Note:  This post was originally posted this morning on adaptivelearnin.com.  With the transition to the new website, I will be reposting some of the posts here for you, the readers.  Check out and follow the new site for updates on all posts.  There will be new guest contributions coming soon. 

On adaptivelearnin I have featured Five Minute Friday bits as examples to help you (teachers) incorporate free writing practice. Students often struggle with writing anxiety. Five Minute Friday is a way to help students learn how to write freely without stress and restrictions. I’m excited to start this feature again.

Here’s what you need to know to participate in Five Minute Friday. Join in this “writing flash mob” with your students. It’s a simple and quick free writing exercise. Read my post introducing Five Minute Friday for details on how to participate. Also, check out how to incorporate Five Minute Friday with creating interactive posters for the “Writing Process”.

Set aside five minutes of free writing time to join me on writing about “Write”, today’s topic. Remember I’m applying my Five Minute Friday posts toward education and work, but you can write about anything about “Write” that sparks your interest.

Start…

I find today’s topic perfect for restarting the Five Minute Friday feature on adaptivelearnin. I’m excited to join with Lisa-Jo Baker in this great free writing flash mob. I believe Five Minute Friday is a great way for teaching free writing to students. As an ESL teacher, I have too often seen students extensively struggle with writing. Regular practice is key for development.

The great thing I love about Five Minute Friday is that it now only all allows students to practice free writing in five minutes, but it also allows people to comment on each other’s posts. Students can comment on each other’s writing assignment which is an excellent teachable moment. Teachers can use the comment stream to teach literary forms, verse, writing execution, expressing creativity and the like.

Writing shouldn’t be an anxious thing. As a student I always loved writing. As a teacher, I love writing. It saddens me when students struggle. I feel it’s our job as teachers to provide them with chances and experiences to help them learn that writing doesn’t have to be stressful. Through Five Minute Friday free writing, students can learn to use their mind’s to expand their creative voice. Best of all, those students who don’t like writing because it makes them so anxious, may even fall in love with writing.

Stop!

Note: During Five Minute Friday, you are not supposed to stop to make any edits. Free writing without stopping is the purpose. Notice there are errors in my Five Minute Friday writing above. These errors will not be edited because editing them would defeat the purpose of Five Minute Friday. Part of the reason I’m featuring Five Minute Friday on adaptivelearnin is to teach students how to write without anxiety. I want them to see the errors to show them that errors are okay to make during free writing. I want this to be an educational experience for them. Feel free to use this or my other FMF posts as examples in lessons if you wish. You can also follow the Five Minute Friday posts on Twitter with hashtag #FMF. Happy Friday!

Beth Crumpler is an founder of adaptivelearnin.com, which both present ideas for using adaptive concepts in learning. She works as a freelance curriculum writer, writing contributor/blogger, e-learning content developer, and instructor. She contributes regularly for TESOL International Association’s English Language Bulletin and for wahm.com (working from home moms). She has developed and written content for major companies/institutions in the education sector. Beth is a certified teacher of ESL and music. She enjoys studying technology for teaching, crafting with her son, and in her spare time studies Spanish.

Related articles

• Writing Tip: Free Writing (princessofthelight.wordpress.com)

Preparing to move to the U.S. for college is a daunting task. You have to obtain the right documentation, figure out how to pay for school and move away from your family and friends to a foreign country. But don’t feel intimidated – many international students before you have gone through the same thing and had life-changing experiences while living in America.

Preparing yourself for the journey to come will help relieve some stress and anxiety. Here are some ways to prepare for college in the U.S.

Paying for school

Though studying in America is a valuable experience, it can also be an expensive one. Luckily, the U.S. offers many options for making college more affordable for international students. Many colleges offer financial aid and scholarships to international students to alleviate the cost of tuition. Scholarships are awarded based on various factors – intended field of study, income, academic performance and whether you’re attending graduate or undergraduate school.

Further your ability to pay for school by getting a job while in America. There are typically plenty of campus jobs available at the beginning of the school year, so be on the lookout for employment opportunities nearby. For more information on paying for college in the U.S., download the helpful e-book, “Guide to International Student Financial Aid,” by HCC Medical Insurance Services.

Obtaining necessary documentation

All international students are required to have an F-1 visa before entering the U.S. In order to obtain such a visa, you must schedule a visa interview with the U.S. consulate or embassy in your home country. Prepare to bring the required documents to the interview, including your passport, visa application and certificate of eligibility for nonimmigrant student status. Once your application has been accepted, you’ll receive the visa up to 120 days before classes start, but you won’t be able to enter the country until 30 days prior to the start of classes.

Dealing with culture shock

America is more than likely quite different from your home country. Being in unfamiliar territory for that long without knowing many people can cause you to become extremely homesick. But there are ways to overcome culture shock. Start by making use of the international student office and attending events they host. You’ll meet other international students and start building relationships.

While you should try to get used to American culture, maintaining aspects of your culture from home—like your religious practices, hobbies and food choices—can help you strike a healthy balance between new experiences and the comforts of home.

Bon voyage

Once you’ve prepared yourself for the adventure of studying in the U.S., you’ll be ready to make unforgettable memories. Take advantage of studying in a different country and expand your comfort zone. Making new friends and immersing yourself in another culture will make you thankful you went to school in America.

Written by contributor Lindsey Harper Mac.  Lindsey is a professional writer living in the Indianapolis area. She specializes in writing guest posts on social media and education. Currently, Lindsey is completing work on her master’s degree.

You can get a hold of her on Twitter at @Harpermac11

Dear Policy Makers, Voters, Parents, and Educators:

I fail standardized assessments regardless of what type of extra help I receive. Below is my story of what would happen if I was a public school student in today’s schools: my bad test taking would cause my school to be labeled as poor, and my teacher and administrator to be labeled as ineffective. Administrators, teachers, other educators, parents, policy makers and voters need to hear from people like me because our test failures aren’t really understood. We don’t do well on standardized assessments – period. You can try your best, but teaching us test taking strategies and remediation help won’t work for us. We need to be heard from and listened to because our stories matter in the discussion of whether standardized assessments are appropriate, what kind, how many, what the ratings should be, and the implications the ratings have. I am also an educator, so I can address this both as a student who has failed standardized assessments numerous times and as an educator who has given them.

Standardized assessments are not the answer for improving student learning, school success rates, high school graduation, college admissions, or to help save the American K-12 public schools from lapsing behind those of other countries. There are students in the K-12 American public schools who are just like me. Why do schools now focus so much on standardization and trying to improve test scores when some students’ test scores won’t improve regardless of what you try to do?

If I were a student right now, I might not pass high school if passing a standardized assessment were a condition to graduate. And, I may not be able to attend college. My SAT scores were a 900 both times I took it. I did try to study and did try to learn test taking strategies. Neither helped me do better on the SATs. Although I received bad scores, I graduated with honors, attended college and earned my bachelor’s degree in teaching.

If I were a student now in the American K-12 schools, my teacher could be rated as ineffective and my administrator could be rated poorly. This is because I know I would have bad standardized assessment scores on the yearly standards assessments required for NCLB. My assessment scores would count against my school for making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) under the No Child Left Behind law. The fact that I do poor on assessments would have huge implications on my school, principal, and the teachers that have worked so hard to help me.

When I was in school and had taken standardized assessments, my teachers tried to intervene. Fact is, I did learn and understand, but was just horrible at taking tests. No intervention method helped that.

If the GRE was required for entrance to every graduate school, I wouldn’t have my master’s degree now. And more importantly, nor would I have had the many career successes I’ve had since. I’ve worked for several top names in the education sector because of my knowledge, skills and hard work. Did failing the GRE show that I wouldn’t do well as a graduate student? No. I earned my master’s degree and graduated with honors. Why? Because, I am very motivated to do well in school and am very inquisitive to learn. I just stink at taking tests.

If I were a student in a public American school now, I might be classified with a learning disability. Why? I don’t do well on standardized assessments. My scores often don’t improve regardless of what studying I do to help them. Does doing badly on standardized assessments and not showing improvements with intervention methods make me learning disabled? No. There are many students out there like me. Does the fact that they don’t do well on tests make them learning disabled? No, not necessarily.

My test taking struggles did not make me a failure, nor ever made my teachers viewed as ineffective. My inability to pass standardized assessments has never been a reflection of the quality of education I received at the schools I attended. My inability to pass the tests was never an indication of a poor principal in my schools. In American schools today, would students be able to make the same statements here I’m able to make. Probably not! Their answer would probably be this. Since I can’t pass a standardized assessment, my teacher is ineffective. Since my standardized assessment scores don’t improve year to year, my school is not a good school and my principal is not good. There is something wrong here! I honestly find it very disturbing.

If I were in public school today with so much focus on standardized assessments, I probably would get burnt out, give up, rebel, do poorly, maybe not graduate high school and even something worse. I would hate education and stop caring. Why would I do this? Eventually when you fail tests too many times, it gets very emotionally draining, you get very anxious about taking tests, you begin to resent them, and you just give up on caring to do well.

My inability to pass standardized assessments has never held me back! I have never been defined by failing tests. Failing tests has never made me unsuccessful as an adult. I have been completely the opposite. Failing tests and being able to do what I needed to do to learn in freedom and in the way I needed to learn, did very great things for my motivation to succeed.

No standardized assessment taught me the most important things in life I needed to be successful. I learned perseverance, determination, motivation, strength, resiliency, truth, faith, belief, possibility, hope, and the value of hard work. I learned that although a paper says I fail, I am not a failure. I learned to trust and believe that my abilities and gifts would get me places in life. These are the abilities that can’t be measured on a standardized assessment.

Today’s heavily assessment-focused culture, is hurting students, teachers, administrators, parents, and everyone that works in a school. As an educator, I have seen the damage the testing culture is having on our students. I have seen fear put into students if the students don’t pass the test. I have seen students with high-test anxiety. I have seen students who hate school because of the testing culture. I have seen students that give up and don’t care and check ‘C’ as every answer on the test. These actions are multiplied and the negative feelings are intensified for students like me who don’t do well on standardized assessments.

What do students like me need? We need learning freedom. We need to be believed in, supported, and encouraged. When we fail a test, we need to be told that the test score doesn’t matter. When we fail a test, we need to be told that we are smart. We need to be encouraged to put forth determination and motivation to pick ourselves up again. We need to know that a test score won’t keep us from graduating high school. Students like me need to know that the learning environment is safe, peaceful and has our best interests at heart. We need our abilities to learn and succeed to be trusted. Students like me don’t need more standardized assessments, school remediation, after school learning, tutoring, or summer school. We need less of it and more practical and creative learning.

Policy makers, when you say that teachers, principals and schools need to be held accountable for student standardized assessment scores, you communicate to me that don’t care about students like I was. You are saying to me that you don’t understand or value the way I learned and what I really needed for success. Your actions communicate that you think that extra teaching and intervention will help students like me. From experience, I can wholeheartedly tell you that these efforts don’t work. There are thousands of students out there like me in the American public school system who can’t improve their test scores. Why and how can it be solved? You need to understand that we just don’t do well on tests. It’s simple. As a bad test taker it is heartbreaking so see that you think teachers, administrators or schools should be held accountable for students’ bad test scores, when students like I was can’t do better on them.

Policy makers please stop passing so many laws with so much emphasis on standardized assessments. Please listen to people like me because it matters. We matter! Our inability to pass the tests that you love to impose on us, matter. Too many people’s lives are being effected by the implications of students failing standardized assessments. This is all from laws you have passed, like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and now the Common Core State Standards Assessments. Too many teachers, administrators and schools are being labeled as ineffective or poor because you don’t stop to listen or consider the learning and test taking abilities or inabilities of students like me.

Rethink the implications your laws have on students. Please stop the madness before it ruin students’ futures. We don’t need future Americans who are labeled as failures and learn to have a failure mentality. Is that the type of American education system you want? Is that the type of education system our future leaders should grow up in? We need future adult Americans to be ready to handle adulthood. Our countries’ future depends upon modeling students into adults who can think, be creative, apply themselves, have determination, understand adversity, understand how to persevere, and most importantly understand the value of hard work.

Think about it. Consider students like me! Listen to us! Have open discussions! It matters!

-Beth

This was originally posted on adaptivelearnin.com.

Related articles

• Common Core: Reinforcing Failure (americanthinker.com)
• The Problem With Teacher Assessment and Schools As Businesses (amorninggrouch.com)
• School Assessment scores dip as state transitions to new learning standards (times-news.com)

Warning!  With Two Step Authentication…you can lose serious access to your accounts for large extended times with no way in!

Update since first drafted: So, yesterday I said I was only posting new content to my new self-hosted .org site.  Well, this is a post here on WordPress.com I have been working on for a little while, after this long ordeal happened to me.  I am really am passionate about sharing this post first on WordPress.com because it will inform and help you, the users.  The WordPress platform I discuss in my presentation story is WordPress.com.  I had issues logging into for days.  I’m sharing my story in a comical presentation form because it helps bring humorous relief to my stress and frustration.  I’m posting here and warning you as a user of WordPress.com to listen and to take action!

Beware, Two Step Authentication is good but you could lose serious long access to your account if not very mindful and careful.  I just finally got access to my account after days of trying to no avail.  I even Googled articles for insight and help but found nothing useful.  Almost every post I encountered, gave Two Step Authentication praise.  Don’t get me wrong, it is a great extra measure to add security to accounts.  But, PLEASE BEWARE and know the dangers too! I’m here writing tonight, not with initial intention, but feel now propelled after my huge ordeal to warn you.

Most of us have heard the rave reviews of Two Step Authentication and how it should protect our accounts.  So, we all sign up to use it because we are urged we must.  Most of us probably have not stopped to think about the pitfalls and problems that Two Step Authentication can cause.  I’m addressing my problems with WordPress here.  But, the same problems can be found with Google, Dropbox, Facebook, Evernote, Microsoft, and all other services that offer a Two Step Authentication/Verification security measure.  The access problems and scenarios can be the same, however the solutions will be a little different depending on the service.

Please read the PowerPoint story about the warning and solutions. This is to inform you and warn you of the problems that can occur.  Please prepare yourself! 

Please come check out the new site and follow it!  You can enjoy the same type of posts you have enjoyed on this site, on the new site.  New blog posts by guest bloggers and myself will be now be placed on adaptivelearnin.com.  So, please check it out!

If you have enjoyed this site, it will remain active at this time.

Thank you for reading and following this wordpress.com site.  I appreciate the comments, and the insight you have given.

Bests!  -Beth

If you’re a teacher that is passionate about the field of education, but interested in a new profession, here are four career fields where you can hone your education skills while trying something new.

School Leadership 

If you are an experienced teacher looking to take on a leadership role in your school you may be interested in a school leadership position.  Great school leaders generally have experience leading groups of adults; have made great achievements in their classroom; and possess strong interpersonal skills.

First Steps:

1.            Shadow a school leader.  If your own school leader allows it, follow him or her around for a day or more to better understand the work that they do.

2.              Check your district and/or charter school’s leadership requirements.  Requirements for becoming a school leader vary from state to state.  Most states will accept an out-of-state license for a short period.  Many charter schools have their own training program for principals that don’t require state licenses.

Political Leadership, Policy & Advocacy

With experience as a teacher, you have the perspective and voice to address issues in education through public office, policy, advocacy and community organizing.  Political leadership in education includes positions such as school board member, superintendent, and executive director of a policy organization.

First Steps:

1.            Volunteer for a local campaign or advocacy organization.  Campaigns and organizations are always looking for volunteers that are willing to distribute literature, canvass, and hold fund-raising events.

2.            Apply to a graduate program in public policy.  Here is a list of the top public policy programs in the country.

Non-Profit

A career in the non-profit world allows you to continue to be involved with education, but in a different setting.  As a teacher you know that the job is multi-faceted and goes beyond teaching into areas of mental health, family counseling, tutoring, after-school programs, arts-education and many more.  Working for a non-profit may allow you to hone-in on a particular part of education you really enjoy.

First Steps:

1.            Volunteer for a non-profit organization in your community.  Volunteer Match is a website that matches people with volunteer opportunities and includes a resource library about volunteer management.

2.            Read an overview of the non-profit world and what it entails from the Urban Institute:  https://nccsdataweb.urban.org/kbfiles/797/Almanac2008publicCharities.pdf

3.            Visit job sites that focus on careers in the non-profit world.  Resources include Idealist.org and CommonGood Careers.

Media & Journalism

If you’re interested in writing, research and reporting, the field of education journalism is growing.  As a teacher you have the opportunity to provide a genuine viewpoint within the education media environment, in which many reporters do not have an education background.

First Steps:

1.            Start a blog.  It’s an easy way to figure out if you’re interested in writing and reporting.  There are thousands of teacher blogs on the internet that you can view to get an idea of what is out there in education journalism.

2.            Check out Journalism organizations to learn more about the field.  The American Journalism Review provides a list of organizations.

3.            Apply for an internship in journalism.  The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) has a long list of internships.

Changing career paths may be scary, especially after many years working in a classroom.  However, by exploring new options in the field of education you have the opportunity to maintain some of your skills and your passion, with the opportunity to identify what may be your true calling.

Barcelona