By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff We’ve had an exciting week on this blog, with a team of bloggers joining me in our drive to “learn something new everyday.” Can you imagine if the energy and money that went into sports commentary were put towards educational programs, or if we had a 24-hour cable network with…
Kaylie Crosby is the project manager overseeing a team of 134. Using the special technology of the auto industry, VDP (Vehicle Development Process) she and her team of engineers are working on making a Chevrolet Camaro more fuel-efficient while “retaining the vehicle’s performance, safety, and consumer appeal.” Kaylie’s a fourth year student at the University of…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff March 14 is Pi Day and Albert Einstein’s birthday. For a town like Princeton, it’s a particularly special moment in time with the date, 3.14.15 coinciding with the digits in the irrational, never-ending digits in pi: 3.14159…. And if there was ever a celebration of the inquisitive, intellectual, mathematical and academic,…
Never The First to Finish: Why Pace Matters By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff. This post originally appeared on the Getting Smart website as part of a series of blogs written by parents called, “Smart Parents.” Remember how it felt to be halfway through a math quiz and a classmate gets up and turns it in to…
Spatial skills are strongly linked to creativity and achievement in fields like math, science and the arts. While students might not use spatial skills in school as often as other reasoning skills, it is critical in many professions. Note: This is one of a 10 blog series on learning traits. Read about all 10 learning traits here. What is Spatial Perception? Spatial perception is the ability to visualize how objects…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff A few months ago, I decided that instead of buying workbooks for my kids to look at over the summer, I’d start collecting the homework they brought home and use it as a basis for a personalized binder. I’d add new material, too, of course, and try to find things that…
By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff When children’s book illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky was first starting out, he took a bus from New Haven to New York City to show his work to an editor at The New York Times. The meeting got him his first assignment with the paper. Back in New Haven a few…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff A teacher. But like many things that go viral on the Internet, that important fact has gotten less attention. It didn’t take too much detective work to trace the photo back to its source, however, and last week I was able to speak on the phone with the photo’s creator, Alycia Zimmerman,…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff The Educated Mom blog launched a year ago this month. And because we have some new readers and because I love year-end lists, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on some of the themes we’ve covered. Perhaps the blog topics reveal a bit about what’s it…
By Sarah Vander Schaaff “It’s a really, really, chill place. Every tutoring session involves tea latte and some candles.” That’s what Vanessa Vakharia told me on the phone a few weeks ago when I asked her about her math tutoring studio in Toronto, The Math Guru. Vanessa personifies the name. She’s on a mission to…