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Students who progress quickly can finish high school material early and move forward with college coursework. Alternatively, in some districts, high-schoolers who need extra time can stick around for another year.

Students, often of varying ages, will work at their own pace, meeting with teachers to decide what part of the curriculum to tackle. Teachers still will instruct students as a group if needed, but often students will be working individually or in small groups on projects that are tailored to their skill level.

During the first two weeks of school, pre-K to sixth grade students in five schools will take reading and math assessments to determine their mastery level. The students then will be leveled and moved into groups according to their abilities,

MIDDLE SCHOOL students are champion time-wasters. And the personal computer may be the ultimate time-wasting appliance. Put the two together at home, without hovering supervision, and logic suggests that you won’t witness a miraculous educational transformation.

Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts.

At that time, most Romanian households were not yet connected to the Internet. But few children whose families obtained computers said they used the machines for homework. What they were used for — daily — was playing games.

Sutton said collaboration is "a more positive way of teaching" and addresses the needs of students who learn best in different ways, such as those who are visual learners or auditory learners.

We are working with the Google Wave team to get all EtherPad users a chance to try out the Google Wave preview within the next couple of weeks. We do realize (as does the Google Wave team) that Wave doesn't yet have all the functionality you rely on, and isn't yet as mature as EtherPad. We are confident that in the long term you will be really happy with Google Wave, though. That's why we decided to join them!

If you'd no longer like to continue running your network on the Ning Platform you can request a Network Content Export. The content we provide is a full backup of the content store for your Ning Network. There will be a folder tree with distinct folders for each type of content. The data is represented in individual xml files containing all data fields, including who uploaded what content. The actual content can be found in individual folders for each type of content.

Bank Comments: Keep a bank of comments about frequent errors students make and organize them in groups for easy access. Consider grouping comments according to module, assignment, and chapter, or grammar, content, and organization. For example, if an instructor sees frequent errors regarding point of view, keep related comments grouped in the same area to access them easily.

Less is More: Instructors should avoid the temptation to respond to everything that calls for adjustments or changes. Brookhart (2011) reports, many struggling students need to focus on just a few areas or even one item at a time. If a student backs off from his or her paper because he or she is intimidated by the number of instructor comments, then all is lost. It is better to target two or three areas that need to be addressed for the student’s success on future papers.

Questions for Reflection: Consider inviting reflective, critical thinking and further conversation in a productive, scholarly exchange with the student. Instead of telling students what they did “wrong,” ask them to rethink their approach. For example, consider using a phrase such as “What is the most interesting aspect of your essay?” Or “What would draw your attention to this topic, as a reader?” This way, the student is not only prompted to make more thoughtful revisions, but also is given tools to use when considering how to write a hook for future essays.

I have four of our foundational classroom principles posted on the walls: Be respectful to yourself because it sets the context for being able to participate in a community; to others because it is hard to be a student and everyone’s struggles merit your respect; and to the teacher because although it is a position of authority, the teacher should also be vulnerable and learning. Be engaged, because merely being present in the classroom does not necessarily qualify as participation, and a truly pluralistic community requires all voices. Be prepared, because informed conversation requires prepared members, and preparation transcends just the work that is assigned—and is closer to deep thought, sincere skepticism, and a general willingness to interrogate assumptions. Be courageous, because learning requires acknowledging that there are things we don’t know, skills we lack, and ways in which we might still be foolish—which is a scary prospect for everyone in the class, teacher included.