Andrew Boryga

Miami

Writer and Editor at Edutopia

Journalist at Freelance

dad. husband. author & editor @edutopia. debut novel VICTIM out now from @doubledaybooks. it's bor-ree-gah.

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Articles

How to Rethink the Objectives of Classroom Discussion

1 month ago | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

It’s a natural impulse: a sea of raised hands during a classroom discussion must mean students are getting it—they’re engaged with the material and prepared to ask smart questions. And yet, some students rarely raise their hand, and others shudder at the thought of sharing their thinking in public, fearful that they’ll sound uninformed or lack the language skills to express themselves clearly. When raised hands becomes the objective, says Philadelphia high school English teacher Matthew R.
Teachers Want Hard Questions Asked Before Adding Tech

2 months ago | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

In the race to serve the diverse needs of students and address widening learning gaps, school districts often look to add new tools and resources. This is especially true as it relates to ed-tech. Leaders are bombarded with slick new web apps, software packages, and physical devices making grand promises to improve student learning, provide actionable data, and save time and money. Sometimes the products live up to the hype and transform districts and schools.
To Study Better, Don’t Start From Zero

Jan 10, 2025 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

In a perfect world, students would use the best study methods that research has to offer—strategies like self-quizzing, spaced practice, and retrieval techniques that are proven to lead to deeper comprehension and better academic performance. The reality is that when they study for tests, kids often defer to the passive study strategies they know well, familiar habits like rereading texts, highlighting indiscriminately, or taking haphazard notes.
How AI Will Impact the Future of Teaching—a Conversation With Sal Khan | Flipboard

Nov 27, 2024 | flipboard.com | Andrew Boryga

2 hours ago'Focus resources': Nebraska Department of Education prioritizes literacy for Nebraska studentsThe Nebraska Department of Education said literacy and chronic absenteeism are among its priorities as the agency shares the 2023-24 assessment and accountability results.
How AI Will Impact the Future of Teaching—a Conversation With Sal Khan

Nov 27, 2024 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

In 2008, Salman Khan—formerly a hedge fund analyst in Boston who tutored his cousins on the side—launched Khan Academy, a free online educational platform that quickly became a repository of thousands of video lessons for students, covering everything from AP Chemistry to middle school math. Almost immediately, Khan told me in a recent interview, the platform was perceived as an existential threat.
Helping Students Read Complex Texts

Nov 15, 2024 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

We’ve all had the experience. We’re reading along and suddenly realize that although our eyes are scanning the words on the page, nothing is actually registering. Minutes pass before we take our bearings and see that we’ve lost the plot entirely—pun intended. In classrooms, students tend to experience this drift in attention while reading texts that are challenging or highly technical—the sorts of jargon-rich passages middle schoolers and high schoolers might encounter in science, math, or history.
How to Make Read-Alouds Fun and Effective for All Ages

Oct 18, 2024 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

Read-alouds are a popular activity in pre-school and early elementary school classrooms—and for good reason. Early on in a child’s reading life, listening to interesting stories read skillfully by teachers is a key to improving a student’s ear for fluent reading, and for leading kids in discussions about vocabulary, background knowledge, and critical literary and textual features such as plot, tone, figurative language, and character development.
Big and Small Strategies to Harness the Power of Peer-to-Peer Teaching

Oct 11, 2024 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

Peer pressure gets a bad rap. It can lead to all kinds of trouble, of course, but when it comes to activities like peer-to-peer teaching, the pressure to exhibit competence and explain things accurately actually drives deeper learning, a 2024 study that peeked inside the brains of student teachers concludes. College students were outfitted with futuristic caps studded with optical sensors to measure neural engagement, and given 10 minutes to digest a multimedia lesson about the Doppler effect.
To Motivate Teens, Ask “Who’s Your Future Self?”

Sep 17, 2024 | edutopia.org | Andrew Boryga

In 2019, high school junior Gil Leal was surprised when he came to school for his AP Environmental Science class and ended up in a strawberry field not far from his home in Gardena, California. Accustomed to classrooms that isolated academic topics like soil decomposition or deforestation from real-world problems, he was delighted to find out that the information could be used to improve his own life, and the lives of people in his small farming community.
8 Books About Youthful Mistakes That Come Back to Haunt You

Sep 4, 2024 | electricliterature.com | Ian McEwan |Lois A. Duncan |Jessica Knoll |Andrew Boryga

We all have one—that memory of something done or said with the absolute confidence of youth that makes our toes curl to recall. We think about it years later, in bed at night or on long drives or errantly in the shower and wish, cheeks somehow still flaming, that there was some way to take it back. I myself have an entire collection, a hideous slideshow of my awkward phase, which stretched from ages 12-32. It’s good in some ways—to be humbled, to remember that it’s actually quite hard being young.