engagement / engaging students

New: Essential Resources for Special Education [edutopia.org]

On 10/13/2026, in assistive technologies, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), education, engagement / engaging students, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, parents/guardians, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, student-related, teachers, tools, United States, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

New: Essential Resources for Special Education — from edutopia.org

We’ve gathered advice for teachers on managing student accommodations, navigating IEPs, and much more, as well as ideas for administrators on how to support teachers in this work.

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Social Learning in a Skills-Based Economy [Hall]

On 10/13/2026, in adult learning, career development, change, communications, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, skills, social learning / networks, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Social Learning in a Skills-Based Economy — from learningguild.com by George Hall

In a skills-based economy, social learning should not be understood merely as interaction around content. It should be understood as part of the learning architecture itself: the social and emotional structure that helps people ask questions, test ideas, practice judgment, receive feedback, and stay open when learning feels personally risky.

That distinction matters.

In a defensive culture, social learning creates the conditions in which people can stay engaged with difficult ideas long enough to learn from them.

People often need other people to help them think:

They need to hear others reason their way through complexity
They need to see peers ask questions they were afraid to ask
They need to practice disagreement without rupture
They need to discover that uncertainty is shared
They need to see that changing one’s thinking does not have to mean losing face

This is not soft. Far from it.

It is foundational.

Online Course Video Statistics — from markstudios.com by Mark Santos

“Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How many people take online courses, how big the platforms are, how long course videos actually hold attention, how many learners finish, what the money looks like, and which popular online course statistics do not survive being traced to their origin.”
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[Gifted article] The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job [Carpenter]

On 10/08/2026, in business, career development, Daniel S. Christian, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, expectations, hearts -- matters of the heart, society, sociology, student-related, United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The unexpected toll of searching endlessly for a new job — from washingtonpost.com by Julia Carpenter [this is a gifted article]
“Ghost job” postings, AI interviewers and a lack of in-person connection can take a toll on your mental health.

A prolonged job search doesn’t just sap job seekers of time, money and energy — for many, the hunt takes a devastating toll on their mental health.

Although unemployment rates in the United States have been historically low, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than a quarter of jobless people qualify as “long-term unemployed,” meaning they have been hunting for 27 weeks or more.
…

“A prolonged job search isn’t simply a logistical challenge,” she said. “It erodes a person’s confidence over time and their sense of agency, along with their financial security, obviously.”

Studies show unemployment is linked to the development of mental disorders, including anxiety and depression. Long-term job seekers describe heightened stress and exhaustion, which can make the everyday work of a job hunt feel even more burdensome, said Mindy Shoss, professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida.

From DSC:
I retired at the end of 2021, so I haven’t been in any kind of job search for years now. But I went through a time of job searching back in 2017 that lasted 9 months. I had some part-time work during that time, but nothing like the long work weeks that I was used to for years. It was a highly emotional time for me. Putting in the work to apply for a job took me at least a day per job application. Over time, not hearing anything back was discouraging. It’s hard not to take things personally, even though I knew these were business decisions. (But I also strongly believed that I faced age discrimination.) Putting oneself out there in a job search can be highly grueling and discouraging.

As any good job searching firm will tell you, networking is key. Students — know that up front. Go find out about networking, and if you aren’t doing it now, start doing it as soon as you can. Start to:

Share relevant and useful information via a blog, out on LinkedIn, or via other types of social media
Develop contacts and help them out whenever possible
Connect people to each other

Don’t just initiate something with your network when you need something. Feed your network constantly. (Though I will say, my network on LinkedIn was very little help to me. It turned out that the people I knew locally came through for me the most.)

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching [via multiple authors from Cranfield University]

On 09/10/2026, in adjunct faculty, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, distance education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, instructional design, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, multimedia, online learning, online media, pedagogy, teaching & learning, tools, UK, universities, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching — from timeshighereducation.com by multiple authors from Cranfield University in England
Online teaching works best when teaching, facilitation and technical delivery are treated as complementary professional roles. Read guidance on studio-based delivery

Our experience of studio-based delivery suggests the need for a different approach. In this model, teaching is delivered as a live, facilitated learning experience in which academics focus on teaching and interaction, while facilitators and production staff manage interaction, session flow and technology.

Responsibilities are intentionally divided to enable more effective online pedagogy: academics concentrate on explaining concepts, facilitating discussion and responding to students while production staff manage the technical environment, transition between activities, recordings, multimedia integration, chat moderation, breakout rooms and troubleshooting, enabling a more engaging and authentic learning experience.

The most transferable lesson is that online teaching works best when teaching, facilitation and technical delivery are treated as complementary professional roles and when it is underpinned by pedagogical design.

Course design for a new age — from timeshighereducation.com by Campus contributors , Laura Duckett
Learn how to design courses that respond to the evolving needs of both students and employers

At a time when the value of a degree is being called into question, many argue that teaching subject knowledge is no longer enough. University courses must be flexible and embed work training and skills development to serve today’s students. This collection of resources is a guide to designing courses that respond to the evolving needs of both students and employers.

Teaching is a verb: what sets good teachers apart — from timeshighereducation.com by William J. Owen
Reflection is what moves teaching beyond performance and towards continuous improvement, writes William Owen

What sets good teachers apart is their willingness to continually reflect, learn and grow alongside their students. Great teaching is not a destination, it is an ongoing practice of curiosity, humility and intentionality. And perhaps that is what makes it so challenging and so rewarding.

How to set your students up to write compelling op-eds — from timeshighereducation.com by Arafat Reza and Shahariar Sadat
Help students develop their writing and refine their arguments by publishing opinion pieces. Find advice for supporting student writers here

Academics are ideally placed to bridge this gap. Beyond teaching disciplinary knowledge, they can help students develop the confidence and practical skills needed to engage in public discourse. Here, we discuss practical ways in which academics can encourage students to write op-eds that inform people, influence law and policymaking, and inspire positive change in society. Plus, find five tips for teaching students to write compelling arguments.

Rethinking course design to enliven student engagement — from timeshighereducation.com by
To foster students’ meaningful learning, educators should be using class time to maximise the benefits of the in-person experience, as Nasreen Sultana explains

We landed on four practical strategies to make learning more interactive, relevant and student-centred. Although developed in a management classroom, these tips can be adapted across disciplines.

Tips for teachers from edutopia.org

On 08/25/2026, in education, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, pedagogy, productivity / tips and tricks, reading, research, science, skills, student-related, teachers, writing, youth, by Daniel Christian

Exceptional Videos of Authors Reading Their Books Aloud for Young Students — from edutopia.org by Kristin Rydholm
These 14 books can help teachers celebrate student writing by weaving literacy and social and emotional learning into the school day.

This classroom scenario is an example of how finishing a piece of writing is a dual celebration—an ending and a beginning. A published piece of writing means crossing a finish line as the culminating event within the writing process, but it is also a starting line, where a story begins a journey of its own—being read, seen, heard, and shared by others.

Who better to assist with modeling these transitional and celebratory moments than 14 professional authors of picture books?

Where to start
Featured below are links to exceptional authors and author/illustrators reading their picture books. Watching these videos, a child can see and hear the diverse faces and voices of authors who have prioritized stories about kids like them.

4 Ways to Encourage Great Questions in the Science Classroom — from edutopia.org by Katie Budrow
Here’s how a middle school teacher guides students to proactively ask and answer questions like ‘why does that happen?’

Narrow, prescribed tasks are known as convergent tasks. Define the parts of a cell has a specific answer. Sometimes, convergent tasks make the most sense. But whenever possible, I prefer to use broader divergent tasks, which allow for multiple ways to approach the learning. Describe the different ways that cell parts can work together to form a system is an example of a divergent task.

Divergent tasks inherently drive more student questions, since the answers aren’t just one-and-done. Divergence promotes “deep thinking, requiring students to analyze and evaluate concepts,” according to a study on the subject. Students are not just trying to find the “best” answer—they’re working toward a more complex concept.

A First-Week Routine That Gets Middle School Students Thinking Like Scientists — from edutopia.org by Bexaida Buzzie
Here’s a day-by-day plan for guiding your students to start the year by asking questions. Just resist the urge to answer them.

I realized I was spending so much of my time going over my classroom rules that I forgot that the students were there to learn how to learn.

Once I took the pressure off myself, everything changed. Instead of focusing on perfection, I started to focus on curiosity and fun. Instead of cramming information and reaping frustration, I slowed down.

Here’s what my first five days look like, and how they build a foundation for scientific thinking.

15 Effective Ways to Manage Dysregulated Students — from edutopia.org by Andrew Boryga
Teachers are seeing more big emotions and disruptive behavior in early elementary classrooms. These practical strategies can help youngsters reflect, reset, and repair.

While many experts cite the pandemic’s role in creating skill deficiencies, it’s only a part of the story. Educators also point to major changes in the culture around child rearing, pointing to issues like rising screen time, less play, and fewer opportunities for face-to-face interaction—“developmental needs that no digital program, however sophisticated, can fully replicate,” writes elementary school teacher Cara Zelas.

Serious behavioral issues and developmental concerns require broad support from administrators, specialists, and families. But for everyday moments that derail lessons—a child melting down, refusing directions, or struggling to rejoin the group—many teachers find that simple practices, consistently applied, can help turn big feelings into moments of growth instead of lost instructional time.

Bring playfulness into teaching for collaboration and creativity — from timeshighereducation.com by Isabel Taurel
In learning, playfulness is often overlooked. Yet it could be key to embedding the soft, ‘human’ skills students will need for the future. Isabel Taurel shows how

The same is true in higher education. Students who are able to rediscover a playful mindset leave the classroom with something far more valuable than a good grade. They develop confidence, are more willing to contribute unusual ideas and learn how to adapt when the unexpected happens. These are precisely the qualities employers increasingly tell us they need.

Yet the creative and cultural industries demonstrate their growing value. Success increasingly depends on collaboration, adaptability and creative confidence, all qualities that are fostered through arts-based learning and increasingly sought in every kind of workplace.

Playfulness isn’t a distraction from serious learning. It’s one of the most powerful ways we have of preparing students for a future in which the most valuable skills may be the most deeply human ones: listening, presence, responsiveness, imagination and a capacity to create meaning together.

Will this new company be the largest company on the Internet by 2030? [Christian]

On 08/01/2026, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, online learning, online media, online tutoring, pathways, personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, training / L&D, United States, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The vision that I’ve been tracking for well over a decade begins with this graphic:
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Could LearnVector be this next-generation company/platform? Perhaps. Time will tell.

Per Matt Tower via The EdSheet Vol. 38 dated 7/31/26:

Coursera bets $100M on its own co-founder: Andrew Ng’s new venture LearnVector lands one of the largest single checks in edtech this year — from Coursera, the company he founded 14 years ago.
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LearnVector.ai

What’s the Story Your Syllabus Tells?: Setting the Stage for Learning — from facultyfocus.com by Dr. Daniel Andrés Rivera Rosado

But as I was reading Everyday Christian Teaching by Dr. David Smith, in the chapter titled Speaking, Hearing, Hospitality, in just the first paragraph he writes: “Teachers do not simply list course content for learners. They sequence it in ways that imply a story about what fits together and where it is headed.” (2025, p.73). Automatically I asked myself, what is the story my syllabus is telling students? To be completely honest, is it even telling a story at all?

“Is your syllabus helping your students at all?”

From DSC:
To that last sentence, I might add the words engaging, raising curiosity or wonder, or is it interesting to your students at all? Is there a “hook” that gets them interested? It might be a central question or two — and/or use some beneficial and relevant graphics. I’ve heard faculty use digital/interactive syllabi as well to engage their students.

Free K-12 Career Literacy Resources from agilities.org

On 07/16/2026, in business, career development, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, education, engagement / engaging students, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, innovation, K-12 related, learning, skills, society, student-related, teachers, United States, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Agilities — from agilities.org by the DeBruce Foundation; via Paul Fain
Help students build confidence and prepare for bright careers!
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Also from Paul Fain, see:

Unlocking Opportunity: Progress on Moving More Students Toward Good Jobs — from highered.aspeninstitute.org

Released in partnership with the Community College Research Center (CCRC), Unlocking Opportunity: Progress on Moving More Students Toward Good Jobs highlights early outcomes from the first 10 colleges in the Unlocking Opportunity network. The report demonstrates that community colleges can rapidly increase enrollment in high-value workforce and transfer pathways while reducing enrollment in or improving programs with weaker labor market and bachelor’s degree outcomes.
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Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? [Pappas] + “The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It” [Ayers]

On 07/06/2026, in analytics, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, leadership, organizational change, personalized/customized learning, skills, strategy, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), by Daniel Christian

Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? — from elearningindustry.com by Christopher Pappas

Table of contents

1. Why Instructional Design Is Entering A New Era
2. The State Of Instructional Design Today
3. Top Instructional Design Trends Shaping 2026
4. The Future Of Instructional Design And Technology

Also from elearningindustry.com, see:

The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It — by Ryan Ayers

Table of contents

1. Personalized Learning For Future Leaders
2. Where Personalized Learning Is Heading
3. What Implementing Personalized Learning At Scale Actually Requires
4. The Educational Leaders Being Trained To Deliver This Future
5. Conclusion

Stanford Online Launches Immersive Learning Studio — from campustechnology.com by Matt Jones

Key Takeaways

Stanford Online celebrated its 30th anniversary by launching a new immersive learning studio that combines VR, AR, and AI technologies to create more engaging and personalized educational experiences.
The studio provides faculty with advanced production tools — including a 4K LED wall, cinematic cameras, AI-enabled workflows, and extensive editing and storage infrastructure — to develop innovative learning content at scale.
University leaders see the studio as a major step toward expanding faculty-led, research-based education globally, leveraging AI and immersive technologies to reach learners in ways previously not possible.

Several solid K12 teaching-related items from edutopia.org

On 06/18/2026, in attention, education, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, Learning Experience Design, learning theories, memory, play, research, student-related, teachers, United States, vendors, youth, by Daniel Christian

3 Retrieval Games to Try in Your High School Classroom — from edutopia by Andrew Atherton
These activities make reviewing content fun, so they can really motivate students to cement their learning.

These games can start or end the lesson, and they sometimes function as a transition within the lesson between topics. I don’t need to use them any longer, but I choose to use the following three games simply because they work really well. They can be used in any class and require very little (if any) preparation. These examples are drawn from the English classroom, but they could be adapted to suit most subjects.

Focusing Attention With a Student-Led Recall Activity — from edutopia.org
By providing every student with an opportunity to actively remember yesterday’s lesson, teachers can set the stage for today’s success.

By asking students to recall information on their own and then compare ideas with classmates, Bechard creates opportunities for each of them to engage with the content.

The process has the added benefit of strengthening retention: “When we remember something we had initially forgotten,” Lee says, “it is coming back into our working memory. It is having another opportunity to go into long-term memory. And so every time that happens, we are actually creating a stronger memory trace for that information.”

By building in a brief, intentional routine at the start of class, Bechard helps students reactivate prior learning, reconnect with the text, and begin each lesson with their attention focused, ready to learn.

How Free Play Supports Attention in Elementary School — from edutopia.org by Cynthia Michelini
Taking a short break outside allows students to reconnect with the world and refocus when it’s time to go back to the classroom.

The breaks were only five to 10 minutes long, and my intention was to ensure that the time outside was never structured, apart from a few guiding principles. Rule one: No teacher instruction. I didn’t want to give my students any direction other than how to be safe outside. Rule two: I encouraged them not to organize anything. Rule three: Just simply take a break. The results of this seemingly simple target surprised me.

First of all, my students’ attention span increased significantly. While this wasn’t a formal research project, trust me when I say that after 23 years of experience, I was shocked to realize how taking kids outside for a short period of time frequently can help support their focus in the classroom.

The IKEA Effect: You Built It, You’re Invested in It — from edutopia.org by Cathleen Beachboard, Nick Brousse
People become more invested when they help shape the systems around them, and teachers and school leaders can use that to create a strong school culture.

The difference is rarely the quality of the system itself. It’s whether the people affected by it helped build it. Psychologists call this the IKEA effect: our tendency to place greater value on things we help create. In one fascinating series of studies, researchers found that even young children valued objects they built more highly than identical objects made by someone else.

This sense of value is not explained simply by ownership. Children still value their creations more, even when they cannot keep them. It’s not explained by effort alone, either—more work doesn’t automatically create more attachment.

Instead, the researchers proposed something deeper: People become emotionally connected to what they help create because it begins to feel tied to their sense of identity. That finding may explain far more about school culture than we realize.

Learning Ecosystems

How a studio-based format transforms online teaching [via multiple authors from Cranfield University]

Bring playfulness into teaching for collaboration and creativity [Taurel]

Instructional Design Trends: What’s Shaping The Future Of Learning? [Pappas] + “The Future Of Personalized Learning And The Leaders Being Trained To Deliver It” [Ayers]

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