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:

👉 An overdue library book just came back - after 82 years, with a note that Grandma couldn't pay

👉 Schools love mindfulness - but do students even know what they’re learning?

👉 Want to master a new skill? Science says going deep is the answer

TECH TOOL

Finally, a Place for All Your Notes

Teachers juggle a ton: student observations, reminders, lesson tweaks, personal notes…the list goes on and on.

Most of us resort to sticky notes, phone reminders, or emailing ourselves just to keep things straight. 

It’s messy, distracting, and not exactly secure - especially if you’re bouncing between school devices, personal laptops, and phones.

The Solution: Standard Notes

Standard Notes is a secure, cross-device note-taking app that unifies all your ideas, reminders, and observations in one place. 

Write down a student’s progress on your tablet at school, tweak your lesson plan on your phone during your commute, or draft personal notes on your laptop at home—everything syncs automatically. No more emailing yourself, juggling multiple apps, or losing track of important details.

High security and encryption mean your student notes and personal ideas stay private. Students can also use it for organizing their homework or projects safely.

Here’s how it works: open the app anywhere, jot down ideas, reminders, or observations, and they sync instantly across devices (yes, even if one is your iPhone and the other is a Windows laptop/Android tablet). 

You can tag notes for organization, create simple lists, and even attach files if needed. It’s minimalist by design, so you’ll spend less time fiddling and more time teaching.

Is This For YOUR Classroom?

If you’re tired of juggling devices, losing track of student notes, or emailing yourself just to remember the small stuff, this is for you. If you’re looking for flashy features or heavy multimedia integration, then this might feel too minimalist.

Strategies That Work:

• Daily Check-In Notes: Quickly record student participation, behavior, or progress on your school device, then access it later on your personal laptop when planning.

• Lesson Prep Library: Keep reusable ideas, templates, and links all in one place. Tag them by subject, grade, or project for easy retrieval.

• Student Recommendation: Introduce older students to the app for secure project notes and homework tracking.

The fact that the free tier is more than enough for classroom teachers makes it something you’ll want to check out this week.

Keep your phone out of your hands while still capturing all the small observations that matter. 

Standard Notes gives you one source of truth - organized, secure, and distraction-free.

BRAINY BITS

Finding Joy in the Small Moments Actually Matters

TLDR: A 7-day routine of 5–10 minute “micro-acts of joy” raised well-being and lowered stress in a very large adult sample, with bigger gains for people under more financial or social strain.

Here’s what that means for your K-12 classrooms:

The Study: Taking Control of Your Emotional Well-Being

Researchers from this week’s study ran a global, single-group pre-post study affectionately (and appropriately) called the Big Joy Project. 

Adults signed up online and, for one week, received a daily 8 AM email with one brief finding-joy activity. Before and after the week, they completed the same short well-being survey. 

In total, 17,598 adults in 169 countries participated. Activities were randomized and took 5–10 minutes; they included actions such as making a gratitude list, sharing in someone else’s joy, watching a short awe video, writing three positives after a setback, doing something kind, or just reflecting on core values.

The Results:

• Big lift in feelings: emotional well-being, positive emotions, and perceived agency over happiness all improved while stress dropped.

• More reps, more benefit: completing more daily activities predicted larger improvements. Even three activities beat doing none.

• Who benefited most: younger participants improved more than older peers; people reporting higher financial strain or lower subjective social status saw larger gains across outcomes. 

In Your Classroom:

Short, structured “joy reps” are low-prep, low-time, and show a dose-response pattern. That makes them a smart fit for bell-ringers, transitions, or brain breaks—especially helpful for students who carry extra stress. 

Here’s how this data can impact your classroom this week:

Strategies

• Do one micro-act a day. Try a 5-minute opener at the start of class to set the stage for the rest of the day.

• Track the reps, not perfection. Post a simple 7-box class chart. Each day, check off the box and have students rate “How easy was that?” in one word. Quick reflection boosts buy-in and mirrors the study’s light-touch measurement.

• Aim for equity. Because students (and teachers) under greater strain may benefit more, seed these moments in classes or times of day where stress runs high.

The size, simplicity, and consistent gains shown in this week’s study suggest that tiny, daily joys are worth testing in K-12, both in the classroom and in your home. 

Start small, make it routine, and let the reps do the work!

REFERENCES

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

Tech Talk:

Standard Notes. (2025). Free your mind.  Retrieved from https://standardnotes.com/

Brainy Bits:

Guevarra, D. A., Park, Y., Xu, X., Liou, J., Smith, J., Callahan, P., Simon-Thomas, E., & Epel, E. S. (2025). Scaling a Brief Digital Well-Being Intervention (the Big Joy Project) and Sociodemographic Moderators: Single-Group Pre-Post Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 27, e72053. https://doi.org/10.2196/72053