California rural education network launches to help isolated teachers share resources

Several private colleges are considering an alternative to traditional student grants and loans - Income Share Agreements (ISAs) - in which colleges or outside capital sources provide loans to students with the promise that students will pay a percentage of their income with no interest for a set period of time after graduation. Critics argue that the arrangement will simply add to existing student debt and favor students in higher-paying math and science majors, programs in which minorities lack proportionate representation. Can colleges adjust the financing model to take into account these concerns?

Washington state boasts one of the country's most established and successful dual-credit programs, allowing students to earn college credits while still in high school (at no cost). Some participants even graduate high school with an associates degree, significantly cutting potential student loans. Now the nationally recognized program is turning to face its own limitations - how can it increase access for low-income students, who only made up 5 percent of the 2016-2017 cohort?

Teachers for Teachers, is a US program that is educating untrained teachers in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Around 550 refugee primary-school teachers have been trained through the program. Refugees form about 85 percent of the teachers in the camp. They have to deal with little resources, no training, and can teach up to 300 students. “I know how to prepare schemes of work and interact with my students. I can see results. Our students here are now performing well in national exams.”

Group therapy has helped women experiencing depression in poor communities in Kampala. Since 2014, more than 25,110 women have met in small groups with trained peer facilitators, and after completing the program about 86 percent say they are no longer depressed.

Research shows that prolonged feelings of loneliness can have unhealthy outcomes, and the likelihood of experiencing loneliness increases as a person ages. To combat this, many technology companies are trying a host of solutions targeted at senior citizens that includes tools such as interactive robots as well as an app that employs college students to acts as "grandchildren on demand.”

An ed-tech researcher continues to investigate the success of a study that looked into the effectiveness of "crowdsourcing homework tips." In the study, the homework tips were pre-written by teachers for students to access during homework time, and the results of the study saw that students who used the tips were 58% likelier to solve the next problem with no help.

Mobile banking in Kenya has increased economic mobility for families living in poverty. The mobile money system is not connected to bank accounts, making it accessible to the overwhelming majority of Kenyans who don't have bank accounts but do have cell phones. Mobile banking allows deposits and withdrawals as well as transfers, and has allowed families to save money to use when their income, often from farming, takes a hit thus creating a security net for themselves and allowing them to receive funds from friends and family. Savings allow families to meet basic needs and access medical care if necessary.

Rochester School District previously used hotspots on buses to help students traveling to extracurricular events, but once the pandemic showed how many families were struggling to stay virtually connected, the buses were turned into traveling hotspots for different neighborhoods. The district was able to get all but 20% of its student population connected and is looking for more ways to minimize the digital divide.

The Student View is a program helping youth from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to learn more about misinformation and navigating the media landscape. The program has been able to expand to 20 cities in the United Kingdom to provide 72 pop-up school newsrooms.

A public campaign is improving access to toilets in Nigerian communities to put a stop to open defecation. These affordable, easy-to-install, plastic toilets have a counterweighted door that ensures an air-tight seal to minimize odor and keep pests away.