How many kids would benefit from grade skipping? According to the study team at Johns Hopkins, two out of seven children test at a grade level higher than their current one—“staggeringly large numbers of students,” in their words, who might benefit from jumping ahead by grade or class. Advocates of accelerated learning point out that skipping a grade is just one way to jump ahead. In middle and high school, students can more easily move in and out of higher-level classes without missing an entire grade. And technology has eased the way for accelerated learning. Children living in remote parts of the country, for example, can move up by taking AP classes online.
Interesting how things can come full circle and we’re now re-visiting the one room schoolhouse. Arguments about grade levels come up when the date to start kindergartners is discussed, but in the grand scheme of things, no matter where you set the date, each grade level will still have students that can be practically an entire year different in age.
The new Pi-Top is a slicker machine. It’s a drastically easier build — six steps, rather than 23 — which might sound like a step backwards, but in return you’re getting a design that feels more competitive with cheap Chromebooks and Windows laptops. It has a full-size keyboard and a centrally positioned trackpad. Above the…
Routines and consistency matter greatly and are necessary for creating a smooth learning environment in your classroom. Routines help with creating community, checking for understanding, and managing the classroom. I’m going to share three opening routines and three closing routines that you can start using in your next class. Source: 6 Opening and Closing Routines…
It would appear that Open Plan Classrooms (OPCs) are making a comeback. Or probably more accurately, they never really went away. You may have also heard of them being referred to as Modern Learning Environments (MLEs). I have no knowledge of their prevalence, past or present. But it is looking increasingly likely that your local…
Increased screen time has multiple risks for children’s psychosocial well-being. These risk factors seem to be significant in the long term, and are related to problems in children’s socio-emotional development later on. Health professionals and pediatricians have an important role as communicators of the current research results on the safe usage time of e-media for…
We are raising the anxious generation, and the conversation about the causes, and the potential cures, has just begun. In The Self-Driven Child, authors William Stixrud and Ned Johnson focus on the ways that children today are being denied a sense of controlling their own lives—doing what they find meaningful, and succeeding or failing on…
This can’t be great news for the owners of the ACT and the SAT college admissions exams, but the list of colleges and universities that no longer require scores from those tests to be submitted with a student application keeps growing. The list of test-optional schools maintained by the nonprofit National Center for Fair and…
