top of the day-to-day challenges of having a disability or chronic illness, and the challenges that go along with that. Students with disabilities should have ways of being compensated for that labor and denoting that labor on resumes.”

One of the unique aspects of the award program, he says, is that winners aren’t restricted on how they can use their award money, although several from the inaugural round have used it to fund their own activism. For example, Otto Lana, a high school student, started a company called Otto’s Mottos that sells T-shirts and letterboards to help purchase communication devices for non-speaking students who can’t afford them. Himani Hitendra, a middle schooler, has been producing videos to educate her teachers and classmates about her disability, as well as ways they can be more inclusive. Jennifer Lee, a Princeton student, founded the Asian Americans with Disabilities Initiative.

Armstrong, who is also currently living and working in Washington, D.C. as a fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, says beyond awarding money to other young activists, one of the biggest and most impactful ways he thinks he’s helping to challenge the education system is through the videos his nonprofit produces for each of the winners.

“We highlight the award winners and give them a platform to tell their stories in a way that gives them agency,” he says. “Education doesn’t often take the voices or experiences of disabled students into account when discussing accessibility in education. We want to make sure we develop a platform that gives voice to the narratives of these students, so that everyone can listen to and learn from them.”

Learn about his nonprofit: equalopportunitiesforstudents.org

SEEKER: Elisa Guerra, Ed.M.’21

In the early 2000s, Guerra wasn’t finding the kind of educational experience for her young children near her home in Aguascalientes, México, that she was looking for — one that was warm, but also ambitious and fun and stimulating.

“I saw a gap between what schools offered at that time and what parents like me were dreaming of for their young,” she says. “After my son went through three different schools and none was a true fit, I decided that I needed to imagine and create the school I wanted for my children.”

So Guerra, without any formal teaching experience, started Colegio Valle de Filadelfia, a small preschool with 17 kids that was based on what she was doing informally at home with her ownchildren. Those first few years, she says she pretty much did every job the school had, learning along the way.

“I taught. I answered the phone. I designed our programs. I managed promotion and enrollment,” she says. “I also changed diapers, cleaned noses, and mopped puke.” For many years, she served as the principal.

She also fine-tuned their learning model, what they started calling Método Filadelfia , or the Philadelphia Method. Based on the work of Glenn Doman and The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, their model isn’t your typical approach for helping young children learn.

“We teach — playfully and respectfully — tiny children, starting at age three, to read, and [we also teach] art, physical excellence, and world cultures as the first steps of global citizenship,” she says. Music lessons, including violin, are started at the preschool level, and classes are taught in two foreign languages in addition to a student’s first language. When Guerra first started the school, there were no commercial textbooks that fit what she was trying to do, so she wrote her own.

Since then, schools across Mexico, as well as Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador now use her textbooks. Al Jazeera made a documentary about her as part of their Rebel Educator series. Twice she was a finalist for Global Teacher of the Year. Just before the pandemic hit, she was appointed to unesco’s International Commission on the Futures of Education, a small group that includes writers, activists, professors (including Professor Fernando Reimers, Ed.M.’84, Ed.D.’88), anthropologists, entrepreneurs, and country presidents. (When UNESCO first reached out to her, she thought it was a scam and almost didn’t respond back to them.)

And it all started 23 years ago with an idea and, as she says, some naivete.

“In retrospect, it was crazy. Most people I know who have opened schools have done it ‘the right way,’ if such a thing exists,” Guerra says. “They were experienced teachers, or they even ran schools as principals, before jumping out to create a new one. They could do better because they knew better. I did not have that advantage. I had so much to learn myself. But in a way, that was also a blessing because I also had much less to ‘unlearn.’ …I said before that I became a teacher accidentally, but that is only partly accurate. Indeed, I was not expecting my life to take the path of education. But once I found myself there, it was my decision to stay. The discovery of a passion for teaching was the accident. To embrace the teaching profession was a choice.”

Read more about her work: elisaguerra.net/english/

SEEKER: Cynthia Hagan, Ed.M.’22

“I’ve lived here for 35 years and have witnessed the impact of poverty and the opioid crisis on our communities,” she says, “both on current realities and hopes for the future.”

Initially, when she first applied to Harvard, she thought she’d create a children’s program using puppets, inspired, in part, by Sesame Street , but after taking a few classes, Hagan’s ideas on how to help children in her state evolved.

“I became fascinated with the concept of designing for joy as introduced to us in the course What Learning Designers Do,” taught by Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt, she says. “Joy is an often-overlooked ingredient for learning.” The power of story also began to stick.

After creating a class project called Adventure Box, focused on increasing third-grade reading levels for children experiencing homelessness, Hagan’s idea for Book Joy emerged.

Research shows that children who are not proficient in reading by the third grade, when they transition from learning to read to reading to learn, are four times more likely to drop out of high school, and six times as likely to be incarcerated as an adult.

“I knew that the overall thirdgrade reading levels of children experiencing poverty in rural Appalachia were significantly lagging,” she says. “It just seemed like a logical move to modify Adventure Box to meet the needs of this population.”

She decided to focus first on McDowell County, West Virginia, once one of the largest coal producing areas in the world, where the child poverty rate in 2019 was a staggering 48.6%.

Hagan’s idea with Book Joy is simple but potentially life altering for the young children they began targeting starting this past September: give each incoming kindergarten student a curated box filled with high-quality books (printed and audio) based on interest and reading level, plus fun related activities to conceptualize the reading experience, and then follow up with new boxes quarterly (December, March, June) until third grade. The goal is to significantly increase third-grade reading proficiency.

For the launch this fall, Book Joy partnered with Scholastic to get discounted books and with Random House for free books. McDowell’s assistant superintendent/federal programs manager has been actively involved. Twice a year, Book Joy will conduct assessments with the students, their parents, and their teachers, to see how each box is working, and then tweak the content. They’ll also use feedback to improve on future boxes and teachers can use assessments to provide individualized intervention, as needed.

“When their interests, reading levels, or personal circumstances change,” says Hagan, “so does the contents of their box.”

Another goal for Book Joy, beyond improving third-grade reading proficiency for children in one of the poorest districts in Hagan’s state, is something fundamental to this former librarian: to bring joy to reading and learning, hence the name, Book Joy.

“Each box is truly a gift created just for them. No two boxes will be alike because no two children are alike,” she says. “And we are designing these boxes from an edutainment perspective, putting as much focus on eliciting joy as we do in choosing the best aligned reading material. We want every design element of the box, from the moment the children lay eyes on it to the emptying of every item, to elicit joy.”

Discover how you can help: givebookjoy.org

SEEKER: Ben Mackey, Ed.M.’13

In 2020, the district unanimously passed the Environmental & Climate Resolution, a massive overhaul of how schools in the Dallas Independent School District approach climate change. It includes reviewing and revising current policies across all schools and setting goals for reducing the district’s environmental footprint, while also keeping an eye on spending.

Mackey, a former math teacher and principal, says that it was young people in the district who really got the ball rolling when it came to making sure the district was thinking about its impact on the environment and then making a plan for change — something few districts are doing.

“The genesis of this resolution and the work really started with students,” he says. “When I took office in 2019, there was a small but mighty group of students who had been coming and attending every board meeting and sharing their perspectives and imploring the school board to make strides in its sustainability work. I was able to work with these students to get this resolution drafted and passed by the school board.”

What passed is a 10-year plan to drastically improve the district’s sustainability practices, including some steps that have already been taken, including switching energy plans and contracting for 100% renewable energy, which is expected to save the district $1 million a year on top of the energy benefits. By 2027, all plates, utensils, and trash bags will be 100% compostable.

Longer term, the district has applied for a federal grant to pilot 25 electric busses and will begin moving away from gas-powered maintenance equipment. It will limit synthetic fertilizer. The district also created a set of policies that say any new school built or existing school remodeled must include LEED silver certified standards. Another goal is to plant more trees to combat the “heat island” effect that schools that are primarily blacktop experience.

“One area that stuck out to our community group and administration as they were formulating the recommendation is how the increase in tree canopy cover can combat carbon emissions, improve learning environments, and serve to decrease energy usage,” he says. “We’re aiming to increase canopy cover at all campuses to at least 30% and we’re working with a number of phenomenal partner organizations to get this started, including the Texas Trees Foundation and the Cool Schools Parks initiatives.”

Mackey, who is the executive director of a statewide education nonprofit called Texas Impact Network(in addition to being on the school board), says his advice to other districts that want to reduce their school’s climate footprint is to get buy-in across the district — and just get started.

“Dallas ISD’s process started with students at our board meetings, speaking every single month, about the need and importance for this to happen. These students reached out to trustees and school staff and continued to come forward with both a charge and ideas for what success looks like,” he says. “The hardest part is often to get it off the ground and I’d encourage all who care about this to call your school board trustees and be a consistent and sensible voice who will share their mind and provide concrete solutions to make this work happen.”

Sign up for his monthly newsletters: benfordisd.com

SEEKER: Michael Ángel Vázquez, Ed.M.’19, current Ph.D. student

That’s why he’s trying to make the graduate years, at least for Ed School students, less stressful.

“I just went through this huge burst of depression my first year, my master’s year,” he says, “and I realized that I wasn’t the only one that was going through that.”

Part of the problem, says Vázquez, a former teacher in the Navajo Nation, is that while universities often offer great resources, many students don’t know where to turn for help or don’t even think they should ask for help.

“There’s so much pressure to feel like you know everything and not admit when you don’t,” he says.

Vázquez decided to create a comprehensive student-to-student guidebook, based on resources he knew about and those shared by other students. This “labor of love,” as he calls it, includes everything from where to find books and readings to how to save money, including where to grocery shop, how to sign up for MassHealth, how to apply for snap benefits, and how to sell items to other students through the Harvard Grad Market. He has a section on job hunting. The mental health section offers tips for finding therapists, wellness options at Harvard, ways to combat vitamin D deficiencies, and advice for advocating for yourself. Other documents include ways to prep for graduation, must-have lists for living in a colder climate, and a link to local tenants’ rights.

“I just felt like it was important to do whatever was possible for the next group of students to have a safe, happy experience, because, ultimately, learning should be fun, should be exciting,” he says. Endemic to being back in school, with all of the pressure, “it’s very common for that fun and excitement of learning” to take a back seat. “I don’t want that be the case. This guidebook is just one way to mitigate that a little bit and make it more fun and exciting for people.”

None of this support and concern for the well-being of other students surprises Vázquez’s professors, who point out that he has been one of the most active students since he got to Harvard. He’s been especially in-tune with first-gen students (he’s first gen, starting with attending the University of Southern California) and for students of color, both at the Ed School and at the college, where he’s a tutor at Adams House. He’s also been a teaching fellow for ethnic studies classes at the Ed School since 2019 and will now help teach ethnic studies to undergraduates at Harvard starting this fall. He hopes creating and sharing his guide helps all of the students he’s around.

“As a student and as somebody who is a teaching fellow and who has worked in different organizing groups on campus and off campus, I see that grad school and organizing are often very stressful,” he says. “I really want to drill that it’s OK to not know something and that learning is shared, which is why I did this. There were things I didn’t know at first. I want to share that knowledge with others, and I want it to be community-built. When you admit you don’t know something, that’s when you truly learn something.”

SEEKER: Grace Kossia, Ed.M.’17

“Anytime one of my friends unconsciously has a math moment, I always yell out, ‘You’re a mathematician!’” she says. “Too many people are walking through this life convinced that they could never be good at math. Math isn’t meant to be something we’re good at — it’s simply something we do, and when mistakes happen, we learn.”

It’s this philosophy that she and her coworkers bring to their edtech nonprofit based in Brooklyn, New York, playfully called Almost Fun, which last year helped 1.5 million middle and high school students with free online math lessons.

“The title ‘Almost Fun’ winks at the way students perk up when they engage with our resources and find unexpected joy while learning math,” she says. “We value being real with our students, and part of that is understanding that math can be a hard pill to swallow and that schoolwork may not be the number one thing students are going to want to do. However, with the right approach, we can curate experiences that make math learning ‘almost fun’ and something to look forward to for even the least confident learners.”

The backbone of their approach includes explaining concepts using easy-to-understand examples, rather than through clinical, mathematical definitions. Their distributive property lesson, for example, relates expanding and factoring an expression to opening and closing an umbrella. Their functions lesson uses a vending machine to explain how functions represent the relationship between inputs and outputs. Another lesson compares absolute value to the overall power of a superhero or villain.

Kossia says their site is meant to complement existing online sites like Khan Academy, which she says has been a trailblazer in edtech that serves many students. But as helpful as Khan is, some students still need more help — or just a different approach.

“There is still a critical number of students who struggle with high levels of math anxiety and low math confidence, which limits their ability to take full advantage of the support online resources like Khan offer,” she says. “At Almost Fun, we want to position ourselves as a complement to these existing resources by using creative math analogies to explain foundational math concepts and bridge the gaps in students’ math confidence and motivation, so that they can better benefit from the support other resources offer.”

Kossia remembers the gaps she struggled to fill after she immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time, she was good at math, and decided to major in mechanical engineering in college. She had a hard time.

“I quickly realized that I had many gaps in my understanding of math and physics, which were essential skills I needed in this journey,” she says. “This chipped away at my confidence, but I was determined not to give up. I wanted to prove to myself and other people like me, especially Black women, that it could be done.” Later, when she worked as a physics teacher, her struggles helped her relate to students who were anxious about physics and pushed her to design creative lessons that focused on learning by doing, as opposed to learning by memorizing.

“At Almost Fun, I do the same thing but with math as the primary focus,” she says. “We believe math is more than just sets of memorized steps; it’s a way of describing relationships between things in our world.”

Access resources and lesson plans: almostfun.org

SEEKER: Shaina Lu, Ed.M.’17

“Learning about gentrification is unavoidable in placebased learning in a place like Chinatown,” Lu says. “However, it could be kind of a drag to spend your fourth-grade summer learning about gentrification.”

So Lu, an artist and former media arts teacher in Boston Public Schools, decided to make learning about this heavy topic more interesting: she created a graphic novel.

“ Noodle and Bao was my response to that feeling. I wanted to write and draw a story that elementary kids would devour and love — There’s a cat selling food in a cart! Neighborhood kids dress up and infiltrate a snobby restaurant! — but would also pay homage to some of these inspirational histories and present-day struggles they were learning about,” she says. While the novel isn’t specifically set in Boston’s Chinatown — it’s set in a fictional Town — Lu says it’s inspired by the many residents, activists, and community members of Boston’s Chinatown that she has met and worked with over the years — people who “have done so much exciting work that is more than comic book-worthy.”

Set to publish in the fall of 2024 by HarperCollins, Noodle and Bao also explores historical events from Boston’s Chinatown, most notably a fight for the land that now houses the community center where Lu worked and where elderly residents passionately voiced their displeasure to hotel developers at a meeting.

Lu says the graphic novel is just one example of something that has been important to her for many years: the intersection of art, education, and activism. Another example is a creative placemaking project she recently worked on in Chinatown with a local student in partnership with a local resident.

“The resident, youth, and I painted a community mural that featured [the resident’s] personal lens on the history of Chinatown,” she says. “The mural was painted on a condemned building on a border of Chinatown that is elslowly being eroded away by the neighboring district. It’s hard to parse out which separate part was ‘art’ or ‘activism,’ or ‘education,’ so I feel like they’re interwoven.”

Although she’s interested in teaching, Lu says classrooms are tricky places. “There’s an inherent power structure with the teacher as the fountain of knowledge and students as recipients of that.” Instead, “I’m interested in disrupting the capitalist status quo of education with ‘winners and losers’ as described by activist- philosopher Grace Lee Boggs in her 1970 essay, Education: The Great Obsession .”

She’s not interested, though, in disrupting the system on her own. “I hope to be, alongside others, building a new system, where people’s needs and interests and social responsibility define their learning, rather than their ability to produce,” she says. “There’s actually so much incredible person- centered education out there, both in and out of schools. I’ve worked with teachers who engaged students with civics project-based learning about gentrification, youth workers who have helped young people organize community gardens for their neighborhoods, and more.”

Learn about her art: shainadoesart.com

SEEKER: Justis Lopez, Current Ed.L.D. student

“I hold near to me that there are ancestors that wanted to study, but didn’t get the chance to,” he says. “There are relatives that wanted to pursue their dreams, but they put food on the table instead so that I could pursue mine, and for that I am eternally grateful and full of joy.”

It’s this gratitude and happiness for life that Lopez, a DJ known as DJ Faro (for the Spanish word, lightkeeper), is bringing to his time at the Ed School and to Project Happyvism, the culturally responsive nonprofit he started with his friend, Ryan Parker, a youth empowerment teacher and activist, that is rooted in hip hop and is a combination of happiness + activism.

“Project Happyvism is a feeling, a philosophy, and a movement that centers joy and love as a radical form of activism,” he says, meaning the commitment to loving yourself and those around you unconditionally.

“The organization embraces the beauty and need for joy,” he says, “and emphasizes the fact that maintaining happiness about who you are and what you think, say, and do in a world that consistently goes against the grain of your identity is a form of activism in itself, hence: happyvism.”

The project started from a song and video that Lopez and Parker wrote and produced and has since expanded to include helping others write songs (what they call “joy anthems”) in their recording studio, publishing a children’s book, Happyvism: A Story About Choosing Joy , and working with K–12 districts on related curriculum. They also started Joy Lab, a community gathering space in Manchester, Connecticut, where Lopez grew up, that offers yoga, wellness and equity workshops, and book readings. He plans on starting a Joy Lab at the Ed School during his time here.

“I’m just trying to create the spaces I wish I had for myself growing up,” Lopez says. “Spaces that center healing, hope, and hip hop.”

Although this is his first year as a student at the Ed School, Lopez has been involved with the school in the past, including as an organizer, MC, and DJ at the Alumni of Color Conference, thanks to Lecturer Christina Villarreal, Ed.M.’05, who later convinced him that getting into Harvard was a possibility. He also attended the Hip Hop Experience Lab conference run by Lecturer Aysha Upchurch, Ed.M.’15.

Previously, Lopez was a high school social studies teacher in Connecticut and created a hip hop class and afterschool program in the Bronx. He worked in the Hartford public schools as a climate, culture, and equity strategist, and was an adjunct professor at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. One day, he’d like to reach even higher and become the secretary of education for the United States.

“Policy is created by people and it’s important to have people in positions of leadership that understand the experiences of the students and educators they serve,” he says. “An important factor of that being a classroom teacher. When you have taught in the classroom you understand the human-centered perspective that is needed in education that goes beyond any policy. Of the last 11 U.S. secretaries of education, only three have been classroom teachers. Secretary Cardona makes the fourth. I want to build upon the human-centered approach he has brought to the role.”

Find your joy and watch their music video: projecthappyvism.com

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7 Challenges in Teaching, According to Real Teachers

• Topics : Teaching Advice A Teacher's Perspective

We surveyed the TeacherVision audience to find out what they believe to be the biggest challenges in teaching. A year later, we sent teachers the same survey to compare responses and see if the assumed challenges inside the classroom played out as expected.

In the ever-changing landscape of education, teachers face a myriad of challenges that continue to evolve. This is why we’ve asked our audience about their biggest challenges in the classroom. In this article, we explore the 7 challenges of teaching in 2024 as experienced by teachers themselves. We explore the complexities of the teaching profession, from classroom management to technology adaptation, and from dealing with large class sizes to managing parental expectations.

We asked teachers...

At TeacherVision, we are invested in supporting teachers so that they can, in turn, help their students. So, we were naturally curious about what new challenges they might have faced in these years after the start of the pandemic and what they will be facing in future school years to come.

In a recent TeacherVision survey, over  60% of teachers were concerned with students falling behind   and not performing at their current grade level . We polled hundreds of US educators at the high school, middle school, and elementary school levels on the challenges they have faced already and what they anticipate in the future. The results may surprise you.

The top 7 challenges in teaching, according to real teachers

1. Students falling behind 

Back at the start of the pandemic, teachers and parents alike were concerned about what kind of quality education could be provided on online platforms versus in-person classrooms. One major fear was the possible loss of learning and the  widening of achievement gaps .

These turned out to be both valid and growing concerns. While the poll at the beginning of the year revealed that  over 60% of teachers believed their biggest challenge in teaching would be academic progress , that number  rose closer to 70% when polled at the end of the year

Teachers have seen it all in the last few years. Dealing with the COVID-19 interruption of the traditional learning process, having to address a more diverse group of learners than ever before, and possibly managing a weightier workload due to teacher shortages and burnout were all referenced in the poll. But the numbers don’t lie. Teachers are mostly concerned with their student’s academic progress - and it’s not getting any better.

2. Behavioral challenges in the classroom

While academics were at the forefront of classroom concerns this past year, there are others quickly climbing up the polls.

When we asked teachers to provide their own suggestions of the challenges they faced outside of academics,  student behavior  was at the very top of the list— even above stress and differentiating instruction.

One teacher shared her experience about how the pandemic-induced break in learning as resulted in more behavioral issues in the classroom:

“It was apparent that because of the pandemic, not only are children behind in their academic skills, but also in their behavior skills. Children in 2nd grade who have never been to school before still throw tantrums like toddlers because they missed that important part of development in 1st grade and Kindergarten. Students in the 5th grade have no idea how to handle peer pressure and cannot hold conversations with each other because they missed that part of their development.”

There was not one thing that could be narrowed down as the cause of the decline in student behavior. However, the poll tells us that the lack of experience that leadership and administration have in dealing with these heightened challenges might have something to do with it.

“Student behavior was an issue, as well as greatly lowered standards, despite what is told to the general public,” says one teacher. Good teachers in school districts across the country are left to fend for themselves with behavior management concerns and having to lower benchmarks, as everyone is navigating uncharted waters. Unfortunately, it’s something they simply don’t have enough time for right now, among the other growing issues.

3. Adapting to technology

The sudden shift to virtual learning forced teachers to quickly adapt to new technologies. This transition has been challenging, especially for those who were not tech-savvy.

Not only did teachers have to learn new software and platforms, but they also had to find ways to ensure their students were able to adapt as well. Additionally, they had to create engaging and effective virtual lessons, which presented an entirely new set of challenges. Despite the difficulties, many teachers have reported that they feel more comfortable with technology and are better prepared for future disruptions to traditional learning.

4. Balancing work and personal life

Overwhelmingly, we have found that teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The increase in workload and the expectation to be available around the clock for students and parents can lead to burnout.

The issue of teacher burnout is a significant one. With the demands of preparing lessons, grading assignments, dealing with behavioral issues, and communicating with parents, teachers often find themselves with little time for personal activities or relaxation. This constant pressure can lead to stress, fatigue, and eventually burnout, which not only affects the teachers themselves but also their ability to effectively teach and inspire their students. Teachers must prioritize their well-being and take steps to manage their work-life balance.

TeacherVision provides a variety of  self-care resources  to support teachers struggling with teacher burnout.

5. Lack of resources

Many teachers are facing a lack of resources, including textbooks, technology, and other materials necessary for effective teaching. This has been especially challenging during remote learning.

In addition, these expectations can sometimes be at odds with the realities of the classroom and the unique needs of each student. Navigating these expectations while striving to provide the best education for every student is a balancing act that many teachers face.

6. Large Class Sizes

Managing large classes can be a big challenge, as it makes it difficult to give each student the attention they need. It can also make classroom management more difficult.

7. Dealing with Parental Expectations

Teachers often face pressure from parents who have high expectations for their children's academic performance. This can create additional stress and challenges for teachers.

Since the pandemic, parental expectations have shifted significantly. As parents gained a firsthand view of their children's education through remote learning, many developed higher expectations of teachers and the educational system as a whole. Teachers have been faced with the challenge of meeting these elevated expectations while also navigating the complexities of virtual instruction and dealing with the impacts of the pandemic on their students' learning.

Moving forward

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. Over  40% of teachers indicated that they feel their district displays appropriate staff appreciation . It’s important to note, also, the plain points of necessary improvement; only 14.8% of teachers listed peer coaching and mentoring as an active focus in their district, with team development and opportunities coming in at the bottom of the list at 8.7%.

Navigating a (not quite) post-pandemic educational landscape is not an easy task. Based on our most recent survey, we are moving in the right direction- but still have quite a way to go. The categories that require the most focus for the 2023/24 school year are academic, social/emotional, and teacher work/life balance, as the demands continue to increase without modifications to the time, it will be required to address them. We remain committed to serving teachers in the ever-changing educational environment with materials and resources that support their growing needs.

Make sure you don’t miss anything by  signing up for our newsletter !

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2024 Teacher Shortage Statistics Show We Still Have a Long Way To Go

These numbers are pretty alarming.

Anyone who works in a public school knows that the teaching profession is at a crisis point. Things are a little better than they were a few years ago, as the world rebounds from a global pandemic. But 2024 teacher shortage statistics show that while COVID-19 brought things to a head, it was just one more drop in a bucket that’s been overflowing for years. Take a look at these numbers, and you’ll see what we mean.

2024 Teacher Shortage Statistics

Nearly 9 in 10 schools struggle to hire qualified educators..

A whopping 86% of districts had trouble filling their open positions for the 2023-24 school year. Special ed, science, and foreign language positions are the most likely to go unfilled, and in high-poverty areas, the numbers are even worse.

Source: USA Today

Around 70% of educators say their school is understaffed, leading to a heavier workload.

Teacher shortages are a problem, and teachers aren’t the only ones leaving education. Custodians, paraprofessionals, and cafeteria workers are also leaving schools, and teachers are picking up the slack in trying to make up for these lost staff members. When buildings are understaffed, educators often aren’t able to do the job they’ve been hired to do.

Source: Pew Research: What It’s Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?

Nearly 60% of schools have trouble finding substitute teachers.

Teachers desperately need to be able to take time off when they’re sick; the cold/flu/COVID season is so much worse than it used to be. But many teachers are hesitant to call in, knowing that their school might not be able to find qualified coverage, leading students to fall behind. And with more than a quarter of schools concerned with teacher absences, this substitute teacher shortage is a serious problem in many places.

Source: School Pulse Panel: Absenteeism March 2024

In K-12 education, 39% of teachers say they feel burned out “very often” or “always.”

This is a slight improvement over last year, when 44% of teachers reported consistent burnout. But that still means that two out of every five teachers are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and at their wit’s end nearly every single day. Burnout is preventable though, and teachers have given us insight into what would make their work more sustainable (Hint: It’s salary, among other things).

Source: Gallup The State of Schools Report 2024

More than three-quarters of teachers find their jobs stressful on a regular basis.

An overwhelming percentage of teachers say they are stressed (77%) and overwhelmed (68%) often or extremely often. In contrast, only 56% say their job is usually fulfilling, while 53% find it enjoyable most of the time. Teachers in general are very giving people, and they’re willing to do a lot for their students. But these levels of burnout are just not sustainable in the long run.

Source: Pew Research Center: How Teachers Manage Their Workload

Most teachers (82%) say public K-12 education has gotten worse over the last five years.

No one knows the state of education better than those on the front lines—and teachers are telling it like they see it. Sixty percent blame it on the current political climate, and 46% are disheartened by the lack of funding and resources available. An even more discouraging statistic? More than half of teachers expect things to get even worse over the next five years.

Source: Pew Research Center: Teachers’ Views on the State of Public K-12 Education

Only 15% of educators are very satisfied with their pay.

Can we pay teachers more? It’s no secret that teachers aren’t paid well. What’s interesting about teachers’ salaries, however, is that they vary across the country. And there are even some instances where teachers make less in certain states, but they’re required to do more after contract hours. We need uniformity around teacher salaries across the country, and we also need to value teachers’ time. Let’s give our teachers a wage that they can actually live on comfortably.

Source: Pew Research: What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America Today?

Teachers make 5% less than they did 10 years ago.

When you adjust for inflation, the average teacher salary has actually gone down over the years. The average starting teacher makes about $45,000 per year, which is considered by the Economic Policy Institute to be less than the minimum living wage in most areas. And nearly 30% of districts start teachers out at less than $40K. How can we end the teacher shortage if we’re not willing to pay them enough to make a basic living?

Source: NEA Educator Pay Data 2024

More than half of teachers (53%) say higher pay is the key to hiring a better and more diverse workforce.

In case we’re not making the point clear, low pay is driving people away from the industry. Study after study and poll after poll have proven it: Teachers work hard and they deserve pay that reflects that. Twenty-one percent of teachers say that hard-to-staff districts should offer higher salaries. Look, we all know people don’t go into teaching to get rich. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be rewarded for their efforts.

Source: Voices From the Classroom 2024

Teachers feel disrespected more than any other industry: 42% of teachers say they do not feel respected by the public.

People assume that teachers have summers off to relax, when we’re actually busy with our second jobs. During the year, teachers deal with serious issues like books being banned , lessons being censored, and curriculum being dictated by parents and school boards. Helicopter parents email every day questioning our decisions. Even more alarmingly, 16% of teachers reported experiencing violence at their workplace in the last month. It’s no wonder teachers don’t feel respected. It’s time to listen to teachers and rely on their expertise.

Source: Gallup: The State of Schools Report 2024

About 30% of teachers plan to look for a new job in the next year, and 40% of those are planning to leave education altogether.

Why are so many teachers who previously considered themselves career educators leaving? It could be the lack of support, the constant work, and struggles with student behavior issues. When schools and districts are losing educators, they need to be reflective in order to make a change and retain the people who will make an impact on their students.

Source: Pew Research Center: Teachers’ Job Satisfaction

Only 16% of educators would strongly recommend the profession to others.

Teachers are so unhappy that they wouldn’t recommend teaching as a profession. Only 30% of them consider it rewarding, and just 19% think it’s a sustainable career choice. Most teachers say that low pay, heavy workload, and difficulty maintaining a work-life balance are to blame. The number-one thing most of them want? More money for more work. Sounds fair to us.

Only 29% of BIPOC teachers said they were very likely to stay in the classroom for their entire career.

This is one of the most concerning teacher shortage statistics because we need BIPOC teachers. A diverse teaching workforce is good for teachers as well as students. Plus, in general, BIPOC teachers have a more positive view of the job and feel they make a bigger impact overall on their students. But nearly 80% of them feel that the one-size-fits-all version of public education doesn’t meet their students’ academic needs. We need to keep giving these teachers the resources and flexibility they need to reach their communities successfully.

Most Americans (67%) believe that teaching is harder than most other jobs.

And what’s more, 74% of them think teachers need to be paid more, and nearly 40% of them think teachers should be paid a lot more! The general public gets it, but they aren’t necessarily willing to spend their own tax dollars to make it happen. For instance, in March 2024 , 36 Ohio school districts had levies on the ballot to increase school taxes. Only six of those were passed. And 17 of 57 district levies to sustain existing school funding were turned down.

Source: Pew Research Center: What Teachers Want Americans To Know About Teaching

A staggering 94% of teachers spend their own money on basic classroom supplies.

This is a story we’ve heard before. Educators are spending more and more of their own money on classroom supplies. And we’re not talking about just a little bit of money: The average is between $500 and $750 every single year. If lawyers and doctors aren’t buying their own legal pads and scalpels, why should we have to buy the basics?

Source: neaToday

One in four teachers has been told to limit their classroom discussions on racism and underrepresented populations.

At a time when compassion and respect for diversity is more important than ever, teachers are incredibly frustrated by new limitations imposed by state and local districts. As schools ban more books and refuse to implement programs that acknowledge systemic racism and discrimination, teachers are getting more and more discouraged. This is not a smart way to recruit and keep strong talent in the field.

Most teachers (67%) want more say in their school’s disciplinary practices.

Interestingly, according to teacher shortage statistics, 31% of teachers also say that administrators don’t have enough influence in discipline practices. Who exactly is making the rules then? And who’s helping to enforce them? Too often, it’s not the parents: Nearly 80% of teachers say parents do too little to hold their kids accountable for their behavior at school. It’s hard to teach effectively when you’re spending all your time dealing with behavior issues, so it’s time for districts to come up with some new solutions.

Source: Pew Research Center: Problems Students Are Facing at Public K-12 Schools

43% of public schools reported that school staffs’ concern about mental health issues has increased over the last year.

One poll of teacher shortage statistics noted that a huge chunk of school staff members are concerned about their own mental health or that of their colleagues. They’re seeing more signs of depression, anxiety, trauma, or emotional dysregulation/disturbance among their fellow educators. But only 35% of schools report using school funding for staff mental health support services, while only a little over half (59%) offer help through an employee assistance program (EAP). We’ve got to start supporting teachers’ mental health if we want them to stay in the classroom.

Source: School Pulse Panel March 2024

84% of teachers say they have too much work to get done in an average workday.

When asked about time management, 81% of teachers stated they “just have too much work” as a major reason they don’t work eight-hour days, and another 17% said it was a contributing factor. Most teachers (72%) also report spending too much time on non-teaching tasks like lunch or recess duties, and more than half often have to cover for other teachers’ classes. Add it all up, and it’s not surprising that 54% of teachers say it’s hard to achieve work-life balance.

Teachers experience less job satisfaction than other professions: Only 33% say they’re “very satisfied” with their jobs.

Overall, over half of U.S. workers consider themselves “very satisfied” with their jobs, compared with only a third of teachers. And 18% of teachers say they are not at all satisfied with their jobs, compared with just 12% of those in other professions.

Still, more than 80% of teachers say they’re at least somewhat satisfied with their job, which is up dramatically from previous years. In 2023, only 20% of teachers reported feeling “very satisfied” with their jobs, so we’re making some strides in this area. How do we keep the momentum going?

One answer may already be in the school building: strong leadership. According to U.S. News & World Report , teachers who have felt supported by their school administration want to stay. Teachers are also staying if they feel they have a voice and are being heard in the decision-making process.

If you found these 2024 teacher shortage statistics interesting and want to learn more about how we can help prevent teacher shortages, read up on creating a positive school culture and giving teachers voice and choice .

For more articles like this or more teacher shortage statistics, be sure to subscribe to our newsletters ..

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What Is Differentiated Instruction?

It's all about teaching so all kids are engaged in learning. Continue Reading

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Center for Teaching

Teaching problem solving.

Print Version

Tips and Techniques

Expert vs. novice problem solvers, communicate.

• Have students  identify specific problems, difficulties, or confusions . Don’t waste time working through problems that students already understand.
• If students are unable to articulate their concerns, determine where they are having trouble by  asking them to identify the specific concepts or principles associated with the problem.
• In a one-on-one tutoring session, ask the student to  work his/her problem out loud . This slows down the thinking process, making it more accurate and allowing you to access understanding.
• When working with larger groups you can ask students to provide a written “two-column solution.” Have students write up their solution to a problem by putting all their calculations in one column and all of their reasoning (in complete sentences) in the other column. This helps them to think critically about their own problem solving and helps you to more easily identify where they may be having problems. Two-Column Solution (Math) Two-Column Solution (Physics)

Encourage Independence

• Model the problem solving process rather than just giving students the answer. As you work through the problem, consider how a novice might struggle with the concepts and make your thinking clear
• Have students work through problems on their own. Ask directing questions or give helpful suggestions, but  provide only minimal assistance and only when needed to overcome obstacles.
• Don’t fear  group work ! Students can frequently help each other, and talking about a problem helps them think more critically about the steps needed to solve the problem. Additionally, group work helps students realize that problems often have multiple solution strategies, some that might be more effective than others

Be sensitive

• Frequently, when working problems, students are unsure of themselves. This lack of confidence may hamper their learning. It is important to recognize this when students come to us for help, and to give each student some feeling of mastery. Do this by providing  positive reinforcement to let students know when they have mastered a new concept or skill.

Encourage Thoroughness and Patience

• Try to communicate that  the process is more important than the answer so that the student learns that it is OK to not have an instant solution. This is learned through your acceptance of his/her pace of doing things, through your refusal to let anxiety pressure you into giving the right answer, and through your example of problem solving through a step-by step process.

Experts (teachers) in a particular field are often so fluent in solving problems from that field that they can find it difficult to articulate the problem solving principles and strategies they use to novices (students) in their field because these principles and strategies are second nature to the expert. To teach students problem solving skills,  a teacher should be aware of principles and strategies of good problem solving in his or her discipline .

The mathematician George Polya captured the problem solving principles and strategies he used in his discipline in the book  How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (Princeton University Press, 1957). The book includes  a summary of Polya’s problem solving heuristic as well as advice on the teaching of problem solving.

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International Journal of Academic Research in Education and Review

Vol. 5(1), pp. 15-19. January, 2017.

ISSN: 2360-7866

DOI: 10.14662/IJARER2017.002

Full Length Research

Problems and Solution of Teacher Education*

Anjali Rani

Assistant Professor, (dept. of Education), S.S.M.V, Shikarpur , Bulandshahar (UP).

E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted 25 January 2017

Education has a very significant role in developing an individual to the level of perfection by drawing out the best citizen from him, best Indian from him. Education is a lifelong process and without the help of a teacher it will be incomplete. Teacher preparation has been a subject of discussion at all levels, from the government, ministries, regulatory bodies, schools, to teachers themselves. No nation develops beyond the quality of its education system, which is highly dependent on the quality of its teachers. Some problems are plaguing the system of teacher education so the teachers should be given the most appropriate tools during and after their training, including content knowledge and skills as well as teaching methodology to be able to do their work professionally. This full length paper highlighted the major problems and some suggestions to resolves these problems of teacher education, these suggestions will be helpful to educationist, Policy Makers, universities and colleges to improve the quality and standard of teacher education. Keywords: Education, Teacher Education, Problems and suggestions.  

Cite This Article As : Rani A (2017). Problems and Solution of Teacher Education*. Inter. J. Acad. Res. Educ. Rev. 5(1): 15-19  

FULL TEXT PDF  

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© Academic Research Journals 2015/ Privacy Policy Math for Kids Parenting Resources ELA for Kids Teaching Resources How to Teach Odd and Even Numbers in 4 Easy Steps How to Teach Long Division to Kids in 6 Easy Steps 15 Famous Mathematicians in History That Kids Should Know 11 Best Multiplication Apps for Kids How to Teach Number Formation in 5 Easy Steps 12 Best Funny Short Stories for Kids to Read in 2024 6 Best Alternatives to Public Schooling: A Guide for Parents How to Cope With Test Anxiety in 12 Easy Ways Developmental Milestones for 4 Year Olds: The Ultimate Guide Simple & Stress-Free After School Schedule for Kids of All Ages 12 Best Spelling Apps For Kids in 2024 How to teach parts of speech: 15 fun ways for kids. How to Teach Letter Recognition in 6 Easy Steps 20 Fun Limericks for Kids How to Improve Reading Comprehension: Strategies & Tips 12 Best Tips for Substitute Teachers 30 Best Classroom Reward Ideas for Elementary Students 12 Best Websites for English Teachers 10 Best Game-Based Learning Platforms for Kids 60 Fun Animal Facts for Kids 13 Challenges for Teachers and How to Address Them 1. Adapting to Diverse Learning Styles 2. classroom management, 3. dealing with bullying, 4. incorporating technology, 5. meeting curriculum standards, 6. assessing student progress, 7. engaging students, 8. handling workload, 9. parental involvement, 10. teaching students with special needs. Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the variety of needs in your classroom? Teaching is a rewarding profession, but it’s not without its hurdles. Every teacher, whether new to the classroom or seasoned with experience, faces a set of challenges unique to their role. Understanding these challenges is crucial for personal growth and professional development . In this blog post, we aim to delve into the common challenges for teachers , shedding light on the issues they face daily.  SplashLearn: Most Comprehensive Learning Program for PreK-5 SplashLearn inspires lifelong curiosity with its game-based PreK-5 learning program loved by over 40 million children. With over 4,000 fun games and activities, it’s the perfect balance of learning and play for your little one. One of the significant challenges as a teacher is recognizing and adapting to the variety of learning styles present in a classroom. Every student absorbs information differently; some may prefer visual aids, while others benefit from hands-on activities or auditory instructions. This diversity can make it challenging to ensure that every lesson reaches every student effectively. How to Address This: To accommodate all learners, it’s essential to incorporate a mix of teaching methods into your lessons. This could include visual presentations, group projects, individual research tasks, and interactive discussions. A particularly effective solution to this challenge is utilizing educational platforms like SplashLearn .  Another common challenge in the teaching profession is classroom management , specifically the difficulty of maintaining discipline in a diverse group of students. Effective classroom management is crucial for creating a positive learning environment where all students can focus and participate without unnecessary disruptions. Establishing clear classroom rules and expectations from the beginning of the school year is key. Consistency in enforcing these rules is equally important to maintain order and respect. Techniques such as positive reinforcement , setting up a classroom reward system, and involving students in decision-making can promote a positive and collaborative classroom atmosphere.  Additionally, creating engaging lessons that keep students interested can significantly reduce disciplinary issues, as students are less likely to become disruptive when they are actively engaged in learning. Bullying is one of the most serious challenges in a classroom, affecting students’ mental and emotional well-being. It can lead to a decline in academic performance, anxiety, depression, and even physical harm. Recognizing the signs of bullying and taking immediate action is crucial for teachers to ensure a safe and supportive learning environment for all students. It’s important to foster an atmosphere of respect and empathy within the classroom. Teachers should implement a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying and ensure that students understand the consequences of such behavior.  Encouraging open communication is key; students should feel comfortable reporting bullying incidents to adults.  Organizing workshops and activities that promote inclusivity and understanding can also help reduce bullying by teaching students the value of diversity and empathy. Incorporating technology into lessons presents its own set of challenges in teaching. While technology can make lessons more engaging and interactive, finding the right balance and ensuring that it enhances learning rather than distracts can be difficult. Start by setting clear objectives for its use. Identify what you want to achieve with technology, whether it’s to facilitate research, enable interactive learning, or assist in presenting complex information in an accessible way.  It’s also important to choose technology that is appropriate for your students’ age and skill level. Tools like SplashLearn can make learning more interactive and cater to different learning styles. Finally, providing training and support for both teachers and students on how to use new technologies can ensure that it becomes a beneficial addition to the learning environment, rather than a hurdle. One of the significant challenges for teachers today is the pressure to meet educational standards. These standards are set to ensure students achieve a certain level of knowledge and skills across various subjects. However, aligning lessons with these standards while keeping them engaging can be a daunting task. To design lessons that meet or exceed these standards, it’s essential to start with a clear understanding of the goals for each subject and grade level.  Integrating interdisciplinary projects can also help cover multiple standards in a more engaging way.  Additionally, using backward design—starting with the end goal in mind and planning lessons backward—ensures that all activities are aligned with the desired outcomes. Assessing student progress is another area where difficulties teachers face become apparent. The challenge lies in ensuring assessments are fair, comprehensive, and reflective of each student’s understanding and abilities. Traditional testing methods may not always capture the full extent of a student’s knowledge or skills. How to Address This: Innovative assessment methods , such as project-based assessments, peer reviews, and self-assessments, can provide a more holistic view of student learning. These methods encourage students to demonstrate their understanding in various ways, catering to different learning styles and abilities. Keeping students engaged is crucial for effective learning but remains one of the challenges for teachers. Engagement drops when students cannot see the relevance of what they’re learning or when the lesson delivery doesn’t match their learning preferences. To combat this, teachers can incorporate a variety of teaching methods, including discussions, hands-on activities, and real-world applications of concepts.  SplashLearn offers ready-to-use and customizable lesson plans that can significantly aid in this area. These resources are designed to make learning fun and interactive, helping to maintain student interest and engagement. By leveraging such tools, teachers can create a more dynamic and inclusive learning environment that caters to the diverse needs of their students. One of the most significant challenges for teachers is managing the heavy workload without experiencing burnout. The demands of lesson planning, grading, and fulfilling administrative duties, on top of actual teaching, can be overwhelming. This intense workload can lead to stress and, ultimately, burnout, affecting a teacher’s performance and well-being. Effective time management and stress reduction techniques are essential. Prioritizing tasks, setting realistic goals, and utilizing digital tools for planning and organization can significantly ease the workload.  Additionally, practices such as mindfulness, regular exercise, and ensuring a healthy work-life balance can help manage stress levels. Engaging parents in their child’s education presents its own set of teaching problems. Effective communication between teachers and parents is crucial for fostering an environment where students can thrive. However, finding the right strategies to involve parents, especially those who may be busy or less responsive, can be challenging. To improve parent-teacher communication, consider regular updates through emails or a class website, scheduling parent-teacher meetings , and using student agendas for daily notes back and forth.  Creating a welcoming atmosphere for parental involvement and offering flexible communication channels can significantly enhance the educational experience for students. Inclusivity in the classroom is another critical area where challenges for teachers arise. Accommodating students with special needs requires thoughtful planning and a flexible teaching approach to ensure all students have equal opportunities to learn and succeed. Strategies for teaching students with special needs include differentiating instruction to cater to various learning abilities, using assistive technologies, and working closely with special education professionals.  reating an inclusive classroom environment where all students feel valued and supported is essential for their academic and social development. 11. Lack of Resources One of the significant challenges for teachers is dealing with inadequate teaching materials and facilities. Many educators find themselves in environments where resources are scarce, making it difficult to provide students with the comprehensive education they deserve. This lack of resources can hinder the learning process and make creative teaching a necessity. Creative solutions for resourceful teaching include leveraging free online educational resources , organizing material swaps with other teachers, and incorporating everyday items into lessons as teaching tools .  Teachers can also encourage students to use their creativity and imagination in projects, which can lead to a more engaging learning experience without the need for expensive materials. 12. Professional Development The importance of ongoing learning for teachers cannot be overstated. In the fast-evolving educational landscape, keeping up with the latest trends, techniques, and technologies is crucial. However, finding the time and resources for professional development can be one of the difficulties teachers face. To stay updated, teachers can take advantage of online courses, webinars, and workshops offered by educational organizations. Joining professional networks or communities of practice can also provide valuable opportunities for learning and sharing experiences with peers.  Setting aside regular time for self-study and reflection on one’s teaching practice can further enhance professional growth. 13. Motivating Students Motivating students to achieve their best is another challenge in the realm of teaching problems. Engaging students who are disinterested or who struggle to see the relevance of their studies requires creativity and persistence. Techniques for inspiring and motivating students include connecting lesson content to real-world applications, setting clear and achievable goals, and providing positive feedback and recognition for effort and progress.  Incorporating elements of choice within assignments can also empower students, making them more invested in their learning.  Additionally, creating a classroom environment that fosters a growth mindset can encourage students to embrace challenges and persist in the face of difficulties. How does SplashLearn Address Teacher Problems? 1. Adapting to Diverse Learning Styles: SplashLearn caters to diverse learning styles by offering interactive and engaging activities that appeal to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. Its platform includes games , puzzles, and interactive stories that make learning personalized and fun, ensuring that every student can find a way to connect with the material. 2. Incorporating Technology: SplashLearn simplifies the challenge of incorporating technology into lessons by providing an easy-to-use platform that integrates seamlessly into classroom activities. It offers a variety of digital tools and resources that enhance teaching and learning, making technology an ally rather than a hurdle for teachers. 3. Meeting Curriculum Standards: With curriculum-aligned activities, SplashLearn ensures that teachers can meet and exceed educational standards without extensive planning. Its content is designed to align with national and state standards, helping teachers ensure that their students are on track with their learning objectives. 4. Assessing Student Progress: SplashLearn offers innovative assessment methods through real-time tracking and reporting features. Teachers can monitor student progress, identify areas of need, and tailor instruction to meet the individual needs of each student, making assessments more personalized and effective. 5. Engaging Students: SplashLearn keeps students interested and engaged with its interactive and gamified learning experiences. Ready-to-use and customizable lesson plans make it easier for teachers to prepare engaging lessons that captivate students’ attention and foster a love for learning. 6. Parental Involvement: SplashLearn facilitates parental involvement by providing parents with updates on their child’s progress and suggestions for supporting learning at home. This feature helps bridge the gap between classroom and home learning, encouraging a collaborative approach to education. 7. Teaching Students with Special Needs: SplashLearn supports inclusivity by offering accessible learning opportunities for students with special needs. Its adaptive learning paths and customizable settings allow teachers to modify content to suit the individual requirements of each student, ensuring that all learners have equal opportunities to succeed. Teaching comes with its unique set of challenges, but with the right strategies and tools like SplashLearn, these obstacles can be overcome. By embracing innovative solutions, teachers can adapt to diverse learning styles, incorporate technology seamlessly, and engage students in meaningful ways. Ultimately, these efforts lead to a more inclusive, effective, and enjoyable learning experience for both teachers and students. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) What is the biggest challenge facing education today. The biggest challenge facing education today is ensuring equitable access to quality education for all students, regardless of their socio-economic background, abilities, or geographic location. This includes overcoming disparities in resources, technology, and support. What are the challenges teachers face in a diverse classroom? In a diverse classroom, teachers face the challenge of meeting the varied learning needs, cultural backgrounds, and language proficiencies of their students, all while fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment. Why is teacher burnout so high? Teacher burnout is high due to a combination of factors, including excessive workload, pressure to meet educational standards, lack of resources, and the emotional toll of supporting students’ diverse needs without adequate support or recognition. Pre-Kindergarten Kindergarten Most Popular 15 Best Report Card Comments Samples 117 Best Riddles for Kids (With Answers) 40 Best Good Vibes Quotes to Brighten Your Day Recent posts. Math & ELA | PreK To Grade 5 Kids see fun., you see real learning outcomes.. Watch your kids fall in love with math & reading through our scientifically designed curriculum. Parents, try for free Teachers, use for free Games for Kids Worksheets for Kids Math Worksheets ELA Worksheets Math Vocabulary Number Games Addition Games Subtraction Games Multiplication Games Division Games Addition Worksheets Subtraction Worksheets Multiplication Worksheets Division Worksheets Times Tables Worksheets Reading Games Writing Games Phonics Games Sight Words Games Letter Tracing Games Reading Worksheets Writing Worksheets Phonics Worksheets Sight Words Worksheets Letter Tracing Worksheets Prime Number Order of Operations Long multiplication Place value Parallelogram SplashLearn Success Stories SplashLearn Apps [email protected] © Copyright - SplashLearn Make learning a game for your students Unlock endless learning fun with 14,000+ games & activities, 450+ lesson plans, and more—free forever. Teachers, Use for Free Faculty & Staff Teaching problem solving Strategies for teaching problem solving apply across disciplines and instructional contexts. First, introduce the problem and explain how people in your discipline generally make sense of the given information. Then, explain how to apply these approaches to solve the problem. Introducing the problem Explaining how people in your discipline understand and interpret these types of problems can help students develop the skills they need to understand the problem (and find a solution). After introducing how you would go about solving a problem, you could then ask students to: frame the problem in their own words define key terms and concepts determine statements that accurately represent the givens of a problem identify analogous problems determine what information is needed to solve the problem Working on solutions In the solution phase, one develops and then implements a coherent plan for solving the problem. As you help students with this phase, you might ask them to: identify the general model or procedure they have in mind for solving the problem set sub-goals for solving the problem identify necessary operations and steps draw conclusions carry out necessary operations You can help students tackle a problem effectively by asking them to: systematically explain each step and its rationale explain how they would approach solving the problem help you solve the problem by posing questions at key points in the process work together in small groups (3 to 5 students) to solve the problem and then have the solution presented to the rest of the class (either by you or by a student in the group) In all cases, the more you get the students to articulate their own understandings of the problem and potential solutions, the more you can help them develop their expertise in approaching problems in your discipline. Smithsonian Voices From the Smithsonian Museums SMITHSONIAN EDUCATION The Future Looks Bright According to Young American Inventor and Author, Gitanjali Rao Meet the college student who’s changing the world with innovative solutions and promoting the power of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for positive impact every chance she gets Ashley Naranjo Like many teens, Gitanjali Rao enjoys finding media she can dive deep into–she’s currently creating a personalized world in The Sims 4 video game, while rewatching “The Gilmore Girls,” and can probably recite the 1993 film Jurassic Park from memory if asked. But unlike many of her peers, Rao has been recognized by the likes of Time as 2020 Kid of the Year and Forbes as a “ 30 Under 30 ” innovator, plus she’s given over 200 talks and workshops and just published her second book. Rao credits her parents for her ongoing success in applying her passion for STEM towards developing solutions of critical challenges of our time. Throughout her childhood, her parents never forced her to a specific pathway, but instead exposed her to a wide range of possibilities. She recalls, “In our family, we have a rule that you try everything at least once, before you say it’s not for you.” This has given her the chance to pursue passion projects and to be open to a wide range of experiences and perspectives, without being intimidated if it’s not the right fit. After completing her freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in June 2024, Rao sat down with Smithsonian Under Secretary for Education, Dr. Monique Chism, ahead of her keynote speech during the upcoming 2024 Smithsonian National Education Summit . Together, they discussed her interests, accomplishments, and hopes for the future. The Impact of Teachers Naturally, as a leader in education, Dr. Chism first asked Rao to reflect on any educators who might’ve had an impact on her ongoing curiosity and passion for STEM. Rao immediately lit up and whittled her long list of inspiring teachers throughout her public school trajectory down to two–her second grade teacher and her high school physics teacher. What is striking about her responses is that the actual subject matter that these teachers shared weren’t what drew Rao to name them; it was how these teachers made her feel .  With vague memories of possibly diagramming sentences and learning about grammar and writing mechanics, her second grade teacher stood out because of a comment that was made in passing: “You’re going to change the world one day!” Armed with this affirmation, Rao considered this to be a pivotal moment in her own sense of self-efficacy and motivation.  Fast-forward to high school physics, in which Rao credits her teacher with leaving the class with the feeling that he wanted to watch them learn and grow as individuals, with content and grades taking a bit of a back seat and the learning process at the forefront. Novel Challenges for Gen Z While she considers herself to be especially optimistic about the future, Rao is also keenly aware that we, as a global society, are seeing problems that have simply never existed before. Throughout her childhood, she has developed prize-winning innovations around testing lead content in water and a tool for early diagnosis of prescription opioid addiction. Rao can’t help but want to make a difference with the causes she cares about and notes the important role that each of us have in acknowledging ourselves as problem solvers, no matter what field we’re in. Rao thinks a lot about issues ranging from climate change and depletion of natural resources to equality and global access in education. But one issue that’s especially top of mind at the moment is teenage mental health and digital safety. Among students ages 12-18 who reported being bullied at school during the school year, 15% were bullied online or by text . Enter an ever-evolving project she’s created, called Kindly .  With teens having seemingly unlimited access to a wide range of online communication tools with each other, Rao notes it can be easy for cyberbullies to hide behind a screen when sending unkind messages to peers without thinking about the repercussions or impact. The app Kindly is an add-on extension on social media platforms and online tools, like Instagram and Google Chrome.  The tool doesn’t actually stop someone from sending a message, but it does provide users a chance to take a pause before sending. In that way, it aims to address a core cause of the issue by highlighting words or phrases that might have a negative impact on the recipient.  What started as a passion project created by teens for teens has since transitioned to a partnership with UNICEF and is currently being developed as a Digital Public Good . By making the app open-source, there’s also been new interfaces developed in other languages–allowing teens, developers, and other organizations globally to build on this idea. Rao seems especially proud of this approach and development process, noting she’s just one person who put this idea out into the world inspiring others to take it to the next level on a global scale.  What’s Next for Gitanjali  On the day of the interview, Rao had just published her second book, “ A Young Innovator’s Guide to Planning for Success ” as a way to share what she’s learned from her own transition from high school to college—focusing on balancing the pressures of maintaining a strong grade point average, alongside advanced placement classes, extracurriculars, and everything in between. While her own personal story is impressive, she’s certain that there are many students just like her, who just need a mentor to help them see their full potential.  This guide is the follow-up to her first book, “ A Young Innovator’s Guide to STEM ” which places readers at the intersection of identifying problems and developing solutions. She sees writing as a way to amplify her learnings to a wider audience, having led hundreds of innovation workshops for students on a global scale with after schools clubs, schools, and museums.  Speaking of museums, Rao is an unapologetic and self-proclaimed “museum-person,” who loves the way museums offer a space to dive deep into topics you might not have considered before. Much like the way she consumes media and explores passion projects, Rao is motivated by an inherent desire of wanting to know more about the world, but also being a part of making it a better place for everyone.  This summer, she will work on campus with the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research At MIT , working on the development of microarray patches for making extended release vaccines. While she’s identified a double major in bioengineering and business, one thing is clear: the possibilities are endless for where her passions will lead her, as they align with challenges the world is facing.  Editor's Note: Gitanjali Rao will be featured as a keynote speaker during the 2024 Smithsonian National Education Summit on Wednesday, July 17 at 3:30pm, Eastern with a session entitled “ The Power of Interdisciplinary Innovation to Solve Global Challenges .” To learn more about the session (offered both in-person and livestreamed) and to register for free, please visit https://s.si.edu/EducationSummit2024   Ashley Naranjo | | READ MORE Ashley Naranjo is a museum educator, specializing in the use of digital resources for teaching and learning. She currently manages education partnerships in the Smithsonian’s Office of the Under Secretary for Education. She has developed and implemented professional development opportunities for teachers, librarians and fellow museum educators since 2011. She holds a B.A. in Human Development from the Lynch School of Education at Boston College and a M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. She is a 2019 graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute’s NextGen of Museum Leaders program.  World leading higher education information and services Home News Blogs Courses Jobs function vqTrackId(){return'0a14b8cb-e32a-4bc4-ab7d-ff2b3cfe7090';}(function(d,e){var el=d.createElement(e);el.sa=function(an,av){this.setAttribute(an,av);return this;};el.sa('id','vq_tracking').sa('src','//t.visitorqueue.com/p/tracking.min.js?id='+vqTrackId()).sa('async',1).sa('data-id',vqTrackId());d.getElementsByTagName(e)[0].parentNode.appendChild(el);})(document,'script'); function vqTrackPc(){return 1;} (function(d,e){var el=d.createElement(e);el.sa=function(an,av){this.setAttribute(an,av);return this;};el.sa('id','vq_personalisation').sa('src','//personalisation.visitorqueue.com/p/personalisation.min.js?id='+vqTrackId()).sa('async',1).sa('data-id',vqTrackId());d.getElementsByTagName(e)[0].parentNode.appendChild(el);})(document,'script'); Top 8 modern education problems and ways to solve them. | September 15, 2017 | 0 responses In many ways, today’s system is better than the traditional one. Technology is the biggest change and the greatest advantage at the same time. Various devices, such as computers, projectors, tablets and smartphones, make the process of learning simpler and more fun. The Internet gives both students and teachers access to limitless knowledge. However, this is not the perfect educational system. It has several problems, so we have to try to improve it.  Problem: The Individual Needs of Low-Achievers Are Not Being Addressed Personalized learning is the most popular trend in education. The educators are doing their best to identify the learning style of each student and provide training that corresponds to their needs. However, many students are at risk of falling behind, especially children who are learning mathematics and reading. In the USA, in particular, there are large gaps in science achievements by middle school. Solution: Address the Needs of Low-Achievers The educators must try harder to reduce the number of students who are getting low results on long-term trajectories. If we identify these students at an early age, we can provide additional training to help them improve the results. Problem: Overcrowded Classrooms In 2016, there were over 17,000 state secondary school children in the UK being taught in classes of 36+ pupils. Solution: Reduce the Number of Students in the Classroom Only a smaller class can enable an active role for the student and improve the level of individual attention they get from the teacher. Problem: The Teachers Are Expected to Entertain Today’s generations of students love technology, so the teachers started using technology just to keep them engaged. That imposes a serious issue: education is becoming an entertainment rather than a learning process. Solution: Set Some Limits We don’t have to see education as opposed to entertainment. However, we have to make the students aware of the purpose of technology and games in the classroom. It’s all about learning. Problem: Not Having Enough Time for Volunteering in University The students are overwhelmed with projects and assignments. There is absolutely no space for internships and volunteering in college . Solution: Make Internships and Volunteering Part of Education When students graduate, a volunteering activity can make a great difference during the hiring process. In addition, these experiences help them develop into complete persons. If the students start getting credits for volunteering and internships, they will be willing to make the effort. Problem: The Parents Are Too Involved Due to the fact that technology became part of the early educational process, it’s necessary for the parents to observe the way their children use the Internet at home. They have to help the students to complete assignments involving technology. What about those parents who don’t have enough time for that? What if they have time, but want to use it in a different way? Solution: Stop Expecting Parents to Act Like Teachers at Home The parent should definitely support their child throughout the schooling process. However, we mustn’t turn this into a mandatory role. The teachers should stop assigning homework that demands parental assistance. Problem: Outdated Curriculum Although we transformed the educational system, many features of the curriculum remained unchanged. Solution: Eliminate Standardised Exams This is a radical suggestion. However, standardised exams are a big problem. We want the students to learn at their own pace. We are personalizing the process of education. Then why do we expect them to compete with each other and meet the same standards as everyone else? The teacher should be the one responsible of grading. Problem: Not All Teachers Can Meet the Standards of the New Educational System Can we really expect all teachers to use technology? Some of them are near the end of their teaching careers and they have never used tablets in the lecturing process before. Solution: Provide Better Training for the Teachers If we want all students to receive high-quality education based on the standards of the system, we have to prepare the teachers first. They need more training, preparation, and even tests that prove they can teach today’s generations of students. Problem: Graduates Are Not Ready for What Follows A third of the employers in the UK are not happy with the performance of recent graduates. That means the system is not preparing them well for the challenges that follow. Solution: More Internships, More Realistic Education Practical education – that’s a challenge we still haven’t met. We have to get more practical. The evolution of the educational system is an important process. Currently, we have a system that’s more suitable to the needs of generations when compared to the traditional system. However, it’s still not perfect. The evolution never stops. Author Bio:   Chris Richardson is a journalist, editor, and a blogger. He loves to write, learn new things, and meet new outgoing people. Chris is also fond of traveling, sports, and playing the guitar. Follow him on Facebook and Google+ . Tags: solutions More From Forbes K-12 teachers are not a happy lot. Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin What's it like to be a teacher today? There’s trouble in the profession. Public school teachers are stressed out by their work. They have a gloomy outlook on the problems students face and a dim view of K-12 education’s future. These and other bleak views are chronicled in a new Pew Research Center survey of classroom teachers entitled What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today? Truth be told, teachers are just as prone as the rest of us to overstate how bad things are. Moreover, this survey is a snapshot of one point in time. But it is important to understand teachers’ perceptions of K-12 education following Covid-19. This means listening to their voices and their unflattering reflections, as challenging as they are. Job Satisfaction And Workload Today, roughly 3.2 million K-12 teachers serve around 49 million students in 98,500 public schools. These teachers have low levels of job satisfaction. A majority report their job is frequently stressful (77%), even overwhelming (68%), and believe schools are understaffed (70%). They are less satisfied with their jobs than the typical U.S. worker. While a slight majority (51%) of workers say they are either extremely or very satisfied, that number falls to one out of three (33%) teachers. Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024 Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024. Over eight out of 10 teachers (84%) say there is insufficient time during their regular work hours to manage teaching tasks like grading, planning, paperwork, and answering work emails. Few are satisfied with their pay, with only 15% being extremely or very satisfied. On the bright side, seven out of 10 (71%) are extremely or very satisfied with other teachers in their school. Education’s long Covid has cast its gloomy shadow over not only what teachers think about their jobs but also what teachers do. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than one out of five schools (21%) report that teacher absenteeism increased “a lot” after the pandemic. Moreover, the U.S. teachers' absence rate is now 5.5%, nearly double the 3% found in the U.S. workforce as a whole, according to an analysis by Frontline Education . Not surprisingly, teachers are evenly split about whether they would advise a young person to become a teacher, with 48% saying they would and 52% saying they would not. Meanwhile, according to a recent Phi Delta Kappan poll , about one out of four (37%) Americans want their child to become a public school teacher in their community, the lowest percentage of Americans ever to offer that response since the poll began in 1969. Classroom Challenges Teachers’ views on classroom behavior and obstacles to teaching raise significant student learning concerns. Almost half of teachers (47%) say students show little or no interest in education, riding to nearly six out of 10 (58%) among high school teachers. One out of three (33%) say students are distracted by their cell phones, rising to over seven out of 10 (72%) in high school. Other student behaviors threaten teachers' well-being and safety. Nearly seven out of 10 (68%) teachers report they experienced verbal abuse from a student, including being yelled at or threatened. One out of five (21%) say this happens at least a few times a month. Physical violence is also a problem. Four out of 10 (40%) say a student has been violent toward them, with nearly one out of 10 (9%) saying this happens at least a few times a month. Schools do not seem inclined to address these problems. Two out of three teachers (66%) report current school discipline practices are very or somewhat mild. A similar number say they do not have enough influence in determining discipline practices at their school. Students And The K-12 System Given these reported sentiments concerning teacher job satisfaction and student behavior, it is not surprising that about half (48%) of teachers say that the academic performance of most students in their school is fair or poor. A third (33%) said it is good, and only 17% say it is excellent or very good. Teachers from high-poverty schools were much more likely (73%) than those in medium-poverty (57%) and low-poverty (27%) schools to say academic performance at their school is fair or poor. Over eight out of 10 (82%) teachers believe that the overall state of public K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years. Among this group, majorities point to the current political climate (60%) and the pandemic (57%) as the two primary reasons for this situation, with just under half (46%) also pointing to changes in the availability of funding and resources. Only one out of five teachers is optimistic about the next five years, saying that K-12 education will be a lot or somewhat better in five years, with a majority (53%) saying it will be worse. Teacher Politics Regrettably, this stark picture of what it is like to be a public school teacher today reflects what other analyses have found . For example, RAND, a nonpartisan research organization, has surveyed a nationally representative sample of teachers, reaching similar conclusions on many of the issues discussed here. Additionally, the nationally representative Education Week Teacher Morale Index shows that “Nearly half of teachers—49 percent—said their morale got worse over the past year.” RAND also found that Covid worsened some of these attitudes and beliefs rather than started them. And while more teachers say they trust Democrats more than Republicans to handle critical issues facing K-12 education, around one out of three say they trust neither party when it comes to ensuring they have adequate pay and benefits (35%); making schools safer (35%); providing sufficient funding for schools (33%); or ensuring that all students have equal access to high-quality education (31%). A Way Forward There are initiatives underway to remedy these problems. For example, the International Baccalaureate Organization’s Wellbeing for Schoolteachers program documents evidence-based interventions that foster teachers' personal and professional well-being. And Opportunity Culture works with districts to create cooperative staffing models, including on-the-job coaching and other teacher support. Other initiatives are directed to specific groups, like the one for Gen Z teachers sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board . Or they are directed to the stages of teaching, like the Education Week State of Teaching survey that examines the life cycle of teachers’ professional lives and the supports needed in each phase. But there are no quick and easy fixes to this trouble in the teaching profession. K-12 policymakers and other community stakeholders should start by acknowledging its troubled state and developing strategies to remedy it. Editorial Standards Reprints & Permissions 376 IMAGES problem solutions infographic (PDF) ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN TEACHER EDUCATION (PDF) Issues and Problems of Teacher Education Here, are the challenges that are being faced by teachers in the school Problem Solving Strategies for Education What’s Your Problem? Teaching Problem and Solution VIDEO Managing Teacher Education: Challenges in 21st century |(Pre-Service In-Service Teacher Education)| CLASSROOM RELATED PROBLEMS At Elementary Level Teacher Education Study Basic Teaching is live!my 2nd live vedeo i will try 4.30 live vedeo join us Teaching Activity #12 Problems and solutions COMMENTS 10 Ways to Tackle Education's Urgent Challenges 9. Parent engagement. When school went remote, families got a better sense of what their children were learning. It's something schools can build on, if they can make key cultural shifts. Read ... The Ongoing Challenges, and Possible Solutions, to Improving Panelists explain the fundamentals of teacher pension finances — how they are paid for, what drives their costs, and their impact on K-12 education. Register Fri., June 21, 2024, 2:00 p.m. - 3: ... 5 Big Challenges Facing K-12 Education Today—And Ideas for Tackling Them 5. No, AI Won't Destroy Education. But We Should Be Skeptical. Lauraine Langreo makes the case for using AI to benefit teaching and learning while being aware of its potential downsides. Read ... Four of the biggest problems facing education—and four trends that We focused on neuroscience, the role of the private sector, education technology, inequality, and pedagogy. Unfortunately, we think the four biggest problems facing education today in developing countries are the same ones we have identified in the last decades. 1. The learning crisis was made worse by COVID-19 school closures. 6 things to know about U.S. teacher shortages and how to solve them Teacher pay has stagnated, while the cost of a four-year degree has nearly doubled. According to federal data, teachers in the U.S. earned an average of $66,397 in 2021-22. But that number hides ... The challenges for teacher education in the 21st century: urgency Our first issue of JET for 2020 contains a set of papers that shed light on a series of current challenges for teacher education. As in the previous volume of JET, our first three papers return to the thorny issue of teacher recruitment and retention and the central role that teacher education plays in what must now be considered to be a global crisis. Global report on teachers: addressing teacher shortages and ... The world faces a critical shortage of teachers, hindering the achievement of SDG 4 and the Education 2030 agenda. This first Global Report on Teachers stresses the urgency of this challenge and calls for immediate action. Exposing a projected deficit of 44 million primary and secondary education teachers by 2030, the report examines the ... PDF Problems and Solution of Teacher Education* Problems and Solution of Teacher Education*. Inter. J. Acad. Res. Educ. Rev. 5(1): 15-19 INTRODUCTION "No society can raise above the standard above of its teachers". -National Policy on Education (1986) As stated by NCTE (1998) in Quality Concerns in Secondary Teacher Education, "The teacher is the most ... The global education challenge: Scaling up to tackle the learning Among global education's most urgent challenges is a severe lack of trained teachers, particularly female teachers. An additional 9 million trained teachers are needed in sub-Saharan Africa by ... Teacher Education's Moment: From Solution to Challenge In our current moment, teacher education programs and P-12 classrooms alike have been pushed to shift toward the adoption of new packaged practices as a response to the challenges that we face. These new practices, or "solutions," however, are ever-changing. When one technology is mastered, another may need to be learned and implemented. Seeking Innovative Solutions to Education's Problems The Seekers. Meet eight current students and recent graduates who experienced or identified problems in education — and are now working on solutions to help others. In the education world, it's easy to identify problems, less easy to find solutions. Everyone has a different idea of what could or should happen, and change is never simple ... 7 Challenges in Teaching, According to Real Teachers The top 7 challenges in teaching, according to real teachers. 1. Students falling behind. Back at the start of the pandemic, teachers and parents alike were concerned about what kind of quality education could be provided on online platforms versus in-person classrooms. One major fear was the possible loss of learning and the widening of ... What's the "Problem of Teacher Education" in the 2020s? Abstract. This article is a rejoinder, some 20 years later, to a JTE editorial, titled "The Problem of Teacher Education.". The previous piece suggested that in response to unprecedented attention by high-level policy makers to "fixing" the "broken" system of teacher education, teacher education was treated as what I called a ... Online Learning: Challenges and Solutions for Learners and Teachers Abstract. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an expansion and increase in the demand for online teaching and learning across the globe. Online teaching and learning is attracting a large number of students for enhanced learning experiences. However, there are many challenges and hindrances that pose a problem in the smooth learning. PDF Teacher Retention: Problems and Solutions Teacher retention may affect student learning in several ways. First, in high-turnover schools, students may be more likely to have inexperienced teachers who are less effective, on average (Rockoff, 2004; Rivkin, Hanushek and Kain 2005; Kane, Rockoff and Staiger, 2006). Second, high turnover creates instability in schools making it more ... Challenges facing school principals: Problems and solutions Challenges facing school principals: Problems and solutions. There is widespread evidence of the demands facing school principals in many parts of the world, illustrated recently by the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the normative preference for shared and distributed leadership in many contexts, principals retain the main ... 2024 Teacher Shortage Statistics Show the Continuing Struggle And with more than a quarter of schools concerned with teacher absences, this substitute teacher shortage is a serious problem in many places. Source: School Pulse Panel: Absenteeism March 2024. In K-12 education, 39% of teachers say they feel burned out "very often" or "always." Teaching Problem Solving Make students articulate their problem solving process . In a one-on-one tutoring session, ask the student to work his/her problem out loud. This slows down the thinking process, making it more accurate and allowing you to access understanding. When working with larger groups you can ask students to provide a written "two-column solution.". Global Teacher Education: Challenges and Possibilities This special issue of The Teacher Educator aims to broaden the conversation about teacher education into a global context. Understanding the successes and the plight of teacher educators around the... The "problem" of teacher quality: exploring challenges and Introduction. Across the globe, governments frequently seek to raise the quality of their education and school systems. One of the key approaches in this policy work centres on the training and quality of the classroom teacher (Akiba & LeTendre, Citation 2017).Indeed, there has been a growing interest in the concept of "teacher quality" globally over recent decades, with governments ... Problems and Solution of Teacher Education* This full length paper highlighted the major problems and some suggestions to resolves these problems of teacher education, these suggestions will be helpful to educationist, Policy Makers, universities and colleges to improve the quality and standard of teacher education. ... Rani A (2017). Problems and Solution of Teacher Education*. Inter. J ... (PDF) ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN TEACHER EDUCATION Afshan Anees (2015) "Teacher Education and their Problems" International Journal of Academic Research in Education and Review; Vol. 3(1), pp. 1-6. Major problems and issues in teacher education ... PDF Teacher Education: Problems and Remedies Keywords:Teacher Education, Problems, Remedies Introduction The best education is to provide the students with more and more learning experiences to lead them from the darkness of ignorance towards the light of ... challenges and acquire solutions for them. According to Good's Dictionary of Education, "Teacher education means all the 13 Challenges for Teachers and How to Address Them 11. Lack of Resources. One of the significant challenges for teachers is dealing with inadequate teaching materials and facilities. Many educators find themselves in environments where resources are scarce, making it difficult to provide students with the comprehensive education they deserve. PDF Teacher Education in India: Problems and Concern in Present Scenario various measures still, numerous problems of teachers training exist in India. The main problem of the present teacher education system has been identified 'the unproductive trained teachers." According to Desai (2011) "several insufficiencies in the teacher training programme in India have been in identified. This situation arises Problems and Issues in Teacher Education and Curriculum Development The other problems in teacher education have been stated as follows: (Chand, 2015). ... Rani, A. (2017). Problems and Solution of Teacher Education. International Journal of . Teaching problem solving Working on solutions. In the solution phase, one develops and then implements a coherent plan for solving the problem. As you help students with this phase, you might ask them to: identify the general model or procedure they have in mind for solving the problem. set sub-goals for solving the problem. identify necessary operations and steps. The Future Looks Bright According to Young American Inventor and Author The Impact of Teachers. Naturally, as a leader in education, Dr. Chism first asked Rao to reflect on any educators who might've had an impact on her ongoing curiosity and passion for STEM ... Top 8 modern education problems and ways to solve them The Internet gives both students and teachers access to limitless knowledge. However, this is not the perfect educational system. It has several problems, so we have to try to improve it. Problem: The Individual Needs of Low-Achievers Are Not Being Addressed; Personalized learning is the most popular trend in education. The educators are doing ... K-12 Teachers Are Not A Happy Lot There's trouble in the profession. Public school teachers are stressed out by their work. They have a gloomy outlook on the problems students face and a dim view of K-12 education's future ... assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis