Why ‘grit’ isn’t always a good thing is a good piece in today’s Telegraph. Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About "Grit."

I’ve written in my New York Times column about how I use optical illusions with English Language Learners, and I certainly use them when teaching perception in my Theory of Knowledge class. You can many that I’ve previously posted here. The 2015 Illusion Of The Year has just been announced, and here it is:

© 2008 Howard Arnoff, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio You’ve no doubt learned about the awful hate crime last night in Charleston. Both NBC News and The Guardian seem to have particularly thorough central webpages with updated reports. Here are a few tweets from this morning: These words, from the late pastor and SC state senator Clementa Pinckney: http://t.co/pO0C7r1BDn pic.twitter.com/iyT9MiosFy — Matt Thompson (@mthomps) June 18, 2015 Dr. King at #EmanuelAME. #HistoricBlackChurch #CivilRightsMovement #CharlestonShooting pic.twitter.com/Iu3ihGjQ2V — The King Center (@TheKingCenter) June 18, 2015 The church where #CharlestonShooting took place has a donate button if you want to help http://t.co/fpHnvHjIc1 #Charleston #CharlestonSC — Brian J. White (@talkwordy) June 18, 2015 AJC cartoonist Mike Luckovich takes on #CharlestonShooting http://t.co/FWmD9PELtZ pic.twitter.com/HuifDvlpX3 — AJC (@ajc) June 18, 2015 A closer look into the lives of the victims of the Charleston, SC church massacre. http://t.co/MKFAIKuxmf pic.twitter.com/hYhVkTVLDd — The Root (@TheRoot) June 18, 2015 Here's the Dr. King quote Obama just cited pic.twitter.com/sE1zTTtb5C — ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) June 18, 2015

© 2011 Margaret Ornsby, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio So much has been written about Social Emotional Learning - see The Best Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Resources. But, really, who has time to read all of it? What’s a one-stop shop where you can get a pretty good overview of what it is, why it’s important, and how it might work in the classroom? Here are a handful of recent reviews/studies that I think are pretty good. Let me ones you think should be added to the list: The Need to Address Noncognitive Skills in the Education Policy Agenda is from The Economic Policy Institute. Teaching Adolescents To Become Learners: The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance: A Critical Literature Review is from The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research. Social Emotional Learning in High School: How Three Urban High Schools Engage, Educate, and Empower Youth — Full Series is from Stanford.

Half of American whites see no racism around them is the headline of a Washington Post story about some incredible data. Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding this info to A Collection Of Useful Posts, Articles & Videos On Race & Racism - Help Me Find More.

I’m adding this video to The Best Fun Videos About Books & Reading:

© 2014 Mike Kniec, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are new additions to The Best Sites To Learn About Walls That Separate Us: Syrians Crash Through a Fence Between War and Refuge is a photo gallery from The Atlantic. These 14 walls continue to separate the world is from The Washington Post. 10 Grim Separation Walls From Around The World is from List Verse.

Every month I make a few short lists highlighting my choices of the best resources I through (and learned from) Twitter, but didn’t necessarily include them in posts here on my blog. I’ve already shared in earlier posts several new resources I found on Twitter — and where I gave credit to those from whom I learned about them. Those are not included again in post. If you don’t use Twitter, you can also check-out all of my "tweets" on Twitter profile page. You might also be interested in The Best Tweets Of 2015 - So Far. [View the story "June’s (2015) Best Tweets — Part Three" on Storify]

© 2008 Ginny, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio July 4th is Independence Day in the United States. You might be interested in The Best Websites For Learning About The Fourth Of July.

© 2011 Sean Lucas, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio I’ve written a lot in this blog and in my books about using inductive learning with students (see The Best Resources About Inductive Learning & Teaching). It’s one of my favorite instructional strategies. And, I’ve written an equal amount about the importance of transfer of learning — in other words, facilitating student "transfer" of something they learned in one lesson to another situation (see The Best Resources For Learning About The Concept Of "Transfer" — Help Me Find More). Now Education Week has highlighted a study that used that inductive concept - though, surprisingly, they called it "sorting" instead of "inductive learning" - in teaching science. And they found that it was more effective in promoting transfer than direct instruction. One common way to use the inductive method is through "text data sets," which a short piece of text that students categorize. You can read more about this particular method and see links to examples in "Thinking Like A Scientist Can Help Overcome Allure Of Appearances." In the study covered by Ed Week, though, the scientists just used cards sharing different scientific concepts instead of a typical few sheets of paper with the examples. One thing I found particularly intriguing and I hadn’t really read about in other studies of the inductive method was that it was its effect on transfer: …the students who had sorted the cards were significantly better at applying the concept to new situations. You might also be interested in The Best Posts Questioning If Direct Instruction Is "Clearly Superior."

© 2006 Jacob Haas, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio Juneteenth this year is being used in many communities to remember the nine people murdered in Charleston yesterday. Here are a few resources on the day, and please feel free to share additional ones: Juneteenth celebration resonates in wake of Charleston, S.C., tragedy is from USA Today. The Black American Holiday Everyone Should Celebrate but Doesn’t is from Slate. Juneteenth Is for Everyone appeared in The New York Times. Juneteenth: 150 Years Ago, Black America Got Its Own Independence Day is from The Root. What Happened After the First Juneteenth is from TIME. What Is Juneteenth? is by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Fusion, the innovative online news magazine, has just begun a free daily "Today In History" video series that’s slighter "edgier" than others on The Best "Today In History" Sites list. Here’s their video playlist page where you’ll be able to access all of them, and here’s the first one for today:

© 2014 Southbank Centre, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Jon Stewart interviewed Malala Yousafzai last night. Here’s the two part interview that I’m adding to The Best Resources On Malala Yousafzai: The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

[View the story "Some #CharlestonSyllabus Highlights" on Storify]

© 2012 opensource.com, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio There was a conference in the UK yesterday which featured Carol Dweck. It sounds like she made some interesting points, particularly around what she called a "False Growth Mindset." Here are some reports on that talk, along with other resources. I’m adding all of them to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A "Growth Mindset": Praise the taking on of challenge, perseverance, new strategies, recovery from setbacks, says Dweck. Also praise improvement and learning. — David Weston (@informed_edu) June 19, 2015 Why the ‘false growth mindset’ explains so much is from The Learning Spy. The Mindset Journey is from Drowning in the Shallow. Blog post on our new #mindset intervention paper: What we did, what we found, and what's next! @davepaunesku http://t.co/NkRNtZIhle — PERTS (@pertslab) June 15, 2015 Very useful for anyone interested in Growth Mindsets https://t.co/h0YJpu8WcY — Carl Hendrick (@C_Hendrick) June 14, 2015 Math educators! @joboaler has developed a week of math lessons and #growthmindset videos: https://t.co/3mrdndn0pB https://t.co/S5HaESKAZ6 — PERTS (@pertslab) June 1, 2015

I had the pleasure of having a half-hour Skyped conversation with a group of Texas teachers earlier this month, and invited Dan Perez to write about it: Dan Perez comes from the Lamar Consolidated ISD in Rosenberg, TX.  Dan was a 6th grade Science teacher for eight years prior to transitioning to his new adventure this year as an Instructional Technology Specialist.   Connecting Texas to California Two weeks ago our district hosted a week long mini technology PD conference for our teachers called INTERACT (Integrating Technology Realistically Among Classroom Teachers).  This year we included a time frame for teachers to discuss various topics of interests. Prior to the conference, teachers read snippets of an assigned book relating to their selected topic in order to prep for our conversation with various educational experts. Enter the topic of meaningful student motivation, Larry Ferlazzo, and his book, Helping Student Motivate Themselves. Our group met for about an hour and a half, part of which would include a live conversation with Larry via Skype.  Prior to our conversation with him, we reflected on our reading assignments and came up with questions to ask.  We had questions relating to student ownership, intrinsic rewards, goal setting, dealing with disruptive students, and reassessments. When we connected with Larry, we discussed the importance of getting to know your students’ hopes and dreams.  He mentioned we need to "lead with our ears, instead of our mouths."  It’s difficult for students to "buy in" if we’re not listening.  We also need to be flexible with our assignments relating to their dreams. This allows their work to be more meaningful and thus keeping the students’ interests. Dreams, meaningful work, and conversations regarding second chances can also help students who are often apathetic towards school work. Acknowledging improvements in student work is essential. Students need to see individual progress, and they need to be conversed with it as well. One teacher shared how she’s changed the way she grades assignments by pointing out what the student got correct versus what they got wrong.  Some teachers also mentioned how they don’t grade with red pens either. In relation to goal setting, our teachers loved the concept of Daniel Pink’s One Sentence Project mentioned by Larry.  Teacher’s want to invoke this where students will write one sentence on what they hope people will say about them in the future. Our group also discussed Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule, where it will take 10,000 hours of practice in order to achieve mastery.  All of this was to reinforce the topic of creating measureable realistic goals. Our teachers discussed how they respect students’ dreams, but they want them to come up with a "Plan B". For other questions, conversations with students seem to be the answer.  Whether it’s with the class as whole relating to classroom discipline issues or a one on one conversation with a student regarding behavior or academic concerns, heartfelt conversations are key. Our conversation with Larry was exciting and participants enjoyed hearing his input as these opportunities don’t happen often.  Larry input was truly humble and honest. He mentioned how he was there to share, but also to learn.  He never tried to "fake" an answer and would mention if he didn’t know an answer to a question.  

© 2012 martinak15, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are some new additions to The Best Online Sources For Images: Free Stock Photos: 74 Best Sites To Find Awesome Free Images is from Canva. Unsplash sends you ten free photos every ten days that can be used without restriction. Download images from Photos For Class and it will automatically include proper attribution. Not all images on Google are free. How to choose and publish images responsibly. http://t.co/31zXiL9DZb pic.twitter.com/0vyGntLBQD — popplet (@poppletny) May 12, 2015 A must read from @spencerideas : Eight Free Photo Sites That Require No Attribution - http://t.co/snD0SDE5sD — Bill Ferriter (@plugusin) May 8, 2015

Yesterday, I shared a number of reports about Carol Dweck’s talk over the weekend about the growth mindset concept. Jill Berry shared an article about it in Schools Week headlined Carol Dweck says mindset is not ‘a tool to make children feel good.’ Here’s an excerpt: I’m adding this post to The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A "Growth Mindset."

jasohill via Compfight Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About The Summer Solstice.

I’m a big fan of using games with my English Language Learners (see The Best Ideas For Using Games In The ESL/EFL/ELL Classroom) and, clearly, some games are better than others. Some of the ones that are near the bottom, in my opinion, are word searches and crossword puzzles EXCEPT for times when, just for a change of pace, having students create their own for classmates to play. I was inspired this morning of another idea for one of these occasional activities when I saw this tweet: Blank jigsaws in languages, placed in correct order to make sentences- can be done for any text #Poundlandpedagogy pic.twitter.com/rket6ffqY7 — LoveToTeach (@87History) May 19, 2015 So, I quickly typed this up to try out the idea: Then I copied the screenshot and pasted it onto the Paint program; then saved it as a jpg image. Next, I went to Jigsaw Planet, uploaded the image, and in seconds it created the online jigsaw puzzle that you see in the image at the top of this post and which you can play here. There are quite a few other sites where you can create your own puzzles - Daily Jigsaw Puzzles and Jigidi are just two more. It seems to me that students creating these for their classmates could be a nice exercise to do now and then. What do you think?

A designer has created a typeface to simulate the experience of having dyslexia: "It simulates the frustration and the work and the outright embarrassment of reading with disability," Daniel Britton says. Check it out at: A powerful design project shows what it’s like to read when you have dyslexia appeared in The Washington Post. Powerful images show what it’s like to read when you have dyslexia is also from The Washington Post. New typeface simulates reading with dyslexia is from CNN. I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes.

Last month, the American Psychological Association issued a big report on learning that I blogged about in Nothing New In New "Top 20 Principles from Psychology for Teaching," But Still Very Useful. However, since that time, UK educator David Didau has been writing a series of posts where he examines each one of those "principles" in-depth and from the point of view of a teacher. They’re very illuminating, and you can see them all here. He’s got eight more to go, and I’m looking forward to reading each of them!

I’ve mentioned on more than one occasion the best piece of classroom management advice I’ve ever heard. It’s from Marvin Marshall, who wrote: Will what I am about to do or say bring me closer or will it push me away farther from the person with whom I am communicating? Here’s a corollary to it that appeared in The New York Times yesterday, and which was highlighted in a tweet by Dan Pink this morning: I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Classroom Management.

NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft will be arriving at Pluto next month. You can access tons of visuals and infographics on the mission at a special Pinterest page NASA has created about the mission. And here’s a neat video the National Space Society has created: You might also be interested in a ton of "Best" lists related to space you can find here. This is just a small sample: The Best Sites For Learning About Planets & Space The Best Sites To Learn About The Hubble Telescope The Best Images Taken In Space