Friday Round-Up

How to Deal With Kids’ Math Anxiety
This article hit close to home for me, I struggled with Math anxiety often as a student. Research demonstrated that when students feel anxious about math, their brain uses valuable mental resources on their anxiety which also prevent them from fully focusing on math. The article concludes with some helpful strategies for students who suffer from math anxiety. These tips can also be used for anxiety with other subjects and tests in general.

Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school
This is a compilation of videos created by Garr Reynolds on the blog Presentation Zen. There are some really good nuggets in this list, some classics like Sir Ken Robinsons’s second TED talk on changing education paradigms, but there are some a few I hadn’t seen before.

When we block social media we block learning
Students at New Canaan High School created a video for “Banned Websites Awareness Day” this past September. New Canaan High School has an open social media policy but for this day they banned popular social sites like Youtube and Facebook. The students discuss how the ban of these sites also prevented them from doing some work in school. This begs the question, should be we blocking these sites? Or can we help students learn to use them as productive tools in education?

Can Six Year Olds Really Demonstrate Their Learning?
In this article first grade teacher Kathy Cassidy discusses how her students use project based learning in class for assessment. Cassidy says that instead of tests her students can create something to demonstrate their learning. This could include writings, drawings, podcasts or videos, depending on the strengths of the student. Showcasing this work also leads to students have a promoted sense of ownership and pride in their work. She concludes that given the opportunity, six year olds can articulate their knowledge and apply what they have learned.