Stuff – Corinne Seals
” Growing up bilingual and multilingual has countless benefits, including faster processing time for analytical areas like mathematics, a greater ability to empathise with people from diverse backgrounds, and greater skill at memorising information.” (more)
Education Next – Robert Pondiscio
“If there’s one lesson education policymakers might have learned in the last twenty-five years, it’s that it’s not hard to make schools and districts do something, but it’s extremely hard to make them do it well. There has always been at least a tacit assumption among policy wonks that schools and teachers are sitting on vast reserves of untapped potential that must either to be set free from bureaucratic constraints or shaken out of its complacency. Those of us who have spent lots of time in classrooms watching teachers trying their best and failing (or trying hard and failing ourselves) often find those assumptions curious. Compliance is easy. It’s competence that’s the rub.” (more)
Ed Surge – Rebecca Koenig
“It’s a query fielded by community college leaders across the country. And over the past three decades, they’ve answered the call for increased access to bachelor’s-degree pathways by creating them on their own campuses. In fact, some community colleges in Florida have been offering bachelor’s programs for 20 years, and now nearly two dozen states permit so-called two-year colleges to offer four-year degrees.” (more)
K-12 Dive – Melody Schopp and Angela Quick
“The U.S. Department of Education has proposed flexibility in spring 2021 test administration, such as shortening tests, offering tests remotely or extending testing windows. The department has also offered waivers that exempt schools from a minimum requirement of 95% student participation in testing.” (more)
KQED News Mind/Shift – Deborah Farmer Kris
“In order to understand people who develop substance abuse disorders as adults, it’s important to recognize when they were first exposed. The majority of adults who develop substance abuse disorders first used drugs or alcohol during adolescence. In her new book, “The Addiction Innoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence,” Jessica Lahey translates the research around addiction and explores practical ways parents and educators can use this information to support kids.” (more)
The Guardian – Alex Bellos
“Today’s puzzle celebrates the UK’s outstanding performance at last week’s European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad, which is the world’s most prestigious female-only maths competition for pre-university students.” (more)
Medium – Aidan Mackenzie
“In a published work titled The Social Brain of Language: Grounding Second Language Learning in Social Interaction, researchers Ping Li and Hyeonjeong Jeong put forth a new idea: that all of these components must be complemented with a social atmosphere. This is how we make our language learning matter to our brains. In the study, the authors theorized — and later demonstrated with neuroimaging — that when we learn things in a social setting, more areas of the brain are activated.” (more)
The Christian Science Monitor – Chelsea Sheasley
“Whether in reading or cooking, many students are making progress despite the pandemic. Recognizing this, some parents and teachers are trying to broaden the discussion around learning loss to include recognition of what students are learning – such as problem-solving and resilience, as well as literacy and math through programs like the hub. By focusing on students’ strengths and what they’ve learned inside and outside the classroom, some believe it will be easier to address gaps in their education.” (more)
Forbes – John Zogby
“As schools reopen across the nation, a new poll shows that a majority of teens are apprehensive about returning to the classroom in the fall 2021 semester. The poll, commissioned by Navigate 360, a consultancy which offers emergency preventions and preparedness to schools, and conducted by John Zogby Strategies, reveals that 54% of 16–17-year-olds nationwide are “not prepared to deal with the anxiety of returning” to the classroom, while 31% say they disagree with that statement.” (more)
Edutopia – Julia Torres
“Librarians and classroom teachers use various systems of classification to organize collections, from the Dewey Decimal System to interest or reading levels. But what if we were to organize books in a way that deemphasized reading levels and encouraged students to read more broadly?” (more)
