MAKING IT EASIER TO BE A BETTER TEACHER

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to dive deeper:

👉 Kids are now deciding what parents buy—and it’s billions.

👉 Back-to-school now comes with a bill—for parents.

👉 Half of Detroit students miss school—here’s what that means.

TECH TOOL

Turn Any Material Into Practice Quizzes - Fast

Teachers spend hours creating review sheets, flashcards, and practice quizzes - especially at the start of the year.

It’s repetitive, time-consuming, and frankly, not the best use of your prep time. Students often need more targeted practice, but finding or building it can feel like a chore.

The Solution: StudyAnything

StudyAnything is a free, easy-to-use platform that lets teachers turn their own materials—notes, slides, PDFs, or even past tests—into ready-to-go practice quizzes. No complex setup, no new apps to teach students, just fast, digital study material.

You simply upload or input your existing notes, slides, or questions into StudyAnything, and it automatically turns them into multiple-choice, true/false, or short-answer quizzes.

Teachers can then share them instantly with students via a simple link (no accounts or downloads needed) and track progress easily to see who’s excelling and who could use extra support.

Is This For YOUR Classroom?

If you want highly gamified platforms with bells and whistles, this isn’t it. StudyAnything is about simplicity and speed, not flashy visuals. But if your goal is to make study material quickly and get students practicing immediately, then it belongs in your tool kit.

Strategies That Work:

• Quick Review Before a Test: Upload your lecture slides and have students do a 5-10 minute quiz at the end of class.

• Homework Practice: Assign quizzes as optional practice. Students can check answers instantly.

• Differentiate Practice: Make multiple versions of a quiz to challenge stronger students or support those who need extra help.

StudyAnything takes the grind out of creating practice quizzes, letting teachers focus on teaching while students get meaningful practice.

Best of all? It’s still in beta so you get everything for free. Sometimes, the best tech tool is the one that just works!

BRAINY BITS

New Year, Old Coffee Habits

TLDR of this week’s study: moderate coffee intake, about 3 to 5 cups a day, is linked with lower overall mortality and lower risk of several major diseases, with similar signals for decaf. Watch sleep timing, pregnancy limits, and the sugar you add.

The Study: Coffee’s impact on health and well-being

This paper is a review study, meaning it pulls evidence from other large prospective cohort studies, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses, with an emphasis on overall and cause-specific mortality, mechanisms, additives, pregnancy, sleep, and hydration when it comes to coffee.

The review also notes the FDA’s recent rule that coffee with fewer than five calories per serving can qualify for a “healthy” claim.

The Results:

Across millions of participants, overall health risk was lowest near 3.5 cups per day for all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular risk was lowest around 3 to 5 cups per day, about a 15 percent reduction compared to non-coffee drinkers.

Decaf often tracked with similar benefits too, while added sugar to your cup of joe of course reduced this.

On “daily life” outcomes, coffee days meant roughly 1000 extra steps of movement, but sleep dropped by about 36 to 45 minutes; avoiding coffee within about 8 to 9 hours of bedtime helped avoid this drop off.

In Your Classroom:

Especially during these first few weeks of class, you may be reaching for more than just an extra cup (or two, or four). Studies like this can help us teachers make a more informed decision on exactly what we’re filling our mugs with.

Strategies

• Model moderation. Keep intake in the 3 to 5 cup range if you drink coffee, and consider some decaf.

• Protect sleep. Caffeine later in the day can cut sleep; aim to stop coffee about 8 to 9 hours before bedtime.

• Skip the sugar-stack. Added sugar may reduce benefits, so go lighter when you can.

Studies like this show that us teachers need to use coffee as a helpful tool, not a crutch: keep it moderate, consider some decaf, and cut it well before bedtime. 

Also, this is just a study (and we’re just a newsletter), not your doctor. Make sure to talk over any health concerns you have with a healthcare professional.

As back-to-school routines ramp up, model balanced habits so caffeine supports your teaching without stealing your sleep.

REFERENCES

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

StudyAnything Academy. (2025). Your all-in-one study companion.  Retrieved from https://www.studyanything.academy/

Brainy Bits:

Emadi, R. C., & Kamangar, F. (2025). Coffee’s Impact on Health and Well-Being. Nutrients, 17(15), 2558. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu17152558