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Educators

October Is “Shakedown” Month!

October 1, 2025

October Is the Most Difficult Month… Are things getting a little “intense” in your classroom? Are your kids stressed out at home? Several years ago, my daughter’s 1st grade teacher, Robert, sent an email update: This week was something of a challenge. Tears and arguments cropped up on several occasions. By Thursday, I was fairly exhausted. Then…

2 Questions to Unlock Motivation & Change Mindsets

September 17, 2025

It was my last semester of college. “Senioritis” had fully kicked-in.  I was ready to graduate. It was also the first day of EAD 315, “Student Leadership Training.” Waiting for class to start, I was focused on the friends I was meeting after class. The instructor began. He asked us to move our desks into…

Why We Can’t See Our Own (Writing) Mistakes

August 28, 2025

Just a few weeks ago, we ordered some new return address labels. See anything wrong?  About 100 went out before we caught the mistake. Oops! And, every so often, we publish an email or blog post with a typo or two. Oops! In our company, we all live and breathe the content we publish. Every single…

Why Is Simplicity So Complicated?

July 9, 2025

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci We are naturally programmed to over-complicate matters. It actually takes effort to recognize simple solutions. In fact, most of the time I spend with clients is on the importance of keeping study and organizational strategies simple. I could tell you hundreds of stories, but one stands out, in particular. A few…

The Challenges of “D-I-Y” Study Skills Programs

March 9, 2025

Trying to Piece Your Own Study Skills Program Together? 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 more “once in a while.” This year,…

Moving Forward After SOAR

February 23, 2025

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…

Building “Critical Thinking” & “Problem-Solving” Skills… with Google

January 15, 2025

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist; using technologies that don’t yet exist, to solve problems that we don’t know are problems yet!”  – Karl Fisch, educator “Critical thinking” and “problem-solving” skills are cited by employers as their “greatest need” in the workplace. But, national and state curriculum standards are loaded so…

How to Build an “Anxiety-Free” Environment in Your Classroom

September 15, 2024

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,…

How to Help Students Manage Anxiety

September 8, 2024

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…

The Challenge of Executive Function:
What’s the Antidote?

September 2, 2024

“Students Greatest Need Is Executive Function!” This year, in the SOAR® Learning Laboratories, we challenged ourselves to discover “What do students in special education need the most?” We interviewed special education educators from across the country, expecting to make a “top ten” list we could narrow down to the “top three things” students need. However, we were stunned when one response came…

Six Steps
Conquer the Chaos


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