You can hardly read an education blog, a newsletter, or a mainstream publication today without hearing talk of topics like grit, growth mindset, perseverance, and resiliency. Do a quick internet search and you’ll find slogans like “Grit, don’t quit” and some creative folks have developed an acronym for Grit: Guts, Resilience, Initiative, and Tenacity. So, what’s all the fuss about? Is there reas...
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Reprinted from ASCD When it works well, America’s public school system is designed to help students achieve at least one year of academic growth per school year. The problem? For students living in poverty, that’s not enough. In US public schools, 51% of students in public schools come from low-income families. Decades of research show that children from low-income homes start kindergarten trailin...
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3 Strategies to Try with Your Students Tomorrow Let’s admit it – as educators it can be tremendously frustrating when kids quickly forget the content we teach them. In fact, besides dealing with challenging student behaviors, this may be the most common concern I hear from teachers, “My kids just forget the information so quickly. I teach them the information they need to know and the next day i...
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Guys, sports, and parenting series #9 The number of times teams get caught with too many men on the field seems, well, too many. Is it that we only have 10 fingers, and teams have 11 players that makes it tough to keep track at times? It was rare, but even Coach Baker in the chaos of injuries and changing plans got caught with too many players. The excitement of everything going on and what he w...
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Guys, sports, and parenting series #8 As football players, we used to spend a lot of time in the weight room trying to get more power out of our muscles. Some of us spent more time than others, and while we did have some members of our team who went far in football, it wasn’t primarily their biceps that got them there, it was the strongest muscle in their body, their heart! No amount of time in t...
Read More »What to know First, let’s get the facts straight. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov): Number of children 3-17 years of age ever diagnosed with ADHD: 5.9 million Percent of children 3-17 years of age ever diagnosed with ADHD: 9.5% Percent of boys 3-17 years of age ever diagnosed with ADHD: 13.5% Percent of girls 3-17 years of age ever diagnosed with ADHD: 5.4...
Read More »Let’s face it, much of the work of school is memorization. Math facts, spelling lists, state capitals, math formulas…lots and lots of things to memorize and those who do it well often get good grades and plenty of smiley faces on their papers. What about the students who struggle with memorization? Is there a way to help them? To briefly review, memory consists of both implicit memories, such a...
Read More »LeAnn Nickelsen offers a powerfully practical overview in the article on brainbaisedlearning.net entitled, Simple Strategies for Developing a Growth Mindset in Your Students. This article will continue the dialogue of mindsets specifically to teachers of literacy. In a recent graduate class one of my students who is a literacy interventionist at a public elementary school decided to follow up on ...
Read More »(Parents, Students, Teachers, Principals, Coaches, and Administrators) BY: LeAnn Nickelsen, M.Ed. Trust is the Foundation “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing,” said Stephen R. Covey. So, what is the main thing in education? Is it Common Core? Behavior/Character Education? Parent Involvement? Differentiated Instruction? Complex Text? Critical Thinking Skills? Blended Learni...
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Pointers for Promoting Self-Reflection for Powerful Teacher Growth: Often the word feedback in the adult world might mean: “top-down judgement from another person who is not in my shoes.” While coaching others, I want them to look forward to feedback, knowing that it will not be top-down, but rather an opportunity to self-reflect in order to grow and become a better teacher. I want the teacher t...
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