Whether you manage the supplies for an elementary school or a high school, a lot of equipment requests are going to be focusing on an increasingly popular theme: collaboration. Common Core has a hefty focus on students’ ability to complete interdisciplinary group projects, and so do most state-based programs.
But the wrong desks can get in the way. The next time you need to order desks to replace broken inventory or to expand your district, look for desks with these three elements:
The primary school years are important for encouraging healthy attitudes of curiosity and creativity that are part of a science and mathematics interest. However, education has to be developmentally appropriate. Discovery and exploration are key parts of early child education that are part of the STEM fields. Critical thinking and problem-solving are components of scientific thinking
Let’s face it, you can’t go anywhere these days without encountering someone who is absorbed in their cell phone. It seems that children are being given this powerful technology at increasingly younger ages. This is very frustrating for teachers who work hard to prepare lessons, only to find their students more absorbed in their shiny little squares of silicon.
Although modern technology can act as a great learning tool, many teachers are beginning to realize that realistically, many students will not use their technology in a productive way. When teachers finally get fed up with this distraction in the classroom, there is only one effective solution.
Sending a child to school for the first time can be a difficult experience for parents – partly because it is rarely easy to watch a child move on to that next, important milestone, but also because many parents worry that they haven’t made the right decision. Is my child really ready to attend school? Will he succeed, academically, or have I set him up for failure by asking him to achieve things he simply isn’t ready for? Will she fit in, socially, or have I endangered her emotional well-being by expecting things she isn’t mature enough for?
Parents are not alone in their concerns. In fact, the U.S. government’s National Education Goals Panel made school readiness a primary focus of its annual Goals Report beginning in 1995, when it listed the topic first on a list of overarching goals for the United States public education system. In the report the NEGP – a panel of senators, representatives, governors and professionals – outlined the significance of readiness for kindergarten and elementary school and stressed the importance of access to a high-quality Pre-K program to prepare for it.