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Learning Styles /

Austen Goodman — A Merge Success!

by Austen Goodman

My name is Austen Goodman and I’m a senior in high school.  I struggled in school.  After 3rd grade it wasn’t about learning anymore and it seemed that it was only about the final product.  I never had the opportunity to process the information.  I would be rushed to finish my work, and I wouldn’t [...]

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Different Ways of Learning — First Takes

by Dawn Mehan

Bill’s approach has really helped me to see the different ways in which students learn. You may already know this to be true for the way you learn; you may need to understand a process mentally before diving in … you may need to walk through the experience physically before understanding it mentally … you may [...]

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Student Assessments: they make my life easier and make me a better teacher

by Dawn Mehan

I have not experienced myself as a particularly organized person as of yet. So needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled to know that written student assessments from the SETS program were a part of my very inspiring teaching career with MERGE. I have always know that better organization will ideally make me more focused, but [...]

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My Experience with Strengths-based Mentoring

by Dawn Mehan

As I was saying in last week’s post, when I started teaching it quickly seemed that really enjoying teaching would at best be a far off destination and that I, too, would join the other martyrs to tiredly serve the deserving but uncooperative youth. But much has changed for me since then. When I started [...]

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Standards-based Education

by William Rossi

With its focus on a narrow, one dimensional performance, standards-based education not only misses the point, it compounds the mistakes of traditional education by discouraging and repelling those students who can’t relate. One explanation for this is that in its drive to be efficient, standards-based education often approaches students as if they all learn in [...]

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Standards-Based Education (2)

by William Rossi

As I suggested in my first post on standards-based education, the focus on imposed knowledge greatly minimizes students’ chances to develop into whole human beings. Imposed knowledge never becomes real knowledge—that can only come from within a person. By teaching primarily information, education can break the spirits of students who learn differently or have learning [...]

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The Basics of Teaching through Mentoring

by William Rossi

A kingpin of a creative, dynamic teaching relationship is that students are at the center of positive attention from a caring adult who appreciates and facilitates their natural creative tendencies and encourages their individual voice. If this relationship contains the components that are necessary for real growth to occur – if it’s long term, consistent, [...]

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After-School Programs: An Important Educational Environment

by William Rossi

Research has shown that youth engage in the riskiest behaviors in the afternoon or early evening when they are most likely to be unsupervised. This is also the time when most adolescent suicides occur. This would be an ideal time to offer young people a variety of substantial artistic activities. Many at risk people are [...]

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