Kathy S Dyer

10th November 2026

Internet vs AI Literacy: Where Old & New Meet

When the World Wide Web entered public education in the mid-1990s, educators faced questions about safety, ethics, and accountability — but AI brings a challenge the internet never posed: its ability to mimic human behavior. My latest blog draws on UNESCO's 2024 AI Competency Frameworks for students and teachers to compare internet literacy with AI literacy. The two share much common ground, including critical thinking, misinformation resistance, responsible use, digital citizenship, equity concerns, and a chronic teacher preparedness gap. Key differences remain, however: AI content has no traceable human author, its mechanisms are opaque, students converse with it rather than navigate it, and its capabilities change far faster than web fundamentals ever did. Because both literacies aim to produce skeptical, capable consumers and creators of digital information, the article recommends folding AI literacy into existing digital literacy standards rather than teaching it separately. Finally, it cautions that foundational skills must come first and that AI doesn't belong in every lesson — knowing where it genuinely supports learning is the key to using it well.

6th August 2026

Personal Space & the Hallway at School

Many adults expect kids to "just know" how to navigate crowded hallways. In reality, body awareness, spatial awareness and reading social cues are learned skills that benefit from explicit instruction and practice—just like lining up, collaborating or resolving conflicts.

26th July 2026

Anxious or Worried About the Start of a New School Year? Become Curious!

Educators and kids worry about the start of a new school year. There are ways to switch worry or anxiety to curiosity to make the experience different.

27th April 2026

Where Learning Happens

Designing learning spaces isn’t just about furniture or layout. It’s about creating the conditions where learners feel empowered to engage, take risks and own their learning. My latest blog has some specific environmental aspects we can pay attention to, as well as choices we offer learners.

20th April 2026

End-of-Year Reflection

End-of-year reflection – do you do it or not? Is it a habit for you? Do you collect data all year or rely on your memory? To support the process of reflecting in the spring, you might, at the end of each week, check in with yourself by asking three simple questions:

• What worked well this year and why?
• What was challenging and why?
• What might happen next year if …?

7th April 2026

It’s the Little Things

While routines are a collection of small actions and behaviors, it’s their repeated use that turns them into habits. Habits create cognitive shortcuts for learners, freeing them to focus on thinking, questioning, and improving at what they do best—learning.

30th March 2026

11 AI Tools for Teachers’ Formative Assessment Practice

If you're wanting to strengthen your formative assessment practice and dip your toes into the AI pool, here are 11 tools you should check out.

Tribute • 12th January 2026

Tribute to Dr. Jim Popham

While many of you know Jim as a larger-than-life persona on stage or in front of a crowd, you may not know what a fiercely private person he was outside the world of education. On July 16th, Jim transitioned to professor heaven. Below is a short tribute to him.

5th May 2025

Agency and a Culture of Learning

Both choice and collaboration involve decision-making skills. When students understand themselves as learners, understand how to advocate and seek out what they need, they develop confidence in their own executive function and self-regulation ability (Murray, 2019). This is agency in the making. Teaching learners to make choices (decisions), express themselves (voice) and learn how to work with peers (collaborate) helps grow their sense of self-confidence (self-efficacy) as it relates to their capacity to be self-directed learners or learners with agency within a culture of learning.

28th April 2025

Feedback = Got It or Not Yet, Then What’s Next

What are some specific examples of effective feedback strategies that can be easily implemented in the classroom? How do we provide learners the information about where they are in their learning – the Got It, Not Yet and What’s Next?

As educators, we give feedback to students on their work all the time: in the moment, daily, weekly, and at the end of a unit or year. Research about formative assessment tells us that feedback is one of the foundational practices that make a difference in student learning. But how can we make sure the guidance we're providing is truly encouraging our students' learning and growth at each interval?

22nd April 2025

How About Classroom Reflective Practice?

Recently, Dr. Hayley Lewis wrote a piece on the importance of taking time to think and reflect. While focused on adults (leadership) and coaching, all I could think about were educational applications and reminders as I read Why Leaders Should Engage In Reflective Practice.

And as educators, when do we allow (plan) for learners to have that time to think and reflect regularly? What strategies or processes do we provide as a guide to learners thinking or reflecting as they are learning both strategies?

7th September 2024

Retrieval Practice – Be Deliberate

If you are not familiar, retrieval practice is what it sounds like, recalling information rather than reading or hearing it.

16th August 2024

Jamming to Create a Bank of Multiple-Meaning Words

Are you familiar with homonyms, homophones, homographs, and capitonyms? Multiple-meaning words can be used humorously or can cause confusion. Taking time to think about what we’re saying may make a difference to others.

Education Week • 5th April 2024

How to Make Summer School Effective and Engaging (Opinion)

Today’s post finishes up a two-part series on how to make summer school a place that students want to attend ...

The tag line of the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) Summer Changes Everything TM, says it all. As educators leading summer learning programs, we can keep kids learning, engaging and empowering students to finish the unfinished learning and to take

Teach. Learn. Grow. • 29th February 2024

75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning.

edCircuit | A Strategy for Student-Developed Quest • 26th February 2024

A Strategy for Student-Developed Questions | edCircuit

Student learners have so many questions. How do we help them develop “good” questions to support their learning?

28th September 2023

Peers As Instructional Resources

When was the last time you had the opportunity to learn with, from and for someone else? What was in place–environment, strategies, resources, time, etc. to make it happen? Jigsaw strategies provide different ways to support learners in being instructional resources for themselves and others. Three jigsaws to try include Expert, Pieces-Make-the-Whole and Building.

21st August 2023

6 AI Tools for Teachers’ Formative Assessment Practice

If you're wanting to strengthen your formative assessment practice and dip your toes into the AI pool, here are 6 tools you should check out.

edCircuit | Check-In Questions & Social Emotional Learning • 30th May 2023

Check-In Questions & Social Emotional Learning | edCircuit

I can get really excited about a good sketch note… particularly one drawn by someone else. Dr. Hayley Lewis is a psychologist who makes psychology accessible, often via her sketch notes. Recently she shared one about check-in questions on LinkedIn that 1) I thought was insightful and 2) made me immediately jump to checking in with kids.

edCircuit | Increasing Student Productivity With One Good Question • 23rd May 2023

Increasing Student Productivity With One Good Question

In a recent Harvard Business Review, the article “Ask This Question at Your Next Meeting” caught my attention. The author was focused on making meetings more useful and increasing productivity. What struck me was how asking this one question could boost self-reflection, engagement, and growth in the classroom. The question is: What are you stuck on?

edCircuit | Connecting SEL and Formative Instruction • 18th May 2023

Connecting SEL and Formative Instruction | edCircuit

To me, SEL and formative instructional practices are ways of being in a classroom, moving beyond the practice of “doing to” students to “doing with” (Purkey & Novak, 1996). It’s interesting that formative assessment skills draw on and build SEL skills, and these skill sets feed each other.

edCircuit | Relationships Foster Social Emotional Learning • 9th May 2023

Relationships Foster Social Emotional Learning | edCircuit

Trust is key for all relationships to reach their full potential. It’s no different in schools. Trust starts by building a relationship with your learners (and their families). What do you know about each as an individual? Quate and McDermott (2009) tell us “… that the development of a nurturing classroom community in which students are known well by both the teacher and their classmates matters…” Trust is gained when learners see that you know them and believe in them.

Education Week • 9th May 2023

Forget Taking a Hard Line. Try 'Soft Tactics' to Spark Student Motivation (Opinion)

Want to engage and empower learners to motivate themselves? Create opportunities for them to have voice and choice. We’ve learned that kids thrive in environments where their voice matters and they have choices in the learning process. There are many ways this can happen in a classroom when learning experiences are designed around what, who, where, when, how to learn, and how to demonstrate.

edCircuit | Supporting Social Emotional Environments • 25th April 2023

Supporting Social Emotional Environments | edCircuit

What makes kids, families, and communities feel safe? Builds their sense of well-being? Empowers them to thrive? Safe spaces for learning, whether inside a school building or out in the community, requires equitable social and emotionally friendly environments. As Jonathan Aldis (2019) from Stantec said, “We want spaces where students can practice for the future.”