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WHAT WORKS IN EDUCATION The George Lucas Educational Foundation
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Teaching Toward Consciousness

To create equity in their schools, educators must seek to validate and acknowledge students, expose and reveal the unseen, encourage questioning, and facilitate reflection.
students posing for a first-day-of school photo

Back-to-School Resources for Parents

Find resources to help children begin school with a positive mindset, support their transition into a new school year, and prepare them for fall learning.
A person is holding a smartphone with Pokemon Go showing on their screen. They're taking a picture of someone bent over, holding a coffee cup, and touching a purple rat Pokemon.

Pokemon Go... and Global Success Skills?

Harness the immersive game Pokemon Go to engage your students in the skills required for collaboration, inquiry, written communication, and building culture.
Plastic baskets filled with books are stacked on a red desk against a classroom wall. Each basket has a different label, ranging from "easy readers" to "sci-fi/fantasy" to "beginning chapters."

Decrease Classroom Clutter to Increase Creativity

Since light, space, and room layout impact physical and physiological well-being, you can enhance the quality of learning by decluttering your classroom.
Three young girls and a boy are reading on bean bag chairs in class, each chair a different color: green, red, teal, and blue. Behind them are two bookshelves, and on the wall are mini posters with different colors written on them.

Design Thinking and the Deskless Classroom

Use design thinking (brainstorming, prototyping, testing, building, and reflecting) to co-create your classroom environment with the students who will be learning in it.
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Four young students are smiling and sitting at two desks pushed together. Five paper-made windmills are on their desks.

Social and Emotional Learning
4 Approaches to Building Positive Community in Any Classroom

By Maurice J. Elias

All students want to feel part of their classroom community. Here are four activities to help them feel welcomed and comfortable.

A teenage boy and girl dressed in business clothes are sitting at a classroom table -- covered with opened binders filled with paper -- talking to each other.

Advisory
Student-Centered Advisory: Establishing a Positive Community

By Mary Beth Hertz

Advisory groups are "school families" that give students a time block to focus on schoolwork, college applications, personal issues, or hearing and respecting one another.

A young woman is sitting on the ground, painting the underside of a table orange. A young man is laying on the ground on his back, watching the woman paint.

Learning Environments
Cheap (Yet Valuable) Learning Space Redesign

By Eric Sheninger

Rethink classroom and campus spaces, recycle and upcycle materials, tap student ingenuity, attract charitable donors -- and remake and revitalize your school without breaking the bank.

1,479 views
Six teenage students and a teacher are talking. They're sitting in a circle in chairs brought to the center of their classroom.

Student Voice
How to Amplify Student Voice: Listen

By Suzie Boss

Bringing students into conversations about school change is the goal of a student-led effort that has grown from a twitter chat into a national movement.

295 views

Student Engagement
Building Community With Attendance Questions

By Lizanne Foster

Taking attendance shows which students are physically present, but asking an attendance question stretches students' minds toward actively learning as part of a classroom community.

2 953 views
An illustration of people sitting on a stack of larger-than-life red and blue textbooks labeled, "History," "Geography," "Math," "English," and "Science."

Curriculum Planning
Curriculum Conversations: 7 Do's and Don'ts

By Dr. Jennifer Davis Bowman

While student input matters when creating curriculum, it's critical to manage their involvement and expectations in determining what and how they'll learn.

1,010 views
An illustration two women in safari gear. One is holding a vine, standing near a mountain cliff, extending her hand to another woman swinging on a vine towards her.

Social and Emotional Learning
Teachers, Students, and the Hero's Journey

By Dr. Lori Desautels

Joseph Campbell's monomyth of the Hero's Journey maps easily onto the annual cycle of growth, struggle, crisis, and opportunity faced by every teacher and student in every classroom.

685 views
A no furniture, empty, orange and green classroom with sun shining through from large rectangular windows, a large checkered whiteboard on the back wall, and three circular clocks above it

5-Minute Film Festival
5-Minute Film Festival: Classroom Makeovers to Engage Learners

By Amy Erin Borovoy (aka VideoAmy)

How can a classroom be set up to maximize learning? Get inspired by this video playlist with tips and ideas for teachers to make over their classrooms.

21 27,507 198,929 views

Back to School
9 Ways to Plan Transformational Lessons: Planning the Best Curriculum Unit Ever

By Todd Finley

Transformational lessons don't just happen. They require planning, mindfulness, and a commitment to shift away from educational approaches of the past.

18 3,817 75,384 views
Tablets and lamented information sheets next to boxes filled with marine life span across nine classroom tables. Seven students are sitting at one table, two students are standing together, and two others wearing headphones are working individually.

Differentiated Instruction
100+ Tools for Differentiating Instruction Through Social Media

By John McCarthy

Social media can enhance differentiated instruction if the tools are selected with a careful eye on individual students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles.

25 11,028 67,217 views
Graphic of curriculum on a bookshelf

New Teachers
New Teachers: Lesson and Curriculum Planning

Explore a diverse collection of curriculum-planning tips, guidance, and other resources meant to help new teachers plan effective activities, lessons, and units.

1 12,395 58,003 views
Photo of students cooking together

Project-Based Learning
Resources for Getting Started With Project-Based Learning

Explore Edutopia's curated compilation of online resources for understanding and beginning to implement project-based learning.

9 7,985 51,303 views
An illustration of a shadow-like teenage boy. He's drawing a school, inspired from reading a book. The word "growth" is highlighted in green in the background.

Teacher Development
How to Become and Remain a Transformational Teacher

By David Cutler

Transformational teachers share best practices, build mentoring relationships, observe their peers, keep things fresh, model their subject's usefulness, and demonstrate caring beyond what they teach.

21 4,824 27,435 views
Graphic of a start flag attached to a hammer

Back to School
13 Free Teacher Downloads for Back to School

All of Edutopia’s downloadable and printable back-to-school resources are collected here for easy classroom reference.

2,563 24,500 views

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