Just a quickie blog post, but one I am excited to write: I have accepted a new position for the upcoming school year. In what will be a significant (but very welcome) professional change for me, I will be working with students in grades 4-6 as a school psychologist; as…
Personalizing Learning in Public Education
About a year and a half ago, I wrote about New Jersey’s pilot program for Personalized Student Learning Plans, defined in the New Jersey Administrative Code as “a formalized plan and process that involved students setting learning goals based on personal, academic, and career interests, beginning in the middle school…
Words Mean Things III
Over the course of some Memorial Day morning bargain-hunting, I came across this magnet for sale at my local Five Below store: In the last “Words Mean Things” installment, I wrote about the unintended signals our words sometimes send. At least this magnet doesn’t have that problem. I debated saying…
A Very Special #SpedChat
It hardly seems like it’s been over eight months since Deven Black and I hosted the first #SpedChat discussion of special education issues on Twitter. Since then, the weekly Tuesday night chat (8:30pm EST/EDT; please join us!) has developed a core community of educators and parents, given birth to a…
Gifted Education in the 21st Century
This blog post was written at the invitation of Gerald Aungst, Supervisor of Gifted Education at Cheltenham (PA) School District, and is cross-posted at his blog, Quisitivity. I’m a school psychologist, so my professional life is a minefield of labels and acronyms – FAPE, IEP, SLD, OHI, IDEA, PLAAPF, ICS,…