George Lucas Educational Foundation
Edutopia

College Readiness

After graduation, what next? Learn about preparing students for college admission and helping them stay in college once they get there.

  • Fostering a College-Going Culture in Elementary School

    Enlisting the support of alumni and working professionals, a teacher encourages her second graders to start thinking about colleges and careers.
    Melissa Collins

  • Helping Students Pick a Unique College Admission Essay Topic

    Many college admission essays are the same, but these exercises can help students find topics that make them stand out.
    Christina Baulch

  • Helping Students With Disabilities Understand Accommodations in College

    High school educators can play an important role in preparing students to request accommodations in college.
    Lori Smith

  • The College March

    A celebration for high school seniors—most of whom will be the first in their families to go to college—as they submit their applications.

  • 8 Strategies for Teaching Academic Language

    Ideas for developing students’ capacity to understand and use discipline-specific terminology and the language used in instruction.
    Todd Finley

  • True Grit: The Best Measure of Success and How to Teach It

    Can you predict academic success or whether a child will graduate? You can, but not how you might think. When psychologist Angela Duckworth studied people in various challenging situations, including National Spelling Bee participants, rookie teachers in tough neighborhoods, and West Point cadets, she found: One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn't social intelligence. It wasn't good looks, physical health, and it wasn't IQ. It was grit.
    Vicki Davis

  • A New Definition of Rigor

    Rigor doesn't simply mean giving students more or harder work. Instead, it's the result of work that challenges students' thinking in new and interesting ways.
    Brian Sztabnik

  • Transition Resources for Parents, Teachers, and Administrators

    Matt Davis has highlighted resources for parents, teachers, and administrators that can help students make the transition into elementary, middle, and high school -- and beyond.
    Matt Davis

  • The Deficit Model Is Harming Your Students

    Raise your underserved students' expectations by raising your own, and create a series of reachable, data-based goals, scaffolding your instruction and mitigating their fear of failure.
    Janice D. Lombardi

  • Modernizing Career and Technical Education

    As jobs increasingly require new skills, high schools revive programs that help students explore careers in the course of their studies.
    Andrew Simmons

  • Failure Is Essential to Learning

    To help these kids make the kinds of gains they need to master the Common Core, students must learn to receive feedback and also how to use it to improve.
    Bob Lenz

  • How Collaborative Learning Leads to Student Success

    Encouraging students to reach out to each other to solve problems and share knowledge builds collaborative skills and leads to deeper learning at The College Preparatory School.
    Matt Davis

  • Setting Students Up for College Success

    Get a look at a dual-enrollment program that prepares high school students to overcome the obstacles on the path to finishing college.

  • Teaching the College Essay

    Your students can write argumentative essays, but they need additional guidance to produce standout personal narratives.
    Brian Sztabnik

  • Integrating Social and Emotional Competencies Into Academic Content

    Collaboration, problem solving, and social awareness are as necessary as literacy and math.
    Maurice J. Elias