Due to financial constraints last year, the Maryland State Department of Education discontinued their high school government assessment test. Because of emphasis and requirements put on math and reading by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), social studies and science were somewhat forgotten and able to be de-emphasized when budget cuts in the state were required. The consequence of these cuts turned [...]
When I was pregnant, my family joked that my love of all things literary, working here at PSG and the fact that my husband is a chemistry teacher for Boston Public Schools, our son was destined to be a genius. As Gabriel approaches his first birthday in July, it is clear that we were right. He loves books and has been turning pages [...]
Many college students take a semester or a year to study in a foreign country, perfecting language skills and learning how to live in a new culture. Like many before me, I recently finished a five-month study abroad program in Montpellier, France, with 60 other American college juniors. Even after more than seven years of studying French in school, my language abilities improved [...]
These days, as we are forgetting to be worried about our dependence on technology, finding an example where it can truly enhance a learning experience provides hope for our techno-filled future. Here we find an example of literature paired with technology that is driving students to the computer—not to look up SparkNotes, but to go beyond the reading process and experience the journeys taken in [...]
Toward the end of high school, the term “senioritis” was used by my classmates to describe their apparent inability to not only attend their classes, but also to pay attention to, and complete, their schoolwork. But a new teaching technique, dubbed “experiential learning,” may be a potential treatment for senioritis. At its core, an experiential program revolves around hands-on learning and the benefits [...]
Like many of my colleagues, I work from my home office, which is something I really enjoy. It gives me the opportunity to manage my own time and avoid the countless interruptions that can occur in an office setting. It also means that when the season changes, “someone” is responsible for “spring cleaning” my office. While I was cleaning up recently, I came [...]
When I started PSG back in 2003, mathematics projects were a small part of my business, but that statistic has changed dramatically in the last five years. Now, we have multiple math projects in-house year-round. My staff and I tell some pretty funny math jokes, we come up with assessment questions for all kinds of situations in our daily lives and I’ve been [...]
Believe it or not, one of the coolest jobs right now is using building blocks. Although it may sound like what a child is doing in elementary school, this activity hardly has the connotation of playing with LEGOs. Instead, building blocks have captured interest on a much smaller level: the nanometer, or the measure of one billionth of a meter. To put a [...]
As a student at Emerson College, I have heard a lot about satellite campuses recently. On March 8th, Emerson broke ground on a new facility in Los Angeles. This project is meant to provide the college with a more permanent base for its existing L.A. internship program. The Los Angeles Center, which is expected to open in fall 2014, will add to Emerson’s [...]
I had no idea I had a passion for art until I offhandedly signed up for an introductory class on it, but now I have taken every art history class I can fit into my college schedule. I’ve also visited most of Boston’s museums enough times that I feel at home in them. I’m lucky to have had this opportunity because art museums [...]