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.
Over a period of two years, skateboarder Christian Flores fell down thousands of times, broke boards, went to the hospital twice, and cracked a rib trying to do a laser flip down a triple set of stairs. Source: Landing the hardest trick after 2 years of trying A great example to show students on how to…
We live in a world where we are constantly connected to information. This vast ocean of information, the best knowledge of mankind — almost all of it — can be accessed at any time in just seconds. But simply being able to access information is not all that impressive. It in no way means that…
Using Facebook without contributing, in the form of messages and comments on your friends’ posts, makes you feel bad, the company said today. In a remarkable blog post, citing both internal and academic research, the company said “in general, when people spend a lot of time passively consuming information — reading but not interacting with people —…
The Bridge concept — low-cost private schools for the world’s poorest children — has galvanized many of the Western investors and Silicon Valley moguls who learn about the project. Bill Gates, the Omidyar Network, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the World Bank have all invested in the company; Pearson, the multinational textbook-and-assessment company, has done…
Walking into her office in early December in her tiny very very “high poverty” rural elementary school, sinking into her chair, principal Alison Dwier-Selden sighed and said, “I have learned that looking forward to Christmas is middle class privilege.” Truth. There are undeniable facts about poverty in America, and Alison’s quote is one. Hunger is…
Making learning easy may not get the results you desire. In the period of 1920–40 American food manufacturers wanted to reduce the time and effort required to make a cake. They simplified so much the process that the cooks needed to add only water and bake the cake. Unfortunately, the sales of the cake mix…