Teachers who understand anxiety and its effect on a student's learning and behavior, and use a few common strategies in different and more effective ways, will be less frustrated and more effective in their work with anxious or emotionally fragile students.

Social media is the new face of global communication, and, instead of blocking it, schools should be embracing it. Twitter presents opportunities for teachers to link students with real-time information and diverse ideological perspectives. The authors describes the use of Twitter in a high school civics class during the 2012 presidential election.

Leading education thinker Sir Ken Robinson says transformation is essential to bring creative thinking into schools and recommends three major changes: Dispense with subject hierarchy, focus on curricular disciplines instead of subjects, and elevate personalization. Change will come when students take ownership of their learning to fit their needs…

The best hope for accelerating much needed improvement in student achievement is by using a range of pedagogical and technological innovations that deliver personalized learning to each student. The authors examine three school initiatives across the country that are using technology and new teaching methods successfully to drive student…

Telling students to study simply because they must or making narrow pitches to a subject's future utility typically fail to generate student interest. Six common mistakes that undermine student motivation can be easily avoided--among them are telling students they need to learn the content now because they will need it when they grow up or…

Engagement doesn't just happen. As much as teachers would like it if their own fascination with content were contagious for every student, it doesn't work that way. Engagement must be planned for. A teacher discovers what's engaging in the content and designs curriculum so students discover it too. The authors profile one teacher…

The problems of public education are not that America's classrooms are filled with too many bad teachers or too few smart ones. Instead, policy makers are paying too little attention to mobilizing the many experts teaching today who could lead in powerful ways. Enter the teacherpreneur, who teaches students for a career and has "the…

This article addresses the work of Jerome Bruner, a famed psychologist of education, who is considered to be very responsible for how education and learning are conceived today. In 1959, Bruner brought together scholars from many academic disciplines to focus on redesigning curriculum and thus redesigning the foundation of American schools. Bruner…

Culture plays a large but often unnoticeable role in what we teach and how we teach children. We are a country of immense diversity, but in classrooms the dominant European-American culture has become the language of learning.

Reading scholar Maryanne Wolf believes that every child needs an array of digital skills in their learning repertoire. Her research focuses on how best to introduce technology in terms of reading acquisition so children can develop deep reading skills over time. Educators must focus on a carefully considered trajectory in order to develop a truly…

Digital information sources can form the basis of effective inquiry-based learning if teachers construct the information and exercises in ways that will promote collaboration, communication, and problem solving.

The Common Core math standards promote several important differences in how math concepts are taught and should be talked about. These changes will make it easier for younger students to comprehend and adapt to more complex concepts in the later grades. This guide should help elementary teachers make changes and adaptations that are in line the…

More than 50 studies have examined the role of hope in predicting the performance of elementary, middle school, high school, and college students. In each, hope predicted test scores and term GPA. In many studies, hope was a significant predictor of student success even when controlling for previous grades, intelligence, and other psychological…

Helping students become responsible for their own learning is an incredibly challenging task since it requires transforming their previous, passive "sit-and-get" learning style into a go-and-get orientation. The authors present a collection of eight schools that offer valuable examples of how to develop students as self-directed…

The Common Core generally eschews mandating texts in favor of promoting critical analysis and rigor. So it's significant that Shakespeare is the only author invoked in imperatives. His explicit inclusion offers a significant opportunity for educators to rethink how we approach Shakespearean instruction. Rather than the traditional learning of…