Tag Archives: research
The Value of a Safe Learning Environment
How may I serve you? This question is not being asked by educators, political reformers or parents. Yet, it is an integral question inside the arena of classroom culture and one worth pondering. With the ongoing heated debates over school reforms mimicking the likes of school bullying, cafeteria fights, and classroom brawls, those very blockages in school we are trying to eliminate, we must collaborate and stop competing. People are relational beings and we must nurture this aspect of human nature because early life for all of us begins inside classrooms. The question: “How may I serve you?” engages the mind and heart and opens up neural pathways inside the brain that are reflective while emitting positive emotion, instead of emotionally ignited reactive or impulsive responses. Continue reading
Addressing Academic Dishonesty in the Classroom and Through School Culture
For many teachers, the excitement and energy of a new school year are among their favorite aspects of working in education. However, soon this excitement is overshadowed by the business of managing time and balancing competing priorities. Teachers assign papers, projects, and tests, while students become preoccupied with extracurricular and social activities. Competing priorities often collide, and the pressure for keeping up with assignments, studying for tests, and getting “good grades” leads many students to take shortcuts that equate to academic dishonesty.
Research indicates that many of our students are using deceitful methods to complete their school work. A recent poll by commonsensemedia.org found that more than one third of teens admit to cheating with their cell phones and about half admit to using the internet to cheat (http://www.commonsensemedia.org/hi-tech-cheating). Perhaps even more disturbing, about 25% of the students polled do not think that using a cell to get answers for a test isn’t cheating! The results of the 2008 Josephson Institute survey support these statistics. 64% admit to cheating on a test during the previous year and 36% admit to using the internet to plagiarize, yet 93% are satisfied with their personal ethics or character (http://charactercounts.org/programs/reportcard/2008/index.html).
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Four Online Resources for Classroom Images
May means a lot of things. It’s the unofficial field trip month: just try reserving a school bus in May and you’ll find out just how many field trips occur in your district. May is test month. Students take state standardized tests and AP tests in May. They’re stressed until the middle of the month. May is senior month with another senior activity every other day: the senior banquet, the senior field trip, the senior graduation practice, the seniors’ last baseball game or track meet. It’s concert season, it’s the rainy season, and kids are squirrely. You’re packing up, tearing down, collecting, cataloging, figuring grades, and making sure your seniors are on track for passing your class.
May is also project month. We have just weeks left of school; no one wants to lecture students who squirm in their seats and watch the clock. Better to keep them engaged with the content and let them direct their own learning with a project. Continue reading
Breaking Barriers: Unleashing the Potential of Black Males in School
“With education, I know I can go beyond my wildest dreams. With help from my teachers, family, and friends, the sky is the limit!” said 8th grader Zaniriusz. Zaniriusz lives in a community with a dropout rate above 50% for Black males, but aspires to graduate from college and return to his neighborhood to “build a new playground,” make sure “every family has air conditioners and heaters,” and “get rid of criminals and gangs.” He shared his experiences in “A Mile in My Shoes Writing Project: African-American Males Telling Their Own Stories.” Continue reading
Praising Students Improves Behavior, Academics
Studies like the one from graduate students at the Peabody College of Vanderbilt University affirm what you already know: praise works.
Students like to feel good about themselves, they gravitate towards teachers and classes where they feel good, and they like subjects that reinforce the notion that they’re good at something.
It’s nice, though, to see what we all accept as good classroom management and good teaching backed by research. It’s also good to be reminded of some simple truths that surround the simple concept of praising students for good behavior and good work. However, we all know that implementing these simple truths isn’t always so simple. Continue reading
Students Online: Time Wasters or Innovators?
Your students are spending a lot of their free time online. Think of the number of hours you estimate they spend online. Double it. The doubled number is probably closer to the truth.
According to the Norton Online Living Report 2009, parents believe their children spend 21 hours online. The reality is that students in twelve countries reported spending 39 hours online. Don’t tell me these kids don’t have time to finish their assignments or clean their rooms. Continue reading
Why Don’t Students Finish College and What Can We Do to Help?
When our students leave the school systems, just 25 percent of them will have the full-time college experience that we think of: residence halls, football games, fraternity or sorority membership, and maybe a job for a little pocket money.
A Public Agenda Report found that 45 percent of students at four-year universities work 20 hours or more. More than half of the community college students work more than 20 hours a week and more than a quarter work 35 hours or more. Twenty-three percent of all college students have children. Continue reading
