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Tell a trusted adult about the bullying, and keep telling until you find an adult who takes action. Don’t open or read messages from cyber bullies. Tell a teacher or administrator at your school if it is school related. Don’t erase the messages—they may be needed to take action. Protect yourself: Never agree to meet face to face with anyone you meet online. If bullied through chat or instant messaging, the “bully” can often be blocked. If you are threatened with harm, inform the local police. What Can You Do

Tax season is upon us, with most Americans putting together the materials they need to file their returns, gathering receipts, and searching for other tax deductions to maximize the amount they get back from the federal government.

If the IRS begins to suspect that a tax return isn't entirely truthful, the filer might be in for an audit.

Only about 1.1 percent of people who file a 1040 [the most common tax return] for the 2010 tax year were audited ... [or] about 1.5 million," says Rozbruch. "However, the audit rate is 12.5 percent for people earning $1 million or more in 2010.

If you were creating a classroom, what would it look like? It would be interactive and have a lot of activities. It should be half and half activities and lecture. I do like when it’s more open, but it is important for us to know what lecture looks like because we might have to do that later. The tables should be set up in a circle so we are all facing each other and talking.

It turns out, however, that in this group of students, many talked as if they craved more human interaction, and wanted to unplug more during class

"There's no words," Wilford said. "It's sheer terror, a sense of imminent danger, to get to your child and be there to protect him."

"Evil visited this community today and it's too early to speak of recovery, but each parent, each sibling, each member of the family has to understand that Connecticut — we're all in this together. We'll do whatever we can to overcome this event," Gov. Dannel Malloy said.

"It has to stop, these senseless deaths."

20 to 30 percent of learners remember through hearing, 40 percent retain information visually, and the rest either have higher memory retention after writing something down or through real-life activities.

There are three learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic and tactile.

Visual Learners Visual learners like having information presented to them in an eye-catching way, have strong visualization skills, and to see the “big picture.” Enjoy a fun activity with visual learners encouraging their language and reading skills. Tie the activity into the child’s homework by using vocabulary or spelling words for an upcoming test. Help the child create a list of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns to use for the activity. If they have a list of vocabulary or spelling words they need to memorize for school, they can be added to the list. Kids can select a color for each type of word and then write them onto flashcards using the coordinating color for each word group (green for nouns). Have the child place the cards in stacks according to color/type. Discuss with the child that they will be creating a visual language story using the words by placing them into sentences and a finished story. This encourages visual learners to see the big picture and understand the final outcome of the activity. Once the child has begun forming sentences, he can arrange them to form a story, working until all the words have been used. Tap into his auditory and kinesthetic/tactile learning, and his active processors, by having him read the story out loud while acting it out.

Visual learners learn best through their eyes.

If you find yourself doing a search for videos and podcasts then you should focus on tuning your skills in the auditory direction

Visual learners learn best through their eyes. In a traditional classroom they prefer to sit where they can best see what is going on in order to have an advantage when reading a teacher’s body language, studying charts and graphs, watching video, following visual presentations such as PowerPoint, observing demonstrations, and so on.  When learning online visual learners benefit from the ability to replay simulations or videos, trace an outline on the screen, note color coding, interpret pictures, and interact with a wide variety of interactive visual media.

In Kim’s words, the data indicate that “children have become less emotionally expressive, less energetic, less talkative and verbally expressive, less humorous, less imaginative, less unconventional, less lively and passionate, less perceptive, less apt to connect seemingly irrelevant things, less synthesizing, and less likely to see things from a different angle.”

During the immediate post-Sputnik period, the U.S. government was concerned with identifying and fostering giftedness among American schoolchildren, so as to catch up with the Russians (whom we mistakenly thought were ahead of us in scientific innovation). 

creativity is the central variable underlying personal achievement and ability to adapt to unusual conditions.

The truth of education is that most of traditional schooling methods are based on auditory-sequential instruction. This is unfortunate for visual-spatial students, who can begin to feel "dumb" in a regular classroom. In actuality, visual-spatial children are often highly gifted, but their classroom work may not adequately reflect their intelligence. Or, commonly, V-S kids will have incredibly high grades in subjects that appeal to their visual learning style, but might struggle to keep even passing grades in subjects such as phonics and math computation, where visual skills are seldom accessed. They also suffer exceedingly under the drill and review method of teaching. While continued practice and repetition is highly beneficial for auditory-sequential learners, visual-spatial students find it to be completely unnecessary. Once a V-S learner has mastered a concept, the learning is permanent, and does not need to be reviewed. Any type of review that highlights a visual-spatial learner's mistakes can be especially damaging to their self-esteem.

Although much of the traditional school environment is designed with the auditory-sequential learner in mind, there are things that teachers or parents can do to make learning more accessible for visual-spatial learners. The most obvious of these is the copious use of visual aids in learning. Any auditory instruction needs to be accompanied by something that the student can see with their eyes, or manipulate with their hands. Visual-spatial learners also usually grasp reading more easily if they are taught using the sight, or whole-word method, rather than with phonics. Pre-tests are another good idea for V-S learners, so that you do not waste time teaching them what they already have mastered. When possible, instead of writing out their work, allow them to represent their learning in visual and creative ways. Creativity is key for a visual-spatial learner.

The computer is an indispensible tool for a visual-spatial learner.

Here are ten ways to use Facebook in class:

Set up a dedicated Facebook group for your class A Facebook group can allow your students to create discussion boards, communicate with each other and their teacher, and can be linked with online projects & other classroom groups. Teachers can use these groups to send out mass messages, reminders, and potentially even post homework assignments.

Use Facebook Apps Facebook is more than a place to tag photos from last night’s not-so-clever encounter with tequila. It is now a platform that runs on mobile devices, and can be integrated with applications designed for learning. From news to learning a new language, there are many apps that allow searches and sharing across the platform.

Imagine K12 is a for-profit enterprise looking to invest time, experience, energy and resources in entrepreneurs who have a passion for education and the technical know-how to create their vision. (If you have the passion and technical know-how but need some ideas, click here)