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Volunteering can help you accelerate your career
Hank Boyer Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementOne evening, 24-year-old Mary Hernandez was speaking with David, her career services advisor at Center Community College, about how she could transition into a medical records position. Because she was working full-time at Platt and attending classes a few evenings a week, it was not practical for her to serve an internship. David suggested that she consider volunteering at a healthcare facility on Saturdays. "Volunteering is a terrific way to gain experience, to give back to the community, and to build an effective network," he explained.
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Data interoperability and why it matters in education
Bambi Majumdar EducationData interoperability in education refers to the secure and seamless exchange of data between the various platforms that are used in the classroom and overall in K-12 education. Today, we use a blend of collaborative software, learning management systems, and various mobile apps to learn. Yet, the information is not easily transferred between these platforms. Educators find it cumbersome to transfer data, and this creates friction in learning and information gaps as well.
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Why minority students get bad grades: The Pygmalion effect
Patrick Gleeson EducationThis is the third of four articles dealing with inequality in U.S. public education. It addresses a persistent problem: the underperformance of black and brown students in public schools. Substantial research studies documented in the first article in this series demonstrated that black and brown students in segregated primary and secondary schools receive a comparatively underfunded education taught by less-experienced and lower-paid teachers in overcrowded classrooms. However, even when minority students come from middle-class, two-parent backgrounds and enjoy the same advantages as their white cohorts — principally classroom integration, teacher skills, class size and funds per pupil — they don’t do as well in college. Why is that?
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The needless struggles of struggling readers: Tutoring
Howard Margolis EducationFor reading instruction to effectively capitalize on struggling readers’ (SRs) abilities to remediate their academic and social-emotional difficulties, schools must fully and accurately identify their abilities and difficulties. Doing so is often far easier said than done. It requires updated knowledge about the complexity of reading and writing as well as the research on effective interventions. Knowledge, however, is not enough. It also requires the ability to successfully put such research into practice.
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Study: 3 in 10 toddlers spending less than 3 hours outside per week
Jackie Cambridge Medical & Allied HealthcareA recent study by Kiddi Caru asked U.K. parents about the amount of outdoor time their child gets, weather permitting. 31% said they get three hours or less weekly outdoor time, in spite of 100% of respondents agreeing that outdoor time is crucial to a child’s development. This is surprisingly little, considering the same percentage (31%) get two to three hours of screen time per day, with 11% getting over four hours daily.
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Why minority students get inferior educations: School funds and teacher…
Patrick Gleeson EducationPublic schools in the U.S. are generally funded by a combination of federal, state and local governments. If the system were designed to succeed, the allocation of funds might be based primarily on need. In such a system, some additional moneys might go to those school districts whose students’ needs were the most acute. This idea runs so counter to the way things actually work as to seem at first almost heretical. This article describes various problems that further contribute to the inferiority of the educational experience offered to minority and especially low-income minority students.
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Why we need more graduates to enter the trades
Brian Stack EducationEvery month or so, a community member or parent in my high school sends me an article that talks about how schools need to spend more time investing in the trades. The latest share came from the Hechinger Report’s Matt Krupnick, who wrote about how after decades of pushing bachelor’s degrees, the U.S. needs more tradespeople. Krupnick went on to share how states like California are spending millions of dollars on campaigns to revive the reputation of vocational education. California’s efforts are at the heart of a debate raging across our country. Trades have often had an "image" problem, being seen as a less-desirable alternative to college. This is wrong.
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Circus arts: Building more than a spectacular show
Sheilamary Koch Sports & FitnessDramatic music and theatrical lighting set the mood as three silvery, besparkled, nymph-like creatures move their limbs, twist, twirl and drop in perfectly timed synchronicity suspended in the air above you. You could easily be at Cirque de Soleil in Las Vegas or Cancun. Yet when the performers glide off the trapeze and step before the audience to take a bow, you notice their proud, shining young faces — they’re children! Actually, you have just witnessed a number in the annual fundraising show for Circo de los Niños in the small Mexican village of San Pancho.
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The needless struggles of struggling readers: Progress monitoring
Howard Margolis EducationIn my many decades of critiquing special education evaluations, IEPs, and progress reports from various New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware schools, and in speaking to innumerable parents, teachers and other IEP team members, I’ve gained an overwhelming impression: Little, if any, valid progress monitoring occurs. Instead, many special education teachers and case managers rely primarily on their subjective memories to judge their students’ progress.
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The lives of language
Debra Josephson Abrams EducationWhen I was in Russia teaching English language pedagogy, research and writing skills, and American conversational rituals to graduate TESOL students, I adapted 20 Questions by adding a component, 20 Words. While I was pleased with the lesson and students’ engagement, I was eager to develop it. I had the opportunity when I taught university Short Composition students in South Korea. The students, most of whom were Korean but a couple of whom were Mongolian, all had high levels of English language skills and were already keen thinkers, and a number were polyglots; therefore, I wanted to robustly challenge them.
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