4 Tips for an Effective Vacuum Cleaning

To maximize your carpet’s life span, cleaning and maintenance are necessary. But did you know that there are also rights and wrongs when it comes to your vacuuming routine? Here are 4 tips to remember to ensure you’re vacuuming your carpet correctly:

Effective Vacuum Cleaning

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Choose the Right Attachment

Most vacuums come with a few basic tools that suffice for most cleaning jobs: a crevice tool for tight spots, such as under large appliances; a small upholstery brush, good for furniture and mattresses; a round brush for dusting steps and windowsills. Pay attention to carpet-height adjustment, a feature which matches the height of the vacuum to a carpet’s pile height for easy movement and thorough cleaning. On canister vacuums, a power nozzle cleans carpets more thoroughly than a simple suction nozzle. Source: ConsumerReports

Spot Treat

Vacuums are not stain killers. If you spill something on your carpet, you should treat it immediately to minimize the likelihood of a long-term stain. When you notice stains on the carpet while you are vacuuming, it is a good idea to treat them with a spot cleaner before you finish vacuuming. This will keep your carpet in better condition and enhance the result of your vacuuming efforts.

Additionally, if you do notice stains, whether new or old, you should consider using a steam cleaner to help remove some of these stains. Spot treating them is the best move, but utilizing steam on those same spots is just another tool to help you keep your carpets clean and looking good. Source: Learn.AllergyAndAir

Start with a Clean Bag or Filter

A dirty bag, dirt cup or filter can cut a vacuum’s suction power in half. The main reason bagless vacuums stop working is that the filters aren’t changed often enough. Replace or wash (if possible) the filters on bagless vacuums every three months. Replace vacuum bags when they’re three-quarters full. Source: FamilyHandyman

Keep Carpet Cleaner By Moving In Slow Motion

Carpets and rugs often feel great when brand new, but if vacuuming incorrectly, they will “ugly out” before they wear out. “Don’t vacuum like you are driving a race car,” cautions Paul Iskyan, president of Rug Renovating, a rug and carpet cleaning company in New York City. Instead, use a vacuum with good suction and move in slow, repetitive, overlapping strokes. This will remove up to 85 percent of dust and allergens, while also making high-traffic patterns less noticeable. Source: Today

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5 things NOT TO DO before running your first Marathon

What Can We Learn From Countries That Effectively Teach Math?

How math is taught in the United States and how our students perform on international math tests continue to be areas of intense debate. The most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results for 15-year-olds show a significant drop in math performance between 2012 and 2015 among U.S. students who now rank 40th out of the 73 countries tested. While an international comparison of this sort can never tell the whole story, PISA administrators have started including questions about how students study. The answers to these survey questions about how students approach learning math could help provide some insight into which strategies work and which do not.

In a Scientific American article, Stanford education professor Jo Boaler and Pablo Zoido, the Education Lead Specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank, explain that students reported three main strategies for learning math: memorizing algorithms, relating new topics to those already learned, and routinely evaluating learning and focusing on areas not yet learned. Boaler and Zoido draw this conclusion:

In every country, the memorizers turned out to be the lowest achievers, and countries with high numbers of them—the U.S. was in the top third—also had the highest proportion of teens doing poorly on the PISA math assessment. Further analysis showed that memorizers were approximately half a year behind students who used relational and self-monitoring strategies. In no country were memorizers in the highest-achieving group, and in some high-achieving economies, the differences between memorizers and other students were substantial. In France and Japan, for example, pupils who combined self-monitoring and relational strategies outscored students using memorization by more than a year’s worth of schooling.

The U.S. actually had more memorizers than South Korea, long thought to be the paradigm of rote learning. Why? Because American schools routinely present mathematics procedurally, as sets of steps to memorize and apply. Many teachers, faced with long lists of content to cover to satisfy state and federal requirements, worry that students do not have enough time to explore math topics in depth. Others simply teach as they were taught. And few have the opportunity to stay current with what research shows about how kids learn math best: as an open, conceptual, inquiry-based subject.

Boaler and Zoido go on to recommend that math teachers focus on presenting students with visual, engaging tasks that let students grapple with the problem, test out various strategies, and thus gain a deeper understanding of core concepts. They point to research showing that students who solve problems by memorizing algorithms use a completely different part of the brain than those who work out the problem with various strategies. They posit that if the U.S. wants to improve the math abilities of its young people, it must heed the research and switch approaches.

Countries like Canada, Estonia, Germany and Hong Kong emerged as leaders in math education from the 2015 PISA results. Not only do students in these countries score well, but the gaps between rich and poor students are much smaller.

Why Math Education in the U.S. Doesn’t Add Up

In December the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) will announce the latest results from the tests it administers every three years to hundreds of thousands of 15-year-olds around the world. In the last round, the U.S. posted average scores in reading and science but performed well below other developed nations in math, ranking 36 out of 65 countries.

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Carol Dweck Explains The ‘False’ Growth Mindset That Worries Her

Carol Dweck has become the closest thing to an education celebrity because of her work on growth mindset. Her research shows that children who have a growth mindset welcome challenges as opportunities to improve, believing that their abilities can change with focused effort. Kids with fixed mindsets, on the other hand, believe they have a finite amount of talent that can’t be altered and shy away from challenges that might reveal their inabilities.

Dweck believes educators flocked to her work because many were tired of drilling kids for high-stakes tests and recognized that student motivation and love for learning was being lost in the process. But Dweck is worried that as her research became more popular, many people oversimplified its message.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Dweck explained to reporter Christine Gross-Loh all the ways she sees growth mindset being misappropriated. She says often teachers and parents aren’t willing to take the longer, more difficult path of helping students identify strategies and connect success to those strategies. Instead, her complicated psychological research has gotten boiled down to, “praise the effort, not the outcome.” Dweck also explained what she means by a “false” growth mindset:

False growth mindset is saying you have growth mindset when you don’t really have it or you don’t really understand [what it is]. It’s also false in the sense that nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time. Everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets. You could have a predominant growth mindset in an area but there can still be things that trigger you into a fixed mindset trait. Something really challenging and outside your comfort zone can trigger it, or, if you encounter someone who is much better than you at something you pride yourself on, you can think “Oh, that person has ability, not me.” So I think we all, students and adults, have to look for our fixed-mindset triggers and understand when we are falling into that mindset.

I think a lot of what happened [with false growth mindset among educators] is that instead of taking this long and difficult journey, where you work on understanding your triggers, working with them, and over time being able to stay in a growth mindset more and more, many educators just said, “Oh yeah, I have a growth mindset” because either they know it’s the right mindset to have or they understood it in a way that made it seem easy.

The interview is full of tips for parents and educators, including the differences between young children and older ones.

Don’t Let Praise Become a Consolation Prize

Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the “growth mindset,” says the psychologist Carol Dweck.

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How to Grab and Hold Readers’ Attention In Academic Writing

Many students struggle with writing, and one of the most difficult parts of an analytical essay is the introduction. Some students may find it easier to wait to write the introduction until after honing in on a great thesis and backing up the argument with analysis. Only then will they have the clarity to craft an interesting, compelling introduction.

As every writing teacher knows, a good introduction hooks the reader and pulls them along so they want to keep reading. This TED-ED video explains why introductions are so important and gives concrete tips and examples for how to write them better. Once students know the rules, it’s easier to break them in creative ways that still get the job done.

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Why Executive Function Is A Vital Stepping-Stone For Kids’ Ability to Learn

Neuroscientists and educational psychologists are constantly learning more about how children learn and the various influences beyond IQ that affect cognition. Some research, like Carol Dweck’s on growth mindset or Angela Duckworth’s on grit, quickly became catch phrases among educators. At the same time, critics have pushed back against the notion that students underperform only because of cognitive deficits, pointing to an equally pressing need for big changes to teaching practice. Many teachers are trying to combine the research about cognitive skills with more effective teaching practices. They are finding that whether students are working on self-directed projects or worksheets, executive functioning skills are important.

Bruce Wexler has been studying executive functioning — a group of cognitive abilities crucial for managing oneself and information — for the past 20 years. He first worked with adults, but he began to wonder if he could design interventions specifically for young children to get them started down a positive path before any of the negative secondary qualities associated with under-achievement — like disengagement, low self-esteem and behavior problems — began to manifest at school.

“The data just keeps coming in about the importance of focus, self-control and working memory for learning and life,” Wexler said in an edWeb webinar. One meta-analysis of six studies found that a child’s executive functioning skills in kindergarten predicted reading and math achievement into middle school and beyond. This research is particularly important because students who have poor executive functioning skills because of trauma, poverty, or diagnosed disorders are missing out on learning. Often these children haven’t had a chance to develop executive functioning skills required for school before arriving there.

Many kinds of interventions can work to improve executive functioning, another reason researchers feel confident that this cognitive ability is not innate, but rather taught. Martial arts, yoga and exercise, among others, help improve students’ ability to focus and control themselves. Wexler helped design his own intervention, called Activate, which uses a mixture of online games and physical activities to target focus, self-control and working memory, the skills most closely linked with academic achievement.

To test whether the program works Wexler’s company, C8Sciences, took executive function tests designed by the National Institutes of Health and made them Web-based so teachers could use them in class. These tests helped Wexler’s team learn about the relative areas of cognitive weaknesses in students before using the Activate program.

“Soon it became evident that not only did we want that information, but that it was very valuable for teachers,” Wexler said. It’s often hard for a teacher to know when a student isn’t learning something because of a lack of executive functioning capacity, because it hasn’t been taught well enough, or because the student just needs more time with the content. The online diagnostic tests helped give them valuable insight to tailor their teaching.

After determining a baseline for students, Wexler’s team asked teachers to use the Activate program and then tested students after four months to see how it affected their cognitive abilities. Early tests showed the training improved working memory, but Wexler was more interested in whether the training would carry over into academic achievement, so he tested third-graders from a low-income school on reading proficiency. In the test group that used Activate, 83 percent of students reached third-grade reading proficiency, compared to 58 percent districtwide. On a first-grade math proficiency test, 92 percent of students in the test group reached proficiency, compared to 63 percent districtwide. In another first-grade class at the same school that did not receive the training, only 53 percent of students reached proficiency.

“Training these executive functions leads to improvement in achievement schools,” Wexler concluded. And the effects seemed to last through the summer. Another test showed kindergartners who received the training showed better executive functioning skills when they started first grade than their peers.

When Wexler compared the effects he was seeing to other interventions — like one-on-one tutoring, summer and after-school programming — improving executive functioning skills had a much bigger effect. “Training a whole classroom in focus, self-control, and memory has a bigger effect on math achievement than providing one-on-one tutoring,” Wexler said. Tutoring had the next strongest effect.

Executive functioning training also seems to make a difference regardless of student IQ. “Its effect was four times as big as the differences in IQ,” Wexler said. “Of course IQ is important, but executive functioning is something we can do something about.”

SCHOOLS FOCUSING ON EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING

Carlisle Area School District has taken the research on executive function and put it into practice, especially in K-5 schools where educators hope to improve these cognitive skills early so students don’t fall behind. District leaders started by educating teachers about different neural pathways and why problems with executive functioning could lead to problems with learning. In trainings they give teachers scenarios, and ask them to identify a student’s cognitive weakness based on behavior, and then design an intervention. They also ask teachers to reflect on their own cognitive weaknesses and where they might be able to identify with a disorganized student or one who has a hard time staying on task.

Carlisle teachers also have a long list of strategies they integrate into the day with the whole class that emphasize brain breaks, exercise and routines. Additionally, some children need more help developing executive functioning, and educators differentiate strategies for them as well. They often talk to students about how their brain works and emphasize that when their “amygdala is hijacked,” they need to stop and think about the next action rather than lashing out.

STRATEGIES

• Breathing buddies: Students lie down on the floor with a favorite stuffed animal on their chests. They slowly breathe in and out, watching the animal rise and fall. This helps students calm down when they are upset and gives them a strategy to implement when they feel themselves getting worked up.
• Teachers keep “meta boxes” in their classrooms full of fidget toys students can use to help them pay attention when they feel like they need to move.
• When transitioning between subjects or recess, teachers often play calming music and let only five kids in at a time to limit the chaos.
• Many elementary school teachers have had the experience of asking a question, seeing many hands in the air, but then calling on a student who says he forgot. That could be a working memory problem. Some Carlisle teachers are proactively addressing this by letting those kids record their thoughts on paper or a device so they can contribute when they’re called on.
• Carlisle was an early adopter of Wexler’s Activate program, too. The iPad lessons focus on typical working memory games that require students to remember the order of things, progressively getting harder as the game develops. The physical games reinforce the online learning with social interactions that help embed the memories in movement. Mass ball is one game that requires students to throw a ball in a specific sequence. Students have to juggle paying attention to the order and catching the ball.
• Carlisle teachers also have students do a lot of balancing games, which help with executive functioning. Teachers might ask students to walk on a line balancing bean bags on their heads or to do the same walk on tiptoe. Teachers also use relay races to get kids moving, since exercise alone helps with executive functioning.

Adults have an attention span of about 12 minutes with a fully developed executive functioning system, so it’s no wonder kids can’t focus without a break. “It cannot be overemphasized that all of us need to be thinking about taking information in smaller chunks,” said Malinda Mikesell, the reading supervisor for the Carlisle Area School District. She said kids need an opportunity to do something with the information on their own before having the chance to reset for the next chunk of information.

“We have mature executive function systems as adults, so we have to be careful that we’re not putting our perspective onto very immature executive functioning systems,” Mikesell said. She also emphasized that teachers in her district have successfully involved parents in their effort to improve executive functions, educating the adults about the brain and what cognitive weaknesses look like. Often parents have noticed the same lack of short-term memory, difficulty focusing, and disorganization affecting kids at school, and are happy to learn tips to help their child.

Mikesell said Carlisle is in the early stages of evaluating data on how well their approach is working. Early data showed that kids in the Activate program were outperforming peers not in the program on reading tests. Teachers are also reporting stories about disorganized students improving, who never had what they needed for the day or activity. Now those students are able to follow the classroom routines and are benefiting from checklists and visual organizers that teachers put together to help them with their working memory weaknesses.

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How (and Why) Your Brain Needs a Workout

We all know the body needs routine exercise to stay healthy. Living without fitness has visible consequences as well as a correlation with body shape. Weight gain is something easy enough to notice with the naked eye.

Brain health is not as easy to analyze by the casual observer. A decline in mental stimulation and cognitive abilities has no obvious outward signs. Only later in life do we see effects of an unhealthy brain. Age-related memory loss and cognitive declines, such as Alzheimer’s disease and senile dementia, afflict millions of Americans. Alzheimer’s disease impacts one in every three senior citizens and there is evidence that suggests you can prevent it.

As technology allows humans to live longer, we need to take care of our brain as intentionally as our body. Luckily, there are many ways to get a brain workout and get in shape today.

Meditation: The Ultimate Brain Workout

Meditation comes in many forms. While many meditative practices were founded by Buddhist and other Asian religions, meditation itself has no religious affiliation.

The idea of sitting quietly and observing your thoughts may not strike you as a brain workout, but that is exactly what it does. Harvard researcher, Sarah Lazar, led multiple studies about mindfulness meditation and physical changes within the brain. She wasn’t only interested in how people felt from meditating, but how the brain actually changed. She found that certain parts of the brain increased in size (cortical thickness) within a group who meditated for 8 weeks.

Regions of the brain that were associated with increased empathy were more active according to her research. More recent evidence suggests meditation reduces perceptions of pain and helps treat symptoms of ADHD.

Imagine what happens to your brain over the course of 40 years with a steady meditation practice. Studies of monks in Tibet show that four or more decades of meditation significantly alters brain patterns permanently. With modern neurofeedback technology, famed biohacker Dave Asprey has created a 40 Years of Zen program that reduces the time one must invest to achieve such results.

If you don’t have $15,000 lying around for his program, you don’t have to worry. There are plenty of ways to get started with meditation and mindfulness that are free and easy. If you’re a beginner, you can start with closing your eyes and focusing your attention on 5 long breaths.

To get a little more advanced, try meditating daily for 5 – 20-minute intervals or consider a free meditation retreat (such as Vipassana meditation), which is 10 full days of immersion.

Brain Games

My grandmother plays Sudoku almost every day and I’m convinced it is keeping her mentally sharp. Not only that, she thoroughly enjoys the games.

Even though brain workouts are fairly new and unpopular, there are large, growing companies producing a smartphone and online games you may find enjoyable. Luminosity is one of the most popular brain game companies, which has grown 150% every year since founding in 2005. In fact, the games reach approximately 35 million people worldwide, which is no small feat.

Luminosity isn’t the only game in town (so to speak) and there are plenty of free tools you can enjoy. These include games on Cambridge Brain Sciences and CogniFit.

No matter how popular and fun these games are, there is still a question about their efficacy for protecting our most valuable asset long into adulthood. There is ample evidence suggesting that elderly individuals who play mentally challenging games have better cognitive performance than those who do not. Even having more years of education is correlated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

While they are nice, online brain games specifically created to workout your brain aren’t necessary. They may be fun and novel, but even traditional games like sudoku, chess, and bridge can have positive effects on your brain’s long-term health.

Brain Food: When Modern Diets Aren’t Enough

Practices, such as meditation and mentally challenging games, have the biggest impact on the health of our brain in the short and long-term. But just like the body, if we don’t have the right diet and fuel for our brains, no growth will come of it.

In terms of diet, assume your brain needs the same thing our body does: whole foods, not much sugar, and plenty of water. There are some other nutrients the brain needs more.

There are two main nutrients people in the western world lack. One is vitamin D and the other is magnesium, both are important for regulating many brain functions. For magnesium, you can find a supplement, but finding the right one is important. Magnesium glycinate is the most bioavailable form of this nutrient, it is better absorbed and it is superior to citrate (commonly found in stores). For vitamin D, you can either spend more time in the sun (15 minutes of direct sunlight is all you need) or find a supplement – preferably from fish oil.

For an aging brain, there are a few non-traditional considerations as well:

• Creatine Monohydrate – While creatine might be a popular bodybuilding supplement, it is one of the most well-researched options for improving long-term brain health as well. Creatine is directly correlated with our brain’s ability to create ATP (energy) and this both increases our cognitive abilities and protects neurological connections from decline. Creatine is more than a tool to get stronger physically, but mentally as well.
• Fish Oil – our brain is made up of around 60% fat and most of it is DHA. Our ancestors had a diet high in fish, which meant lots of omega-3 fatty acids and specifically DHA and EPA. Today, our diets have far less fish and foods with omega-6 fatty acids instead. By supplementing with healthy omega-3s from fish oil, it helps protect neurons and improves blood flow to the brain. Try to get 1000 mg of DHA and 500 mg EPA every day.
• CoQ10 (Coenzyme10) – another nutrient you’ve probably never heard of, but your body synthesizes it every day. CoQ10 is an important molecule for improving the health of mitochondria, which are considered the energy manufacturers within each cell. By supplementing with CoQ10, you ensure your brain is producing energy on all cylinders.

Supplements will not fix everything, but they can be part of an overall strategy to workout your brain, nourish your neurological connections and boost your mental performance today and in the future.

Physical workouts are incredibly important and worth both the time and energy that you invest in them. Adding a mental workout will also do wonders for the health of your brain. You may not see the difference as immediately as physical exercise, but you will be glad you did when you’re older.

Author Bio: Mansal is an avid brain health enthusiast who has an interest in both practices and tools that can enhance mental performance. He writes on numerous nootropics related topics on his site, Nootropedia, in order to bring accessible, non-biased information to enthusiasts.

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