As of September 2018, the ACT changed how students can use their extended time. Find out how it might affect your students. Summing it Up Students who qualify for extended time will still have the same total amount of extra time. Before, students could spend their extra time (1.5 hrs) on whichever of the four tests they chose. Now that time is proportionally allocated across the four subject tests. This is a change for the ACT but exactly how the SAT allocates extended time. Read the full ACT press release. Who Benefits? Students who struggle with time management and organization, typically those with ADHD. This might also help students with weak flexible thinking who often have difficulty evaluating trade-offs. Not needing… Read More

It can be painful to watch kids quit. Especially when we see talent. Sometimes we hold our tongues. And sometimes we might blurt out what we are really thinking, “If you just had some grit, or cared more, or weren’t so lazy.”   Unfortunately, telling a kid he shouldn’t or can’t quit rarely does much good.  Paul Tough, one of the leading authors on grit, says that we can’t teach [or implore] students to be grittier. But that also doesn’t mean we need to stand by and allow talented kids to “throw away” their gifts. Instead, we need to understand, listen, and encourage to help them choose the harder (but better) path. Understand: It’s Natural to Want to Quit According to evolutionary psychologists, quitting… Read More

No surprise that schools and parents are heavily focused on STEM skills these days. Careers in STEM, an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math, grew 6 times faster than the number of non-STEM jobs in the last decade, while paying an average of 29% more than non-STEM careers. While majoring in a STEM field isn’t for everyone, pursuing a STEM field is likely to put students on a path to better job security and financial stability. Provided, of course, they are good at their job once they get there. Interestingly, though, two internal studies of workplace success at Google suggest that the most successful workers aren’t the ones with the superior STEM skills. Rather, they are those with good STEM skills and some combination of strengths in 7 other… Read More

Are you working with high-achievers? Rather than concerns about motivation and graduation rates, you’re likely worried that your students are too stressed, not getting enough sleep, and will burn out before they even get to college. Stress is considered a growing epidemic among top performing teens. Teachers can’t be responsible for preventing stress and anxiety, but they can instill the importance of self-management and self-care. High achievers need guidance on when to put those books down, how to say no to too many extra-curriculars, and why it might not be a good idea to take every accelerated class. Coaching top performers can be tough. No one wants to hold a student back, tell them they can’t do it all, or stop them from participating in something for which they have… Read More

by Nancy Weinstein If you’re a teacher, you know there’s no such thing as average. The idea that students can be categorized as gifted, struggling, or “just average” is simplistic at best. The 10/10/80 statistic might be helpful for administrators, but it is useless in the classroom. In this blog inspired by the work of Dr. Todd Rose, we explore why there is no such thing as average and offer 8 strategies to manage learner diversity in every classroom. If Not Average, Then What? As Harvard  professor Dr. Todd Rose explains in his book, The End of Average, “Every one of these familiar notions of [average students or average brains] is a figment of a misguided scientific imagination.” Instead, most every student has, what Rose calls, a… Read More