Defining the Problem
Many of the statistics describing the current state of U.S. K-12 education are alarming. Math and reading scores are declining, the majority of students of color are not graduating on time, and low-income students are more likely to perform below proficiency. K-12 outcomes are especially troubling due to the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite over one trillion dollars in U.S. public education funding, and billions of dollars spent on educational technology tools, teachers report a crisis in student apathy, observing students increasingly disengaged with their education, especially for middle and high school students. Student disengagement is amplified by increasing distractions due to highly stimulating digital devices.
Students of low socio-economic status (SES) have significant challenges that can exacerbate the problem of student apathy and distraction. Research shows that lower SES correlates to lower academic achievement and high career barriers. These students may also have difficulties finding diverse role models that motivate them to engage in schooling.
Existing approaches to increase student engagement vary from traditional hands-on learning to newer tools such as adaptive learning enabled by AI, gamification platforms, and virtual reality technology. However, these tools have disadvantages including the following:
Stagnant Material
Fail to leverage the constant change within the course’s field of study, with exciting new contributions and innovations being made daily
Fails to address the “why”
Do not highlight current examples that show students the benefits of engaging with the lesson material and why the subject is important
Less teacher focused
Technology can not replace the unique qualities of teachers including the ability to understand student needs and build rapport
The Solution
A significant opportunity to impact K-12 education is to motivate and inspire students by providing teachers with specialized tools that overcome student apathy and distraction. Incorporating current events into the classroom is a great way to promote student engagement.
Why Use Current Events in the Classroom?
Help students:
- Connect real-world events with lessons to make learning more relevant and meaningful
- Discover why a subject is important and the tangible benefits of engaging with class material
- Stay up-to-date with new contributions and innovations relevant to class material
- See inspiring role models in the news making a difference in their fields
- Understand varied perspectives
- Increase global awareness
- Improve communication skills with classroom discussions
- Learn media literacy skills
- Develop knowledge to become informed and active citizens
While there are existing student news resources, there are disadvantages such as a lack of lesson-specific current events, inconsistent content distribution, and cost. Existing approaches also lack content that is tailored to specific student populations, and opportunities are missed to highlight diverse role models. Additionally, current tools are typically time-intensive, with staff writers creating articles one by one.
Teacher Touchpoints will leverage specialized software to quickly identify the most engaging, diverse, and topic-specific current events each day. Our team will create and distribute free daily emails, daily videos, and lesson helper tools to thousands of teachers to help incorporate current events into classrooms. All content will be compiled into a searchable online archive that teachers can access at any time to help with lesson planning.
Use the options below to learn how we’ll implement this solution:
