Figuring out what motivates and engages individual students is essential. Indeed, it is the prerequisite for implementing student-centered approaches to learning. However, today's teachers--confronting large class sizes, fast-paced academic calendars, and standardized assessments--face particular pressures to lump all students together and "teach…

While interscholastic sports help young athletes enhance sport skills, physical fitness, self-discipline, sportsmanship, teamwork, time-management skills, self-confidence, and mental toughness, they also promote life skills and lessons and enhance academic performance as well. Coaches have a tremendous opportunity--and responsibility--to instill…

School board members, administrators, and parents like to think of children as hard working and honest in their academic endeavors. According to recent surveys, that's a misperception. Rutgers Management Education Center reports 75% of the 4,500 high school students surveyed engaged in serious cheating and 88% judged cheating to be "common" among…

This article features Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a systems-based method for improving student behavior. PBIS was developed at the University of Oregon and has been shown to work at all grade levels and be effective in districts with greater concentrations of poverty and higher percentages of "at-risk" students. It has…

This paper focuses on what teachers need to know to develop self-regulation in young children and what is and what is not successful in promoting it. Self-regulation is a deep, internal mechanism that underlies mindful, intentional, and thoughtful behaviors of children. Self-regulated children can delay gratification and suppress their impulses…

Pressures to improve test scores and avoid lawsuits are causing many schools to cut back play time. According to the American Association for the Child's Right to play, nearly 40% of the nation's 16,000 school districts have either modified, deleted, or are considering deleting recess. Moreover, where playtime does still exist, it has become…