Technology integration and project-based learning are just two of the 10 strategies to help educators create engaging schools.

So says Laura Devaney, education expert, who offers ways to create engaging schools in her article on eschoolnews.com. According to Robert Dillon, director of technology and innovation for the School District in St. Louis, 95 percent of kindergartners are truly enthusiastic about school, but for some reason, that enthusiasm wanes, and only 37 percent of ninth graders are enthusiastic about school and learning.

School leaders, Devaney said, "must find a way to sustain that kindergarten enthusiasm all the way through high school."

“When I talk about leading, it doesn’t mean being the principal,” Dillon said. “I believe everyone in our ecosystem is a leader—from teachers, to school resource officers, to students.”

The first way to create engaging schools, Devaney said, is to create a "sustainable education."

Dillon said, "building a strong curriculum around social, economic, and environmental justice helps today’s students 'unlock' their place on the planet and reach beyond their hometowns and communities."

“Schools that do sustainability really well have to move to a point where they talk about social and economic justice issues,” Dillon said.

Another one of the ways is to have "thin classroom walls," the article said.

“We have to move past the classroom being the only place kids learn—we need to get kids outside in the community, and outside of the community, to learn,” Dillon said.

Dillon added the image of a "traditional classroom" should be "banished, he added, and instead, stakeholders should realize that classrooms in which kids create, collaborate, and think critically about real issues are the classrooms that will best prepare students for college and careers."

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Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor