Elissa Nadworny

NPR Ed is updating some of the top stories we've been following in 2014.

This year we took a new look at screen time — and the argument over whether it's good or bad for kids. We explored what the research revealed about screen time, how schools are ...

Why does public school start at age 5?

Neuroscientists say the most important brain development begins at birth. Friedrich Froebel, who coined the term "kindergarten" in Germany in the mid-19th century, was among the first education thinkers to intuit this fact about the brain. His "child-gardens" were mixed-age classrooms of ...

Monica Shah opens her classroom door as first period social studies class is about to start. She's barely taller than the middle school students who shuffle down the hallway. "What up, DJ Shah?" a student calls out as he passes.

The call-out catches on. There is clapping and a few ...

For this series, we've been thinking a lot about the iconic tools that some of us remember using — if only for a short period of time — in our early schooling. Things like the slide rule and protractor, recorder and Bunsen burner.

Mere mention of today's tool sends shivers ...

You're a sixth-grader in New York City. Your principal gives you a choice: Get free tickets to a Columbia University football game, or participate in a music video in which your assistant principal is the lead singer.

The 66 fifth- and sixth-graders who chose to sing, dance and act are ...

(This post was last updated at 5:15 p.m. ET.)

Two assailants, armed with a gun, knives and axes, launched an attack on worshippers at a Jerusalem Synagogue on Tuesday. It left five dead and at least six others wounded.

The U.S. State Department said three of the four killed were ...

Above the hum of the propeller, Joshua Weinstein calls my attention to the Boonton Reservoir, which provides water for Jersey City. We're flying about 2,000 feet above the tree-lined streets of northern Jersey, the Manhattan skyline visible through the haze in the distance.

As Weinstein increases our speed to battle ...

If you walk past Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter robe, ride the elevator up four floors, above the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz and a family of four visiting from Cincinnati, Ohio, you'll find yourself in a long hallway that vaguely resembles a hospital walkway.

The fourth floor of ...

In part two of our look at the ancient Greek philosopher, we ask students at a California school about the Socratic teaching method and the questions it inspires.

Our yearlong project, 50 Great Teachers, launched this week with this story about how the ancient world's greatest teacher lives on ...

Before the smartphone, the laptop and the pocket calculator, there was a powerful mechanical computer. Our new series, Tools of the Trade, begins with a look at the slide rule.

Before the smartphone, the laptop and the pocket calculator, there was a powerful mechanical computer. Our new series, Tools of the Trade, begins with a look at the slide rule.

Let's start with a little word problem. Sixty percent of the nation's 12.8 million community college students are required to take at least one course in subject X. Eighty percent of that 60 percent never move on past that requirement.

1. Let Y = the total percentage of community ...

So you finally get the chance to meet one on one with your child's teacher — now what?

Like a good Boy Scout, be prepared: Educators agree that doing your homework before a parent-teacher conference can make a big difference.

The Harvard Family Research Project's Tip Sheet for Parents ...

Nestled between Julia Auster's fantasy football app and Facebook Messenger is a relatively new bucket of apps: the education tools she uses in the French classes she teaches at Robert Adams Middle School in Holliston, Mass.

Auster isn't alone.

With more students bringing their own tech into the ...