In 2011, an unprecedented study found forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college. Many were stunned by the number of college students entering and graduating from college without critical thinking skills, a core 21st century skill necessary for making smart personal and professional decisions.

Even though the subjects of the study were second-year college students, this study also showed us that critical thinking doesn’t get enough emphasis in the K-12 classroom leading up to higher education. Learning to think critically is not something that can wait until students are in their young adult years when they are starting to make some of the most important decisions of their lives.

In the article “Critical Thinking: A Necessary Skill in the Age of Spin,” former teacher Randy Kasten illustrates why maturing kids are especially in need of critical thinking skills to navigate their changing world.

“….Young people — without significant life experience and anxious to fit in — are especially vulnerable to surface appeal,” says Kasten.

Critical thinking is one skill that can keep kids’ social and emotional pulls to surface appeal in check and help them make well-informed decisions.

Consider the decisions students make from an early age that have the power to impact future outcomes. Kasten lists targeted advertising that creates their buying and eating habits, friends that help them make good or bad decisions, and romantic relationships that do or don’t end well. Strong critical thinking skills help students make healthy choices for their academic, personal, and professional lives.  It also gives them the courage to say “no”, manage impulsivity,  resist peer pressure and manage conflict diplomatically.

Developing critical thinking skills must be a priority for educators, students, and parents before students leave their K-12 education.  LifeBound’s book CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING FOR TEENAGERS asks students to solve today’s biggest problems, by  developing an inquisitive mind, strong investigation skills, the ability to ask powerful questions, and the skills to imagine, dream and create.

When and where do  you see students exercise their critical and creative thinking skills? What is the cost when students  aren’t exercising their critical and creative thinking skills? Do you think critical and creative thinking skills could solve our nation’s “innovation crisis”? What could strong critical thinking skills do for us in terms of solving problems around the world like poverty, AIDS, the aging population, the  sex slave trade and the exploitation of workers on foreign shores?

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Source:

“Critical Thinking: A Necessary Skill in the Age of Spin,” by G. Randy Kasten. 2 March 2012. Edutopia. Accessed on 5 March 2012. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/critical-thinking-necessary-skill-g-randy-kasten

What does it look like when students are learning? Are they sitting quietly at their desks, listening to the teacher lecture, and scribbling notes? According to a recent article in the Washington Post, those are three of seven misconceptions people have about how students learn.

The Independent Curriculum Group believes teachers need to reevaluate their idea of best learning practices and update them for the 21st century student. Many schools and their educators are stuck on old ideas of the best way students learn, even as studies reveal there are better ways to engage students, with or without the use of technology.

The following are seven of the biggest myths about learning as decided by the Independent Curriculum Group:

1. Basic Facts Come Before Deep Learning. This means students must put in the time doing boring learning tasks before deep learning can occur. Studies show that this mode of thought is untrue. When students are engaged in a lesson they are more likely to achieve long-term mastery of basic facts. Engaging lessons can include gaming, group projects, or student-led lectures.
2. Rigorous Education Means a Teacher Talking. As we’ve watched the flipped-classroom model blow up, we know that for some students, a self-paced, virtual environment is the best way to learn information usually reserved for a teacher’s lecture. In the article, the ICG says learning is also more likely to result when students talk, create, and integrate knowledge into meaningful projects.
3. Covering It Means Teaching It. How many classes have you taken in your life where you know you went to class, took extensive notes, and still walked away feeling like you didn’t learn anything? When a teacher lectures about a certain concept it does not mean that students have fully comprehended the concept. New concepts should be reinforced with a student-centered activity, according to the article.
4. Teaching to Student Interests Means Dumbing It Down. New learning always builds on what is already knows. Teachers must create lessons that relate to something else the student is familiar with. “Teachers who fail to do so, whether due to ignorance or in pursuit of a false idea of rigor, are running afoul of a biological reality,” according to the article.
5. Acceleration Means Rigor. When students understand a subject, should they quickly be advanced? Not necessarily. After students master the basics of a new concept, they have the foundation to dig deeper.
6. A Quiet Classroom Means Good Learning. It also might mean you have a class of zoned out kids, says the article. Classrooms should be active and filled with discussions. It might not sound like your traditional classroom, but even libraries are shifting toward making a learning environment that encourages “constructive loud.”
7. Traditional Schooling Prepares Students for Life. “Listening to teachers and studying for tests has little to do with life in the world of work,” says the article. Internships, service-learning, volunteering, and even jobs in the service industry teach students the skills they need for the real world. A student can’t sit in a classroom and read about how to be successful if they want to become successful.

Have you encountered other misconceptions about learning in the classroom? How do you learn best? What is your best practice learning example in school or your professional life?

What’s one word that describes your morning routine? Rushed? Stressful? Old? How about creative?

New studies show the repetitive morning routines most of us have are exactly what we shouldn’t be doing if we desire flexible and open-minded thinking, according to the Time article “Why Morning Routines Are Creativity Killers.” One study published in the journal Thinking and Reasoning showed “imaginative insights” will more often turn up in our groggy and unfocused moments. These insights come to us because the mental processes that restrict “distracting or irrelevant thoughts” during the day are at their weakest when we’re tired. Creative thoughts erupt when a tired person tries to problem-solve because they have to “widen their search through their knowledge network,” leading to more possible, and creative, answers.

If you answered that your morning routine is “stressful,” your stress hormones could be harming myelin, “the fatty substance that coats our brain cells.” When the myelin sheaths are damaged, they slow and cause a person to have less “Eureka!” moments. Finding a way to take the stress out of your morning, whether it’s waking up earlier, getting more done the night before, or finding some extra help, could energize your morning, and therefore the rest of your day, week, and more.

In the article, Annie Murphy Paul gives the following suggestions for redesigning your morning routine:

• Set your alarm a few minutes earlier.
• Lie in bed and follow your thoughts.
• If you have any great inspiration, write it down.
• While you get ready, don’t let your mind wander to “task-oriented” thoughts, like what you have to do at work.
• Instead of reading the news, watch or read something uplifting and save the news for later in the day.

Taking time to make your morning more fluid and to be more conscience of your thoughts, can not only reshape your morning, but set the pace for your day. How could embracing a more fluid morning routine improve your day? How can you model fluid behavior for your kids and encourage their creativity through morning routines?

More and more school districts are bringing financial literacy into the classroom to teach a new generation how to be financially successful and stable adults. However, many students graduated from high school without an education in finances before the implementation of financial literacy courses and many still aren’t getting it today.

Miranda Marquit recently shared her “7 Financial Moves to Make in Your 20s,” on the personal financial blog Money Ning. The following are a few of Miranda’s tips for those who might have already made young financial mistakes and how to dig out of them.

Live within your means

Miranda says she spent her early 20s engaging in instant gratification, which came back to haunt her in her later twenties as debt. Making a budget is an easy way to stay within your means. Every month you should compare your income and expenses and see if there are any areas where you can whittle down the spending.

Pay down debt

Did you know the average college student has $4,138 in credit card debt alone? When you get the monthly bill, don’t set it aside if you can’t pay it in full. Make at least the minimum payments on all your cards. If you have multiple cards with multiple interest rates, pay off the one with the highest interest rate first by making that payment higher than the rest.

Develop a savings habit

Old habits die hard. If you’re not saving in your 20s, you probably won’t be saving in your 30s, 40s, 50s, etc. Miranda suggests making your monthly savings deposit part of your monthly budget.

Establish credit

Do you want to buy a house? Do you want to RENT a house? A good credit score is important step to getting you in the door. Did you know more employers are looking at prospective employee’s credit score? A credit score can say a lot about people’s lifestyle and priorities. If you want to increase your credit score, consider getting a credit card or taking out a small loan. The rule is that you have to pay everything back in full every time the bill comes. If you don’t, loans and credit cards will have an adverse effect on your credit score.

What is some of the best financial advice you’ve received? Do you have any experience using any of these tips? Share your story in the comment box below.

Sources:

Marquit, Miranda. “7 Financial Moves to Make in Your 20s.” February 16, 2010. Money Ning. Accessed on August 25, 2011. <http://moneyning.com/life-style/7-financial-moves-to-make-in-your-20s/>

Carol’s Summary:

 The Center on Education Policy released a report in March, addressing the fact that on average, boys in all grade levels have lower reading test scores than girls do. The data from the independent, Washington D.C. based organization has been accompanied by another report, which was released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

It has also been found that girls not only have been scoring higher in reading than boys, but that girls also tend to fare better academically overall. The exception is mathematics, which has generated varied results amongst boys and girls. On average, girls also have higher grade-point averages than boys in their grade level, and are likelier to graduate high school and go to college.

Although gender gaps in education have existed for decades, it is now becoming a global problem. In 2006, a study was released with data from fourth grade reading tests in 40 countries; the results showed that girls scored higher than boys in every area where data was collected properly.

Education experts and schools around the nation are now coming up with ideas for “boy friendly” teaching, which would engage boys’ interests in a way so that they would be likelier to succeed, particularly in literacy. There are many kinds of achievement gaps that need to be reduced and eventually closed, from gender to economic background and ethnicity.

There are as many different teaching styles as there are learning styles, and every child is different.  LifeBound books and curriculum provide teachers with different strategies and learning activities that engage different kinds of students. It is important that all students are on a level playing field, so that all children have an equal opportunity to succeed in school and in the real world. To learn more about LifeBound’s books, curriculum and other materials, visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com.

Article:

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context

Finding solutions to boys’ reading problems may require looking beyond gender

By MICHAEL SADOWSKI

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context, continued

 

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context: Finding solutions to boys’ reading problems may require looking beyond gender

Putting the “Boy Crisis” in Context

“The Boys Have Fallen Behind.” “Girls Lead the Nation in Reading Scores.” “Are Teachers Failing Our Sons?” Earlier this year, newspapers across the country ran these and other headlines in response to a March report by the independent Center on Education Policy (CEP) in Washington, D.C. The report, which outlined results on state accountability tests, raised alarm by noting that the percentage of boys scoring “proficient” or higher in reading was below that of girls at all grade levels tested and in every state for which sufficient data were available.

To read more: Harvard Education Letter

Carol’s Summary:
An estimated one in five middle school students has been affected by cyberbullying. Bullying has always been an issue that teachers and principals have had to handle. However, in middle and high schools lately, the problem has evolved to involve technology. Schools are now finding ways to cope with issues of cyberbullying, in which children are harassed through text messages and social networking websites.

Much of cyberbullying occurs after school and on weekends, when children are not under the guidance and care of the school system.

Cyberbullying can affect a child’s academic success, self-esteem, social skills and emotional growth. While this is a relatively new problem that students, school officials and parents must deal with, it is spreading fast and has proven to be dangerous.

Many school districts are conflicted with whether or not they have the right to inspect students’ cell phones and social networking accounts, unless the issue deals directly with a conflict within the school. There are legal issues involving privacy which makes many school officials either nervous or leery about doing so.

Many administrators are concerned about the possibility of looking through a child’s cell phone and finding compromising photos and text messages that could bring about child pornography cases. There is also the issue of how students should be punished if they are cyberbullying other students.

Cyberbullying is growing into a major conflict in today’s schools, and not only for the students involved. Teachers and parents are finding themselves concerned for the well-being of children, but are not always able to get involved since technology is the medium for these behaviors.

LifeBound’s Making the Most of High School, 2nd Edition and the accompanying curriculum shows students how to use technology in a beneficial and safe manner. To find out more about Making the Most of High School and other LifeBound materials, visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com

Article:
Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray
By JAN HOFFMAN
June 27, 2010

The girl’s parents, wild with outrage and fear, showed the principal the text messages: a dozen shocking, sexually explicit threats, sent to their daughter the previous Saturday night from the cellphone of a 12-year-old boy. Both children were sixth graders at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J.
Punish him, insisted the parents.
“I said, ‘This occurred out of school, on a weekend,’ ” recalled the principal, Tony Orsini. “We can’t discipline him.”
Had they contacted the boy’s family, he asked.

To read the full report: www.nytimes.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is providing a “teachable moment” for science teachers nationwide. With environmental issues likely to continue throughout the summer, more lessons are expected when schools starts back up in the fall. The spill provides the opportunity to study the delicate balance of nature through hands-on simulations and to role play as government officials and scientists.

Teachers note that their students are extremely interested in how the situation is being handled and many express the desire to help. Leading some teachers to challenge students to devise solutions on how to plug the leak and brainstorm strategies for cleaning up the oil.

Real life examples of topics learned in school are essential to helping students relate content to their own lives and allow students the opportunity to put their classroom knowledge to work. That is why Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers provides cross-disciplinary real-world examples of each step to becoming an effective critical thinker and creative thinker. To request a free review copy or learn more about LifeBound’s materials, visit www.lifebound.com or email contact@lifebound.com.

ARTICLE:

Educators Using Gulf Oil Spill as a “Teachable Moment”
Role Playing, Cocao Powder and Cooking Grease Used To Study Disaster
By AL PRIETO
June 21, 2010

Science teachers nationwide are using the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a “teachable moment” as the school years ends, with most saying environmental issues will likely continue throughout the summer and spark even more lessons when school starts up again.

Using everything from role playing of government officials and scientists to hands-on models of cocoa and cooking grease (to simulate crude oil), teachers are tackling the disaster with students who are demanding answers and a chance to help find solutions.

“This is science at its best,” said Dianne Haberstroh, a 7th Grade teacher from Orefield, PA. “When they can actually live it and feel like they’re living it.”

In her classroom, she built a long table with water and sand to recreate the water and beaches in the Gulf. Students pumped cooking oil into the water to see how it would react

To view this entire article visit www.abcnews.com

Developing emotional, social and cognitive intelligence is important to understanding and becoming a great leader according to Dr. Richard E. Boyatzis. Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology at Case Western Reserve University and Professor in Human Resources at EASDE in Barcelona, Dr. Boyatzis sees leadership as the ability to connect emotionally with others and inspire them. He states in a recent podcast that “Adults can improve their emotional, social and cognitive intelligence competencies—those that distinguish outstanding performance in management, leadership and other professions, by as much as 70%!”

Emotional and social intelligence is at the center of LifeBound’s mission to prepare students for college, career and life success because these skills are not only important in the world of work, but also throughout school. Students need to be able to form strong relationships with others in order to function effectively in teams, participate in study groups and join extracurricular activities. Life success requires not just book smarts, those who struggle academically, do better when challenged emotionally and socially which teaches them how to persist.

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ARTICLE:

The Hay Group posted a 4 part podcast by Dr. Richard E. Boyatzis titled, “Developing emotional, social and cognitive intelligence in graduate, undergraduate and executive students.”

To listen to all 4 podcasts visit http://www.haygroup.com/ww/Media/Details.aspx?ID=27430.

Indianapolis Public Schools Teacher of the Year, Michael Anderson, 31-year-old math teacher at Howe High School, shares the method behind his success. Now in his third year of teaching, Anderson is a strong advocate of becoming a strong educator through an emotional connection with students and according to the Indy Star article below, “Anderson says his recipe for success in the classroom is simple: Earn students’ respect, create an environment where it’s safe for them to try and even fail, and then make the material relevant to their lives.”

Anderson makes math come alive with real-life examples relevant to his student’s lives. Recently, he asked students about their cell phone bills while teaching systems of equations. These real-life connections are the basis for LifeBound’s materials and build on making emotional connections with students so that they become interested in the material and invested in mastering the skills. To learn more about LifeBound’s materials visit www.lifebound.com or email contact@lifebound.com.

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ARTICLE:

IPS teacher goes from mutiny to best in class
Indy Star
By Andy Gammill
May 21, 2010

Michael Anderson says his recipe for success in the classroom is simple: Earn students’ respect, create an environment where it’s safe for them to try and even fail, and then make the material relevant to their lives.

It’s a method Indianapolis Public Schools applauded Thursday when it named Anderson, a 31-year-old math teacher at Howe High School, the district’s Teacher of the Year.

To view this entire article visit www.indystar.com

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

According to a new study, “eighty-five percent of poor 4th graders in predominantly low-income schools are failing to reach ‘proficient’ levels in reading on federal tests.” Prompting the Annie E. Casey Foundation to lead a 10-year initiative to improve 3rd grade reading levels.

“EARLY WARNING!: Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters,” reports that “It’s crucial that children master grade-level reading by 3rd grade, because that’s when instruction moves from a focus on learning to read to reading to learn.”

LifeBound’s books, designed for grades 5-12, encourage reading by starting with topics such as self-awareness and building from there. Students are naturally interested in themselves and when students read about something they are interested in they enjoy it and ultimately read better. To learn more about LifeBound’s books visit www.lifebound.com or email contact@lifebound.com.

ARTICLE:

Education Week
May 17, 2010
Analysis Ties 4th Grade Reading Failure to Poverty
By Debra Viadero

Eighty-five percent of poor 4th graders in predominantly low-income schools are failing to reach “proficient” levels in reading on federal tests, according to a new study by a national foundation that is gearing up to lead a 10-year effort to raise 3rd graders’ reading proficiency.

“The evidence is clear that those students who do not read well have a very tough time succeeding in school and graduating from high schools and going on to successful careers and lives,” Ralph R. Smith, the executive vice president of the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, said in an interview. “The Casey Foundation is putting a stake in the ground on grade-level reading by the end of the 3rd grade.”

To view this entire article visit www.edweek.org