Nearly all schools in the United States shut down in the spring of 2020. More than a year later, every school district is grappling with reopening plans and confronting systemic problems magnified by the pandemic. The special, Disrupted: How COVID-19 Changed Education, focuses on Continue reading
Education Policy
Helping Children Develop Emotional Resilience during Coronavirus
The National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) recently shared a new brief about how to provide a nurturing environment for children and support the development of their emotional resilience. It also shares ways that non-parents can help friends and family members with children.The brief addresses what it calls practicing the 3 R’s: Reassurance, Routine, and Regulation and gives practical, intelligent suggestions about issues such as validating children’s feelings when
Understanding School Violence and Building Students’ Resilience
We grieve with those who lost loved ones at our most recent scene of deadly school violence, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Southern Florida.
As an educator, you may be looking for resources to help Continue reading
Brief Experiences That Can Change Struggling Students’ Mindsets
In this edtalk professional development video from PBS LearningMedia, Nadia Murray Goodman discusses how she introduces high expectations for her students. In a recent NY Times‘ article, Nudges That Help Struggling Students Succeed, David L. Kirp, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute, sites studies showing that teachers’ high expectations is one way to can change students’ mindsets about mathematics.
Kirk writes how millions of college freshmen, often required to take algebra, fail math and ultimately drop out of college, noting that the Mathematical Association of America reports math as “’the most significant barrier’ to graduation.” From recent studies, Kirp sites examples of how students given short, simple experiences can change their mindsets about math, which ultimately has Continue reading
American Graduate Day 2016 And Mentorship
On Saturday, September 17, at 2:00 pm, WGBY will air the 5th American Graduate Day, broadcast live from WNET in New York City. This year’s focus is on mentorship as a solution to one of the nation’s biggest education challenges. As seen in this video clip, host Soledad O’Brien will feature leading education, media and celebrity figures who will highlight the role of mentoring to Continue reading
TED Talks: Education Revolution
In the lineup of SPOTLIGHT EDUCATION premieres this week, WGBY airs TED Talks: Revolution on Tuesday, September 13 at 10pm. Those of us who experience the power and challenges of education may find that “revolution” is not too strong a word to describe the changes needed in our perceptions and actions surrounding student learning.
In this video clip from the program, Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, examines what he calls “mastery-based learning,” which attempts to address ways in which students have traditionally become disengaged in the classroom. Other speakers include Julie Lythcott-Haims, talking about the dangers of “a check-listed childhood” that can lead to Continue reading
Follow SPOTLIGHT EDUCATION Week & Teach Boldly
POV’s “All the Difference,” which WGBY airs on September 12 at 10pm, is the first in a week-long series of programming dedicated to SPOTLIGHT EDUCATION with movers, icons, and issues that impact the 21st century classroom.
As part of the week — September 12 through 16 — PBS Education will kick-off a year-long teacher support campaign titled “Teach Boldly.” Continue reading
Good News About Narrowing Gap in PreSchool Academic Performance
Professors from Stanford, Columbia and the University of Virginia find that the performance gap between children who live in high- and low-income families has begun to narrow. An article in The New York Times, “The Good News About Educational Inequality,” reports that children from poorer families are found to be better prepared to enter kindergarten today than they were 20 years ago.
While there’s still a long way to go to reach equality, these surprising findings about the “school readiness gap” Continue reading
Meditation in Schools: Promising Success for Dealing with Stress and Achievement Gaps
“Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.” St. Francis de Sales
The New York Times blog “Well” posted an article by Norman Rosenthal, M.D. entitled “Using Meditation to Help Close the Achievement Gap.” It offers impressive findings about children’s improved performance when meditation (or sometimes other quiet activities) is integrated into the classroom. Because these students live in inner-city neighborhoods where high stress levels often impact learning negatively, the success of mediation programs cited in the article is seen as a way to help close the achievement gap.
You can read the entire article that includes studies showing meditation’s benefits (e.g., reduced stress, increased emotional intelligence, improved sleeping, higher self confidence, increased attendance & academic performance) as well as find related resources at Continue reading
Being Bilingual Can Yield Superior Social Skills
PBS KIDS Oh Noah is designed to teach Spanish to children ages six to eight through animated videos with embedded games that help build vocabulary. While many of us can intrinsically appreciate the benefits of bilingualism, an article last month in the NY Times blog Well, entitled “The Superior Social Skills of Bilinguals,” went beyond looking at some of the obvious advantages of being bilingual, such as being able to experience more diverse conversations and experiences.
The article referenced two recent studies that “demonstrate that multilingual exposure improves not only children’s cognitive skills but also their social abilities.” Resources for bilingual education Continue reading