Features

Why do service learning at all? Teachers are already swamped with content and criteria. After only three months and first-hand experience facilitating and witnessing service learning, I am convinced that every student should be exposed. Every young person becomes a member of society; therefore, they must play an active part in it.

It takes an army. Intermediate school district administrators, educators and parents all play a role in order to provide students with disabilities the education they deserve and a chance to lead self-determined, independent lives.

Every parent wants their child to feel a sense of belonging and achievement within his or her community. Dr. Scott Koenigsknecht, superintendent of Ingham Intermediate School District, is no different. When one of his five children was diagnosed with autism, he did not want this dream to be hindered. Dr. Koenigsknecht and his wife, Jennifer, established the Central Michigan chapter of No More Sidelines.

For decades, employees at DTE Energy in Detroit used an outdated filing system. It didn’t work properly and everyone hated using it. Anthony changed all that.

What Johnny and Jane can accomplish in their formative years can impact their ability to receive a diploma and expand quality of life options. Implementing positive building blocks, that are appropriate and impact young children, are part of the Early On program at Washtenaw Intermediate School District.

For several years, Detroit Public Schools has been working to keep arts education programs afloat amidst statewide budget cuts. In our Partners in Arts series, Model D and InspirED Michigan are exploring how partnerships with nonprofits throughout Detroit are ensuring DPS students have access to the arts and are experiencing the impact of music, dance, theater and more in their lives.

An innovative program of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra provides students with an opportunity to "attend" the orchestra without leaving their desks.

While many children indulge in video games and television when they return home from school, Matrix Theatre students are a different breed. These dedicated students spend their after-school hours -- and yes, even their precious weekends -- transforming abstract ideas into scripts, running lines and watching their concepts come alive on stage.

In Mid-Michigan, teachers are learning how -- and why -- to infuse the arts into students’ everyday experiences, thanks to a partnership between Ingham Intermediate School District and the MSU Federal Credit Union Institute for Arts & Creativity at Wharton Center for the Performing Arts.

The first few weeks of school are here and gone. Many students have used the time as an adjustment period -- meeting teachers, memorizing schedules and recapping material to prepare for an entire new year of learning. That wasn’t the case for Keep Learning Week student participants.

From painting to sculpting to chalk and paper mache, there are all types of art that students are exposed to in school. Otsego students, however, have unique opportunities to step out of their classes and experience art as a professional artist and view professional artists at work.

Accountability is an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility. Teacher accountability? Accepting the responsibility of student success and failure. Here’s the issue: the United States consistently ranks low globally in educational attainment.  

What is teacher accountability? More importantly, what does it mean for our schools? InspirED Michigan chatted with Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, to help understand the complexity of the national accountability issue.

You can’t buy it in a can. Assessment literacy, when carefully taught, provides time to absorb, discern and put skills into practice. Some teachers claim to have a grasp of the subject, when in reality the data is often misunderstood, misinterpreted and misleading.

In the past six years, more than 250 students who weren’t finding success in traditional schools have earned high school or general education diplomas through the St. Clair County Virtual Learning Academy. They were students who either were expelled, dropped out or weren’t finding their footing in classrooms.