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Previously, I wrote about How to Help Your Students Manage Anxiety. If you haven’t read that article yet, I suggest you start with it, here. It explains what causes anxiety, which is key to understanding how to manage it. Today, I want to share some strategies for building an “anxiety-free” environment in your classroom. Obviously,…
The key to helping students manage anxiety is to understand what’s happening in their brain. “Emotions are the on/off switch to learning,” says Priscilla Vail, author of Smart Kids with School Problems. You and I both know this is true. We know from our own experience that it’s pretty hard to learn geometry theorems when…
I was a freshman in college when study skills radically changed my life. I went from struggling in K-12 to “straight As” in college. About six weeks after my first semester of college success, however, I was suddenly overcome with a deep, visceral ANGER. “Why didn’t someone teach me how to learn before!?” I was mentally…
Trying to Piece Your Own Study Skills Program Together? It’s “back to school” season, which means I’ve been talking to a LOT of educators in the past few months. That’s normal for this time of year. However, something is different this year. I’m hearing something I’ve heard a lot over the past 20 years, but…
Teaching with student-led software raises many questions for teachers… Should I introduce the lesson before having the students jump into the software? Or, should I let them explore the software, and then discuss the content with them? What if students want to progress farther ahead in the software on their own? Should I let them?…
One of the most commonly asked questions we get from the teachers who use SOAR is, “what’s next?!” “Is there a SOAR 2.0?” “Is there more content to teach SOAR for a second year?” “Is there extra content, deeper content, advanced content for SOAR?” “I taught my 7th graders SOAR last year, what do I…
It was almost-summer of 1998. I was wrapping-up my first year of teaching… at my alma mater. Just five years before, I was sitting in those desks. Now, my desk was at the front of the room. From this new vantage point, I could see that nearly all my 9th & 10th graders struggled with…
Remember the children’s book, Ms. Nelson Is Missing? Ms. Nelson was not appreciated by her students until the stern Ms. Viola Swamp took her place for a while. Suddenly, students had a new appreciation for Ms. Nelson! I recently had a day that reminded me of Ms. Nelson and Ms. Viola Swamp. It involved conversations…
“I am convinced that a ‘good’ teacher is a ‘self-abuser’ teacher!!” My grad-school professor said this in class one day. He was lamenting that his wife, a kindergarten teacher, had been on leave for two years to have their two children (they lived in Canada, with generous maternity leave). He specialized in reading development and…
There is a universal rule that governs our lives behind the scenes. It works silently, only observed by those aware of its existence. The people who understand its power spend more of their time living happier lives. They use this principle to accomplish more in less time. We can see it at work in our…
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