Should 9th graders start music classes–even if they’ve never played an instrument before? Are there academic benefits to studying music? Is 9th grade too late a start to get those benefits? Should my school’s STEM program become a STEAM program? A

The Study A just-published study asks about the effect of schooling on the brain. (A chatty, readable summary by one of the authors can be found here.) More specifically, it looks at a young child’s ability to self-regulate: a skill

As another April has come and gone, so has another World Autism Month. The Light It Up Blue campaign celebrates each spring with a renewed push for greater understanding and acceptance of individuals with autism spectrum disorder. And with greater

This story offers both good and bad news: I’ll let you sort out whether there’s more good than bad… The bad news: according to a just-published study, 58% of college professors in Britain believe in learning styles theory. This belief persists

Regular readers of this blog remember Scott MacClintic’s post about “data informed instruction”; quoting W. Edwards Deming, Scott notes that “without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” Of course, gathering the right kind of data can be very

You think grades interfere with learning? You’d like to do away with them? And yet, you’d like some consistent way to measure students’ academic development? And to communicate that development to others? You’re not alone. The Mastery Transcript Consortium seeks to accomplish

A recent study suggests that 3- and 4-year old children understand as much, and learn as much vocabulary from, digital books as from read-alouds with adults. This study hasn’t been published–it was presented at a recent conference–so we can’t look

In this 20 minute video,  James Kaufman explains how researchers define creativity, and how they measure it. He also discusses the limitations on both the definitions and the measurements. (Note, too, the dexterous water-bottle management.) Although he title of this