Teachers often feel blamed for everything from the achievement gap to a top student’s floundering in their freshman year of college. Teachers know that the world around their classroom is much bigger than they are. As an individual influence on each student, could they be expected to overcome things like poverty, hunger and pressures to […]
Classroom
What Students NEED to Know on the First Day of School
First day of school: There are two things students absolutely need to know! All teachers feel the pressure to get it right out of the gate. With two very simple starters the year will be off to a fabulous start. 1. Let your students know explicitly (say it out loud, write it down, act like it’s true, play […]
How Social Pain Hurts Our Learners
“I want my students to be stressed out and unhappy at school” said no teacher or administrator ever. But despite good intentions, it is the sad reality that school is sometimes more stressful and more isolating for kids than we’d like. And these non-physical sources of pain can obstruct learning just as much as the physical ones, especially […]
Using Our Brains to Beat Our Biases (Part 2)
Imagine a “rocket scientist”, and then take a moment to see if the picture in your head corresponds to a stereotype? What if every time someone said ‘rocket scientist’ your brain had to sift through a number of possible images that would fit with that description? If it was being exhaustive, your brain would pull out each […]
Why Taming Fear Improves Learning
We have often been told by educators that implementing learning about emotions and how to regulate them into their classroom would be great but that there is simply no room in the school day to squeeze it in. We are going to make the case for you to do it anyway. Why? Because learning to […]
The Neurons that Bind Us: Why Mirror Neurons Matter For Your Classroom
Happy holidays from all of us at adaptED! If you were surprised by how easily you reconnected with old friends or family over the holidays, don’t be! And don’t be surprised when we tell you that simple bonds and states of social comfort like those often experienced around holiday gatherings are really important for the […]