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• Published: 02 December 2020

Enhancing senior high school student engagement and academic performance using an inclusive and scalable inquiry-based program

• Locke Davenport Huyer   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1526-7122 1 , 2   na1 ,
• Neal I. Callaghan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8214-3395 1 , 3   na1 ,
• Sara Dicks 4 ,
• Edward Scherer 4 ,
• Andrey I. Shukalyuk 1 ,
• Margaret Jou 4 &
• Dawn M. Kilkenny   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3899-9767 1 , 5  

npj Science of Learning volume  5 , Article number:  17 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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The multi-disciplinary nature of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers often renders difficulty for high school students navigating from classroom knowledge to post-secondary pursuits. Discrepancies between the knowledge-based high school learning approach and the experiential approach of future studies leaves some students disillusioned by STEM. We present Discovery , a term-long inquiry-focused learning model delivered by STEM graduate students in collaboration with high school teachers, in the context of biomedical engineering. Entire classes of high school STEM students representing diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds engaged in iterative, problem-based learning designed to emphasize critical thinking concomitantly within the secondary school and university environments. Assessment of grades and survey data suggested positive impact of this learning model on students’ STEM interests and engagement, notably in under-performing cohorts, as well as repeating cohorts that engage in the program on more than one occasion. Discovery presents a scalable platform that stimulates persistence in STEM learning, providing valuable learning opportunities and capturing cohorts of students that might otherwise be under-engaged in STEM.

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Introduction

High school students with diverse STEM interests often struggle to understand the STEM experience outside the classroom 1 . The multi-disciplinary nature of many career fields can foster a challenge for students in their decision to enroll in appropriate high school courses while maintaining persistence in study, particularly when these courses are not mandatory 2 . Furthermore, this challenge is amplified by the known discrepancy between the knowledge-based learning approach common in high schools and the experiential, mastery-based approaches afforded by the subsequent undergraduate model 3 . In the latter, focused classes, interdisciplinary concepts, and laboratory experiences allow for the application of accumulated knowledge, practice in problem solving, and development of both general and technical skills 4 . Such immersive cooperative learning environments are difficult to establish in the secondary school setting and high school teachers often struggle to implement within their classroom 5 . As such, high school students may become disillusioned before graduation and never experience an enriched learning environment, despite their inherent interests in STEM 6 .

It cannot be argued that early introduction to varied math and science disciplines throughout high school is vital if students are to pursue STEM fields, especially within engineering 7 . However, the majority of literature focused on student interest and retention in STEM highlights outcomes in US high school learning environments, where the sciences are often subject-specific from the onset of enrollment 8 . In contrast, students in the Ontario (Canada) high school system are required to complete Level 1 and 2 core courses in science and math during Grades 9 and 10; these courses are offered as ‘applied’ or ‘academic’ versions and present broad topics of content 9 . It is not until Levels 3 and 4 (generally Grades 11 and 12, respectively) that STEM classes become subject-specific (i.e., Biology, Chemistry, and/or Physics) and are offered as “university”, “college”, or “mixed” versions, designed to best prepare students for their desired post-secondary pursuits 9 . Given that Levels 3 and 4 science courses are not mandatory for graduation, enrollment identifies an innate student interest in continued learning. Furthermore, engagement in these post-secondary preparatory courses is also dependent upon achieving successful grades in preceding courses, but as curriculum becomes more subject-specific, students often yield lower degrees of success in achieving course credit 2 . Therefore, it is imperative that learning supports are best focused on ensuring that those students with an innate interest are able to achieve success in learning.

When given opportunity and focused support, high school students are capable of successfully completing rigorous programs at STEM-focused schools 10 . Specialized STEM schools have existed in the US for over 100 years; generally, students are admitted after their sophomore year of high school experience (equivalent to Grade 10) based on standardized test scores, essays, portfolios, references, and/or interviews 11 . Common elements to this learning framework include a diverse array of advanced STEM courses, paired with opportunities to engage in and disseminate cutting-edge research 12 . Therein, said research experience is inherently based in the processes of critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. This learning framework supports translation of core curricular concepts to practice and is fundamental in allowing students to develop better understanding and appreciation of STEM career fields.

Despite the described positive attributes, many students do not have the ability or resources to engage within STEM-focused schools, particularly given that they are not prevalent across Canada, and other countries across the world. Consequently, many public institutions support the idea that post-secondary led engineering education programs are effective ways to expose high school students to engineering education and relevant career options, and also increase engineering awareness 13 . Although singular class field trips are used extensively to accomplish such programs, these may not allow immersive experiences for application of knowledge and practice of skills that are proven to impact long-term learning and influence career choices 14 , 15 . Longer-term immersive research experiences, such as after-school programs or summer camps, have shown successful at recruiting students into STEM degree programs and careers, where longevity of experience helps foster self-determination and interest-led, inquiry-based projects 4 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 .

Such activities convey the elements that are suggested to make a post-secondary led high school education programs successful: hands-on experience, self-motivated learning, real-life application, immediate feedback, and problem-based projects 20 , 21 . In combination with immersion in university teaching facilities, learning is authentic and relevant, similar to the STEM school-focused framework, and consequently representative of an experience found in actual STEM practice 22 . These outcomes may further be a consequence of student engagement and attitude: Brown et al. studied the relationships between STEM curriculum and student attitudes, and found the latter played a more important role in intention to persist in STEM when compared to self-efficacy 23 . This is interesting given that student self-efficacy has been identified to influence ‘motivation, persistence, and determination’ in overcoming challenges in a career pathway 24 . Taken together, this suggests that creation and delivery of modern, exciting curriculum that supports positive student attitudes is fundamental to engage and retain students in STEM programs.

Supported by the outcomes of identified effective learning strategies, University of Toronto (U of T) graduate trainees created a novel high school education program Discovery , to develop a comfortable yet stimulating environment of inquiry-focused iterative learning for senior high school students (Grades 11 & 12; Levels 3 & 4) at non-specialized schools. Built in strong collaboration with science teachers from George Harvey Collegiate Institute (Toronto District School Board), Discovery stimulates application of STEM concepts within a unique term-long applied curriculum delivered iteratively within both U of T undergraduate teaching facilities and collaborating high school classrooms 25 . Based on the volume of medically-themed news and entertainment that is communicated to the population at large, the rapidly-growing and diverse field of biomedical engineering (BME) were considered an ideal program context 26 . In its definition, BME necessitates cross-disciplinary STEM knowledge focused on the betterment of human health, wherein Discovery facilitates broadening student perspective through engaging inquiry-based projects. Importantly, Discovery allows all students within a class cohort to work together with their classroom teacher, stimulating continued development of a relevant learning community that is deemed essential for meaningful context and important for transforming student perspectives and understandings 27 , 28 . Multiple studies support the concept that relevant learning communities improve student attitudes towards learning, significantly increasing student motivation in STEM courses, and consequently improving the overall learning experience 29 . Learning communities, such as that provided by Discovery , also promote the formation of self-supporting groups, greater active involvement in class, and higher persistence rates for participating students 30 .

The objective of Discovery , through structure and dissemination, is to engage senior high school science students in challenging, inquiry-based practical BME activities as a mechanism to stimulate comprehension of STEM curriculum application to real-world concepts. Consequent focus is placed on critical thinking skill development through an atmosphere of perseverance in ambiguity, something not common in a secondary school knowledge-focused delivery but highly relevant in post-secondary STEM education strategies. Herein, we describe the observed impact of the differential project-based learning environment of Discovery on student performance and engagement. We identify the value of an inquiry-focused learning model that is tangible for students who struggle in a knowledge-focused delivery structure, where engagement in conceptual critical thinking in the relevant subject area stimulates student interest, attitudes, and resulting academic performance. Assessment of study outcomes suggests that when provided with a differential learning opportunity, student performance and interest in STEM increased. Consequently, Discovery provides an effective teaching and learning framework within a non-specialized school that motivates students, provides opportunity for critical thinking and problem-solving practice, and better prepares them for persistence in future STEM programs.

Program delivery

The outcomes of the current study result from execution of Discovery over five independent academic terms as a collaboration between Institute of Biomedical Engineering (graduate students, faculty, and support staff) and George Harvey Collegiate Institute (science teachers and administration) stakeholders. Each term, the program allowed senior secondary STEM students (Grades 11 and 12) opportunity to engage in a novel project-based learning environment. The program structure uses the problem-based engineering capstone framework as a tool of inquiry-focused learning objectives, motivated by a central BME global research topic, with research questions that are inter-related but specific to the curriculum of each STEM course subject (Fig. 1 ). Over each 12-week term, students worked in teams (3–4 students) within their class cohorts to execute projects with the guidance of U of T trainees ( Discovery instructors) and their own high school teacher(s). Student experimental work was conducted in U of T teaching facilities relevant to the research study of interest (i.e., Biology and Chemistry-based projects executed within Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories; Physics projects executed within Undergraduate Design Studios). Students were introduced to relevant techniques and safety procedures in advance of iterative experimentation. Importantly, this experience served as a course term project for students, who were assessed at several points throughout the program for performance in an inquiry-focused environment as well as within the regular classroom (Fig. 1 ). To instill the atmosphere of STEM, student teams delivered their outcomes in research poster format at a final symposium, sharing their results and recommendations with other post-secondary students, faculty, and community in an open environment.

The general program concept (blue background; top left ) highlights a global research topic examined through student dissemination of subject-specific research questions, yielding multifaceted student outcomes (orange background; top right ). Each program term (term workflow, yellow background; bottom panel ), students work on program deliverables in class (blue), iterate experimental outcomes within university facilities (orange), and are assessed accordingly at numerous deliverables in an inquiry-focused learning model.

Over the course of five terms there were 268 instances of tracked student participation, representing 170 individual students. Specifically, 94 students participated during only one term of programming, 57 students participated in two terms, 16 students participated in three terms, and 3 students participated in four terms. Multiple instances of participation represent students that enrol in more than one STEM class during their senior years of high school, or who participated in Grade 11 and subsequently Grade 12. Students were surveyed before and after each term to assess program effects on STEM interest and engagement. All grade-based assessments were performed by high school teachers for their respective STEM class cohorts using consistent grading rubrics and assignment structure. Here, we discuss the outcomes of student involvement in this experiential curriculum model.

Student performance and engagement

Student grades were assigned, collected, and anonymized by teachers for each Discovery deliverable (background essay, client meeting, proposal, progress report, poster, and final presentation). Teachers anonymized collective Discovery grades, the component deliverable grades thereof, final course grades, attendance in class and during programming, as well as incomplete classroom assignments, for comparative study purposes. Students performed significantly higher in their cumulative Discovery grade than in their cumulative classroom grade (final course grade less the Discovery contribution; p  < 0.0001). Nevertheless, there was a highly significant correlation ( p  < 0.0001) observed between the grade representing combined Discovery deliverables and the final course grade (Fig. 2a ). Further examination of the full dataset revealed two student cohorts of interest: the “Exceeds Expectations” (EE) subset (defined as those students who achieved ≥1 SD [18.0%] grade differential in Discovery over their final course grade; N  = 99 instances), and the “Multiple Term” (MT) subset (defined as those students who participated in Discovery more than once; 76 individual students that collectively accounted for 174 single terms of assessment out of the 268 total student-terms delivered) (Fig. 2b, c ). These subsets were not unrelated; 46 individual students who had multiple experiences (60.5% of total MTs) exhibited at least one occasion in achieving a ≥18.0% grade differential. As students participated in group work, there was concern that lower-performing students might negatively influence the Discovery grade of higher-performing students (or vice versa). However, students were observed to self-organize into groups where all individuals received similar final overall course grades (Fig. 2d ), thereby alleviating these concerns.

a Linear regression of student grades reveals a significant correlation ( p  = 0.0009) between Discovery performance and final course grade less the Discovery contribution to grade, as assessed by teachers. The dashed red line and intervals represent the theoretical 1:1 correlation between Discovery and course grades and standard deviation of the Discovery -course grade differential, respectively. b , c Identification of subgroups of interest, Exceeds Expectations (EE; N  = 99, orange ) who were ≥+1 SD in Discovery -course grade differential and Multi-Term (MT; N  = 174, teal ), of which N  = 65 students were present in both subgroups. d Students tended to self-assemble in working groups according to their final course performance; data presented as mean ± SEM. e For MT students participating at least 3 terms in Discovery , there was no significant correlation between course grade and time, while ( f ) there was a significant correlation between Discovery grade and cumulative terms in the program. Histograms of total absences per student in ( g ) Discovery and ( h ) class (binned by 4 days to be equivalent in time to a single Discovery absence).

The benefits experienced by MT students seemed progressive; MT students that participated in 3 or 4 terms ( N  = 16 and 3, respectively ) showed no significant increase by linear regression in their course grade over time ( p  = 0.15, Fig. 2e ), but did show a significant increase in their Discovery grades ( p  = 0.0011, Fig. 2f ). Finally, students demonstrated excellent Discovery attendance; at least 91% of participants attended all Discovery sessions in a given term (Fig. 2g ). In contrast, class attendance rates reveal a much wider distribution where 60.8% (163 out of 268 students) missed more than 4 classes (equivalent in learning time to one Discovery session) and 14.6% (39 out of 268 students) missed 16 or more classes (equivalent in learning time to an entire program of Discovery ) in a term (Fig. 2h ).

Discovery EE students (Fig. 3 ), roughly by definition, obtained lower course grades ( p  < 0.0001, Fig. 3a ) and higher final Discovery grades ( p  = 0.0004, Fig. 3b ) than non-EE students. This cohort of students exhibited program grades higher than classmates (Fig. 3c–h ); these differences were significant in every category with the exception of essays, where they outperformed to a significantly lesser degree ( p  = 0.097; Fig. 3c ). There was no statistically significant difference in EE vs. non-EE student classroom attendance ( p  = 0.85; Fig. 3i, j ). There were only four single day absences in Discovery within the EE subset; however, this difference was not statistically significant ( p  = 0.074).

The “Exceeds Expectations” (EE) subset of students (defined as those who received a combined Discovery grade ≥1 SD (18.0%) higher than their final course grade) performed ( a ) lower on their final course grade and ( b ) higher in the Discovery program as a whole when compared to their classmates. d – h EE students received significantly higher grades on each Discovery deliverable than their classmates, except for their ( c ) introductory essays and ( h ) final presentations. The EE subset also tended ( i ) to have a higher relative rate of attendance during Discovery sessions but no difference in ( j ) classroom attendance. N  = 99 EE students and 169 non-EE students (268 total). Grade data expressed as mean ± SEM.

Discovery MT students (Fig. 4 ), although not receiving significantly higher grades in class than students participating in the program only one time ( p  = 0.29, Fig. 4a ), were observed to obtain higher final Discovery grades than single-term students ( p  = 0.0067, Fig. 4b ). Although trends were less pronounced for individual MT student deliverables (Fig. 4c–h ), this student group performed significantly better on the progress report ( p  = 0.0021; Fig. 4f ). Trends of higher performance were observed for initial proposals and final presentations ( p  = 0.081 and 0.056, respectively; Fig. 4e, h ); all other deliverables were not significantly different between MT and non-MT students (Fig. 4c, d, g ). Attendance in Discovery ( p  = 0.22) was also not significantly different between MT and non-MT students, although MT students did miss significantly less class time ( p  = 0.010) (Fig. 4i, j ). Longitudinal assessment of individual deliverables for MT students that participated in three or more Discovery terms (Fig. 5 ) further highlights trend in improvement (Fig. 2f ). Greater performance over terms of participation was observed for essay ( p  = 0.0295, Fig. 5a ), client meeting ( p  = 0.0003, Fig. 5b ), proposal ( p  = 0.0004, Fig. 5c ), progress report ( p  = 0.16, Fig. 5d ), poster ( p  = 0.0005, Fig. 5e ), and presentation ( p  = 0.0295, Fig. 5f ) deliverable grades; these trends were all significant with the exception of the progress report ( p  = 0.16, Fig. 5d ) owing to strong performance in this deliverable in all terms.

The “multi-term” (MT) subset of students (defined as having attended more than one term of Discovery ) demonstrated favorable performance in Discovery , ( a ) showing no difference in course grade compared to single-term students, but ( b outperforming them in final Discovery grade. Independent of the number of times participating in Discovery , MT students did not score significantly differently on their ( c ) essay, ( d ) client meeting, or ( g ) poster. They tended to outperform their single-term classmates on the ( e ) proposal and ( h ) final presentation and scored significantly higher on their ( f ) progress report. MT students showed no statistical difference in ( i ) Discovery attendance but did show ( j ) higher rates of classroom attendance than single-term students. N  = 174 MT instances of student participation (76 individual students) and 94 single-term students. Grade data expressed as mean ± SEM.

Longitudinal assessment of a subset of MT student participants that participated in three ( N  = 16) or four ( N  = 3) terms presents a significant trend of improvement in their ( a ) essay, ( b ) client meeting, ( c ) proposal, ( e ) poster, and ( f ) presentation grade. d Progress report grades present a trend in improvement but demonstrate strong performance in all terms, limiting potential for student improvement. Grade data are presented as individual student performance; each student is represented by one color; data is fitted with a linear trendline (black).

Finally, the expansion of Discovery to a second school of lower LOI (i.e., nominally higher aggregate SES) allowed for the assessment of program impact in a new population over 2 terms of programming. A significant ( p  = 0.040) divergence in Discovery vs. course grade distribution from the theoretical 1:1 relationship was found in the new cohort (S 1 Appendix , Fig. S 1 ), in keeping with the pattern established in this study.

Teacher perceptions

Qualitative observation in the classroom by high school teachers emphasized the value students independently placed on program participation and deliverables. Throughout the term, students often prioritized Discovery group assignments over other tasks for their STEM courses, regardless of academic weight and/or due date. Comparing within this student population, teachers spoke of difficulties with late and incomplete assignments in the regular curriculum but found very few such instances with respect to Discovery -associated deliverables. Further, teachers speculated on the good behavior and focus of students in Discovery programming in contrast to attentiveness and behavior issues in their school classrooms. Multiple anecdotal examples were shared of renewed perception of student potential; students that exhibited poor academic performance in the classroom often engaged with high performance in this inquiry-focused atmosphere. Students appeared to take a sense of ownership, excitement, and pride in the setting of group projects oriented around scientific inquiry, discovery, and dissemination.

Student perceptions

Students were asked to consider and rank the academic difficulty (scale of 1–5, with 1 = not challenging and 5 = highly challenging) of the work they conducted within the Discovery learning model. Considering individual Discovery terms, at least 91% of students felt the curriculum to be sufficiently challenging with a 3/5 or higher ranking (Term 1: 87.5%, Term 2: 93.4%, Term 3: 85%, Term 4: 93.3%, Term 5: 100%), and a minimum of 58% of students indicating a 4/5 or higher ranking (Term 1: 58.3%, Term 2: 70.5%, Term 3: 67.5%, Term 4: 69.1%, Term 5: 86.4%) (Fig. 6a ).

a Histogram of relative frequency of perceived Discovery programming academic difficulty ranked from not challenging (1) to highly challenging (5) for each session demonstrated the consistently perceived high degree of difficulty for Discovery programming (total responses: 223). b Program participation increased student comfort (94.6%) with navigating lab work in a university or college setting (total responses: 220). c Considering participation in Discovery programming, students indicated their increased (72.4%) or decreased (10.1%) likelihood to pursue future experiences in STEM as a measure of program impact (total responses: 217). d Large majority of participating students (84.9%) indicated their interest for future participation in Discovery (total responses: 212). Students were given the opportunity to opt out of individual survey questions, partially completed surveys were included in totals.

The majority of students (94.6%) indicated they felt more comfortable with the idea of performing future work in a university STEM laboratory environment given exposure to university teaching facilities throughout the program (Fig. 6b ). Students were also queried whether they were (i) more likely, (ii) less likely, or (iii) not impacted by their experience in the pursuit of STEM in the future. The majority of participants (>82%) perceived impact on STEM interests, with 72.4% indicating they were more likely to pursue these interests in the future (Fig. 6c ). When surveyed at the end of term, 84.9% of students indicated they would participate in the program again (Fig. 6d ).

We have described an inquiry-based framework for implementing experiential STEM education in a BME setting. Using this model, we engaged 268 instances of student participation (170 individual students who participated 1–4 times) over five terms in project-based learning wherein students worked in peer-based teams under the mentorship of U of T trainees to design and execute the scientific method in answering a relevant research question. Collaboration between high school teachers and Discovery instructors allowed for high school student exposure to cutting-edge BME research topics, participation in facilitated inquiry, and acquisition of knowledge through scientific discovery. All assessments were conducted by high school teachers and constituted a fraction (10–15%) of the overall course grade, instilling academic value for participating students. As such, students exhibited excitement to learn as well as commitment to their studies in the program.

Through our observations and analysis, we suggest there is value in differential learning environments for students that struggle in a knowledge acquisition-focused classroom setting. In general, we observed a high level of academic performance in Discovery programming (Fig. 2a ), which was highlighted exceptionally in EE students who exhibited greater academic performance in Discovery deliverables compared to normal coursework (>18% grade improvement in relevant deliverables). We initially considered whether this was the result of strong students influencing weaker students; however, group organization within each course suggests this is not the case (Fig. 2d ). With the exception of one class in one term (24 participants assigned by their teacher), students were allowed to self-organize into working groups and they chose to work with other students of relatively similar academic performance (as indicated by course grade), a trend observed in other studies 31 , 32 . Remarkably, EE students not only excelled during Discovery when compared to their own performance in class, but this cohort also achieved significantly higher average grades in each of the deliverables throughout the program when compared to the remaining Discovery cohort (Fig. 3 ). This data demonstrates the value of an inquiry-based learning environment compared to knowledge-focused delivery in the classroom in allowing students to excel. We expect that part of this engagement was resultant of student excitement with a novel learning opportunity. It is however a well-supported concept that students who struggle in traditional settings tend to demonstrate improved interest and motivation in STEM when given opportunity to interact in a hands-on fashion, which supports our outcomes 4 , 33 . Furthermore, these outcomes clearly represent variable student learning styles, where some students benefit from a greater exchange of information, knowledge and skills in a cooperative learning environment 34 . The performance of the EE group may not be by itself surprising, as the identification of the subset by definition required high performers in Discovery who did not have exceptionally high course grades; in addition, the final Discovery grade is dependent on the component assignment grades. However, the discrepancies between EE and non-EE groups attendance suggests that students were engaged by Discovery in a way that they were not by regular classroom curriculum.

In addition to quantified engagement in Discovery observed in academic performance, we believe remarkable attendance rates are indicative of the value students place in the differential learning structure. Given the differences in number of Discovery days and implications of missing one day of regular class compared to this immersive program, we acknowledge it is challenging to directly compare attendance data and therefore approximate this comparison with consideration of learning time equivalence. When combined with other subjective data including student focus, requests to work on Discovery during class time, and lack of discipline/behavior issues, the attendance data importantly suggests that students were especially engaged by the Discovery model. Further, we believe the increased commute time to the university campus (students are responsible for independent transit to campus, a much longer endeavour than the normal school commute), early program start time, and students’ lack of familiarity with the location are non-trivial considerations when determining the propensity of students to participate enthusiastically in Discovery . We feel this suggests the students place value on this team-focused learning and find it to be more applicable and meaningful to their interests.

Given post-secondary admission requirements for STEM programs, it would be prudent to think that students participating in multiple STEM classes across terms are the ones with the most inherent interest in post-secondary STEM programs. The MT subset, representing students who participated in Discovery for more than one term, averaged significantly higher final Discovery grades. The increase in the final Discovery grade was observed to result from a general confluence of improved performance over multiple deliverables and a continuous effort to improve in a STEM curriculum. This was reflected in longitudinal tracking of Discovery performance, where we observed a significant trend of improved performance. Interestingly, the high number of MT students who were included in the EE group suggests that students who had a keen interest in science enrolled in more than one course and in general responded well to the inquiry-based teaching method of Discovery , where scientific method was put into action. It stands to reason that students interested in science will continue to take STEM courses and will respond favorably to opportunities to put classroom theory to practical application.

The true value of an inquiry-based program such as Discovery may not be based in inspiring students to perform at a higher standard in STEM within the high school setting, as skills in critical thinking do not necessarily translate to knowledge-based assessment. Notably, students found the programming equally challenging throughout each of the sequential sessions, perhaps somewhat surprising considering the increasing number of repeat attendees in successive sessions (Fig. 6a ). Regardless of sub-discipline, there was an emphasis of perceived value demonstrated through student surveys where we observed indicated interest in STEM and comfort with laboratory work environments, and desire to engage in future iterations given the opportunity. Although non-quantitative, we perceive this as an indicator of significant student engagement, even though some participants did not yield academic success in the program and found it highly challenging given its ambiguity.

Although we observed that students become more certain of their direction in STEM, further longitudinal study is warranted to make claim of this outcome. Additionally, at this point in our assessment we cannot effectively assess the practical outcomes of participation, understanding that the immediate effects observed are subject to a number of factors associated with performance in the high school learning environment. Future studies that track graduates from this program will be prudent, in conjunction with an ever-growing dataset of assessment as well as surveys designed to better elucidate underlying perceptions and attitudes, to continue to understand the expected benefits of this inquiry-focused and partnered approach. Altogether, a multifaceted assessment of our early outcomes suggests significant value of an immersive and iterative interaction with STEM as part of the high school experience. A well-defined divergence from knowledge-based learning, focused on engagement in critical thinking development framed in the cutting-edge of STEM, may be an important step to broadening student perspectives.

In this study, we describe the short-term effects of an inquiry-based STEM educational experience on a cohort of secondary students attending a non-specialized school, and suggest that the framework can be widely applied across virtually all subjects where inquiry-driven and mentored projects can be undertaken. Although we have demonstrated replication in a second cohort of nominally higher SES (S 1 Appendix , Supplementary Fig. 1 ), a larger collection period with more students will be necessary to conclusively determine impact independent of both SES and specific cohort effects. Teachers may also find this framework difficult to implement depending on resources and/or institutional investment and support, particularly if post-secondary collaboration is inaccessible. Offerings to a specific subject (e.g., physics) where experiments yielding empirical data are logistically or financially simpler to perform may be valid routes of adoption as opposed to the current study where all subject cohorts were included.

As we consider Discovery in a bigger picture context, expansion and implementation of this model is translatable. Execution of the scientific method is an important aspect of citizen science, as the concepts of critical thing become ever-more important in a landscape of changing technological landscapes. Giving students critical thinking and problem-solving skills in their primary and secondary education provides value in the context of any career path. Further, we feel that this model is scalable across disciplines, STEM or otherwise, as a means of building the tools of inquiry. We have observed here the value of differential inclusive student engagement and critical thinking through an inquiry-focused model for a subset of students, but further to this an engagement, interest, and excitement across the body of student participants. As we educate the leaders of tomorrow, we suggest that use of an inquiry-focused model such as Discovery could facilitate growth of a data-driven critical thinking framework.

In conclusion, we have presented a model of inquiry-based STEM education for secondary students that emphasizes inclusion, quantitative analysis, and critical thinking. Student grades suggest significant performance benefits, and engagement data suggests positive student attitude despite the perceived challenges of the program. We also note a particular performance benefit to students who repeatedly engage in the program. This framework may carry benefits in a wide variety of settings and disciplines for enhancing student engagement and performance, particularly in non-specialized school environments.

Study design and implementation

Participants in Discovery include all students enrolled in university-stream Grade 11 or 12 biology, chemistry, or physics at the participating school over five consecutive terms (cohort summary shown in Table 1 ). Although student participation in educational content was mandatory, student grades and survey responses (administered by high school teachers) were collected from only those students with parent or guardian consent. Teachers replaced each student name with a unique coded identifier to preserve anonymity but enable individual student tracking over multiple terms. All data collected were analyzed without any exclusions save for missing survey responses; no power analysis was performed prior to data collection.

Ethics statement

This study was approved by the University of Toronto Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (Protocol # 34825) and the Toronto District School Board External Research Review Committee (Protocol # 2017-2018-20). Written informed consent was collected from parents or guardians of participating students prior to the acquisition of student data (both post-hoc academic data and survey administration). Data were anonymized by high school teachers for maintenance of academic confidentiality of individual students prior to release to U of T researchers.

Educational program overview

Students enrolled in university-preparatory STEM classes at the participating school completed a term-long project under the guidance of graduate student instructors and undergraduate student mentors as a mandatory component of their respective course. Project curriculum developed collaboratively between graduate students and participating high school teachers was delivered within U of T Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering (FASE) teaching facilities. Participation allows high school students to garner a better understanding as to how undergraduate learning and career workflows in STEM vary from traditional high school classroom learning, meanwhile reinforcing the benefits of problem solving, perseverance, teamwork, and creative thinking competencies. Given that Discovery was a mandatory component of course curriculum, students participated as class cohorts and addressed questions specific to their course subject knowledge base but related to the defined global health research topic (Fig. 1 ). Assessment of program deliverables was collectively assigned to represent 10–15% of the final course grade for each subject at the discretion of the respective STEM teacher.

The Discovery program framework was developed, prior to initiation of student assessment, in collaboration with one high school selected from the local public school board over a 1.5 year period of time. This partner school consistently scores highly (top decile) in the school board’s Learning Opportunities Index (LOI). The LOI ranks each school based on measures of external challenges affecting its student population therefore schools with the greatest level of external challenge receive a higher ranking 35 . A high LOI ranking is inversely correlated with socioeconomic status (SES); therefore, participating students are identified as having a significant number of external challenges that may affect their academic success. The mandatory nature of program participation was established to reach highly capable students who may be reluctant to engage on their own initiative, as a means of enhancing the inclusivity and impact of the program. The selected school partner is located within a reasonable geographical radius of our campus (i.e., ~40 min transit time from school to campus). This is relevant as participating students are required to independently commute to campus for Discovery hands-on experiences.

Each program term of Discovery corresponds with a five-month high school term. Lead university trainee instructors (3–6 each term) engaged with high school teachers 1–2 months in advance of high school student engagement to discern a relevant overarching global healthcare theme. Each theme was selected with consideration of (a) topics that university faculty identify as cutting-edge biomedical research, (b) expertise that Discovery instructors provide, and (c) capacity to showcase the diversity of BME. Each theme was sub-divided into STEM subject-specific research questions aligning with provincial Ministry of Education curriculum concepts for university-preparatory Biology, Chemistry, and Physics 9 that students worked to address, both on-campus and in-class, during a term-long project. The Discovery framework therefore provides students a problem-based learning experience reflective of an engineering capstone design project, including a motivating scientific problem (i.e., global topic), subject-specific research question, and systematic determination of a professional recommendation addressing the needs of the presented problem.

Discovery instructors were volunteers recruited primarily from graduate and undergraduate BME programs in the FASE. Instructors were organized into subject-specific instructional teams based on laboratory skills, teaching experience, and research expertise. The lead instructors of each subject (the identified 1–2 trainees that built curriculum with high school teachers) were responsible to organize the remaining team members as mentors for specific student groups over the course of the program term (~1:8 mentor to student ratio).

All Discovery instructors were familiarized with program expectations and trained in relevant workspace safety, in addition to engagement at a teaching workshop delivered by the Faculty Advisor (a Teaching Stream faculty member) at the onset of term. This workshop was designed to provide practical information on teaching and was co-developed with high school teachers based on their extensive training and experience in fundamental teaching methods. In addition, group mentors received hands-on training and guidance from lead instructors regarding the specific activities outlined for their respective subject programming (an exemplary term of student programming is available in S 2 Appendix) .

Discovery instructors were responsible for introducing relevant STEM skills and mentoring high school students for the duration of their projects, with support and mentorship from the Faculty Mentor. Each instructor worked exclusively throughout the term with the student groups to which they had been assigned, ensuring consistent mentorship across all disciplinary components of the project. In addition to further supporting university trainees in on-campus mentorship, high school teachers were responsible for academic assessment of all student program deliverables (Fig. 1 ; the standardized grade distribution available in S 3 Appendix ). Importantly, trainees never engaged in deliverable assessment; for continuity of overall course assessment, this remained the responsibility of the relevant teacher for each student cohort.

Throughout each term, students engaged within the university facilities four times. The first three sessions included hands-on lab sessions while the fourth visit included a culminating symposium for students to present their scientific findings (Fig. 1 ). On average, there were 4–5 groups of students per subject (3–4 students per group; ~20 students/class). Discovery instructors worked exclusively with 1–2 groups each term in the capacity of mentor to monitor and guide student progress in all project deliverables.

After introducing the selected global research topic in class, teachers led students in completion of background research essays. Students subsequently engaged in a subject-relevant skill-building protocol during their first visit to university teaching laboratory facilities, allowing opportunity to understand analysis techniques and equipment relevant for their assessment projects. At completion of this session, student groups were presented with a subject-specific research question as well as the relevant laboratory inventory available for use during their projects. Armed with this information, student groups continued to work in their classroom setting to develop group-specific experimental plans. Teachers and Discovery instructors provided written and oral feedback, respectively , allowing students an opportunity to revise their plans in class prior to on-campus experimental execution.

Once at the relevant laboratory environment, student groups executed their protocols in an effort to collect experimental data. Data analysis was performed in the classroom and students learned by trial & error to optimize their protocols before returning to the university lab for a second opportunity of data collection. All methods and data were re-analyzed in class in order for students to create a scientific poster for the purpose of study/experience dissemination. During a final visit to campus, all groups presented their findings at a research symposium, allowing students to verbally defend their process, analyses, interpretations, and design recommendations to a diverse audience including peers, STEM teachers, undergraduate and graduate university students, postdoctoral fellows and U of T faculty.

Data collection

Teachers evaluated their students on the following associated deliverables: (i) global theme background research essay; (ii) experimental plan; (iii) progress report; (iv) final poster content and presentation; and (v) attendance. For research purposes, these grades were examined individually and also as a collective Discovery program grade for each student. For students consenting to participation in the research study, all Discovery grades were anonymized by the classroom teacher before being shared with study authors. Each student was assigned a code by the teacher for direct comparison of deliverable outcomes and survey responses. All instances of “Final course grade” represent the prorated course grade without the Discovery component, to prevent confounding of quantitative analyses.

Survey instruments were used to gain insight into student attitudes and perceptions of STEM and post-secondary study, as well as Discovery program experience and impact (S 4 Appendix ). High school teachers administered surveys in the classroom only to students supported by parental permission. Pre-program surveys were completed at minimum 1 week prior to program initiation each term and exit surveys were completed at maximum 2 weeks post- Discovery term completion. Surveys results were validated using a principal component analysis (S 1 Appendix , Supplementary Fig. 2 ).

Identification and comparison of population subsets

From initial analysis, we identified two student subpopulations of particular interest: students who performed ≥1 SD [18.0%] or greater in the collective Discovery components of the course compared to their final course grade (“EE”), and students who participated in Discovery more than once (“MT”). These groups were compared individually against the rest of the respective Discovery population (“non-EE” and “non-MT”, respectively ). Additionally, MT students who participated in three or four (the maximum observed) terms of Discovery were assessed for longitudinal changes to performance in their course and Discovery grades. Comparisons were made for all Discovery deliverables (introductory essay, client meeting, proposal, progress report, poster, and presentation), final Discovery grade, final course grade, Discovery attendance, and overall attendance.

Statistical analysis

Student course grades were analyzed in all instances without the Discovery contribution (calculated from all deliverable component grades and ranging from 10 to 15% of final course grade depending on class and year) to prevent correlation. Aggregate course grades and Discovery grades were first compared by paired t-test, matching each student’s course grade to their Discovery grade for the term. Student performance in Discovery ( N  = 268 instances of student participation, comprising 170 individual students that participated 1–4 times) was initially assessed in a linear regression of Discovery grade vs. final course grade. Trends in course and Discovery performance over time for students participating 3 or 4 terms ( N  = 16 and 3 individuals, respectively ) were also assessed by linear regression. For subpopulation analysis (EE and MT, N  = 99 instances from 81 individuals and 174 instances from 76 individuals, respectively ), each dataset was tested for normality using the D’Agostino and Pearson omnibus normality test. All subgroup comparisons vs. the remaining population were performed by Mann–Whitney U -test. Data are plotted as individual points with mean ± SEM overlaid (grades), or in histogram bins of 1 and 4 days, respectively , for Discovery and class attendance. Significance was set at α ≤ 0.05.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the Nature Research Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author DMK. These data are not publicly available due to privacy concerns of personal data according to the ethical research agreements supporting this study.

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Acknowledgements

This study has been possible due to the support of many University of Toronto trainee volunteers, including Genevieve Conant, Sherif Ramadan, Daniel Smieja, Rami Saab, Andrew Effat, Serena Mandla, Cindy Bui, Janice Wong, Dawn Bannerman, Allison Clement, Shouka Parvin Nejad, Nicolas Ivanov, Jose Cardenas, Huntley Chang, Romario Regeenes, Dr. Henrik Persson, Ali Mojdeh, Nhien Tran-Nguyen, Ileana Co, and Jonathan Rubianto. We further acknowledge the staff and administration of George Harvey Collegiate Institute and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering (IBME), as well as Benjamin Rocheleau and Madeleine Rocheleau for contributions to data collation. Discovery has grown with continued support of Dean Christopher Yip (Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, U of T), and the financial support of the IBME and the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) PromoScience program (PROSC 515876-2017; IBME “Igniting Youth Curiosity in STEM” initiative co-directed by DMK and Dr. Penney Gilbert). LDH and NIC were supported by Vanier Canada graduate scholarships from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and NSERC, respectively . DMK holds a Dean’s Emerging Innovation in Teaching Professorship in the Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science, U of T.

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These authors contributed equally: Locke Davenport Huyer, Neal I. Callaghan.

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Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Locke Davenport Huyer, Neal I. Callaghan, Andrey I. Shukalyuk & Dawn M. Kilkenny

Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Locke Davenport Huyer

Translational Biology and Engineering Program, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Neal I. Callaghan

George Harvey Collegiate Institute, Toronto District School Board, Toronto, ON, Canada

Sara Dicks, Edward Scherer & Margaret Jou

Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education & Practice, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Dawn M. Kilkenny

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Contributions

LDH, NIC and DMK conceived the program structure, designed the study, and interpreted the data. LDH and NIC ideated programming, coordinated execution, and performed all data analysis. SD, ES, and MJ designed and assessed student deliverables, collected data, and anonymized data for assessment. SD assisted in data interpretation. AIS assisted in programming ideation and design. All authors provided feedback and approved the manuscript that was written by LDH, NIC and DMK.

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Correspondence to Dawn M. Kilkenny .

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Davenport Huyer, L., Callaghan, N.I., Dicks, S. et al. Enhancing senior high school student engagement and academic performance using an inclusive and scalable inquiry-based program. npj Sci. Learn. 5 , 17 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-00076-2

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How technology is reinventing education

Stanford Graduate School of Education Dean Dan Schwartz and other education scholars weigh in on what's next for some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom.

Image credit: Claire Scully

New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

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The alarming state of the American student in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, robin lake and robin lake director, center on reinventing public education - arizona state university @rbnlake travis pillow travis pillow innovation fellow, center on reinventing public education - arizona state university @travispillow.

November 1, 2022

The pandemic was a wrecking ball for U.S. public education, bringing months of school closures, frantic moves to remote instruction, and trauma and isolation.

Kids may be back at school after three disrupted years, but a return to classrooms has not brought a return to normal. Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed historic declines in American students’ knowledge and skills and widening gaps between the highest- and lowest-scoring students.

But even these sobering results do not tell us the whole story.

After nearly three years of tracking pandemic response by U.S. school systems and synthesizing knowledge about the impacts on students, we sought to establish a baseline understanding of the contours of the crisis: What happened and why, and where do we go from here?

This first annual “ State of the American Student ” report synthesizes nearly three years of research on the academic, mental health, and other impacts of the pandemic and school closures.

It outlines the contours of the crisis American students have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and begins to chart a path to recovery and reinvention for all students—which includes building a new and better approach to public education that ensures an educational crisis of this magnitude cannot happen again.

The state of American students as we emerge from the pandemic is still coming into focus, but here’s what we’ve learned (and haven’t yet learned) about where COVID-19 left us:

1. Students lost critical opportunities to learn and thrive.

• The typical American student lost several months’ worth of learning in language arts and more in mathematics.

• Students suffered crushing increases in anxiety and depression. More than one in 360 U.S. children lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19.

• Students poorly served before the pandemic were profoundly left behind during it, including many with disabilities whose parents reported they were cut off from essential school and life services.

This deeply traumatic period threatens to reverberate for decades. The academic, social, and mental-health needs are real, they are measurable, and they must be addressed quickly to avoid long-term consequences to individual students, the future workforce, and society.

2. The average effects from COVID mask dire inequities and widely varied impact.

Some students are catching up, but time is running out for others. Every student experienced the pandemic differently, and there is tremendous variation from student to student, with certain populations—namely, Black, Hispanic, and low-income students, as well as other vulnerable populations—suffering the most severe impacts.

The effects were more severe where campuses stayed closed longer. American students are experiencing a K-shaped recovery, in which gaps between the highest- and lowest-scoring students, already growing before the pandemic, are widening into chasms. In the latest NAEP results released in September , national average scores fell five times as much in reading, and four times as much in math, for the lowest-scoring 10 percent of nine-year-olds as they had for the highest-scoring 10 percent.

At the pace of recovery we are seeing today, too many students of all races and income levels will graduate in the coming years without the skills and knowledge needed for college and careers.

3. What we know at this point is incomplete. The situation could be significantly worse than the early data suggest.

The data and stories we have to date are enough to warrant immediate action, but there are serious holes in our understanding of how the pandemic has affected various groups of students, especially those who are typically most likely to fall through the cracks in the American education system.

We know little about students with complex needs, such as those with disabilities and English learners. We still know too little about the learning impacts in non-tested subjects, such as science, civics, and foreign languages. And while psychologists , educators , and the federal government are sounding alarms about a youth mental health crisis, systematic measures of student wellbeing remain hard to come by.

We must acknowledge that what we know at this point is incomplete, since the pandemic closures and following recovery have been so unprecedented in recent times. It’s possible that as we continue to dig into the evidence on the pandemic’s impacts, some student groups or subjects may have not been so adversely affected. Alternatively, the situation could be significantly worse than the early data suggest. Some students are already bouncing back quickly. But for others, the impact could grow worse over time.

In subjects like math, where learning is cumulative, pandemic-related gaps in students’ learning that emerged during the pandemic could affect their ability to grasp future material. In some states, test scores fell dramatically for high schoolers nearing graduation. Shifts in these students’ academic trajectories could affect their college plans—and the rest of their lives. And elevated rates of chronic absenteeism suggest some students who disconnected from school during the pandemic have struggled to reconnect since.

4. The harms students experienced can be traced to a rigid and inequitable system that put adults, not students, first.

• Despite often heroic efforts by caring adults, students and families were cut off from essential support, offered radically diminished learning opportunities, and left to their own devices to support learning.

• Too often, partisan politics, not student needs , drove decision-making.

• Students with complexities and differences too often faced systems immobilized by fear and a commitment to sameness rather than prioritization and problem-solving.

So, what can we do to address the situation we’re in?

Diverse needs demand diverse solutions that are informed by pandemic experiences

Freed from the routines of rigid systems, some parents, communities, and educators found new ways to tailor learning experiences around students’ needs. They discovered learning can happen any time and anywhere. They discovered enriching activities outside class and troves of untapped adult talent.

Some of these breakthroughs happened in public schools—like virtual IEP meetings that leveled power dynamics between administrators and parents advocating for their children’s special education services. Others happened in learning pods or other new environments where families and community groups devised new ways to meet students’ needs. These were exceptions to an otherwise miserable rule, and they can inform the work ahead.

We must act quickly but we must also act differently. Important next steps include:

• Districts and states should immediately use their federal dollars to address the emergent needs of the COVID-19 generation of students via proven interventions, such as well-designed tutoring, extended learning time, credit recovery, additional mental health support, college and career guidance, and mentoring. The challenges ahead are too daunting for schools to shoulder alone. Partnerships and funding for families and community-driven solutions will be critical.

• By the end of the 2022–2023 academic year, states and districts must commit to an honest accounting of rebuilding efforts by defining, adopting, and reporting on their progress toward 5- and 10-year goals for long-term student recovery. States should invest in rigorous studies that document, analyze, and improve their approaches.

• Education leaders and researchers must adopt a national research and development agenda for school reinvention over the next five years. This effort must be anchored in the reality that the needs of students are so varied, so profound, and so multifaceted that a one-size-fits-all approach to education can’t possibly meet them all. Across the country, community organizations who previously operated summer or afterschool programs stepped up to support students during the school day. As they focus on recovery, school system leaders should look to these helpers not as peripheral players in education, but as critical contributors who can provide teaching , tutoring, or joyful learning environments for students and often have trusting relationships with their families.

• Recovery and rebuilding should ensure the system is more resilient and prepared for future crises. That means more thoughtful integration of online learning and stronger partnerships with organizations that support learning outside school walls. Every school system in America should have a plan to keep students safe and learning even when they can’t physically come to school, be equipped to deliver high-quality, individualized pathways for students, and build on practices that show promise.

Our “State of the American Student” report is the first in a series of annual reports the Center on Reinventing Public Education intends to produce through fall of 2027. We hope every state and community will produce similar, annual accounts and begin to define ambitious goals for recovery. The implications of these deeply traumatic years will reverberate for decades unless we find a path not only to normalcy but also to restitution for this generation and future generations of American students.

The road to recovery can lead somewhere new. In five years, we hope to report that out of the ashes of the pandemic, American public education emerged transformed: more flexible and resilient, more individualized and equitable, and—most of all— more joyful.

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

Education Articles & More

Our best education articles of 2022, 
readers and editors pick the most interesting and insightful articles from the past year about teaching, learning, and the keys to well-being at school.
.

Our most popular education articles of 2022 explore how to help students feel connected to each other and cultivate character strengths like curiosity and humility, amid the many stressors and pressures that young people are facing today. They also offer support for educators’ and school leaders’ well-being, and reflect on hopes for transformative change in education. 

If you are looking for specific activities to support your students’ and colleagues’ social and emotional well-being in 2023, visit our  Greater Good in Education  website, featuring free research-based practices, lessons, and strategies for cultivating kinder, happier, and more equitable classrooms and schools. For a deeper dive into the science behind social-emotional learning, mindfulness, and ethical development, consider our suite of self-paced  online courses  for educational professionals, including our capstone course,  Teaching and Learning for the Greater Good . Or join one of our new communities of practice that focus on educator well-being, offering space for rest, reflection, togetherness, and hope—and some science, too!

Here are the 12 best education articles of 2022, based on a composite ranking of pageviews and editors’ picks.


Six Ways to Find Your Courage During Challenging Times , by Amy L. Eva: Courage doesn’t have to look dramatic or fearless. Sometimes it looks more like quiet perseverance.

Calm, Clear, and Kind: What Students Want From Their Teachers , by Jenna Whitehead: Researchers asked students what makes a caring teacher—and these same qualities may help support your well-being as an educator.

How to Help Teens Put Less Pressure on Themselves , by Karen Bluth: Self-compassion can help teens who are struggling with toxic perfectionism. Five Ways to Support the Well-Being of School Leaders , by Julia Mahfouz, Kathleen King, and Danny Yahya: Burnout rates are high among principals. How can we fight burnout and promote self-care?

How to Help Your Students Develop Positive Habits , by Arthur Schwartz: Small habits repeated regularly can help students cultivate character strengths like patience, gratitude, and kindness.

Can We Make Real, Transformative Change in Education? , by Renee Owen: A new program is preparing leaders to facilitate systemic change in education in order to better serve all students.

Five Ways to Help Students Feel Connected at School Again , by Jennifer de Forest and Karen VanAusdal: According to students themselves, they are yearning for opportunities to connect with friends and peers as they head back to school.

How to Prepare for the Stresses of College , by Erin T. Barker and Andrea L. Howard: Researchers explain the most common causes of stress and distress at college, and what students can do to thrive during a big life transition.

How Humility Can Make Your Students the Best People Ever , by Vicki Zakrzewski: Simple ways for educators to help students move from “me” to “we.”

Four Ways to Inspire Humble Curiosity in Your Students , by Amy L. Eva: Humility and curiosity can encourage students to be passionate about learning and open to others’ perspectives.

What Middle Schoolers Can Teach Us About Respect , by Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman and Lia E. Sandilos: Teens are developing a nuanced understanding of what respect means. Here are some ideas for cultivating more of it in the classroom.

Why Teachers Need Each Other Right Now , by Amy L. Eva: Here are four simple ways to find social support as an educational professional.

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The Effect of COVID-19 on Education

Jacob hoofman.

a Wayne State University School of Medicine, 540 East Canfield, Detroit, MI 48201, USA

Elizabeth Secord

b Department of Pediatrics, Wayne Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Pediatrics Wayne State University, 400 Mack Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201, USA

COVID-19 has changed education for learners of all ages. Preliminary data project educational losses at many levels and verify the increased anxiety and depression associated with the changes, but there are not yet data on long-term outcomes. Guidance from oversight organizations regarding the safety and efficacy of new delivery modalities for education have been quickly forged. It is no surprise that the socioeconomic gaps and gaps for special learners have widened. The medical profession and other professions that teach by incrementally graduated internships are also severely affected and have had to make drastic changes.

• • Virtual learning has become a norm during COVID-19.
• • Children requiring special learning services, those living in poverty, and those speaking English as a second language have lost more from the pandemic educational changes.
• • For children with attention deficit disorder and no comorbidities, virtual learning has sometimes been advantageous.
• • Math learning scores are more likely to be affected than language arts scores by pandemic changes.
• • School meals, access to friends, and organized activities have also been lost with the closing of in-person school.

The transition to an online education during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may bring about adverse educational changes and adverse health consequences for children and young adult learners in grade school, middle school, high school, college, and professional schools. The effects may differ by age, maturity, and socioeconomic class. At this time, we have few data on outcomes, but many oversight organizations have tried to establish guidelines, expressed concerns, and extrapolated from previous experiences.

General educational losses and disparities

Many researchers are examining how the new environment affects learners’ mental, physical, and social health to help compensate for any losses incurred by this pandemic and to better prepare for future pandemics. There is a paucity of data at this juncture, but some investigators have extrapolated from earlier school shutdowns owing to hurricanes and other natural disasters. 1

Inclement weather closures are estimated in some studies to lower middle school math grades by 0.013 to 0.039 standard deviations and natural disaster closures by up to 0.10 standard deviation decreases in overall achievement scores. 2 The data from inclement weather closures did show a more significant decrease for children dependent on school meals, but generally the data were not stratified by socioeconomic differences. 3 , 4 Math scores are impacted overall more negatively by school absences than English language scores for all school closures. 4 , 5

The Northwest Evaluation Association is a global nonprofit organization that provides research-based assessments and professional development for educators. A team of researchers at Stanford University evaluated Northwest Evaluation Association test scores for students in 17 states and the District of Columbia in the Fall of 2020 and estimated that the average student had lost one-third of a year to a full year's worth of learning in reading, and about three-quarters of a year to more than 1 year in math since schools closed in March 2020. 5

With school shifted from traditional attendance at a school building to attendance via the Internet, families have come under new stressors. It is increasingly clear that families depended on schools for much more than math and reading. Shelter, food, health care, and social well-being are all part of what children and adolescents, as well as their parents or guardians, depend on schools to provide. 5 , 6

Many families have been impacted negatively by the loss of wages, leading to food insecurity and housing insecurity; some of loss this is a consequence of the need for parents to be at home with young children who cannot attend in-person school. 6 There is evidence that this economic instability is leading to an increase in depression and anxiety. 7 In 1 survey, 34.71% of parents reported behavioral problems in their children that they attributed to the pandemic and virtual schooling. 8

Children have been infected with and affected by coronavirus. In the United States, 93,605 students tested positive for COVID-19, and it was reported that 42% were Hispanic/Latino, 32% were non-Hispanic White, and 17% were non-Hispanic Black, emphasizing a disproportionate effect for children of color. 9 COVID infection itself is not the only issue that affects children’s health during the pandemic. School-based health care and school-based meals are lost when school goes virtual and children of lower socioeconomic class are more severely affected by these losses. Although some districts were able to deliver school meals, school-based health care is a primary source of health care for many children and has left some chronic conditions unchecked during the pandemic. 10

Many families report that the stress of the pandemic has led to a poorer diet in children with an increase in the consumption of sweet and fried foods. 11 , 12 Shelter at home orders and online education have led to fewer exercise opportunities. Research carried out by Ammar and colleagues 12 found that daily sitting had increased from 5 to 8 hours a day and binge eating, snacking, and the number of meals were all significantly increased owing to lockdown conditions and stay-at-home initiatives. There is growing evidence in both animal and human models that diets high in sugar and fat can play a detrimental role in cognition and should be of increased concern in light of the pandemic. 13

The family stress elicited by the COVID-19 shutdown is a particular concern because of compiled evidence that adverse life experiences at an early age are associated with an increased likelihood of mental health issues as an adult. 14 There is early evidence that children ages 6 to 18 years of age experienced a significant increase in their expression of “clinginess, irritability, and fear” during the early pandemic school shutdowns. 15 These emotions associated with anxiety may have a negative impact on the family unit, which was already stressed owing to the pandemic.

Another major concern is the length of isolation many children have had to endure since the pandemic began and what effects it might have on their ability to socialize. The school, for many children, is the agent for forming their social connections as well as where early social development occurs. 16 Noting that academic performance is also declining the pandemic may be creating a snowball effect, setting back children without access to resources from which they may never recover, even into adulthood.

Predictions from data analysis of school absenteeism, summer breaks, and natural disaster occurrences are imperfect for the current situation, but all indications are that we should not expect all children and adolescents to be affected equally. 4 , 5 Although some children and adolescents will likely suffer no long-term consequences, COVID-19 is expected to widen the already existing educational gap from socioeconomic differences, and children with learning differences are expected to suffer more losses than neurotypical children. 4 , 5

Special education and the COVID-19 pandemic

Although COVID-19 has affected all levels of education reception and delivery, children with special needs have been more profoundly impacted. Children in the United States who have special needs have legal protection for appropriate education by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. 17 , 18 Collectively, this legislation is meant to allow for appropriate accommodations, services, modifications, and specialized academic instruction to ensure that “every child receives a free appropriate public education . . . in the least restrictive environment.” 17

Children with autism usually have applied behavioral analysis (ABA) as part of their individualized educational plan. ABA therapists for autism use a technique of discrete trial training that shapes and rewards incremental changes toward new behaviors. 19 Discrete trial training involves breaking behaviors into small steps and repetition of rewards for small advances in the steps toward those behaviors. It is an intensive one-on-one therapy that puts a child and therapist in close contact for many hours at a time, often 20 to 40 hours a week. This therapy works best when initiated at a young age in children with autism and is often initiated in the home. 19

Because ABA workers were considered essential workers from the early days of the pandemic, organizations providing this service had the responsibility and the freedom to develop safety protocols for delivery of this necessary service and did so in conjunction with certifying boards. 20

Early in the pandemic, there were interruptions in ABA followed by virtual visits, and finally by in-home therapy with COVID-19 isolation precautions. 21 Although the efficacy of virtual visits for ABA therapy would empirically seem to be inferior, there are few outcomes data available. The balance of safety versus efficacy quite early turned to in-home services with interruptions owing to illness and decreased therapist availability owing to the pandemic. 21 An overarching concern for children with autism is the possible loss of a window of opportunity to intervene early. Families of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder report increased stress compared with families of children with other disabilities before the pandemic, and during the pandemic this burden has increased with the added responsibility of monitoring in-home schooling. 20

Early data on virtual schooling children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit with hyperactivity (ADHD) shows that adolescents with ADD/ADHD found the switch to virtual learning more anxiety producing and more challenging than their peers. 22 However, according to a study in Ireland, younger children with ADD/ADHD and no other neurologic or psychiatric diagnoses who were stable on medication tended to report less anxiety with at-home schooling and their parents and caregivers reported improved behavior during the pandemic. 23 An unexpected benefit of shelter in home versus shelter in place may be to identify these stressors in face-to-face school for children with ADD/ADHD. If children with ADD/ADHD had an additional diagnosis of autism or depression, they reported increased anxiety with the school shutdown. 23 , 24

Much of the available literature is anticipatory guidance for in-home schooling of children with disabilities rather than data about schooling during the pandemic. The American Academy of Pediatrics published guidance advising that, because 70% of students with ADHD have other conditions, such as learning differences, oppositional defiant disorder, or depression, they may have very different responses to in home schooling which are a result of the non-ADHD diagnosis, for example, refusal to attempt work for children with oppositional defiant disorder, severe anxiety for those with depression and or anxiety disorders, and anxiety and perseveration for children with autism. 25 Children and families already stressed with learning differences have had substantial challenges during the COVID-19 school closures.

High school, depression, and COVID-19

High schoolers have lost a great deal during this pandemic. What should have been a time of establishing more independence has been hampered by shelter-in-place recommendations. Graduations, proms, athletic events, college visits, and many other social and educational events have been altered or lost and cannot be recaptured.

Adolescents reported higher rates of depression and anxiety associated with the pandemic, and in 1 study 14.4% of teenagers report post-traumatic stress disorder, whereas 40.4% report having depression and anxiety. 26 In another survey adolescent boys reported a significant decrease in life satisfaction from 92% before COVID to 72% during lockdown conditions. For adolescent girls, the decrease in life satisfaction was from 81% before COVID to 62% during the pandemic, with the oldest teenage girls reporting the lowest life satisfaction values during COVID-19 restrictions. 27 During the school shutdown for COVID-19, 21% of boys and 27% of girls reported an increase in family arguments. 26 Combine all of these reports with decreasing access to mental health services owing to pandemic restrictions and it becomes a complicated matter for parents to address their children's mental health needs as well as their educational needs. 28

A study conducted in Norway measured aspects of socialization and mood changes in adolescents during the pandemic. The opportunity for prosocial action was rated on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much) based on how well certain phrases applied to them, for example, “I comforted a friend yesterday,” “Yesterday I did my best to care for a friend,” and “Yesterday I sent a message to a friend.” They also ranked mood by rating items on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (very well) as items reflected their mood. 29 They found that adolescents showed an overall decrease in empathic concern and opportunity for prosocial actions, as well as a decrease in mood ratings during the pandemic. 29

A survey of 24,155 residents of Michigan projected an escalation of suicide risk for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender youth as well as those youth questioning their sexual orientation (LGBTQ) associated with increased social isolation. There was also a 66% increase in domestic violence for LGBTQ youth during shelter in place. 30 LGBTQ youth are yet another example of those already at increased risk having disproportionate effects of the pandemic.

Increased social media use during COVID-19, along with traditional forms of education moving to digital platforms, has led to the majority of adolescents spending significantly more time in front of screens. Excessive screen time is well-known to be associated with poor sleep, sedentary habits, mental health problems, and physical health issues. 31 With decreased access to physical activity, especially in crowded inner-city areas, and increased dependence on screen time for schooling, it is more difficult to craft easy solutions to the screen time issue.

During these times, it is more important than ever for pediatricians to check in on the mental health of patients with queries about how school is going, how patients are keeping contact with peers, and how are they processing social issues related to violence. Queries to families about the need for assistance with food insecurity, housing insecurity, and access to mental health services are necessary during this time of public emergency.

Medical school and COVID-19

Although medical school is an adult schooling experience, it affects not only the medical profession and our junior colleagues, but, by extrapolation, all education that requires hands-on experience or interning, and has been included for those reasons.

In the new COVID-19 era, medical schools have been forced to make drastic and quick changes to multiple levels of their curriculum to ensure both student and patient safety during the pandemic. Students entering their clinical rotations have had the most drastic alteration to their experience.

COVID-19 has led to some of the same changes high schools and colleges have adopted, specifically, replacement of large in-person lectures with small group activities small group discussion and virtual lectures. 32 The transition to an online format for medical education has been rapid and impacted both students and faculty. 33 , 34 In a survey by Singh and colleagues, 33 of the 192 students reporting 43.9% found online lectures to be poorer than physical classrooms during the pandemic. In another report by Shahrvini and colleagues, 35 of 104 students surveyed, 74.5% students felt disconnected from their medical school and their peers and 43.3% felt that they were unprepared for their clerkships. Although there are no pre-COVID-19 data for comparison, it is expected that the COVID-19 changes will lead to increased insecurity and feelings of poor preparation for clinical work.

Gross anatomy is a well-established tradition within the medical school curriculum and one that is conducted almost entirely in person and in close quarters around a cadaver. Harmon and colleagues 36 surveyed 67 gross anatomy educators and found that 8% were still holding in-person sessions and 34 ± 43% transitioned to using cadaver images and dissecting videos that could be accessed through the Internet.

Many third- and fourth-year medical students have seen periods of cancellation for clinical rotations and supplementation with online learning, telemedicine, or virtual rounds owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. 37 A study from Shahrvini and colleagues 38 found that an unofficial document from Reddit (a widely used social network platform with a subgroup for medical students and residents) reported that 75% of medical schools had canceled clinical activities for third- and fourth-year students for some part of 2020. In another survey by Harries and colleagues, 39 of the 741 students who responded, 93.7% were not involved in clinical rotations with in-person patient contact. The reactions of students varied, with 75.8% admitting to agreeing with the decision, 34.7% feeling guilty, and 27.0% feeling relieved. 39 In the same survey, 74.7% of students felt that their medical education had been disrupted, 84.1% said they felt increased anxiety, and 83.4% would accept the risk of COVID-19 infection if they were able to return to the clinical setting. 39

Since the start of the pandemic, medical schools have had to find new and innovative ways to continue teaching and exposing students to clinical settings. The use of electronic conferencing services has been critical to continuing education. One approach has been to turn to online applications like Google Hangouts, which come at no cost and offer a wide variety of tools to form an integrative learning environment. 32 , 37 , 40 Schools have also adopted a hybrid model of teaching where lectures can be prerecorded then viewed by the student asynchronously on their own time followed by live virtual lectures where faculty can offer question-and-answer sessions related to the material. By offering this new format, students have been given more flexibility in terms of creating a schedule that suits their needs and may decrease stress. 37

Although these changes can be a hurdle to students and faculty, it might prove to be beneficial for the future of medical training in some ways. Telemedicine is a growing field, and the American Medical Association and other programs have endorsed its value. 41 Telemedicine visits can still be used to take a history, conduct a basic visual physical examination, and build rapport, as well as performing other aspects of the clinical examination during a pandemic, and will continue to be useful for patients unable to attend regular visits at remote locations. Learning effectively now how to communicate professionally and carry out telemedicine visits may better prepare students for a future where telemedicine is an expectation and allow students to learn the limitations as well as the advantages of this modality. 41

Pandemic changes have strongly impacted the process of college applications, medical school applications, and residency applications. 32 For US medical residencies, 72% of applicants will, if the pattern from 2016 to 2019 continues, move between states or countries. 42 This level of movement is increasingly dangerous given the spread of COVID-19 and the lack of currently accepted procedures to carry out such a mass migration safely. The same follows for medical schools and universities.

We need to accept and prepare for the fact that medial students as well as other learners who require in-person training may lack some skills when they enter their profession. These skills will have to be acquired during a later phase of training. We may have less skilled entry-level resident physicians and nurses in our hospitals and in other clinical professions as well.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and will continue to affect the delivery of knowledge and skills at all levels of education. Although many children and adult learners will likely compensate for this interruption of traditional educational services and adapt to new modalities, some will struggle. The widening of the gap for those whose families cannot absorb the teaching and supervision of education required for in-home education because they lack the time and skills necessary are not addressed currently. The gap for those already at a disadvantage because of socioeconomic class, language, and special needs are most severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic school closures and will have the hardest time compensating. As pediatricians, it is critical that we continue to check in with our young patients about how they are coping and what assistance we can guide them toward in our communities.

Clinics care points

• • Learners and educators at all levels of education have been affected by COVID-19 restrictions with rapid adaptations to virtual learning platforms.
• • The impact of COVID-19 on learners is not evenly distributed and children of racial minorities, those who live in poverty, those requiring special education, and children who speak English as a second language are more negatively affected by the need for remote learning.
• • Math scores are more impacted than language arts scores by previous school closures and thus far by these shutdowns for COVID-19.
• • Anxiety and depression have increased in children and particularly in adolescents as a result of COVID-19 itself and as a consequence of school changes.
• • Pediatricians should regularly screen for unmet needs in their patients during the pandemic, such as food insecurity with the loss of school meals, an inability to adapt to remote learning and increased computer time, and heightened anxiety and depression as results of school changes.

The authors have nothing to disclose.

Teachers once feared working at Cessnock High, now it's a model for best practice

History teacher Kelsey Kisina has such a commanding classroom presence, you'd never guess she felt fear when first offered a job at Cessnock High seven years ago.

"My reaction was, 'Absolutely not,'" she said.

"My preconceptions of Cessnock High was [it] had a massive issue with violence so I was really reluctant to come out."

There was some truth to the stereotypes and she was greeted by a massive brawl shortly after arriving at the school.

"It wasn't too far from the reputation at the time," she said.

"I remember my first week there was a particularly violent fight that took place."

A school transformed

Cessnock High today is a school transformed under the leadership of principal Peter Riley.

When he took over five years ago, he knew there was a lot of work to do.

He's reluctant to criticise the local working class community which borders the mines and wines in the Hunter Valley, about 250 kilometres north of Sydney.

"It's a tough community I suppose," he said.

"Over 70 per cent of our community are in the bottom quartile for socio-economic advantage and with that comes all the issues associated with that.

"We had more than our fair share of negative behaviours that were occurring at the school on a consistent basis. And again that could be an excuse not to learn."

Cessnock High now has some of the most improved NAPLAN scores in the country and its year 12 results have improved by 50 per cent.

The principal was reluctant to take the credit, but when pressed, admitted pride in how his school community has embraced his "Cessnock Way" to turn things around.

"We've been able to build a culture … where there are very few negative behaviours," he said.

"The violence doesn't exist at all in our school anymore and school's a calm place."

The Cessnock Way: better teaching, higher expectations 

When Peter took over as principal, he worked his contact book and challenged Newcastle University to see if its "Quality Teaching Rounds" model could work in his disadvantaged school.

Researcher Drew Miller signed up and since 2020 has partnered with the school to improve its teaching practices.

Under the model, teachers regularly constructively critique each other's classroom techniques and assess the knowledge students are taking in each day.

"Lessons are more engaging, the environment to learn is safer and the learning is more significant," he said.

"Students are coming to school. That's had a really big impact on their NAPLAN growth."

Dr Miller's data has been so good, the Quality Teaching Model will now be rolled out at schools across the country.

The federal government has committed $5 million to train 1,600 teachers and the Paul Ramsey Foundation has committed $4.3 million so another 25 disadvantaged schools can partner with the university.

"What we do know from the research is that continually teachers show up as the biggest school influence in student achievement and that's certainly been the case here," Dr Miller said.

NSW Education Department Secretary, and former teacher, Murat Dizdar congratulated Cessnock High on its success and said he hoped it would be replicated elsewhere.

"This is a very soft spot to me, it's part of my DNA as an educator," he said.

"All of my experience as an educator was in disadvantaged contexts and having grown up in housing commission I know education can be the key pivotal influence.

"It can break intergenerational poverty and disadvantage and unemployment. And breaking that can lead to enormous benefit down the track."

Explicit instruction and trauma-informed practice

Quality Teaching Rounds don't dictate the teaching model schools use but at Cessnock High they've embraced explicit instruction.

It's an old-school practice with the teacher firmly in charge and replaces a more fashionable style called inquiry-based learning that aims to empower students to be their own teachers.

Kelsey's university prioritised inquiry-based learning when she was studying to become a teacher.

It took some work to adopt the new style.

"That was kind of a reality hit for me in my teaching practice because I think everything I'd learned at university was the students have to be intrinsically motivated to do their learning on their own," she said.

"That just wasn't the case here so that's why that explicit teaching model has worked wonders."

Cessnock High has also embraced trauma-informed practice, which aims to give students consistency and stability that may be missing in other parts of their lives.

"I honestly believe that our staff do treat our kids like [their family]," Peter said.

"When they're preparing lessons, when they're delivering lessons, speaking with kids about being better human beings or their character development, we speak to them like it's our own child."

Inspiring young dreams

As well as improving teaching, the principal has challenged students, their parents and the broader community to get more involved.

Mum Cheryl-Ann Leggatt said the teachers had lifted the entire town.

"They are very encouraging to the students and they get them to believe that no matter their background or location, they can achieve and I think that's really important for the area in which we live," Cheryl-Ann said.

Her daughter Keira has big dreams of studying dinosaurs.

"My daughter would like to be a palaeontologist and has had that dream since she was very young — and the school have been nothing but supportive of that," she said.

As the school's year 12 results have improved, its students have become more ambitious and its school captain Gabrielle Streitberger-Sams has big plans too.

"I want to be a biomedical researcher," she said.

"I have Coeliac disease and my cousin has NF1 or neurofibromatosis so I'd like to try and find a cure for these diseases and others."

Breaking the cycle

Peter knows for many kids, school is not just about marks but a chance to break the cycle of welfare dependency and embrace a life of meaning.

It was a big reason why he took the job here, moving away from a much wealthier public school in an upmarket part of nearby Newcastle.

"One hundred per cent, that's what I go back to," he said.

"We want to produce good citizens who are capable of adding to our community, that are employable, and that education and employability is a lifelong difference for them.

"We want to break the cycle."

For Kelsey, it was a similarly rewarding journey once she got beyond the Cessnock stereotype.

"The kids here are so lovable and the community so kind, and they have such a good heart, so beyond the drama we were experiencing in those early days, it's a really lovable place to be," she said.

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What public k-12 teachers want americans to know about teaching.

Illustrations by Hokyoung Kim

At a time when most teachers are feeling stressed and overwhelmed in their jobs, we asked 2,531 public K-12 teachers this open-ended question:

If there’s one thing you’d want the public to know about teachers, what would it be?

We also asked Americans what they think about teachers to compare with teachers’ perceptions of how the public views them.

Related: What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand what public K-12 teachers would like Americans to know about their profession. We also wanted to learn how the public thinks about teachers.

For the open-end question, we surveyed 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers from Oct. 17 to Nov. 14, 2023. The teachers surveyed are members of RAND’s American Teacher Panel, a nationally representative panel of public K-12 school teachers recruited through MDR Education. Survey data is weighted to state and national teacher characteristics to account for differences in sampling and response to ensure they are representative of the target population.

Overall, 96% of surveyed teachers provided an answer to the open-ended question. Center researchers developed a coding scheme categorizing the responses, coded all responses, and then grouped them into the six themes explored in the data essay.

For the questions for the general public, we surveyed 5,029 U.S. adults from Nov. 9 to Nov. 16, 2023. The adults surveyed are members of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a nationally representative online survey panel. Panel members are randomly recruited through probability-based sampling, and households are provided with access to the Internet and hardware if needed. To ensure that the results of this survey reflect a balanced cross section of the nation, the data is weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, age, education, race and ethnicity and other categories.

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, the teacher survey methodology and the general public survey methodology .

Most of the responses to the open-ended question fell into one of these six themes:

Teaching is a hard job

About half of teachers (51%) said they want the public to know that teaching is a difficult job and that teachers are hardworking. Within this share, many mentioned that they have roles and responsibilities in the classroom besides teaching, which makes the job stressful. Many also talked about working long hours, beyond those they’re contracted for.

“Teachers serve multiple roles other than being responsible for teaching curriculum. We are counselors, behavioral specialists and parents for students who need us to fill those roles. We sacrifice a lot to give all of ourselves to the role as teacher.”

– Elementary school teacher

“The amount of extra hours that teachers have to put in beyond the contractual time is ridiculous. Arriving 30 minutes before and leaving an hour after is just the tip of the iceberg. … And as far as ‘having summers off,’ most of August is taken up with preparing materials for the upcoming school year or attending three, four, seven days’ worth of unpaid development training.”

– High school teacher

Teachers care about their students

The next most common theme: 22% of teachers brought up how fulfilling teaching is and how much teachers care about their students. Many gave examples of the hardships of teaching but reaffirmed that they do their job because they love the kids and helping them succeed. 

“We are passionate about what we do. Every child we teach is important to us and we look out for them like they are our own.”

– Middle school teacher

“We are in it for the kids, and the most incredible moments are when children make connections with learning.”

Teachers are undervalued and disrespected

Some 17% of teachers want the public to know that they feel undervalued and disrespected, and that they need more public support. Some mentioned that they are well-educated professionals but are not treated as such. And many teachers in this category responded with a general plea for support from the public, which they don’t feel they’re getting now.

“We feel undervalued. The public and many parents of my students treat me and my peers as if we do not know as much as they do, as if we are uneducated.”

“The public attitudes toward teachers have been degrading, and it is making it impossible for well-qualified teachers to be found. People are simply not wanting to go into the profession because of public sentiments.”

Teachers are underpaid

A similar share of teachers (15%) want the public to know that teachers are underpaid. Many teachers said their salary doesn’t account for the effort and care they put into their students’ education and believe that their pay should reflect this.

“We are sorely underpaid for the amount of hours we work and the education level we have attained.”

Teachers need support and resources from government and administrators

About one-in-ten teachers (9%) said they need more support from the government, their administrators and other key stakeholders. Many mentioned working in understaffed schools, not having enough funding and paying for supplies out of pocket. Some teachers also expressed that they have little control over the curriculum that they teach.

“The world-class education we used to be proud of does not exist because of all the red tape we are constantly navigating. If you want to see real change in the classroom, advocate for smaller class sizes for your child, push your district to cap class sizes at a reasonable level and have real, authentic conversations with your child’s teacher about what is going on in the classroom if you’re curious.”

Teachers need more support from parents

Roughly the same share of teachers (8%) want the public to know that teachers need more support from parents, emphasizing that the parent-teacher relationship is strained. Many view parents as partners in their child’s education and believe that a strong relationship improves kids’ overall social and emotional development.

“Teachers help students to reach their potential. However, that job is near impossible if parents/guardians do not take an active part in their student’s education.”

How the U.S. public views teachers

While the top response from teachers in the open-ended question is that they want the public to know that teaching is a hard job, most Americans already see it that way. Two-thirds of U.S. adults say being a public K-12 teacher is harder than most other jobs, with 33% saying it’s a lot harder.

And about three-quarters of Americans (74%) say teachers should be paid more than they are now, including 39% who say teachers should be paid a lot more.

Americans are about evenly divided on whether the public generally looks up to (32%) or down on (30%) public K-12 teachers. Some 37% say Americans neither look up to or down on public K-12 teachers.

In addition to the open-ended question about what they want the public to know about them, we asked teachers how much they think most Americans trust public K-12 teachers to do their job well. We also asked the public how much they trust teachers. Answers differ considerably.

Nearly half of public K-12 teachers (47%) say most Americans don’t trust teachers much or at all. A third say most Americans trust teachers some, and 18% say the public trusts teachers a great deal or a fair amount.

In contrast, a majority of Americans (57%) say they do trust public K-12 teachers to do their job well a great deal or a fair amount. About a quarter (26%) say they trust teachers some, and 17% say they don’t trust teachers much or at all.

Related: About half of Americans say public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction

How the public’s views differ by party

There are sizable party differences in Americans’ views of teachers. In particular, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to say:

• They trust teachers to do their job well a great deal or a fair amount (70% vs. 44%)
• Teaching is a lot or somewhat harder when compared with most other jobs (77% vs. 59%)
• Teachers should be paid a lot or somewhat more than they are now (86% vs. 63%)

In their own words

Below, we have a selection of quotes that describe what teachers want the public to know about them and their profession.

Social Trends Monthly Newsletter

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About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2023

Following our annual tussle with hundreds of studies of merit, we’ve pared them down to 10 you shouldn’t miss—from what AI can (and can’t) do to the neuroscience of brain synchrony.

For those of us hoping for a quiet, back-to-normal kind of year, the research coming out of 2023 might disappoint. A rising tide of teenage mental health issues sent researchers scurrying for answers, and the sudden ascendance of AI posed a new threat to codes of academic conduct and caused some educators to forecast the end of teaching as we know it (we’re here to dispel that myth).

There was plenty of good news in the mix—and fascinating news, too. Neuroscientists continued to push the envelope on mapping the human brain, using cutting-edge technology to get a sneak peek at the “brain synchrony” between students and teachers as they learn about complex topics, and a comprehensive review of social and emotional learning confirmed, once again, that there’s no substitute for caring, welcoming school environments.

Finally, we did our due diligence and unearthed classroom strategies that can make a big difference for students, from the use of math picture books to a better, more humane way to incorporate tests and games of knowledge into your classroom activities.

1. AI MAY CUT AN EDUCATOR’S PLANNING TIME DRAMATICALLY

In case anyone thought the jury was still out on the Turing test, which proposes a hypothetical threshold at which humans and machines respond indistinguishably to a prompt— more evidence recently came in, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell who’s testing who.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina set a “deep neural” AI model to work on a college-level anatomy and physiology textbook, after first training the software to recognize important information. The AI took stock, pondered in its fashion, and then dutifully produced 2,191 test questions tied to learning standards, which a panel of teachers judged to be “on par with human-generated questions in terms of their relevance to the learning objectives.” Remarkably, the instructors also said they’d consider adopting the machine-generated questions for their courses.

That’s spooky, but not without its silver linings. Test creation is time-consuming for teachers, and one knowledgeable educator who took AI for a test drive says that it performs well on other tasks like planning lessons, writing instructions, and even composing emails to parents. New AI-powered tools like Diffit, Curipod, and MagicSchool.ai, meanwhile, are starting to sound like revolutionary teaching aids.

Concern that the end of human teaching is one software release away is premature: Studies we’ve reviewed suggest that AI still requires a lot of fine-tuning, and in July of 2023 , researchers concluded that without human intervention, AI is atrocious at mathematics, performing poorly on open-ended problems and routinely flubbing even simple math calculations. To be useful, it turns out, AI may need us more than we need it.

2. A FASCINATING GUIDE TO BETTER QUIZZING

No one likes tests—except the three authors of a 2023 study , apparently. The trio, who have experience as teachers and researchers, sing the praises of virtually every kind of test, quiz, and knowledge game, asserting that such assessments should be frequent, low-stakes, highly engaging, and even communal. Their rationale: When properly designed and stripped of dread, tests and quizzes dramatically improve “long-term retention and the creation of more robust retrieval routes for future access,” a well-established phenomenon known as the testing effect .

The study is a fascinating, granular look at the mechanics of testing and its impacts on learning. Here are some of the highlights:

Mix it up: To maximize student engagement, quiz students frequently—but don’t let the format get stale. In their analysis, the authors endorse testing formats as varied as multiple choice, cued-recall tests, clickers, fill-in-the-blank, short answer, and contests of knowledge.

Be competitive: When designing multiple-choice or true-false tests, opt for “competitive alternatives” in your answers. For example, when asking “What is the hottest terrestrial planet?,” proffer Venus , Mars , and Mercury instead of Venus , Uranus , and Saturn —because “Uranus and Saturn aren’t terrestrial planets.” Competitive alternatives require students to scrutinize all options, the authors hypothesize, leading them to retrieve and consider more learned material.

Pretest: Quizzing students on material they haven’t yet learned improves long-term performance “even if [students] are not able to answer any of those questions correctly,” according to the researchers. Notably, pretesting can also lead to “a reduction in mind wandering” during subsequent lessons.

Get communal: Asking students to take tests in groups can improve retention and motivation while reducing anxiety. Consider focusing on specific rather than open-ended questions, the authors caution, since students can sometimes “recall and remember information less accurately” when working together.

Pass it on: Teach students to self-test by “summarizing the main points from a lecture… without looking at any notes,” or by meeting in “small study groups where the students practice testing one another—an activity that many students already report doing.”

3. HOW TONE OF VOICE CHANGES CLASSROOM CULTURE

Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, subtle shifts in a teacher’s tone of voice—a sharp rise in volume or a sudden barrage of repeated instructions born of frustration—can be the first sign that something’s awry in the classroom, disturbing a fragile equilibrium and leading students to clam up or act out, a study published late in 2022 suggests.

Researchers observed as teens and preteens listened to instructions given by teachers—“I’m waiting for people to quiet down” or “It’s time to tidy up all of your belongings,” for example—delivered in warm, neutral, or controlling tones. While the effect was unintended, an authoritative tone often came off as confrontational, undermining students’ sense of competence and discouraging them from confiding in teachers. Warm, supportive tones, on the other hand, contributed to a classroom environment that reinforced learning across multiple social and academic dimensions like sense of belonging, autonomy, and enjoyment of the class. 

It takes years to find the right tonal balance, says experienced middle school teacher Kristine Napper. “Neither high expectations nor kind hearts can do the job alone,” she coaches . Instead, teachers should strive for a warm, supportive tone and then draw on that “wellspring of trust to hold students to high standards of deep engagement with course content.”

4. BRAINS THAT FIRE TOGETHER WIRE TOGETHER

In 2021, we reported that as students progressed through a computer science course, the learning material left neural fingerprints that mirrored brain activity in other students, the teacher, and experts in the field. “Students who failed to grasp the material,” we wrote, “exhibited neural signatures that were outliers; they were drifting.” But the brain patterns of students who performed well on a later test aligned strongly with other top performing students—and with the teacher and experts, too.

Intriguingly, even abstract concepts—those that lack any physical attributes—appeared to trigger similar mental representations in students’ minds, attesting to the remarkable cognitive flexibility underlying human communication and knowledge sharing.

A 2023 study using electroencephalography (EEG) largely confirms those findings. High school science teachers taught groups of young adults fitted with electrodes about science topics such as bipedalism, habitats, and lipids. Researchers found that stronger “brain synchrony” between peers—and between students and teachers—predicted better academic performance on follow-up tests, both immediately and a full week later.

Together, these studies underscore the importance of scholarly expertise and direct instruction, but also hint at the downstream power of peer-to-peer and social learning. As knowledge passes from teachers to learners to greater and lesser degrees—some students grasp material quickly, others more slowly—an opportunity to distribute the work of learning emerges. When advanced students are paired with struggling peers, assisted by nudges from the teacher, groups of students might eventually converge around an accurate, common understanding of the material.

5. IN SUM, MATH PICTURE BOOKS WORK

The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words—and two are worth two thousand—might be expressed, mathematically, as a simple multiplication formula. But can reading math picture books really multiply learning?

A 2023 review of 16 studies concluded that math books like Are We There Yet, Daddy? and Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi improved student engagement and attitudes toward math; strengthened kids’ grasp of math representations like graphs or physical models; and boosted performance on tasks like counting to 20, understanding place value, and calculating diameters. In early childhood, in particular, math picture books worked wonders—one study found that young students “tend to anticipate and guess what will happen next, resulting in high engagement, aroused interest in understanding the problems, and curiosity in finding solutions”—but even middle school students seemed mesmerized by math read-alouds.

Importantly, math picture books weren’t a substitute for procedural fluency or mathematical practice. Typically, the authors noted, teachers bracketed math units with picture books, introducing a mathematical concept “in order to prepare [students] for the upcoming practice and activities,” or, alternatively, used them to review material at the end of the lesson.

6. TO IMPROVE STUDENT WRITING, REDUCE FEEDBACK (AND PUT THE ONUS ON KIDS)

It’s hard to move the needle on student writing. Hours of close reading followed by the addition of dozens of edifying margin notes can swallow teacher weekends whole, but there’s no guarantee students know how to use the feedback productively.

In fact, without guidance, revisions tend to be superficial, a new study suggests—students might correct typos and grammatical mistakes, for example, or make cursory adjustments to a few ideas, but leave it at that. A promising, time-saving alternative is to deploy rubrics, mentor texts, and other clarifying writing guidelines.

In the study, high school students were graded on the clarity, sophistication, and thoroughness of their essays before being split into groups to test the effectiveness of various revision strategies. Students who consulted rubrics that spelled out the elements of an excellent essay—a clear central thesis, support for the claim, and cohesive overall structure, for example—improved their performance by a half-letter grade while kids who read mentor texts boosted scores by a third of a letter grade.

Rubrics and mentor texts are reusable, “increase teachers’ efficient use of time,” and “enhance self-feedback” in a way that can lead to better, more confident writers down the line, the new research suggests.

7. A NEW THEORY ABOUT THE TEEN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

Parents, teachers, and medical professionals are wringing their hands over the alarming, decades-long rise in teenage mental health issues, including depression, feelings of “ persistent hopelessness ,” and drug addiction.

The root causes remain elusive—cell phones and social media are prime suspects—but a sprawling 2023 study offers another explanation that’s gaining traction: After scouring surveys, data sets, and cultural artifacts, researchers theorized that a primary cause is “a decline over decades in opportunities for children and teens to play, roam, and engage in other activities independent of direct oversight and control by adults.”

Scholarly reviews of historical articles, books, and advice columns on child rearing depict an era when young children “walked or biked to school alone,” and contributed to their “family’s well being” and “community life” through meaningful chores and jobs. If that all feels vaguely mythical, data collected over the last 50 years reveals a correlation: frank admissions by parents that their children play outdoors independently less than they did, and significant drops in the number of kids who walk, bike, or bus to school alone or are allowed to cross busy roads by themselves. In the U.S., for example, a government survey showed that 48 percent of K–8 students walked to school in 1969, but by 2009 only 13 percent did.

Risky play and unsupervised outdoor activities, meanwhile, which might “protect against the development of phobias” and reduce “future anxiety by increasing the person’s confidence that they can deal effectively with emergencies,” are often frowned upon. That last point is crucial, because dozens of studies suggest that happiness in childhood, and then later in adolescence, is driven by internal feelings of “autonomy, competence, and relatedness”—and independent play, purposeful work, and important roles in classrooms and families are vital, early forms of practice.

Whatever the causes, young children seem to sense that something’s off. In one 2017 study , kindergartners who viewed images of fun activities routinely struck pictures that included adults from the category of play, rejecting the role of grown-ups in a domain they clearly saw as their own.

8. DIRECT INSTRUCTION AND INQUIRY-BASED LEARNING ARE COMPLEMENTARY

It’s an often-fiery but ultimately dubious debate: Should teachers employ direct instruction, or opt for inquiry-based learning?

At its core, direct instruction often conveys information “by lecturing and by giving a leading role to the teacher,” researchers explain in a 2023 study examining the evidence supporting both approaches. Critics typically focus solely on its passive qualities, a straw-man argument that ignores activities such as note-taking, practice quizzes, and classroom discussions. Opponents of inquiry-based learning, meanwhile, characterize it as chaotic, akin to sending students on a wild goose chase and asking them to discover the laws of physics on their own—though it can actually unlock “deep learning processes such as elaboration, self-explanation, and metacognitive strategies,“ the researchers say.

Both sides misrepresent what teachers actually do in classrooms. Instructional models are “often combined in practice,” the researchers note, and inquiry-based learning is usually supported with direct instruction. Teachers might begin a lesson by leading a review of key concepts, for example, and then ask students to apply what they’re learning in unfamiliar contexts. 

Let the debate rage on. Teachers already know that factual fluency and the need to struggle, flail, and even hit dead-ends are integral to learning. Teaching is fluid and complex and spools out in real time; it resists every effort to reduce it to a single strategy or program that works for all kids, in all contexts.

9. A TRULY MASSIVE REVIEW FINDS VALUE IN SEL—AGAIN

It’s déjà vu all over again. The researcher Joseph Durlak, who put social and emotional learning on the map with his 2011 study that concluded that SEL programs boosted academic performance by an impressive 11 percentile points, was back at it in 2023—working with an ambitious new team, led by Yale professor Christina Cipriano, on a similar mission.

The group just published a comprehensive meta-analysis that surveyed a whopping 424 studies involving over half a million K–12 students, scrutinizing school-based SEL programs and strategies such as mindfulness, interpersonal skills, classroom management, and emotional intelligence. The findings: Students who participated in such programs experienced “improved academic achievement, school climate, school functioning, social emotional skills, attitudes, and prosocial and civic behaviors,” the researchers concluded.

Intriguingly, SEL remained a powerful driver of better cultures and student outcomes into the middle and high school years, a reminder that there’s no cutoff point for building relationships, teaching empathy, and making schools inclusive and welcoming.

While politicians continue to stoke controversy on the topic, there’s actually widespread support for SEL, as long as it’s connected to better academic outcomes. A 2021 Thomas B. Fordham Institute survey revealed that parents reacted negatively to classroom instruction labeled “social and emotional learning,” but were favorably disposed when a single clause was added—calling it “social-emotional & academic learning” turned the tide and secured parental buy-in.

10. MORE EVIDENCE FOR MOVING PAST “FINDING THE MAIN IDEA”

In the United States, the teaching of reading comprehension has ping-ponged between skills-based and knowledge-based approaches. In 2019, things appeared to come to a head: While reading programs continued to emphasize transferable skills like “finding the main idea” or “making inferences,” the author Natalie Wexler published The Knowledge Gap , an influential takedown of skills-based methods, and a large 2020 study from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute concurred, noting that “exposing kids to rich content in civics, history, and law” taught reading more effectively than skills-based approaches.

Now a pair of new, high-quality studies—featuring leading researchers and encompassing more than 5,000 students in 39 schools—appears to put the finishing touches on a decades-long effort to push background knowledge to the forefront of reading instruction.

In a Harvard study , 3,000 elementary students participated in a yearlong literacy program focused on the “knowledge rich” domains of social studies and science, exploring the methods used to study past events, for example, or investigating how animals evolve to survive in different habitats. Compared to their counterparts in business-as-usual classes, the “knowledge based” readers scored 18 percent higher on general reading comprehension. Background knowledge acts like a scaffold, the researchers explained, helping students “connect new learning to a general schema and transfer their knowledge to related topics.” In the other study , a team of researchers, including leading experts David Grissmer, Daniel Willingham, and Chris Hulleman, examined the impact of the “Core Knowledge” program on 2,310 students in nine lottery-based Colorado charter schools from kindergarten to sixth grade. The approach improved reading scores by 16 percentile points, and if implemented nationally, the researchers calculated, might catapult U.S. students from 15th to fifth place on international reading tests.

The pendulum is swinging, but the researchers caution against overreach: There appear to be “two separate but complementary cognitive processes involved in development and learning: ‘skill building’ and ‘knowledge accumulation,’” they clarified. We may have the balance out of whack, but to develop proficient readers, you need both.

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The number of high school seniors who have filled out FAFSA is down from last year

Michel Martin

Elissa Nadworny

High school seniors aren't filling out a federal student aid application. This year's form is supposed to be simpler, but it's had problems. What does this mean for who goes to college and where?

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Could fewer high school seniors end up in college next fall because of a form?

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Apparently - the federal student aid form for college, known as the FAFSA. The Department of Education launched a new process to apply for financial aid this year, which should be simpler, except for all the delays and errors.

MARTIN: NPR higher education correspondent Elissa Nadworny is here to bring us up to date on how it's going. Good morning, Elissa.

ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.

MARTIN: So I take it it's going badly.

NADWORNY: Yes. It has been a very bumpy road for this new FAFSA. So the form didn't come out until about three months after it usually comes out. So essentially the starting line got pushed way back. And then there were the Education Department's miscalculations and missteps. Some students in mixed immigration status families are still having trouble filling out the online form, and it is April. The Education Department says they are working hard and fast to get this fixed and get that data out to colleges.

MARTIN: I understand in the meantime, though, that FAFSA submissions are down. How far down?

NADWORNY: Twenty-seven percent, Michel. That's for high school seniors. And that comes out to about half a million fewer students than the class of 2023. That's all according to the National College Attainment Network, which is using Department of Education data.

MARTIN: And what are the high schools - you know, there are also nonprofits that help students apply for college. What are they saying about all this?

NADWORNY: Well, they're in emergency mode. They are sounding the alarm. Here's Bill DeBaun with the National College Attainment Network.

BILL DEBAUN: In some parts of the country, we're less than 10 weeks from high school graduation. It's not that students can't complete the FAFSA after high school graduation. It's just that in general, they have less support to do so.

NADWORNY: So I've talked with some families who are planning on filling out the FAFSA. They were just kind of waiting until the chaos was over. And there have been steady gains over the last couple of weeks as more and more high school seniors fill it out. But we are, you know, a long way away from getting back up to the levels of the class of 2023.

MARTIN: Well, say more about what the experts think the implications are for all this. I mean, does this have implications for where people go to college or even if they go to college?

NADWORNY: Absolutely. I mean, that - high FAFSA completion numbers have historically meant higher college enrollment numbers come fall. The data shows that high schools with more resources have higher completion numbers. So it is an early indicator that college going rates might be in trouble, especially for students from more poorly funded schools.

MARTIN: And I understand that college enrollment has been declining, too.

NADWORNY: Exactly. Yes. So the pandemic saw about a million fewer students choose college. Now, last fall, the data showed the beginning of a recovery, but now this.

MARTIN: Is there still time to fill the FAFSA out?

NADWORNY: Absolutely. And high schools and college access nonprofits, even colleges, are trying to do whatever they can to get students to fill it out. I've seen pizza parties. You know, they're throwing these big community events after school, on weekends, offering students one-on-one help. Rocio Zamora runs a college access program at a high school in San Diego, and her staff has been putting on weekend FAFSA events.

ROCIO ZAMORA: The support is there, and the messages to complete it are there, but it's more of the fact that the application wasn't ready for them and that leading to frustrations and disappointment and discouragement and just really questioning their plans.

NADWORNY: And the thing is, low-income students need that financial aid offer to make a decision about if they can afford college. I've talked with students who have been accepted to college already, but it's not real until they get that financial aid document, which in many cases hasn't happened yet. And without the full financial picture, students may make preemptive decisions about where to go - to stay closer to home, to go to a less expensive community college, or to say, maybe I'm not going to go to college at all.

MARTIN: That's NPR's Elissa Nadworny. Elissa, thank you.

NADWORNY: You bet.

Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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What Students Are Saying About Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’

Chronic absenteeism has increased in American schools since the Covid-19 pandemic. We asked teenagers what they make of the trend.

By The Learning Network

Nationally, an estimated 26 percent of public school students were considered chronically absent last school year, up from 15 percent before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the most recent data, from 40 states and Washington, D.C., compiled by the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

The increases have occurred in districts big and small, and across income and race.

In “​ Why School Absences Have ‘Exploded’ Almost Everywhere ,” Sarah Mervosh and Francesca Paris explain:

The trends suggest that something fundamental has shifted in American childhood and the culture of school, in ways that may be long lasting. What was once a deeply ingrained habit — wake up, catch the bus, report to class — is now something far more tenuous. “Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

In a related Student Opinion question , we asked teenagers if that explanation resonated with them. Had their relationship to school — and school attendance — changed since the pandemic? And if so, what did they make of this shift?

Many students said, yes, school feels different now. Why? They pointed to remote learning changing their routines, an increase in anxiety and a decrease in motivation, the ease of making up schoolwork online and much more. Read their responses in full below.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the conversation on our writing prompts this week, including students from Central Bucks South High School in Warrington, Pa .; Norwood High School in Norwood, Mass.; and West Salem High School in Salem, Ore.

Please note: Student comments have been lightly edited for length, but otherwise appear as they were originally submitted.

Remote learning made students comfortable with missing school.

I believe that there are two main contributors to missing school too much. The first is online school. Myself included. It was very easy to simply leave the call after taking attendance and the teacher wouldn’t realize. Skipping class was easy and you could still get high grades. Transitioning back to real school, kids still held that true. They knew that they could miss school and still do well because covid taught that to them. The second reason is punishment. When you miss school, nothing happens. Class goes on and you have a little extra homework the next day but that’s it. What is the issue with missing class is a very common thought and it’s true. There is very minimal downside to missing school. When I had surgery, I missed a full week of school and within a day and a half, I was fully caught up again. Missing school has just become all too easy.

— Xavier, Pennsylvania

2020 was when our lives completely changed for the worst. We all had to stay inside and stay separate from each other. It was terrible, not being able to talk to my friends, and seeing the death toll on news constantly rise. However, after a year into the pandemic, I believe students realized the power they now had, including me. Now that I am a highschooler, I am going to admit that sometimes I would just mute my class and do whatever I wanted. School became shorter and easier to pass than ever before. That’s why when we all transitioned back into school, it was weird. We all still wanted to get through class the “easy way,” yet now that we were back, it wasn’t possible. This is why we started increasing our absences. The threat of absence has become weak, students are not as afraid to stay out of school. Furthermore the threat of being infected gave just one more reason to be out of school, for the sake of “preventing others from getting sick,” when in reality you feel fine. That is most likely why the absences in school had an exponential increase.

— Joshua, Pennsylvania

Students feel like expectations are lower than they were before the pandemic.

As a student in high school, I’ve come to realize the horrible state our attendance has been in since the pandemic. The reason can be simplified into one idea: laziness. We are lazy, willing to do only enough to get by, no more, no less. If a student doesn’t need to come to a class to obtain the grade they wish to achieve, then they won’t show up. Classes are not challenging enough to make students feel that they are worth going to. My mom is used to getting texts from me during the school day, begging to be excused from a class where “we’re doing nothing” or, “I already finished the work,” which is true, yet I abuse the opportunity to miss class because I know there will be no greater coincidence, I will still be getting an A. Due to my laziness, I would rather be at home taking a nap than sitting in a class with no greater impact on my life.

— Clara, Salem, Oregon

Since the pandemic, schooling has been focused on getting students caught up to where we’re supposed to be. Consequently, more allowances are made for students who don’t do assignments or don’t even show up. And with the switch to all online because of the pandemic, things have never shifted back. If a student misses a day or even a week, they can easily see what they missed and do it and submit it from home. With this option giving them the exact same grade as it would if they actually went to school, it’s no wonder why students are choosing to stay at home or skipping class. Additionally, the pandemic had heightened anxiety levels in students, specifically social anxiety, making them less likely to show up. The allowances made by the school district for students has created a space for students to be lazy and get away with it. This is fostering a negative impact on student work ethic not only now, but also in the future when this generation will be entering the work force.

— Emma, West Salem High School

The period of school shutdowns got students out of their school routines.

When I think back to virtual learning, my brain automatically goes to how stress free it was. I was in sixth grade when Covid first hit and going through a period of my life where I was extremely anxious at school. I believe that this break is exactly what I needed at the time. However, I do believe that in the long run, this online learning time period got a lot of people into the routine of not having a routine. A lot of people at my school would turn their camera off and fall asleep or go on their phones during online learning. I believe that there were times that I did this as well. I also think that this mindset carried through into the grades where I did not have an online/hybrid option. In eighth and ninth grade, I happened to stay home sick, go into school late, or leave early a lot. I think this is due to me not taking school as seriously due to the grading methods that were being used and how some of my teachers were not grading harshly. Now that I am a sophomore in high school, I think I have finally gotten back into the routine of actual schooling and not staying home sick unless I actually feel extremely sick.

— Madison, Pennsylvania

Before the pandemic and as I was growing up, I was the kind of student that wanted perfect attendance. For some odd reason, it made me feel like a better student if I never missed a day. This included turning my parents down when they offered me to go on trips, even though I was only in fourth grade and the work that I would have missed wouldn’t have made an impact in my academic career. However, after the pandemic school began to feel optional. We felt what it was like to fall out of the routine that going to school was and were never able to fully recover from it. I think that having experienced attending school from your bed, in your pajamas has played a major role in the current trend of students receiving more absences. For me, it made me realize that the “0” next to your number of absences didn’t matter as much as I had once thought. As a now highschooler, the school days are long and every class requires an abundance of work and undivided attention that whenever there is a substitute or not much going on, it is easy to decide to leave school. With senior year approaching, everything’s purpose is college and the fact that colleges aren’t able to see how many absences a student has when they apply, does play a role in the increasing number of absences.

— Ava, Miami Country Day School

Because assignments and other materials are online, students find they can keep up with their classes even if they don’t attend school.

Schools have adjusted rules so much that it makes school feel optional. Don’t want to attend class publicly? Take online classes. Don’t want to take “required” state testing? Opt out. Before, school seemed strict, we didn’t have the option to opt out of tests, we didn’t think of taking online school. Yet now, schools make it so easy to skip because everything is simply online. Our assignments, lectures, and teachers are all online. There are no longer requirements in school. What’s the point of attending if we can graduate without taking state testing or attending advisory — also a requirement, yet I no longer have an advisory because my counselors said I don’t need to take it to graduate. It’s confusing. Students have been enabled for over 4 years now since quarantine started. School doesn’t feel mandatory, it’s optional. I’m currently enrolled into 2 AP classes, so I try my best not to miss school. But it’s inevitable, I get sick, I have family situations or maybe I simply don’t feel like attending school. But I see people skip school like nothing. “I didn’t feel like going” is a constant statement I hear. Not many students have the motivation to attend, and simply don’t go because they have a comfort in their head that they can graduate while missing multiple days of school nearly everyday.

— Olivia, Salem, OR

Current absenteeism rates have significantly impacted my learning experience for the past few years. Since the pandemic, there has been a noticeable shift in the perception of the value of education and whether or not attendance is an important factor in a student’s academic success. In the years following 2020, I found myself struggling to make it to class everyday due to my new found efficiency of working at home with my computer. I felt that even if I was not in class personally, I would be able to keep up with my work easily as it was all online regardless. Due to this I would go on trips or skip class purely because I was under the impression that I would be able to continue achieving virtually.

— Ruby, RFHS

Before the pandemic, my attendance was stable but after the pandemic, my absences were piling on. It was difficult to get back in the rhythm of in person school when I had already done a whole year online, but now my attendance in school is definitely getting better. On the other hand, students in my school tend to miss school and it is a rare sight to see a full class. Some students go as far as showing up to class once a week and just do the classwork online. After the pandemic, schools went from paperwork to all online, which is a big reason why students miss all the time, knowing that school work can just be done at home. It has definitely affected students’ grades and goals in life, but hopefully in the future, absences can lower back down.

— Emily, Atrisco Heritage Academy High School

Going to school, and finding the motivation to have as good an attendance record as possible, now feels like more of a struggle.

As students, we’ve developed a comfort in staying in bed during school without having to get ourselves ready to go outside. We had the ability to wake up five minutes before “school” started to get on our zoom calls. Now, we must wake up an hour and a half prior, and make breakfast and pack lunch, before driving to school. The process is tenuous as the article states, but because we’ve accustomed to a different lifestyle, it just makes this one seem like so much more work. I, myself have noticed my difference in attendance after COVID-19. I used to be very obsessed with perfect attendance, but I had 11 absences in my sophomore year, right after coming back from online school. Nowadays, I’m more lenient on myself when it comes to taking a mental health day, because the process can be overwhelming. School is very important, so of course I try to always come in, but sometimes it can be hard. I have not noticed this trend in the world, as well as with myself until this article. It’s enlightening to know that this had not only an effect on me, but all over the country. Hopefully the rates of absenteeism will decrease as time goes on, because we are the future.

— Anisha, New Jersey

Before virtual learning, I never made much of a habit of not turning in work or showing up for class. It was so much easier then but since virtual learning, it had become incredibly difficult for me to focus as well as keep up motivation to continue school. It was easy to skip and nobody really said much about it so it easily became a bad habit. That bad habit eventually leaked into normal school as well and it always sounds so much easier to break out of than it actually is.

— Tayy, NRHS

As the average high school class skipper (only sometimes), in my personal experience, missing out on classes hasn’t really been because of mental health concerns, but more of just lasting laziness from the pandemic. I feel as though I was relatively hard working in middle school/elementary but after a few years off with only half effort assignments, I have grown to become more sluggish and reluctant when it comes to more advanced work while in school. And it makes the option of missing out on classes because of my own reluctance a lot more appealing.

— Luke, Bali, Indonesia

My schedule during the week is get up, get ready for school, go to school, go home, do homework, go to sleep and then I repeat that everyday for 5 days. As much as I don’t want to dread going to school, it’s exhausting having the same schedule repeated everyday of the week. While in school, you have assignments assigned nearly everyday. I feel as though school has had a change in its meaning because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While in quarantine, we were looking at a screen for the whole day and lacked motivation to get assignments done. When we shifted to in person school again, it didn’t change. I now look at school as a task that I need to complete to shape my future. I need to have all my assignments perfect and turned in on time. The meaning of school has turned into a draining task rather than a place that you look forward to going to.

— Jamisan, Salem, Oregon

Some students face challenges in attending class that may have nothing to do with the pandemic.

I don’t believe that students are skipping because it is so easy to catch up and pass, despite their absences. In fact, I know that a lot of people who skip aren’t passing most of their classes. They do this because their parents don’t hold them accountable, and there is always something deeper going on in that student’s life that makes it that much harder for them to find the motivation to go to class. I don’t think making the classes harder will hold students more accountable, but in fact deter them from going to class at all. If a student is aware that they are failing and doesn’t understand the concept of the class, and the class proceeds to become harder, they are going to quickly become unmotivated to go to class in the first place, feeling out of place compared to the other — passing — students in the class. While I don’t have a solution for this problem, myself, I feel that the problem is much broader than we suspect, and the answer will be a much deeper journey to find.

— Kylie, West Salem HS

Schools can do more to get students back in class.

I attend a French school in London and attendance is closely monitored. Absences have to be justified by your parents or you could get into trouble. I think it’s important to attend school as we did before Covid - because as well as learning the curriculum, it is crucial to socialise with your friends and classmates, which is good for your mental health … I wonder if social media could be a factor? If students did not have access to social media or the internet, would they prefer to be in school with their friends? This increase in absenteeism could affect students’ chances of getting into University when they come to finish school or even their opportunities later in life. Students need to be reminded of this more and more perhaps. School helps you to learn not just about facts but also helps to build your emotional quotient & social intelligence — which are all valuable for life.

— Alexandre 14, London

As a current high school junior, my experiences with skipping have been minimal at best, however, I feel strongly that the reason behind skipping is pretty simple. Students don’t care as much about school and the system encourages it. When faced with the choice of sitting in a class and learning about the Patagorian theorem or hanging out with friends, many students are now choosing the latter. The lack of care or effort being put forth in school doesn’t even affect their grades! This is due to certain classes having minimal grades set at 50%, which is 10% away from a pass. This system is actively encouraging people to put minimal effort into a class just to get a pass and graduate. Removing courses like this would certainly raise the importance of getting the work done. Another solution to this problem would be having attendance as a grade, if your grade depends on you being in classes then most would show up. If you have to show up to class to pass then more students would be inclined to do so. The emphasis is on not bending the knee to people who don’t want to show up to class, not giving them a minimal 50%, we should mark attendance for a passing grade, and letting them fail. If we keep letting students skip with minimal consequences then their attitudes won’t change and thus hinder our students’ growth.

— Henry, Salem, OR

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This TJ alum helped defend the school in court. Now she’s defending DEI.

When April Hu heard that the admissions process at her alma mater was being legally challenged, she knew she wanted to help.

She had seen affirmative action being challenged at universities around the country, but this was different. The challenge wasn’t against her college, it was against Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a prestigious magnet school in Northern Virginia. And the case wasn’t challenging affirmative action — it was challenging a new “race-neutral” approach for admissions.

Hu, a lawyer, thought the new admissions policy was admirable, and deserved to stay in place. She and her colleague, Mica Moore, a fellow TJ alum and lifelong friend, started brainstorming how they could help defend the new policy.

“Most TJ people go off to do science; we went off to become lawyers,” Hu, who graduated in 2010, said. “We thought, ‘Surely there must be something that we can do to help.’”

They asked Donald B. Verrilli, a partner at their firm and a former Obama administration solicitor general, for help. Soon, the three lawyers and others from the Munger, Tolles and Olson firm were on the team as the case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

In February, the legal team and school district celebrated a victory. Nearly three years after the legal challenge was first filed, the Supreme Court declined to take up the Thomas Jefferson case — allowing the new admissions process to stay in place.

Diversity advocates and admissions experts around the country were watching the case closely. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling last year outlawing “race-conscious” admissions for higher education, the TJ case posed a question about whether considering “race-neutral” factors like neighborhood and socioeconomics would be allowed as an alternative.

The decision in February was a victory for diversity advocates, offering something of a road map for public school districts and higher education institutions looking to diversify their programs without considering race.

But everyone — including Hu — has acknowledged that the fight is far from over. A wave of legal action against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the private and public sectors continues to surge across the country, leading diversity advocates to focus part of their work on defending DEI initiatives.

“TJ was the way that I first really got into it because of how close it was connected to me,” Hu said. “From studying that case deeply, and also from studying the [college admissions] cases deeply, I feel very strongly about trying to do the most that we can in this space.”

Most of Hu’s legal work is focused on antitrust law. But she’s also been focused on advising clients like corporations and nonprofits on how they can offer programs that promote diversity while staying within the confines of the law. She said it’s important that organizations understand that there is still room for these types of efforts.

“I worry constantly that people will find themselves in positions of overcorrecting and getting rid of initiatives that they don’t need to get rid of,” Hu said. “I think it would really be a shame if we lost programs like that, if we lost the ability to think thoughtfully about how we ensure a better, more equal society.”

Hu said she first found out about the TJ case when her parents — both first-generation Chinese American immigrants — told her in 2021 that the Northern Virginia magnet high school was doing something “crazy” and capping Asian attendance. “This cannot possibly be true,” she thought to herself.

As Hu started researching the case, she quickly learned it wasn’t. In 2020, Fairfax County Public Schools overhauled the admissions process to introduce a more holistic approach, including eliminating a notoriously difficult admissions test and a $100 application fee. It also allocated a set number of seats for students from every middle school in the county to ensure admission of a wider subset of students.

Following the changes, the school admitted its most diverse class. At the same time, Asian American enrollment also dropped from about 70 percent to 50 percent. A parent group, Coalition for TJ, filed a lawsuit against the school district alleging that the new system was discriminating against Asian American applicants.

Joining the case was challenging for Hu, legally and personally. Legally, it was difficult to navigate a case where the main argument was challenging Supreme Court precedent, something Hu said she didn’t have much experience with in her seven years as a lawyer.

Personally, she felt like she put her parents, who are involved in the Chinese American community in Northern Virginia in a challenging position. Friends would come up to them and say, “Your daughter is working on this case, right? I thought that she supported us.” Hu says she felt that tension keenly while working on the case.

“Asian Americans are not a monolith,” Hu said. “I think this case really displayed that because you had a lot of Asian Americans who were part of the Coalition for TJ, but you also had a lot of Asian Americans on the other side who felt strongly that this policy was lawful, and that it was good, and that was benefiting Asian Americans.”

Hu was sitting in her D.C. office when the decision from the Supreme Court came down. She immediately texted Moore, who had since moved on to a new role in California.

“It was a huge sigh of relief,” Hu said. “This policy gets to stay in place and the next generation of kids will be able to access TJ through a more equitable process.”

Verrilli said he was excited by Hu’s initiative to join the case. He said the decision from the high court was a big win, but recognized that the TJ case “is just the beginning of this fight.” Verrilli said he also plans to continue advising clients on how to maintain DEI programs and initiatives within the confines of the law.

“It would be extraordinarily disruptive for corporations and universities and nonprofits to be spending energies on defending lawsuits rather than carrying out missions,” Verrilli said. “And so I do think this is important work to settle these issues as fast as we can.”

For Hu, that means counseling clients and speaking at conferences to provide guidance about what the 2023 affirmative action ruling means for other programs. It’s using her knowledge from the TJ case to help organizations develop nuanced and meaningful policies that maintain a goal of creating more diverse environments.

It’s just a small portion of Hu’s overall workload, but it’s a piece that will always be close to home.

“I went to TJ, I experienced firsthand the wealth of resources the school had, I mean, we had a robotics lab, we had every AP class under the sun,” Hu said. “It just felt deeply wrong to me that we had a school with this tremendous amount of resources that felt so deeply inaccessible to so many other students in schools in the system. This admissions process, this revamping that the Fairfax County School Board thoughtfully undertook, was intended to correct for those discrepancies that Mica and I had felt even when we were kids.”

A previous version of this article incorrectly said Hu led a group of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology alumni to file a brief in support of the Fairfax County school district in the case. An group of alumni were involved in a filing a brief supporting the school district, though Hu did not lead that effort. The article has been corrected.

I'm a low-income high school student. I worry colleges reinstating the SAT requirement will ruin my admissions chances.

• The college admission process concerns me as top colleges reinstate the SAT requirement.
• As a low-income minority student, I can't afford expensive resources like test prep and tutoring.
• I am striving to make my college application impressive without having the best test scores.

College applications are something that stays on my mind all the time. As a high school sophomore, I have taken every AP class that is offered by my school, gotten straight A's, and maintained a high GPA to ensure my work pays off come college decision day.

But even doing everything I can, I feel my fate is still uncertain and anxiety-inducing. Do I have enough clubs? Am I as impressive as some of my other high-achieving peers? Recently, a new concern has taken over my college apprehension: SATs.

In 2020, many top colleges made standardized testing optional for the college admission process due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in January, Yale and Dartmouth reinstated standardized testing — like the SAT and ACTs — as a requirement for college applications.

This change makes me increasingly worried about my chances at some of my dream schools — especially as a low-income, minority student .

I can't afford SAT prep

Being a low-income student, doing well on the SAT is not easily achievable because of how the exam is structured. To me, it seems like the exam measures your ability to beat the test instead of your knowledge of the material.

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In order to do well on the exam, you have to prepare the test structure rather than the content. This means studying SAT strategies and having a plan of action ready for test day. From thousands of prep books to specialized tutors, many resources exist to help students do just that. The only problem is that these resources are completely out of my price range.

My low-income family cannot afford pricey preparation materials and private tutors, especially not for long periods like SAT prep requires. I am unable to seek help from my immigrant family because of their unfamiliarity with the wording and structure of the exam. Plus, my high school does not have the money to pay for test prep or afford high-caliber resources.

It is a culmination of these factors that makes me truly realize how much students in minority communities are held back from their academic goals.

It feels as if achieving an impressive score on the exam is still out of reach, no matter how hard I study. It's hard to cope with the fact that my application will be deeply affected by something I cannot control.

The SAT doesn't offer an equal playing field

It doesn't feel like an equal playing field. Unlike me, students from higher socio-economic backgrounds can afford the SATs because they have the resources to do well on the exam. I fear that my inability to afford prep will make my college applications look sub-par compared to my higher-income counterparts. My goal is to have an application that matches other high-caliber students, but I am not sure how I can do that with lower test scores .

However, I am not someone who easily gives up, especially on lifelong dreams. In recent months, I have begun working harder in my classes, extracurriculars, and SAT studies — through every resource I can find and afford.

At the end of the day, it seems that college admissions will always come back to money. For immigrant, low-income students like myself, it seems as if we always end up with the short end of the stick when it comes to our education and, more importantly, our futures.

But when my background becomes discouraging or admissions feel like they are taking over my life, I remind myself that it's not important that I attend a top college . It only matters why, and that is to fight for better opportunities for people like me.

Watch: Why student loans aren't canceled, and what Biden's going to do about it

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