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Why parents should think twice before delaying an initial evaluation
Jacqueline C. Lembeck EducationOne common misconception in special education is that an initial evaluation cannot begin until a child has tried — and failed — in the general education curriculum with a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) or Response to Intervention (RTI) framework.
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Puzzling for learning: What’s in the box?
Debra Josephson Abrams Education"What's in the box?" is the title of a 1964 "Twilight Zone" episode. It's also the infamous question Brad Pitt's character, David Mills, asks his nemesis in the 1995 movie "Se7en," and the name of a Japanese game show that spurred an American spinoff on YouTube.
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Highlighting the educational technology coach
Brian Stack EducationFor the last decade or more, educational technology has been one of the hottest trends in American schools. While teachers are eager to make use of technology tools that can help them engage their students at deeper levels, it can be stressful to keep up with all that is happening in the ed tech world. As a classroom teacher, how do you decide what technology tools to use? When will you find time to learn how to use them effectively? Teachers cannot and should not be left to answer these questions on their own. For this reason, many schools are turning to the assistance of technology coaches.
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Is your student having homework struggles? There’s one solution
Howard Margolis EducationHere's a phone call that closely resembles countless calls I've received, "My son struggles at least two hours a night to finish his homework. And often he gets it wrong. If his homework is incomplete, his grade goes down. He hates homework. What can I do?" You can prevent the problem with a policy statement allowed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004.
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Virtual, augmented reality arrive at K-12 schools
Bambi Majumdar EducationA new survey conducted by Samsung and GfK shows that 83 percent of K-12 teachers in the U.S. are eager to explore the possibilities of virtual reality (VR) lessons in the classroom. While 72 percent are interested in simulating experiences that are directly relevant to the course material, 69 percent want to use this emerging technology to take virtual field trips to faraway lands. More teachers are of the opinion that this will help improve students' comprehension of different concepts and motivate them to self-learn and collaborate with peers better.
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New study links education levels to heart failure risk
Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied HealthcareA Norwegian study of over 70,000 cardiac patients found that the more education patients had, the less their risk of heart failure was. Previous research has shown that patients are more likely to die after a heart attack if they have a lower educational level, but information on the mechanisms involved was sparse. Since heart failure is the most important incident in the chain of events leading to death after a heart attack, the researchers hypothesized that it might contribute to the observed educational disparities in survival.
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Navigating a sea of words: An assessment of academic conversation
David Irwin EducationThe use of structured academic conversation in the classroom is becoming more sophisticated. However, many teachers are still unsure about how to assess the quality of the conversations. How do we know the students are talking about germane content, addressing the questions presented, and using the academic language skills targeted for that lesson? As with any lesson, we need assessment to know whether re-teaching is required, or if we can move on to new skills and content.
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What’s behind the rise in teen depression?
Christina Nava Mental HealthcareBack in high school, I had a friend who was depressed. His teacher, who had seen us together in the halls frequently, pulled me aside one day to express her concerns because he had developed a bad attitude and started sleeping in class, and his grades were plummeting.
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Trying to solve the dyslexia puzzle
Sonya Robbins Hoffmann EducationMy daughter has dyslexia. Her reading difficulties were finally diagnosed this year, three months into second grade. But as many parents with children who have dyslexia find out, this is a constellation of processing and/or auditory weaknesses, and simply giving the disability a name does not make easy to treat.
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Rethinking failure in the classroom
Brian Stack EducationEarlier this month, The Washington Post's Moriah Balingit and Donna St. George opened up a large debate by asking a simple question: Is it becoming too hard to fail? Their article discussed how schools are shifting toward no-zero grading policies as a way to focus a student's grade on what they know and are able to do rather than to use grades as a means to motivate or punish students for their academic behavior.
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