During the summer months when work is less taxing, I like to look through my older books on brain-based learning to remind myself of what some of the early researchers had to say. I am surprised by how often I find ideas and tools I had forgotten to keep in my current ways of doing things.Here is an early summer look at some old books and good ideas:The Accelerated Learning Handbook by Dave MeierAccelerated learning is one form of brain-compatible education that you don't hear much … [Read more...]
Education Philosophy Becomes Practice
This post was originally published at the Partially Examined Life: A Philosophy Podcast and Blog and is contributed by Gary Chapin, Senior Associate for Quality Performance Assessment at the Center for Collaborative Education . ________________________________________________________________Over the past hundred years Constructivists and Traditionalists have enjoyed an uneasy truce in the world of education practitioners. Constructivism “says that people construct their own … [Read more...]
Flying Below the Teachers’ ADHD Radar Screen
The following blog post is contributed by Dr. Anthony Rao a nationally known expert in child psychology, and author of The Way of Boys. Dr. Rao will be a speaker at the INSPIRE 2014 Conference in October 2014.Getting noticed or standing out is usually a good thing, but not for American boys in school. Their diagnoses for ADHD continue to be too high. What drives this? In my practice, it seems to be coming from teachers. They don't realize it, but over the last few years they have been … [Read more...]
Three Ways Educators Can Support Girls
Contributed by Dr. Rachel Kramer* Research shows that there is a strong link between a girls socio-emotional competence and their chance of success and performance in learning, and educators must equip themselves with methods that they can employ in the classroom to encourage and support this type of development in girls. The following are strategies that can be employed now by educators to support girls: 1. Build a sense of self-efficacy, encourage problem … [Read more...]
Concerning Drop in Teacher Job Satisfaction
The 2011 version of the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher (28th Annual) shows that only 44% of the teachers surveyed are 'very satisfied with their jobs', down from 59% in 2009. The article reviews possible factors behind that drop and suggests areas of concern to anyone paying attention to the state of public education. Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers suggests that the study is a "wake-up call from teachers. They don’t like what's going on with budget … [Read more...]
NISCE Workshop: Stand Up To Bullying
On April 13, following the premiere of the movie Bully, NISCE did a feature on What Can We Really Do to Fight Bullying, and provided a toolbox of resources from The Bully Project for readers from a variety of backgrounds to use. Included in the resources was a Toolkit for Parents, Toolkit for Students, Toolkit for Educators, and a Toolkit for Advocates.However, the conversation did not and should not stop there.On Wednesday, April 25th educators, parents, and concerned community members … [Read more...]
Educators Building Interpersonal Bridges
Boston University’s School of Psychiatric Rehabilitation provides a public resource to educators looking to build better relationships with students struggling with disabilities. On their How-to Tips for Educators page, they review interpersonal strategies that we feel can be seen as not only helpful to the student with disabilities but to all students in our nation's schools.The following tips are suggested to help educators:Interpersonal strategiesDevelop a working alliance with … [Read more...]
The Importance of Relationships Through All Educational Contexts
Relationship is Fundamental The importance of relationship carries on through constructivist, traditional, religious, military, and non-traditional models. It is so fundamental, in fact, that it could be said that the ability to form positive and nurturing relationships with students is the sine qua non of a student-centered approach. The primary importance of relationship is also a well established factor in research on the development of resilience in children.Seeking to identify the factors … [Read more...]
The Importance of Relationships and the Basics of Self-Teaching
Sugata Mitra Teaches About Self-Teaching Consider the connection between relationship and self-teaching.At first glance this will appear to be a contradiction. It would seem that self-teaching is, by definition, outside the realm of relationship. Of the list of educational context categories—military, traditional, Montessori, et cetera it is the least dependent on adult guidance. On further inspection, we discover that the very nature of learning is deeply affected by relationship at the … [Read more...]
The Brain’s Development and the Importance of Relationships and Education
In their book, Born for Love, Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz report the ability of a child to access higher level problem solving, executive functioning, and thinking skills ultimately depends on the learned ability to self-regulate, and that these capacities are developed through consistent and reliable connection with safe and caring adults.In simple terms, it is the care and protection of adults that allows infants and children to develop neural pathways in the frontal lobe that transcend … [Read more...]
