“Ninth-grade classrooms are often filled
with students of the same chronological age,
but who possess very different levels of maturity.”

Eccles & Wigfield 1997

If you’ve ever wondered why one student quickly grasps the point of an assignment, breaks it down, and steadily completes the work while another expresses confusion and barely scrapes by, differences in maturity may just be your answer. This disparity can lead to unnecessary frustration, worry or guilt by teachers, students and parents.

Additionally, “Ninth-grade students report concerns related to academic, organizational, and social issues during the transition to ninth-grade. Dealing with a larger, more competitive, and grade-oriented environment than the middle school contributes to the stress (Eccles et al., 1984).”

“Every human being goes through many stages of cognitive, moral, social, physical, and emotional development (Craig & Baucum, 2002; Wood, 2007). Many students have little difficulty with these changes and have few problems adjusting to the different levels of schooling (Craig & Baucum, 2002). However, other students struggle with the developmental process and need extra support.”

So, the next time your child brings home a low grade while his friend, who sat through the same lectures and completed the same assignments, gets an A, consider that the two friends may share many common qualities, just not academic maturity. In time, with positive encouragement and extra academic support, the differences will likely become less noticeable and eventually disappear altogether.

Vicky Rideout, Vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of the Program for the Study of Entertainment Media and Health, points out:

• Today’s young people devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment media across a typical day. This adds up to more than 53 hours a week, the equivalent of a full-time job.
• About half (47%) of media heavy users (more than 16 hours a day) report getting Cs or lower in school, compared to almost a quarter (23%) of light users (less than three hours a day).
• Half of the kids say that when doing homework they usually multitask by using some other form of media at the same time.
• The average student’s homework to internet time is 16 minutes of homework to 1.5 hours of internet.

Although children with any media rules consume nearly three hours less media per day than those with no rules, only about three in ten young people say they have rules about how much time they can spend watching TV (28%) or playing video games (30%), and 36% say the same about using the computer. Child psychologist, Dr. Jennifer Hartstein recommends that parents disallow video chatting and TV watching while doing homework. For kids who don’t live by these limits, parents may choose to remove the offending media until the student is able to avoid distractions and make education the priority.

Another option offered by Rideout is for parents to use these findings to “look at what goes on in their own families … and talk about it.”

Am I ever glad I said yes to this request! He came home from school bubbling with new insights into how people conceal their true selves, the importance of finding common ground, and “being the change” through acts kindness.

Since I still couldn’t quite get my arms around the purpose of this one-day event, I visited the Challenge Day website. Far more powerful than any words, these emotionally charged videos reveal the pain that undermines so many students, and demonstrate how Challenge Day strives to fulfill its vision for every child to live in a world where they feel safe, loved and celebrated.

Teen Files 15 Minute Preview from Rodrigo Torres on Vimeo.

Bully Solution 10 Minute Preview from Rodrigo Torres on Vimeo.

“Challenge Day helps people learn to connect through powerful, life-changing programs in their schools and communities. The day-long, interactive Challenge Day program provides teens and adults with tools to tear down the walls of separation, and inspires participants to live, study, and work in an encouraging environment of acceptance, love, and respect.”

Since 1987, Challenge Day has served more than 1,000,000 youth in grades 7-12. More information can be found in the program’s FAQ. To bring Challenge Day to your school, fill out their online program request form.

• A study at the University of Washington comparing human and electronic teaching methods demonstrates young children learn best through social interaction and finds that the “social aspects of learning are very important at all ages.”
• Early childhood test scores and self-control dramatically improve for children who participate in Tools of the Mind, a program that enables children to learn on their own.
• Research at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology found that, “Behavioral and brain measures identify infants and young children at risk for dyslexia, and preventive intervention is often effective.”
• The gap between students who fail, yet remain determined to master new challenges, and those who simply give up, can be closed using a simple technique developed by Stanford University’s Carol Dweck.

Parents and teachers can get bombarded by fascinating educational studies with great potential to improve learning. Unfortunately, very few have the spare time it takes to read, analyze, and, if results turn out to be valid, apply breakthrough findings to their homes or classrooms.

“Insights from many different fields are converging to create a new science of learning that may transform educational practices,” reports Andrew Metzoff, co-director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences.

Rather than test new trends by turning students into classroom guinea pigs, neuroscientists are teaming with education researchers to measure brain activity while robiticists join forces with psychologists in efforts to blend technology with social instruction.

This emerging “Science of Learning” field holds the promise of a huge boon to educators and students. But only if scientists first sift through and agree on the most valuable findings, systematically share key principles with those on the front lines of teaching, and provide the training needed to put best known methods into practice.

Daniel Willingham also cautions that in order to bridge information from neuroscience to behavior, researchers need to build-in supporting information about anatomic structure, cognitive process, and children’s minds. In other words, be wary of “get-smart-quick” programs that lack a strong foundation.

When the bridge from neuroscience to behavior is strong, children can safely and easily skip across. “Our brains have evolved to learn and adapt to new environments; if we can create the right environment for a child, magic happens” says Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Terrence J. Sejnowski. For studies that meet the criteria of scientists, including skeptics like Willingham, the next step is to find a way to disseminate information so that children everywhere can experience the magic.

In the meantime, TeamUP! Tutors will continue to search high and low to bring our readers the latest and greatest educational findings.

During a manufactured break in student testing, Ng informed each mother that her child had performed below average on the first test in a study. Hidden cameras recorded American mothers avoiding negative comments and moving on to discuss other topics with their children. The Chinese mothers, who were just as warm and nurturing toward their children, were recorded making comments along the lines of, “You didn’t concentrate” and “Let’s look over your test.” These mothers spent the majority of the break discussing the test and its importance.

After the break, the Chinese kids’ scores on the second test jumped 33 percent, more than twice the gain of the Americans.

While Dweck and Ng focus primarily on how praise relates to academic performance, their research also demonstrates how various types of parental expectations can positively or negatively impact student persistence and motivation.

Turns out, there’s a circuit in the brain (or as Dr. Robert Cloninger puts it, “a neural network running through the prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum”) that controls how we respond to failure. With the right level of meaningful support, students can learn to use their internal reward center to exert more effort, even during long periods of delayed gratification. Kids with a can-do attitude have learned that perseverance, not external rewards or praise, is the key to overcoming obstacles.

For more on how to avoid raising a “praise junkie,” see the ABC News excerpt from the book Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children by authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. For parents who aren’t ready to quit the praise habit cold turkey, you can still help build motivation by making your kudos as specific and sincere as possible.

“Students do much better when they believe that doing well is a function of hard work as opposed to innate talent.”

Why do some kids put forth little effort in school while others are motivated to achieve their personal best?

Over the past two decades, the main goal of Brainology, co-founded by Carols S. Dweck, Ph.D. and Lisa Sorich Blackwell, Ph.D., has been to discover what helps students achieve highly, and to apply the lessons learned toward improving motivation and achievement. Their research shows that developing a growth mindset — the core belief that abilities are malleable and not fixed — is critical to the adoption of learning-oriented behavior.

It turns out that beliefs and attitudes held by students have a strong influence on their achievement. In particular, students who believe that intelligence is something they can develop, engage in more effort-based strategies by working harder and spending more time on a subject as opposed to giving up.

Brainology research shows that students who embrace a growth mindset:

• believe their ability can be increased and value learning as a goal, even when it involves hard work or initial errors.
• feel that they have the ability, through their own efforts, to learn and master new material.
• identify difficulties as being due to lack of effort or inadequate strategy; not intelligence.

When students with a growth mindset have difficulty in a subject, they draw constructive, mastery-oriented conclusions and respond with positive, effort-based strategies. In one study, math students who believed their intelligence to be malleable performed better than equally able students who viewed their intelligence as fixed.

But how do students develop a growth mindset in the first place? The answer, at least in big part, is PRAISE. To determine the magnitude praise has on a child’s mindset, a group of researchers pulled fifth-graders out of class to take some simple puzzle tests. Following the test, each child received his or her score and was randomly given one line of praise for either intelligence (“You must be smart at this”) or effort (“You must have worked really hard”).

The students were then asked to choose a second test — another easy test similar to the first or a more challenging test where they would learn a lot. Of the children who were praised for effort, ninety percent chose the harder test while the majority who were praised for intelligence opted for the easy test.

The researchers continued the experiment by administering a third test far above the children’s grade level. As expected, the students performed poorly. However, those praised for effort on the original test tried various strategies to solve the puzzles and said they enjoyed the process. The students initially praised for intelligence were unhappy and assumed they just weren’t smart enough.

Following the artificial failure, the fifth graders were given an easy round of testing. On this final test, the students praised for effort improved their score by about 30 percent, whereas the “smart” group did worse by about 20 percent.

According to Dweck, “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control. They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

New York Magazine’s article, How to Talk to Your Kids, delves further into this fascinating study and relates the results to additional research in the field. It also talks about the positive achievement which occurred when a group of students were taught that, with learning, the cells of their brain develop new connections and existing connections become stronger. Details on this intervention can also be found on The Science page at Brainology.

For further reading on how to develop a growth mindset in your personal or professional life, visit Carol Dweck’s Mindset website.

Dr. Greene’s research shows first, that social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in kids are best understood as the byproduct of lagging cognitive skills (rather than, for example, as attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, or a sign of poor motivation); and second, that these challenges are best addressed by resolving the problems that are setting the stage for challenging behavior in a collaborative manner (rather than through reward and punishment programs and intensive imposition of adult will).

In his book, The Explosive Child, Dr. Greene explains that challenging behaviors (e.g., screaming, swearing, defying, hitting, crying, withdrawing) indicate a child is struggling, and that it is up to adults to identify lacking skills in order to make a positive difference that can address these behaviors.

While not complicated, collaboratively resolving problems with children isn’t easy for many adults, particularly those who lean toward an authoritarian style. The good news is, with practice, CPS can work wonders. By following these steps, adults can set clear expectations, substitute agreements for excuses, and improve a child’s challenging behaviors by helping him overcome lagging skills.

Step 1: Show Empathy
Gather information so as to achieve the clearest understanding of the kid’s concern or perspective about a given unsolved problem (such as completion of homework or chores, sibling or peer interactions, teeth brushing, screen time, diet, curfew, and so forth).
Step 2: Define Problem
Enter into consideration adult concerns on the same unsolved problem.
Step 3: Brainstorm solutions
Arrive at a plan of action that is both realistic and mutually satisfactory in other words, a solution that addresses both concerns.

As these steps are followed [pdf], children and their adult caretakers can learn to resolve disagreements and disputes in a collaborative, mutually satisfactory manner.

Working memory allows people to hold and manipulate a few items in their minds, such as a telephone number. For adults, the basic box size is thought to be three to five items.

“Since there is this limit, it is important to put in the right thing. Irrelevant information will clutter up working memory,” said Nelson Cowan, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Missouri.

The question many researchers are struggling with is how to help people with this problem, which appears to be closely tied with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.

There is a question as to whether working memory can be improved. But there can be ways to help children work around it, including learning to take notes.

NPR’s Morning Edition has an interesting story on how “old-fashioned play builds serious skills.” The story explains how children’s play has changed and the effect that has had on children’s development. And on the web site, they provide suggestions to help you help your child gain self-regulation skills.

For parents with children ages 6 – 9

• Establish a consistent homework routine at a time that works for your family; stick with it as often as possible. Make sure lighting is bright and the seating is comfortable. Turn off TVs, radios, MP3 players, phones, organizers, and hand-held electronic games to encourage your children’s concentration. Create a nightly electronics-free zone, and unless children need to use a computer for schoolwork, turn it off.
• Sit near your children when they’re doing homework, and do work of your own: write a letter, pay bills, balance your checkbook, or read work-related material. Continue this routine as children grow older.
• Keep all commonly used school supplies in one place, including markers, crayons, pencils, paper, stapler, tape, glue sticks, scissors, and a dictionary. Buy several sheets of posterboard at a time and keep them on hand for periodic school projects. Kids enjoy choosing a variety of poster colors.
• Encourage children who participate in after-school childcare programs to do at least some of their homework there so that you have more family time in the evenings.

For parents with children ages birth to 5

At this age, the best things you can do to support your children’s learning and readiness for school are to read, read, read to them and help them safely discover and explore the world.

Some preschoolers, especially those with older siblings, may be excited by the idea of doing homework. Consider asking a preschool teacher to send home simple worksheets, or make or buy your children age-appropriate workbooks (in bookstores, toy stores, or at the magazine stand). Don’t worry about whether the work is completed; keep it fun and make it part of the game of “school.”

… setting a timer for 10 minutes to help children break up their work time into manageable chunks; giving a child a stuffed animal to hold during group discussions (a common strategy for cutting down on fidgeting); and even enlisting other students to help daydreamers stay focused. Still, every year, she felt these efforts were not good enough.

In reading a book by developmental pediatrician Mel Levine, Ms. Valentine encountered the term, “mind trip,” describing children’s flights of fancy.

Ms. Valentine asked six children to describe what they thought about when their minds were wandering, and wrote down everything they said. Then, each child illustrated their sentences. Finally, Ms. Valentine recorded the children saying the sentences.

Together she and the children put the written and spoken sentences onto PowerPoint, along with the illustrations. Each child’s work became a multimedia slide show about his or her daydreaming.

By describing their daydreams, she said, children are “able to figure out not only what went wrong, but what kinds of thoughts and tricks could help them concentrate.”

I imagine this approach would be equally successful (perhaps more so) without PowerPoint, but it is interesting.

“More than 70 studies have found that the more you reward people for doing something, the more they lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward. It’s not just that rewards are ineffective over the long haul; it’s that they are actively counterproductive.”

“Rewards work in the short term, but at a great cost. Rewards, like punishments, are useful for getting exactly one thing: temporary compliance. By bribing or threatening kids, you can get them to do what you want as long as the reward or the punishment keeps coming. You’ll never get anything more substantial than that.”

Alfie Kohn continues, explaining how he approaches motivating kids:

“A lot of my work turns on the distinction between doing things to kids and working with kids. The only way to help kids become generous, responsible people and life-long learners is to work with them to solve problems and make decisions. But that takes time. It also takes care, skill, and in some cases, courage because we have to reconsider the validity of our requests. We need to begin by thinking hard about what we’re asking kids to do: Who benefits from our requests? Is there another way?”

Mr. Kohn’s book is on Amazon.

Peter Mangione, the co-director of WestEd’s Center for Child and Family Studies in San Francisco said, “Knowing some letters is helpful to learn when you’re a 4-year-old. We don’t have to have them reading, but that preliminary exposure can be helpful. But should we spend all that time doing that? No. We have to keep it in balance, and play, we know, is central in children’s lives. We need to look at who young children are, what their learning and developmental needs are and how adults can support that. And if we do that, we will help children be ready for the next stage of life.”

• Look for a very structured preschool or day care. All preschool-age children do better with consistent routines, but that is critical for youngsters with ADHD.
• Provide a choice of activities throughout the day.
• Use timers and transitional warnings when it’s almost time to switch activities.
• Use role-playing and other practice sessions to teach the child social skills.
• It’s easy to ignore good behavior. Don’t. Praise it.
• Try token systems where good behavior earns rewards, and misbehavior costs tokens.

KidsHealth offers a way to determine if your child is too busy and presents tips to lighten the load. KidsHealth says that your over-scheduled child may:

• feel tired, anxious, or depressed
• complain of headaches and stomachaches, which may be due to stress, missed meals, or lack of sleep
• fall behind on their schoolwork, causing their grades to drop

What can you do?

The key is to schedule things in moderation and choose activities with your child’s age, temperament, interests, and abilities in mind. If something’s too advanced, the experience may be frustrating. If it isn’t engaging, your child will probably be bored. And if your child doesn’t want to do it in the first place, he or she may do it only to please you, which defeats the whole purpose.

A child with ADHD may have a very hard time getting along with siblings, friends, and classmates. Learning can be very difficult for an untreated ADHD child, and their impulsiveness can lead to physical danger.

Of course, you have to see a pediatrician to get a diagnosis. The good news is there are quite a few effective treatment options.

Because scientists have learned so much about ADHD through
ongoing research, the treatment of ADHD is more effective than
ever before for the majority of children. There is no specific cure,
but there are many treatment options that pediatricians can tailor
for your child.

A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says free and unstructured play is healthy and – in fact – essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones as well as helping them manage stress and become resilient.

At TeamUP! Tutors, we’ve long counseled parents of pre-schoolers to send their children outside to play rather than gain an early advantage in reading and arithmetic. At the same time, home tutoring is a way to relieve some structure and, for many children, is a way to avoid some of the stress of homework.