Innovating Pedagogy 2017: Exploring new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. Open University Innovation Report 6

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Learning In a NetworKed Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE). Themes: • Big-data inquiry: thinking with data • Learners making science • Navigating post-truth societies • Immersive learning • Learning with internal values • Student-led analytics • Intergroup empathy • Humanistic knowledge-building communities • Open Textbooks • Spaced Learnin

Effects of Vouchers:Another Look at the Florida Data

This report re-analyzes test score data from Florida public schools. In response to a recent report from the Manhattan Institute, it offers a different perspective and an alternative explanation for the pattern of test score improvements among low scoring schools in Florida

Teachers Foster Intergroup Empathy

This study examined a professional development program aimed at supporting Jewish civics teachers in their efforts to promote empathy among their students toward Israeli Arabs. Previous results indicated an increase in outgroup empathy among teachers who watched and reflected upon clips from a television sitcom. This article focuses on skills teachers developed and strategies they designed and implemented following their experience with empathy processes. Our findings underscore the educative potential of indirect mediated contact in segregated societies, and the importance of developing empathic processes among teachers before they embark on the challenge of supporting their students in such endeavors