As the new school year gets underway, it’s time
for educators to unpack their favorite lessons
and most comfortable shoes. For experienced
teachers, the school year ahead will be
familiar territory. But, here at NEA Today, we
observe emerging trends in public education.
Not everything is as it always has been in
classrooms and schools!
Virtual reality in the classroom: While we’ve been
hearing about virtual reality (VR) since the days of
The Matrix, it hasn’t caught fire yet. While 70 percent
of 8- to 15-year-olds say they’re interested in VR,
only 21 percent of U.S. homes have a VR headset,
according to Common Sense research. Still, that
level of student interest has led some educators to
Google Cardboard for simple, low-cost VR headsets,
or to CoSpaces.io. With those tools, students can
“time travel” to different historical periods, experience
different possible careers, or travel to places all over
the world without leaving the classroom, suggest
Chicago-area innovation specialist Maria Arfanakis
and librarian Andrea Trudeau. “We’re always looking
for tools to transform learning,” says Trudeau, in this
video explaining how to use CoSpaces. “When you’re
working with middle school students, and they say
they don’t want to leave your class, you know you have
something magical!”
FIVE
EMERGING
CLASSROOM
TRENDS FOR
2019–20 Here
are five
emerging
trends:
Trauma-informed
education: Educators
heard a lot about traumainformed
or trauma-sensitive
education in 2018. You’ll hear more
in 2019-2020. At the NEA Representative
Assembly (RA) in July, RA delegates committed NEA
to continue educating members about the negative
effects of traumatic experiences on students’ ability
to learn and to share strategies to help, and it is a
growing feature of union- or district-led professional
development. Educators need to know they can adapt,
says Delaware State Education Association’s director
of instructional advocacy Deb Stevens.
Just as educators are
becoming more aware
of the effects of trauma
on students, we’re also
noting the effects of
stress and secondary
trauma on educators!
Reprinted with permission from
NEA Today — NEAToday.org
8 | KNOW • Volume 17 Issue 3
/CoSpaces.io
/NEAToday.org
