Monthly Archives: March 2013

One Story About Embracing Diversity and Empowering Students

Posted in Affinities, Classroom Culture, Learning Challenges, School Culture, Teacher Effectiveness, Whole Child by

In this powerful and inspiring TEDxManhattan talk, teacher Stephen Ritz shares a program he started with his students called Green Bronx Machine. More important than the program itself, though, is how the experiences have transformed and empowered his students — their present and their future.

Jackie Gerstein describes his work in her post “Learners as Entrepreneurs,”

Stephen Ritz’s Bronx classroom features the first indoor edible wall in NYC DOE which routinely generates enough produce to feed 450 students healthy meals and trains the youngest nationally certified workforce in America. His students, traveling from Boston to Rockefeller Center to the Hamptons, earn living wage en route to graduation.

One of the things that makes his talk so incredible, besides the breakneck pace of it and his constant stream of witticisms, is how the program embraces the diversity — of mind, body, class, and culture — of his students. The student variation becomes a proof point for the validity and integrity of the program. Take a look and see for yourself.

What other projects / programs do you know of that support diverse student profiles and bring about good in a community? Share in the comments.

Resources for Improving Your Long Term Memory

Posted in Learning, Learning about Learning, Memory by

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The following is a guest post by Dr. Craig Pohlman, Director of Mind Matters at Southeast Psych. You can view the original post here.

These days, it seems like there are no limits to what our genius gadgets (like computers, iPhones, tablets, calculators, etc.) can do.  So, is human memory even as important anymore?  The short answer to this is yes.

Even with all of the tools to which we have access, we still need our own memory for a variety of academic and other tasks.  Here’s a quick overview of the components of memory:

  • Short term memory holds a small amount of incoming information for a limited period.
  • Active working memory holds information in your mind while working with it at the same time, such as steps in a process.
  • Long term memory stores and retrieves information over a long period.

Both active working memory and long term memory are used extensively in academic activities, including reading decoding, reading comprehension, spelling, written expression, math operations, and math reasoning.  If you struggle with memory, there are plenty of strategies you can use to improve and to make these academic activities a little more manageable.

Last week, we presented tips for improving long term memory and before that, we listed ideas for boosting active working memory.  Here is a list of resources you can use to get more information about improving long term memory:

  1. Sum Dog – This website, www.sumdog.com, offers free games to make math fact practice fun.
  2. Quizlet – This website, www.quizlet.com, offers tools to help you study anything.  You can study words using flashcards, play games to learn and practice important course material, and test yourself to see if you are ready for success.
  3. “Thirty Days Has September: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff” – This book by Chris Stevens provides tips for memorizing across the curriculum.  Specifically, this book is helpful for younger students.
  4. “Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge: The Book of Mnemonic Devices” – This book by Rod L. Evans presents tips for memorizing across topics and is appropriate for all ages.
  5. Math Fact Grid – Web resources, such as www.mathisfun.com, offer free printable math fact grids (for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division).  These can be used to practice and reference important math facts.

Exercising your memory (just like you would exercise your muscles) will help to make it stronger over time.  Visit www.sepmindmatters.com for more information.

Dr. Craig Pohlman is the Director of Mind Matters at Southeast Psych and the author of “How Can My Kid Succeed in School?”  Stay connected: Mind Matters Facebook | @MindMatters_SEP

Photo Credit: futhark via Compfight cc

Oh, The Places You’ll Find Yourself — Spatially Speaking

Posted in Brain Facts, Graphomotor Function, Learning, Spatial Ordering, Whole Child by

Below is a TED Talk by Neil Burgess, a neuroscientist at the University College in London, who researches, as described on the TED website, “how patterns of electrical activity in brain cells guide us through space.”

Supplemental to the grid cells Dr. Burgess discusses are additional neurological systems that give us a sense of our surroundings. Dan Peterson, who writes a fascinating blog (Sports are 80 Percent Mental) about the body-mind connection in sports, recently posted “Spatial Awareness on the Football Field” (where we found the above TED Talk — Thanks, Dan!) in which he writes,

Jeffrey Taube, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth, has been studying our sense of direction and location. “Knowing what direction you are facing, where you are, and how to navigate are really fundamental to your survival,” said Taube.

In his research, he has found there are head direction cells, located in the thalamus, that act as a compass needle tracking the direction our head is currently facing.  At the same time, in the hippocampus, place cells determine and track our location relative to landmarks in the environment, say the football field sideline or the end zone.  These two sets of cells communicate with each other to guide our movement.

“They put that information together to give you an overall sense of ‘here,’ location wise and direction wise,” Taube explained. “That is the first ingredient for being able to ask the question, ‘How am I going to get to point B if I am at point A?’ It is the starting point on the cognitive map.”

It reminds us once again that strengths and affinities can be left at the door of our schools and classrooms if we don’t incorporate movement, action, and an intentional use of our bodies in our lessons and activities. Research continues to indicate that taking advantage of the neurological links between spatial ordering, graphomotor functioning, attention, and memory can help nurture achievement among a broader diversity of learners than the traditional sit-n-git approach (which leaves too many students itching for something more engaging).

15 Things About the (Human) Brain

Posted in Brain Facts, Learning, Learning about Learning by

As we get excited for Brain Awareness Week next week, we thought it might be fun to take a quick look at our amazing brain.

Below is an info-graphic from onlineschools with 15 facts you may or may not have known. Number 9 is a great reminder for parents, educators, and health conscious people — we think what we eat.

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7 C’s of Resilience

Posted in Affinities, Learning, School Culture, Whole Child by

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A recent piece at KQED’s MindShift blog titled, “How Free Play Can Define Kids’ Success,” explores some of the ideas from Kenneth Ginsburg book Building Resilience in Children and Teens. It is part of a growing trend of research and theories related to student efficacy, tenacity, and persistence.

These are important ideas for anyone working with students and kids in today’s schools. With so much focus on test scores within a limited scope of “basic subjects” we sometimes lose sight of the larger goals in “schooling” students: We want them ALL to be successful in whatever they choose to do.

In looking to reach all students, regardless of their learner profile, we might do well to consider how we might foster resilience in our students. Below are Ginsburg’s “7 C’s of Resilience” which should lie at the foundation of our design and delivery of learning experience for meeting the needs of all students.

7 C’s of Resilience

1) COMPETENCE: Young people need to be recognized when they’re doing something right and to be given opportunities to develop specific skills.

2) CONFIDENCE: Confidence comes from building real skills that parents and educators can teach and nurture. Confidence can be easily undermined, but also bolstered by tasks that push learners without making the goal feel unachievable.

3) CONNECTION: Being part of a community helps kids know they aren’t alone if they struggle and that they can develop creative solutions to problems.

4) CHARACTER. Kids need an understanding of right and what wrong and the capacity to follow a moral compass. That will allow them see that they cannot be put down.

5) CONTRIBUTION: The experience of offering their own service makes it easier for young people to ask for help when they need it. Once kids understand how good it can feel to give to others, it becomes easier to ask for that same support when it’s needed. And being willing to ask for help is a big part of being resilient.

6) COPING: Kids need to learn mechanisms to manage their stress by learning methods to both engage and disengage at times. Some strategies for doing this include breaking down seemingly insurmountable problems into smaller, achievable pieces, avoiding things that trigger extreme anxiety, and just letting some things go. After all, resilience is about conserving energy to fit the long game and kids need to know realistically what they can affect and what should be let go.

7) CONTROL: In order to truly be resilient a child need to believe that she has control over her world. Feeling secure helps engender control, which is why kids test limits.

Photo Credit: MadRussianPhotography via Compfight cc