Evidence based teaching has dominated the field of education ever since the beginning of the 21st century, when the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) included it as part of its wide-ranging education law that applied to all schools receiving federal funding (e.g. most schools).  The term itself dates back to 1991 when a Canadian...Read More

Spelling is part of the Common Core State Standards, but doesn’t receive much coverage in education journals.  Often teachers use the same old same old strategies to teach spelling skills, including:  use the word in a sentence, copy the word ten times, look it up in the dictionary, say the letters of the word as...Read More

Activity centers have long been seen as an effective way to have children or teens engage with learning material in a hands-on and experiential way.  However, for many teachers, the construction of such activity centers in the classroom may seem time consuming, require non-existent funds, and/or be just another burden to one’s teaching load.  Here...Read More

Everybody is born with a love for learning.  Look at a baby. She wants to explore everything around her, tasting, touching, smelling, feeling, hearing – learning all about the environment (including her own body).  Nature set things up that way so that we’d always be learning, growing, and adapting to an ever-changing environment. Something, however,...Read More

About education:  here’s what I don’t understand.  On the one hand, you have the child – this incredibly wonderful organism that has had millions of years to evolve a beautifully complex brain designed to be naturally curious, playful, vital, creative, and joyful.  On the other hand, you have this amazing world:  exquisite life forms, unbelievable...Read More