The Algorithm Age

A teacher has been banned from classrooms in Wales after a tribunal heard she got drunk in class and started swearing at pupils during a lesson that turned into a ‘mini rave’. Alice Ashton, who taught at Ysgol Bro Caereinion near Welshpool, Powys, swigged alcohol from an Evian bottle in class on January 17 last year, a panel heard. The lesson ‘spiralled out of control’ and turned into a ‘mini rave, with loud music, shouting and dancing’, a fitness to practice tribunal was told. One 16-year-old told the hearing Ashton also swore, calling the whole class ‘little s**ts’. The Education Workforce Council panel heard the lesson took place just four months after Ashton had been convicted of drink driving. Sign up for all of the latest stories Start your day informed with 's News Updates newsletter or get Breaking News alerts the moment it happens. She was described as ‘smiley and happy’ before she s...

They say there's no going back, but 12 years after leaving teaching I am standing in front of classes of boisterous students again. It's not exactly the plot twist I saw coming. it was a big career change, again! For the past 10 years, I have been fully immersed in digital content creation, developing recipes, running my own business and building an online audience. I had the creative freedom to pour myself into projects with endless flexibility, and felt a real sense of connection when my work resonated with people. Some days this work felt like a dream and I guess that would be the general perception from the outside, too. How I knew it was time for a change Running your own business isn't as pretty as people make out. All the creative stuff was fun and easy. What came with it, though, was uncertainty. It's stressful being your own boss. You're your own employee, HR team, finance department and tech support (after al...

NAPLAN analysis shows the writing skills of Australian children are at an all-time low after what's been described as a "30-year policy failure" in schools. To help reverse the decline, new resources are being launched that will enable writing to be taught across subjects like science, maths and physical education as well as English. The Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) said the resources were designed in response to analysis of 10 years of NAPLAN data that showed many Year 9 students were writing at primary school level. "What we discovered was that there was a large number of students whose punctuation and sentence structure was what we would expect of students at a Year 4 level, so serious cause for concern because writing was such an important skill," AERO CEO Jenny Donovan said. AERO is government-owned and was established by education ministers four years ago to come up with evidence-based solutions to declini...

A sixth-grade math teacher turned to ChatGPT to inject new life into her geometry lessons. Ana Sepúlveda wanted to make geometry fun and believed her students, “who live and breathe soccer” would be interested to learn how mathematical concepts apply to the sport. Within moments of asking ChatGPT for help, the AI delivered a comprehensive five-page lesson plan, complete with a captivating theme: "Geometry is everywhere in soccer — on the field, in the ball, and even in the design of stadiums!" The plan detailed the significance of shapes and angles on a soccer pitch, proposed classroom discussions on their importance, and outlined a practical project for students to design their own soccer fields or stadiums using rulers and protractors. “Using AI has been a game changer for me,” said Sepúlveda, who teaches at a dual language school in Dallas and has ChatGPT translate everything into Spanish . “It’s helping me with lesson planning, communicating with...