How a program can help students re-enter school after a mental health crisis
(KQED – Mind/Shift)
“Many of the kids in our program are coming out of a psychiatric hospitalization,” said Ashley Sitkin, BRYT clinician/program leader at Rindge & Latin. “Some of the kids haven’t been hospitalized but they’ve missed a lot of school because they’ve gotten stuck in this avoidance cycle, which is really common for kids who struggle with anxiety and depression.”
2 big teachers unions call for rethinking student involvement in lockdown drills
(NPR)
On top of all the other stresses of high school, she says, some students are now on constant alert: “When the little bell before an announcement happens, or when the fire alarm goes off, you can see this fear in students’ faces as they wonder, is this going to be a lockdown? Is this a drill? What’s happening? There’s so much anxiety just by a little trigger like that.”
Law proposed to tackle climate change fears in schools
(tes)
Eco-anxiety or climate anxiety was defined by the American Psychological Association in 2017 as “a chronic fear of environmental doom”, something Sir Christopher said was “increasing and I don’t think it’s healthy”.
How Do You Know What You Know?
(The Effortful Educator)
What should we tell our students who understand they don’t know all of the material, but cannot pinpoint exactly what they know and what they don’t know? Or, how can students assure themselves they know the material or inform them they don’t know the material?
RAP ON: Making metacognition visible
(OSU Center for Teaching and Learning)
The word metacognition is bandied around a bit. If you have been paying attention to the output of cognitive science it would be a hard one to miss. It is not often that you get to see a through measure of it in a classroom setting. One recent classroom based study ambitiously measured many different elements of metacognition and some key other factors as well.
Study: Emotional intelligence improves school performance
(Raising Arizona Kids Magazine)
Kids who better understand and manage their emotions perform better in school, according to a new study published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychological Bulletin. “Although we know that high intelligence and a conscientious personality are the most important psychological traits necessary for academic success, our research highlights a third factor — emotional intelligence — that may also help students succeed,” says lead author and University of Sydney researcher Carolyn MacCann.
Trump’s words, bullied kids, scarred schools
(The Washington Post – subscription required, free trial)
The president’s rhetoric has changed the way hundreds of children are harassed in American classrooms, The Post found
There’s pushback to social-emotional learning. Here’s what happened in one state
(Education Week – subscription required, free trial)
When Idaho state education leaders pitched a social-emotional learning proposal to lawmakers this week, one member of the state’s House Education Committee compared the plan to the dystopian behavior control in the futuristic novel Brave New World.
Schools should heed calls to do lockdown drills without traumatizing kids instead of abolishing them
(The Conversation)
Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an advocacy group, has joined with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Educators Association, the nation’s two biggest teachers unions, to produce a report on lockdown drills in schools. The report calls for drastic changes in how these drills are conducted today. They say that drills shouldn’t be a surprise, involve realistic details or include kids.
American tragedy: The epidemic of violence against teachers
(The National Interest)
In 2010, soon after we began to look at this issue, we administered a nationwide survey to assess the extent of violence perpetrated against the 3.6 million teachers in U.S. public schools. The roughly 3,000 teachers from 48 states who participated were comparable to the population of teachers in the United States. About 80% said they had personally experienced some form of violence or abuse within the current or past year.
Valentine’s Day was humiliating for me as a child. I tell my students about it every year.
(The Washington Post)
After 20 years of teaching, I harbor few hopes that students will retain all of the grammar or vocabulary I taught them. Maybe they will remember a book or two with some pleasure, or a fun and creative writing assignment. But if all a student recalls of one of my classes are the valentines they received one long-ago February, to me that makes all of it worthwhile.
Questions (and answers) about graduate school fit
(Eye on Psi Chi)
With so many graduate school programs in psychology, how do you know which one will be the right one for you? A key aspect to consider, which is often overlooked, is your “graduate school fit,” which refers to how you will fit into a program and how that program and degree will fit into your future goals. In this issue of Eye on Psi Chi’s Three Heads ARE Better Than One column, our graduate school experts, Drs. Handelsman, VanderStoep, and Landrum, each share their thoughts and wisdom about some common questions regarding graduate school fit.
The impact of guided discovery vs. didactic instruction on learning
(The Learning Scientists)
Previous research has identified didactic instruction an effective approach for learners who lack prior knowledge. The evidence suggests that the degree of guidance should vary with the age of learners. Direct instruction can be more beneficial for younger learners (e.g., elementary and middle school children), whereas older ones gain more with non-directive guidance or guided discovery. Different research findings indicate that guided discovery is more effective than lecture-based instruction in that learners develop a deeper understanding of concepts and their underlying structure.
Kids like learning from confident adults — but only if their confidence is justified
(BPS’s Research Digest)
If you confidently tell a young child a fact, they’re likely to believe you. But you’d better be right — because if they find out that you were wrong, and should have known better, they’ll doubt not only your credibility but your intelligence too.
Attachment theory: what do teachers need to know?
(Research ED)
The teacher isn’t in a position to either make the clinical judgement or investigate the cause of problematic behaviour they suspect may relate to a safeguarding concern.
Do you have to ‘love’ every student? And what if you don’t?
(Education Week – subscription required, free trial)
Decades of research—and conventionally held wisdom—say that positive teacher-student relationships matter. But do you really have to love every student? And what if you don’t?
Children as young as 9 and 10 think about killing themselves. Adults around them have no clue.
(Education Week – subscription required, free trial)
Educators trying to halt the skyrocketing number of young people killing themselves need to intervene far earlier than they might think: A new study finds children as young as 9 and 10 report suicidal thoughts and self-harm.
How more teachers are being trained in the science of reading
(KQED – Mind/Shift)
According to the “Teacher Prep Review: Program Performance in Early Reading Instruction,” released by the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), teacher preparation programs are catching up to the scientific evidence on how the brain learns to read. The teacher preparation research group reports that in 2019, more than half of teacher training programs now teach the “Science of Reading,” compared to 35% just a few years ago, in 2013.
Trump calls for end to student loan forgiveness program
(Forbes)
The president and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have stated that they want to balance the needs of both student loan borrowers and federal taxpayers. Eliminating this program, they argue, would save the federal government money from not having to forgive potentially billions of dollars of federal student loans. Others believe that the program is vital to attract and retain individuals to enter public service and non-profit jobs, many of which pay lower salaries than private sector roles.
Powerful SEL is happening after school, too
(Edutopia)
New research shows that when schools extend SEL lessons beyond the classroom into after-school programming, students’ academic skills and classroom behaviors improve.
STEM’s ongoing sex-difference debate
(Inside Higher Ed)
It doesn’t end — even with two new commentaries on a contentious, corrected 2018 article saying more women with more freedoms choose non-STEM majors.
The unmet mental-health needs of foreign doctoral students
(The Chronicle of Higher Education)
What I’ve felt most often — as an international student trying to secure a doctorate within a unique field — is confusion. After silently struggling for years with guilt that I was a misfit, a psychologist helped me understand my experiences with American graduate education.
