How can we make school fun again?
More anecdotes on how, in some cases, testing and college prep from an early age are draining the joy out of students… and parents… and teachers… The question is: How do we counter this? The children that I get off of the bus are exhausted. They are frustrated. They are over worked. They are burned […]
Reading, writing and mud: the growth of Forest Schools
How do we sign up for “Forest School”?! Are you able to bring your students out into nature? It’s not so much a practice as a philosophy, and one that might easily have disappeared under the greener carpet of Steiner schools and home educators when it first crept in. But, like IKEA, the idea seems […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: education, education news, Primary education
The Teachers Who Educate Our Youngest Kids Are Struggling To Make Ends Meet
Preschool teachers don’t make much money. Does this surprise you? Probably not. How little is too little, and what does it say about our emphasis on early childhood #education? Eighty-five percent of voters said they think it’s “very important” or “extremely important” that early childhood educators are well-compensated. Over 90 percent of surveyed voters also […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: education, Preschool Teacher, salary
Binge Watching, Memory and Real Learning
Two articles for you today, both about the same thing… perhaps. On the one hand we have the very real phenomenon of endless content being consumed by anyone growing up in the smartphone era. On the other hand we read that #memory is the key to learning. Is it possible that massive amounts of mental […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: education, Memory, Neuroscience
School should work more like martial arts, says Sal Khan
Khan academy is doing big things in #education. We want to know what you think: is this “simple solution” too simple or radical enough to make a difference in your classroom? Otherwise known as “Mastery Learning”, there is a lot of data to suggest that this can work. And we also know that real world […]
Math + Creativity = The Brain Growing
A couple of interesting articles, both with with the topic of #math, courtesy of the always fantastic MindShift blog. Math and #creativity: at odds with each other, mutually exclusive? Or actually capable of bolstering understanding together? Generally speaking, people understand that art and music can be “explained” with math, that harmonies can be depicted as […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: creativity, education, math, math anxiety
Three Ways Software Is Empowering Teachers | Bill Gates
Newly available data is revolutionizing the way teachers and students collaborate. Right now, most teachers spend hours grading homework and tests and then copying everything down into spreadsheets they made themselves. And after all that, teachers often only have a partial sense of how each student is doing—based on rows and rows of numbers and […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: edtech tools, education, teaching tools
Teachers of Shanghai have the perfect formula for learning
The answer was clear: in Chinese classrooms, whole-class teaching made up 72% of lesson time, compared with 24% in England. In addition, Shanghai mathematics teaching is based upon high-quality teacher resources. All schools follow the same textbook, which is published by the Shanghai #education commission and refined and revised on an annual basis. Compare this […]
Wanted: Time to Collaborate
Collaboration improves student performance. A study [PDF] from the University of Pittsburgh found that fostering teamwork in schools improved student test scores. Collaboration hones #teachers’ skills. Boston College #education professor Andy Hargreaves argues that we can’t make great schools just by hiring great teachers. If schools become spaces where teachers learn alongside students, both new […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: education, TEACHERS, teaching
Helpful Ways Teachers Can Work With a Class Clown
They derail lessons, steal the spotlight and, to make matters worse, sometimes they’re actually funny. It’s not easy enforcing class rules when you’re laughing. What if we looked at class clowns differently? What if, instead of seeing them as a nuisance, we saw them as gifted? A little misguided, sure, but still gifted. Read more: […]
By: Nisha R Category: Articles Tags: classroom, education, k-12, management, Social and Emotional Learning
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