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Excessive stress: 6 strategies for helping struggling learners
Howard Margolis EducationExcessive stress — unjustified, overwhelming and relentless demands adults thrust upon children — can devastate all children, especially struggling learners: "Stress is bad for children. It's associated with health problems, school failures and youth delinquency," Dennis W. Creedon writes. "High stress levels have been associated with ... asthma and depression ... Stress directly affects 'attention, memory, planning and behavior control.' When the mind is under emotional stress, it produces the peptide cortisol. ... Cortisol generally is a blessing because we don't become controlled by our past negative experiences. However, if cortisol is not kept in balance, learning can and will stop."
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Friedrichs Supreme Court case may have big impact on teachers
Ronnie Richard EducationThe Supreme Court heard oral arguments Jan. 11 in the controversial Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which could have a major impact on teacher wages and benefits. At the center of the case is yet another debate surrounding free speech and money — issues that have continued to pop up in the courts in recent years (Citizens United v. FEC, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.).
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Which words matter most? Picking vocabulary for English learners
Erick Herrmann EducationVocabulary is a hot topic in education. Teachers, parents, administrators and community members know words are important. Words help us to understand concepts, articulate our knowledge, express our feelings, ask questions and more.
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Putting the ‘special’ in specially designed math instruction
Savanna Flakes EducationSome of our students with learning disabilities have trouble with abstract reasoning. As such, they may have difficulty verbalizing what they have learned or observed, difficulty making the connection with symbolic representations and/or understanding the math concept that is being explained or shown.
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Integrative tests: Implementing in the ESL classroom
Douglas Magrath EducationIn a recent article, I described why integrative testing is a better way of testing language competence than discrete-point testing. An integrative test draws on a variety of sources. Syntax, vocabulary, "schema," cultural awareness, reading skills, pronunciation and grammar are all factors the test maker and test taker need to keep in mind. The integrative test is generally considered to be a more reliable instrument for measuring language competence.
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The benefits of coaching for college students with LD, ADHD
Ruth Bomar EducationIn a recent study at a large public university, researchers examined the benefits of coaching among undergraduate and graduate students with learning disabilities and/or ADHD. The students who agreed to participate in the research received two semesters of coaching. The researchers measured levels of self-determination, executive functioning and academic skills before and after the coaching intervention.
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Harvard set to reimagine Teach for America model
Brian Stack EducationIn 1989, Princeton University student Wendy Kopp understood our country's growing need to be able to compete in the global economy with a workforce that had evolving skills and knowledge. She also noted that our country was faced with a teacher shortage and droves of high-poverty urban and rural schools that for decades had been failing our children.
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K-12 education responsibility switches back to the states
Bambi Majumdar EducationIt's finally good news for all in the world of education. The long-awaited changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act are finally happening. An overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate have voted for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which will reauthorize the federal K-12 education programs.
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Now is the time for real education to begin
Debra Josephson Abrams EducationNewly divorced and in my mid-50s, I moved 1,800 miles from the area where I lived and worked for nearly four decades. I took a job in what I quickly found was a deeply dysfunctional Intensive English Program whose administrators — not unlike my ex-husband — had been deceptive and duplicitous.
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The joy of sharing in the Christmas season
Susan Kahn EducationIf a big sister refuses to share her chocolate candy bar with her little sister, trouble follows: "Mommy, she ate the whole candy bar and wouldn't give me any. She's selfish and mean!" However, if the big sister ate most of the candy bar and gave the little sister only a bite, the younger girl would still complain: "Mommy, she's greedy! She ate almost the whole candy bar and gave me just a tiny piece."
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