What’s an ‘A’ Worth?

“There’s one big danger of paying your children for A’s: They’ll see the value in schoolwork only when there’s a cash payout.” While opening the wallet when Jennie brings home good grades is not every families’ tactic, there are some pros and cons to the practice. Read excerpt ... Keep Reading »

Sleeping Like a Baby, Learning at Warp Speed

“We don’t help kids learn by extending homework late into the night.” PEL Parents take note… this latest article in the Wall Street Journal by Alison Gropnik brings to light the results of 2006 research on babies and a paper published just this month ... Keep Reading »

There is no easy way to handle our grief and dismay with today's horrific events. Many parents expressed the desire to hold their children tight when they returned from school this afternoon. Beyond that, we are posting a link to help you guide your conversations. Please keep in mind, that for those kids under 9 or 10 years of age, the less exposure to the media the better.

Can we "learn" to be smarter? According to the latest article by Dan Hurley, a neuroscience reporter writing a book on new research into intelligence, it may be possible. "Tutoring aims to help students master a subject. This prep aims to make them smarter"

Please go to the front of the class if you can define “MOOC”. If not, read on! Massive Open Online Courses are the educational happening of the moment. The evolving form knits together education, entertainment (think gaming) and social networking. Unlike its antecedent, open courseware — usually written materials or videotapes of ... Keep Reading »

We thought this article had some great points to address the instantaneous answers available to students today and how we can teach around that.

“Taking digital tools and mobile technologies into account, it’s obvious that multiple-choice and true-false questions are not going to cut it anymore. Instead, educators have to design questions that ... Keep Reading »

“If we want to have great scientists, letting preschoolers explore, play and do pretend play exercises the capacities for doing science. Not so much the flash cards and the Baby Einstein videos.” Looking to make a thoughtful preschool selection? Check out one of the PEL preschool fairs. Next one is October 28th! ... Keep Reading »

Do you think textbooks are obsolete? In their place would come a variety of digital-learning technologies, like e-readers and multimedia Web sites. I see new schools making this switch.  My daughters currently head out the door with backpacks loaded heavy and I have found myself paying excess baggage fees to accomodate ambitious ... Keep Reading »

Preparing Kids for College and Getting Them Through What determines success in college and beyond? Good grades? Hard work? Persistence? Recently there has been much published regarding following the path of least resistance versus trying and failing.  American RadioWorks’ Emily Hanford  explores the issue in this Documentary Podcast. In addition, you may ... Keep Reading »

Have Your Kids Study Lego Bricks in School!

Applied education at its best! This interview with technology teacher Cathy Webb, describes advantages of using legos in curriculum to teach kids to creatively problem-solve, to break outside of the box of Lego bricks and look for the objects around them and build that into something that can solve some of the huge issues that we face.