Reducing Challenging Behavior: Simple Yet Effective Strategies to Restore Classroom Calm

Classroom management has become particularly challenging in a post-pandemic world. Fortunately, these three evidence-based strategies can reduce problems and form habits that will help you, and your students, thrive. 

Motivating Students Like Athletes

It’s a year where many teachers say their biggest challenge is student behavior, even more than learning gaps. Use these coaching strategies to improve academic behaviors by leveraging students’ mindset for sports, music, or other passion. Fortunately, a successful mindset absolutely can be a transferable skill. However, students might need help to see the connection

You Can’t Tier 2 Your Way Out of Tier 1

High Dosage Tutoring Addresses Tier 2, but What about Tier 1 Yes, high dosage tutoring can be a very effective way to bring students up to grade level. But based on the data, grade level is not what it was before the pandemic, even in the top performing schools. And it’s not just academics. Most educators are as worried

Don’t Lower the Standards, Do Raise the Empathy

Addressing the pervasive  “unexpected behavior challenges” can be a slippery slope. What we’re hearing… Whether it’s California, Massachusetts or Texas, urban, suburban or rural, public or private, we hear the same concern from our schools: “We’ve never seen behavior like this before. It’s not just the students. It’s adults too.” Of course, we all know the reasons: stress,  anxiety, depression, too long

Prioritizing CASEL Skills: Crucial for back-to-school success

This back-to-school year don’t just prioritize SEL but focus on the social and emotional skills that will be most important after a year of non-traditional learning. Here are our top recommendations based on the CASEL Framework, the predominant SEL framework in US K12 schools. 1. Start with Relationship Skills Typically students naturally develop Relationship Skills through daily in-school interactions

ADHD: What every parent NEEDS to know

Let’s start with a clarification. ADHD is a medical condition, not a personality flaw. Just as you need to be aware of, monitor, and support any other medical condition your child might have, the same is true of ADHD. Here’s why: A child who isn’t paying attention, isn’t learning Even if your younger child is managing now,

Education Trends: Smart Summer Reading for Teachers & Parents

With the summer in full swing, we hope you are relaxing and reflecting. In case you were busy working and parenting the last ten months, you might have missed some of the year’s most important K12 education trends. We identified our favorite reads by topic. We suggest printing them out now and putting them in your bag. Pull

10 Great Mom Tips (that also work for teachers)

When it comes to your child’s needs, there’s nothing better than a mom’s instincts. Still, there’s something to be said for the research on parenting approaches that lead to the most successful adults. Our experts provide the tips that, in combo with those motherly instincts, should lead you and your kiddo down the path of life success.

A Teachable Moment

  Whether or not we want it, life has given us a teachable moment. Yes, the inauguration. Unlike years past, the political climate, coupled with 24 hour news, means that even some of our youngest children are navigating issues around leadership, ethics and fairness. Which means that if you are not having these difficult discussions with them,

Play Hard, Study Hard: What Cognitive Skills Tell Us

Research on cognitive skills gives powerful insight into what we should generally expect from children behaviorally, emotionally and academically at every age. Scientists from University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine Brain Behavior Lab evaluated nearly 10,000 children ages 8 to 21. They began with fMRI scans and then moved to an online assessment to analyze brain development at every age. Their