REAL NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW!

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Multiple Intelligences Theory: Widely Used, Yet Misunderstood

One of the most popular ideas in education is applied in ways that

its creator never intended.

By Youki Terada

October 15, 2018

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When Howard Gardner introduced his multiple intelligences theory 35 years ago, it was a revolutionary idea that challenged long-cherished beliefs.

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At the time, psychologists were interested in general intelligence—a person’s ability to solve problems and apply logical reasoning across a wide range of disciplines. Popularized in part by the IQ test, which was originally developed in the early 1900s to assess a child’s ability to “understand, reason, and make judgments,” the idea of general intelligence helped explain why some students seemed to excel at many subjects. Gardner found the concept too limiting.

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Read more...

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6 Lessons Learned About Remote Learning During the Coronavirus Outbreak

By Mark Lieberman on March 9, 2020, 10:24 AM

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Schools across the country are feeling the effects of the spreading novel coronavirus. Some have closed for the next couple weeks, while others have closed temporarily as a precaution or for extensive cleaning. (Education Week is collecting school closures nationwide with this handy tracker.)

Northshore School District in Washington state, which serves nearly 24,000 students north of Seattle, was among the first school districts in the nation to move all of its classes online, beginning March 5 for "up to 14 days." Two days before superintendent Michelle Reid announced the closure, though, she closed school in the district for students and staff to practice e-learning. One of the goals, she said, was to emphasize that successful online learning won't happen overnight. Read more...

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Why Creativity Should Be Taught In Schools

By: Prontia Mehrotra

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Earlier this year, LinkedIn published results of a study designed to understand the skills that employers are looking for. Out of the 50,000 professional skills analyzed, creativity ranked number one in the “Soft Skills” category. 

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This is not particularly surprising. 

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Several studies for more than a decade have pointed to the growth of creative jobs, as automation takes away the more predictable jobs. In an analysis of what kinds of jobs are disappearing, researchers found that routine jobs (both manual and cognitive) have been declining since the 2000s while non-routine jobs continue to see growth. Read more...

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Hidden in Plain Sight

Seven Common Signs of Dyslexia in the Classroom

By: Learning Ally

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One of the most gratifying experiences an educator can have is seeing a student succeed.
Sometimes, however, educators encounter a particularly intelligent and hardworking student
who excels in most subjects but consistently struggles with reading. Most likely, this student
is battling the most common cause of reading, writing and spelling difficulties: dyslexia. Dyslexia is more than just having trouble recognizing letters; it’s a complex neurological difference. Read More...

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Mining for Gifted Students in Untapped Places

By: Corey Mitchell

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When Cellini Eastman searches for potentially gifted students, she defies convention.

Eastman bypasses the impeccable report cards and off-the-charts test scores—there are already programs set up for those students.

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She wants to find bright children who don’t stand out in a traditional classroom.

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“I don’t look at what they ... have, I look at what they need,” Eastman said.

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The children Eastman works within a weekly after-school program are part of an experiment, the Baltimore Emerging Scholars program. A partnership between the district and the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, the program is designed to mine untapped potential in Baltimore, a school system where student test scores are nearly two grade levels below the national average. Read more...

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The Gift of Dyslexia

By: Ronald D. Davis

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The gift of mastery. Individuals with dyslexia will be able to master many skills faster than the average person could comprehend or understand them. This is due to their picture thinking. A picture thinker could think of a single picture of a concept that might require hundreds or thousands of words to describe. (Einstein's theory of relativity came to him in a daydream in which he traveled beside a beam of light.)

 

Picture thinking is intuitive thinking. Why gifted students know the answer without knowing why it is the answer. Teachers and parents are often critical of daydreaming, but they shouldn't be. In fact, they should encourage it at every opportunity. Daydreaming is often the process of genius, as Einstein and others have proven time and again. Sound familiar? Dyslexics are masters of multidimensional thought. Disorientation adds dimension to the thought process. Their thinking is no longer subliminal, or only in pictures. Multidimensional thought uses all the senses.

 

Creative geniuses! If "necessity is the mother of invention," then multidimensional thinking must be its father! This concept helps us understand how Leonardo da Vinci could conceptualize a submarine 300 years before the invention of a device that could pump the water out of it. His multidimensional ability allowed him to experience his thoughts as realities and draw the results for everyone else to see. Because of picture thinking, intuitive thought, multidimensional thought, and curiosity, the dyslexic's creativity is greatly enhanced.

 

Additionally, for people with dyslexia, the creative urge is profoundly stronger than in individuals who do not possess these skills. Intense curiosity! The dyslexic child isn't getting into things just to upset the parents. The child is responding to an urge that will eventually become part of the gift of dyslexia. In the dyslexic, the creative urge is profoundly stronger than in individuals who do not possess the dyslexic's basic abilities. Because of picture thinking, intuitive thought, multidimensional thought, and curiosity, the dyslexic's creativity are greatly enhanced. Read more...

 

We're leaving out a large swath of students with a high potential

By Joseph S. Renzulli

November 11, 2019

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Hardly a week goes by without another news item about a school district's attempt to deal with the problem of the underrepresentation of low-income students and children of color in gifted education programs. Suggestions for addressing the problem typically include the use of screening tests for all students, test norms that are scaled to local demographics, and non-verbal tests that use pictures or figures rather than words. While these recommendations may have value in providing a broader look at the development of gifted behaviors, they still rely on test-score comparisons among groups and thus fail to take into consideration the important distinction between high-achieving (or lesson-learning) giftedness and creative or productive giftedness. Read more...

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Schoolwide Enrichment Model

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Dr. Joseph Renzulli and his colleagues at the University of Connecticut spent 15 years developing, researching, and testing this comprehensive gifted education curriculum model. This strategy typically involves the cooperation of the entire staff and administration of a school. However, a regular classroom teacher can use elements of the Schoolwide Enrichment Model (SEM) in his or her classroom with the entire class or a select group of students. Read more...

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National Reading Scores Are Down. What Does It Mean?

By Liana Loewus on October 30, 2019, 3:53 PM

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The latest scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation's report card, were just released—and things aren't looking good for the country's young readers. 

Reading performance has dropped significantly among both 4th and 8th graders since the last release two years ago. Just 35 percent of 4th graders are considered proficient by NAEP standards as of this year. That's down from 37 percent in 2017. And 34 percent of 8th graders scored at the proficient level or higher for this year, down from 36 percent in 2017. Read more...

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Gifted Education Strategies

Separate studies conducted during the last few decades have demonstrated both the need for and the benefits of gifted education programs. Of special interest are the documented benefits that occur for all children when gifted education strategies and programs are extended to other students, as well. Simply stated . . . Gifted education works! Please click on a link below for more information on the research-based evidence supporting the distinctive method or methods listed below. Read more...

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The Vaping Crisis: How Schools Are Fighting Back

Ed News reported in their September 6, 2019 issue that with reports of at least one death linked to vaping and dozens of cases of teens and young adults recently hospitalized, school leaders are starting the new academic year even more anxious about the “epidemic” of e-cigarettes. They are vowing to intensify prevention and treatment (Superville and Prothero). Read more...

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QUALITY COUNTS 2019

Why It's So Hard for the Nation's Schools to Improve

The nation's C grade on this year's final Quality Counts report card is another sign that pursuing educational progress remains slow and challenging for many states. Read more.

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With New Anti-Plagiarism Tool, Google Enters Familiar Debates About Teaching Writing

Google has announced the launch of a new tool aimed at detecting when students submit work that is not their own, thrusting itself into long-running debates over how to root out plagiarism while also protecting students’ privacy and teaching them how to responsibly cite others’ work. Read more

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Battle Over Reading: Parents of Children With Dyslexia Wage Curriculum War

Kim Head's kindergarten son, Noah, would do anything to avoid school. Hide under tables. Complain of a stomach ache. Cry. 

 

For Noah, going to school was painful and he didn't understand why. But, his mom figured it out. It turns out Noah has dyslexia, a learning disability that makes it difficult to read and spell.

 

Dyslexia affects 1 in 5 individuals, and is the most commonly diagnosed learning disability, said Sarah Sayko, the deputy director of the National Center on Improving Literacy. The group is federally funded and works to give educators and parents evidence-based information to help all children, including those with learning disabilities, learn to read. Read more...

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States Have Tried to Ban Cellphones in Schools. It Hasn't Gone Well

France banned cellphones in schools for students 15 and under. Ontario, a Canadian province, is also restricting their use in class.

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But four U.S. states—Arizona, Maine, Maryland, and Utah all tried last year to enact some level of cellphone ban or at least explore cellphone restrictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. And in every case, the legislation failed to make it to prime time. Read more...

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