Now and for the next couple of weeks, millions of students will report to their classrooms and computer screens to take the AP exams. After taking one of the many exams, students usually feel one of three ways: Great! Good. Or awful. Because you don’t know how you will feel after taking an AP exam, do not request that your scores be sent to any college when filling out the answer sheet. If this is…
According to Love Our Children USA, every year over three million children are victims of violence and neglect. Our society seemingly focuses less on the importance of simply showing love and more on the expectations children are supposed to have. Let’s love on our kids a little extra, raise awareness for those in need, and be reminded of the fact that this should be a part our everyday lives and not just on a specific…
Waiting lists are the great fear of applicants this year. With more students than ever applying to highly competitive colleges, many institutions are lengthening their already long lists, resulting in more students being wait listed. Art & Science Group, a consulting firm that advises colleges on their admissions strategies, conducted a survey of high school seniors now — when they know what the colleges they applied to have said, but before the students have told…
Deborah Rosenthal has learned a thing or two about online learning. She starts her virtual kindergarten class on Zoom every morning with a song — today, it’s the Spanish version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” Her students clap along. There’s a greeting from the class mascot (a dragon), yoga, meditation and then some practice with letter sounds. Rosenthal teaches Spanish immersion in a public school in San Francisco’s Mission District. Most of…
A sweeping review of national test data suggests pandemic impact on student learning may not be as bad as we feared. According to this study, the pandemic-driven jump to online learning has had little impact on children’s reading growth and has only somewhat slowed gains in math. That positive news comes from the testing nonprofit NWEA and covers nearly 4.4 million U.S. students in grades three through eight. But the report also includes a worrying…
While YouTube is better known for Taylor Swift and video game commentary than higher education, the video hosting platform has gone from a potential classroom distraction to a multifaceted learning tool. To date, YouTube has more than one billion users in 91 countries—that’s almost one-third of the population with Internet access. Of all the videos watched in a single day around the world, one billion of those are learning-related videos. That includes edutainment (often hosted…
When schools closed in March 2020, districts immediately took steps to provide free meals to students, and that need has continued. Since the start of COVID-19, 1 in 5 households with children in Massachusetts is experiencing food insecurity, nearly doubling pre-pandemic numbers. Thank you to our teachers for helping with meals in classrooms, supervising lunch throughout school buildings, and handing out grab-and-go meals. School meals are available for students even if they are learning remotely.…
Not all of the most selective colleges have given out their acceptance letters yet. The Ivy League will announce Tuesday evening, but the trends are already clear. The pandemic has not hurt the college admissions; it’s helped them. It has sent them new applicants, new minority and first-generation applicants, and new attention. The results are starting to come in — and they suggest that the most selective private and public institutions are going to have…
Slumped bodies, rolled eyes, defiant words, and off-task behaviors announce (not-so-subtly) that instruction isn’t working. So what can teachers do to encourage participation and task completion when students are reluctant to participate or complete tasks? When it comes to engaging reluctant learners, there are no guarantees or magic words, but certain principles and strategies can help harness the intrinsic motivation that lies at the heart of each learner. Here are 5 ways to engage reluctant…
There are a variety of tech tools and methods out there to teach writing that can make the process easier and more fun for both teachers and students. While not every high-tech way of teaching writing will work for every class or every student, there’s enough variety that there’s bound to be something for everyone. Here, we offer just a few tech-focused ways to help students learn grammar, essay-writing, and, most importantly, why good writing…
