Four journalists experiment with kid-friendly podcast to inform under-12s about the news

We’re getting smarter about the way we’re addressing social problems. Patterns in the most effective solutions are emerging, such as making evidence-based decisions, accepting that humans act irrationally, and bringing people back together to build comprehensive solutions.

PowerMyLearning, a program that any student, parent, or teacher can use for free, helps students take ownership of their own learning. When most attention is being placed on teacher effectiveness, this program redirects those efforts toward students.

The creators of online classes hoped to provide quality education to the disadvantaged but have instead created an international supplement to classroom learning and tool for professional development.

Americans often want to connect to a cause beyond writing a check. Crowdsourcing is creating new forms of philanthropy globally, giving donors more choice and a stronger connection to the projects they fund.

Low budget schools across the U.S. are having students use their smartphones as learning tools inside and outside the classroom. At no extra cost they can incorporate technology into the curriculum through a myriad of applications, from homework reminder apps to free cloud document platforms like Google Docs.

An Irish-based company, ALISON, provides free, high-quality e-courses to people around the globe in order to help close the gap between education and workplace skills. Particularly focused on providing access to areas where more traditional forms of education and job training are difficult to get, this approach is helping to change lives and the economy for the better.

Areas of High Point, North Carolina have suffered from crime, poverty, and neglect, until the city began implementing Operation Ceasefire, a policing program that uses data collecting, community support against crime. High Point is now leading the country in its success of Operation Ceasefire, boasting dramatic reductions in violent crimes, domestic abuse, robberies, and drug-related offenses.

Colorful volumes of books have aided teaching for centuries; however, the scope of engagement in the internet age demands newer methods for pedagogy. Pinterest, a social media-constructed visual bulletin board, has become a venue in which teachers share their pinned visual media, lesson plans, and charts with students and other teachers. The success of Teaching Pinterest expands pedagogy, reduces teacher alienation, enables collaboration with other teachers, and directs readers to other sites that offer teachers’ curriculum ideas for a cost.

Well-trained teachers cannot be replaced solely by technology, as has been increasingly apparent at Carpe Diem schools, where students learn largely via computers enabled with educational software.

Middle School 88 in Brooklyn is part of a broad evolution in teaching math, employing technology through a non-profit called School for One (Teach for One) to provide each student with a personalized lesson generated and monitored by computers to match their learning level.