Archive for the ‘What can Dr. Doug do for you?’ Category

The Power of Student Ownership: Why Letting Students Lead School Projects Sparks Growth by Emily Graham
When students take charge of their learning through real projects, something profound happens: engagement skyrockets. Whether they’re planning a community event, creating media content, or designing a campaign, giving students ownership turns school into a launchpad for real-world skills.

Summary

When students lead school-wide initiatives—like art showcases, environmental campaigns, or digital storytelling—they build confidence, collaboration skills, and a deep sense of pride. This ownership transforms passive learning into active leadership.

Impact of Student Ownership

The importance of public speaking in schools
7 Reasons Volunteering Is Good for Children

Why Ownership Works: The Core Drivers

Agency: Students make decisions that matter.

Relevance: Real tasks connect learning to their lives.

Visibility: Seeing results builds pride and accountability.

Mentorship: Adults become guides, not gatekeepers.


Creating a Student-Led Project Ecosystem

1. Define a shared purpose.
Frame each project around a school-wide theme—sustainability, creativity, inclusion.
2. Assign leadership roles.
Encourage rotating positions: project manager, creative director, outreach lead, etc.
3. Set checkpoints, not micromanagement.
Teachers should mentor through reflection, not control.
4. Celebrate outcomes publicly.
Use showcases, assemblies, or digital portfolios to make student work visible.
5. Reflect, iterate, and repeat.
Ask students what worked, what didn’t, and what they’d change next time.

Common Questions About Student-Led Projects

Q: What if some students are shy or unsure?
A: Pair them with confident peers in team-based roles; confidence grows through contribution.
Q: How can teachers balance guidance and independence?
A: Provide frameworks, not step-by-step instructions—like checklists and reflection templates.
Q: How do we measure success?
A: Focus on growth indicators—communication improvement, collaboration, and resilience—not just grades.

Yearbook Projects as a Platform for Student Growth

When students take charge of yearbook design, they practice collaboration, storytelling, and real production management. By working together to choose layouts, images, and stories, they build confidence in decision-making and communication. Using platforms that enable full customization and team collaboration helps them translate creative vision into reality. To support this, teachers can encourage students to explore personalized yearbook options that let them co-design their legacy in meaningful, modern ways.

Ready to Launch a Student-Led Initiative?

Defined the “why” behind the project

Established clear student roles

Set reflection milestones

Provided creative autonomy

Documented the journey for others to learn from


Product Highlight: Padlet

When students lead school-wide initiatives, they need a simple, visual space to plan and share progress. Padlet gives teams a flexible digital wall for brainstorming, tracking milestones, and celebrating wins. Whether students are organizing an event, coordinating yearbook themes, or gathering creative ideas, Padlet helps them stay aligned — visually and collaboratively.

Conclusion

Student-led projects aren’t just about learning outcomes—they’re about transformation. When schools trust students to lead, they don’t just complete assignments; they become collaborators, storytellers, and leaders ready for whatever comes next.

Emily Graham

Emily is the creator of MightyMoms.net. She believes being a mom is one of the hardest jobs around and wanted to create a support system for moms from all walks of life. On her site, she offers a wide range of info tailored for busy moms — from how to reduce stress to creative ways to spend time together as a family. You can email her at emilygraham@mightymoms.net. She lives in Arizona.

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The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel provides the advice we all need if we seek freedom and independence that wealth can bring. The secrets are to be a frugal saver and an investor that just lets his income compound. You can do this too if you follow his advice.

Introduction: The Greatest Show on Earth

• Unlike physics that is guided by laws, finance is guided by peoples’ behaviors. It is best understood, therefore, through the lenses of psychology and history, not finance. Ordinary people can be wealthy if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with the formal measures of intelligence. This book will help you understand what they are.

1. No One’s Crazy

• We all have our own unique experience with how the world works and that is a big influence on how we deal with money. In theory, people should make investment decisions based on their goals and the characteristics of the investment options available. Unfortunately, that is not what most people do. Willingness to take on risk depends on your personal history and mostly on the conditions when you were born and growing up. Finance is a topic that is more influenced by emotions than facts, which helps explain why we don’t always do what’s best when it comes to money.

2. Luck & Risk

• Luck and risk both happen because 100% of your actions will never determine 100% of your outcomes. The world is too complex. We tend to associate bad outcomes with bad luck as opposed to bad decisions. It’s very hard to identify luck, risk, and skill. Not all success is due to hard work. Avoid trying to copy extreme examples. Look instead for broad patterns that occur often. Luck isn’t something that you can emulate.

3. Never Enough

• Why would a very wealthy man like Bernie Madoff risk everything by starting a Ponzi scheme? The idea here is that he failed to realize that he had enough. At some point as you pile up money it’s time to realize that you have enough and to stop thinking about how you can take risks to increase your wealth further. (Doug: I have enough.)

4. Confounding Compounding

• $81.5 billion of Warren Buffet’s $84.5 net worth came after his 65th birthday. This demonstrates the power of compounding. When something compounds, a little growth serves as the fuel for future growth. The secret is time. To grow your wealth you only need pretty good returns that you can stick with. (Doug: This has worked for me and you can do it too.

5. Getting Wealthy vs. Staying Wealthy

• Getting money and keeping money are two different skills. It starts with a frugal lifestyle, which involves spending less than you make. Keeping money requires the opposite of taking risks. Compounding only works if you can give your assets years and years to grow, kind of like an oak tree. Don’t be in a hurry or you are likely to take too many risks.
• Warren Buffet has lived through 14 recessions and he never panicked and sold during any of them. You need a financial plan, but few plans survive their first encounter with the real world. Your plan needs room for error or a margin of safety.

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The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition: Advanced Methods to Learn, remember, and Master New Skills and Information by Peter Hollins

– This is a self-published book that has no copyright date, citations, or index. It does have a summary guide at the end. The content rings true to me and fits well with other books summarized on this blog. Give it a shot. It’s a easy read.

1. Learn with Rapid Skill Acquisition

• Information on almost any topic is almost instantly accessible cheap or even free. We just need to learn how to learn. Traditional schools mostly engage students in passive learning, which is inefficient. You need to start with goals that are important to you. These goals will either help you on the job, gain you a new job, help you with your life outside of work, or give you a new hobby.

2. Strategic Planning

• You need to start with a well constructed plan. Most new skills can be broken into sub skills. You need to determine which sub skills are the most important and focus on them first. For example, if you want to learn another language you need to learn the most common words first. As you gather learning resources and weed some out, make sure they follow this idea. It may be easy to find written material, so be sure to also search for videos and ways you can learn actively.
• Reading or listening to a lecture may provide 5% TO 10% retention. Audio/visual content can take that up to 20%. Demonstrations are more like 30% and group discussions may take it to 50%. Real-life experience takes it to 75% and teaching others is at the top with 90%.

3. It’s Just Practice

• Practice needs to be deliberate. This kind of practice is focused. Try to catch yourself from being mindless or sloppy. Determine the proper amount of time for the skill you are working on. You should interleave the practice of several skills rather than doing just one for a long period of time. Such practice should be repeated over time, perhaps daily. Doing some practice each day is much better than cramming. Try to work on recalling or self-testing rather than rereading if you can.
• Problem-based learning is more effective as it deals with the real world. It requires that you determine what you need to know that you don’t know yet and devise a plan to learn it. This lends itself to group work. As you work you need quality feedback from someone who knows more than you do like a mentor or a coach. You also need to learn how to self access. There are 10 questions here that can help with that. Be sure to schedule your learning and Peter recommends five-minute breaks every 25 minutes.

4. Deep Comprehension

• One way to deepen your comprehension is to engage in elaborate interrogation. This can be likened to a child asking endless “why” questions. As you interrogate yourself, you can discover gaps or blind spots. One kind of elaborate interrogation described here is the Feynman Technique. The keys to it are to simplify how you explain something and creating analogies.
• As your learning progresses, you will go through the six steps of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They are remember, apply, understand, evaluate, analyze, and create. If you fully understand something you can use it to create something brand new. Curiosity isn’t required to learn something, but it makes learning easier. It can be the simple joy of learning something new. It can be apprehension due to lack of knowledge. It can be the stress you feel when you gain knowledge that is stressful. It can be the curiosity you feel while getting to know other people, or it can be the knowledge you gain while engaging in thrill seeking experiences.

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Think Wrong: How to Conquer the Status Quo and Do Work That Matters by John Bielenberg, Mike Burn, and Greg Galle, with Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson provides a battle plan for taking on the status quo. Included are six principles and eighteen drills you can use to get out of your own way. Regardless of the kind of organization you work in, this book is for you, but only if you want to make big ass changes that will improve your world.

Introduction

• Our human default is to defend and maintain the existing state of affairs also known as the status quo. Thinking Wrong is conquering biology and culture to change how things are to how they might be. Throughout history, the true innovators and pioneers were the ones who thought wrong and often suffered for it, at least in the near term.
• This book will help you move beyond your biases, imagine many solutions, and expand what’s possible. As we age, the synapses we use most get stronger while others are pruned away. It’s time to challenge your brain and your culture at large and learn to Think Wrong.

Who Cares?

• There are five basic types in each organization. Some people can occupy multiple roles. Outlaws are innovators and disruptors who explore new possibilities. They are happy taking risks and aren’t concerned about cultural norms. Shepherds protect outlaws and provide cover while they explore. They help get outlaws’ work to market. Scouts Help the former navigate uncharted paths and locate resources. They often have unique expertise of new territories. Sheriffs enforce law and order and see that the rules are followed. Posses can be deputized to enforce the cultural norms. They help keep things running well. At times the can also support the actions of the outlaws as they mark out new territory.

The Elements of Thinking Wrong

• Your brain’s synaptic pathways control everything you do, which causes us to repeat what we have done if we don’t stop to think about other possibilities. This is compounded when a collection of brains work together, which produces group think and group beliefs.
• The authors have recognized six principals. 1. Be Bold: Dare to make a big difference. 2. Get Out: Find fresh inspiration for non status quo solutions. 3. Let Go: Stretch beyond assumptions, biases, and orthodoxies. 4. Make Stuff: Gain insights through making prototypes. 5. Bet Small: Discover what works without risking it all. 6. Move Fast: Be open so others can help you improve your solutions. For each principal the authors provide three drills so you can pratcice.

The Think Wrong Universe

• Here is the story of the Pie Lab. Thanks to a lot of wrong thinking by five designers, they obtain a building in downtown Greensboro, Alabama and start selling pie, with the rule that the pie must be eaten on site. It quickly becomes a community center hosting many events. It even wins a James Beard Award. It was the first new business on Main Street for years. Other new businesses soon started and it is now a popular tourist stop were people of all races come to what was a segregated location.

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Three Cornerstones to Consider When Choosing an Essay Writing Company by Lucy Adam from the UK offers a look at an industry that is no doubt much larger than most educators realize. She also gives good advice for choosing and working with these companies. While I don’t recommend passing someone else’s work off as your own for a grade or college admission, I do think that getting feedback from a professional writer is a great way to improve your own writing.

Why Students Pay for Essays

• Why Students Pay for Essays: According to statistics, essay writing is one of the most quickly developing niches in the writing business. Let’s face it – the essay writing industry is worth over 128 million dollars or 100 million pounds and is expected to grow further in the future. For example, the two biggest UK essay mills process more than 20,000 orders a year!
• This undeniable popularity of essay writing services opens great perspectives for both writers and clients. The latter, however, are always in danger, as they can never know what to expect from the ubiquitous companies on the market. In fact, paying for an essay is basically gambling, as in 90 cases out of 100 you cannot be sure of the reliability of a company that you are using for the first time.
• But is buying an essay a worthwhile option? How to make sure that the company provides the best value for money? How to hit the bull’s eye when ordering an essay for the first time?Below are three cornerstones to consider before making your first order.

#1 Type of Agency

• The first thing you will encounter is the company’s website. Ideally, it should be neat, understandable and contain detailed information about the service. If you are satisfied with what you see, compare the type of work you need with the services provided by the agency. Some companies sell ready-made papers, while with others you give detailed instructions to writers in order to explain to them what exactly you need. The big advantage is that you can ask the author to adapt his or her writing style to match yours so that the paper will not look like a sudden huge leap from “D” to “A” level work.
• Moreover, a reliable writing company must ask you about your class and writing skills, not to mention the paper guidelines. If you are not requested to send a sample of your previous essays, how can you be sure that the future work will suit you? Decide what you need. A custom essay, essay help, research paper, term paper, homework help or proofreading? When it comes to essays, they can be narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive, argumentative, analytical, etc. The more detailed the guidelines, the easier the essay writing and the less you will be charged.

#2 Reputation

• Apart from feedback, the best way to check whether a service is reputable is to test its customer support. It most likely operates via email. If so, make an enquiry and wait for a response. It should come very quickly and contain a detailed explanation of the issue. If that does not happen or is delayed, think twice before ordering an essay from this company. You must be able to get in touch with them whenever you need, 24/7.
• As for reviews from previous clients, it is better to check them personally by contacting a few satisfied customers from the list. Unfortunately, many companies pay strangers to write feedback. Another sign of reliability is the amount of personal information requested. If the company asks for data that you think they do not need (for example, your social security number, phone number or birthday), these people may want to make money off your identity.

#3 Rates, or Value for Money

• To get the best value for money, pay attention to the following:
  Are Ph.D. and MA writers onboard?
  Do you have an opportunity to choose the author and communicate with him or her yourself?
  Is there a rating system showing the best writers alongside the price?
  Is it possible to get a free sample to assess the level of writing and general look of an academic paper?
• The price may seem to be crucial, but this is only at first glance. Purchasing based on price alone, you have a high chance of failure, especially when it comes to admission essays. If you need writing help only once, is there really a good reason to save money? Do you care how much you will spend on a ticket to Oxford, Cambridge or any other university that you have been dreaming about for a long time?!

The Conclusion, or Do Ethics Matter?

• Being a conscientious student (which I hope you are), you cannot help but consider the ethical side of paying for an essay. The problem is a complex one and everything depends on your personality. Cheating is bad, no doubt, but haven’t you asked yourself how fertile the ground must be to generate hundreds of essay mills all over the world, not just in the UK and USA? Don’t you think that worldwide educational problems are too significant to pretend that there is a level playing field?
• How many chances do non-natives have to outperform natives in essay writing? What about students engaged in voluntary activities? What about those who have personal problems? Do they deserve special conditions? Is education personalized enough? Is it fair and capable of providing students with relevant, up-to-date knowledge that will remain in demand for at least the near future? Since these and many other burning questions remain unanswered, don’t blame yourself too much for paying for an essay. Life isn’t fair and only the strongest will survive

Lucy Adam

• Lucy is a blogger and aspiring writer. This diligent and responsive author is always ready to bring intriguing topics to life. Lucy covers materials on education, writing, literature, and many other niches. Don’t miss this brilliant chance to start a mutually beneficial collaboration with her. lucyadams@buzzessay.com

Dr. Doug’s Take on Buying Essays

• While I generally don’t favor submitting work you have purchased as if it is your own, I think it’s important for my readers to understand that this goes on and how the system works. Here are some questions I suggest you and your students consider in addition to the thoughts offered by Lucy.
• 1. Rather than leveling the playing field, doesn’t purchasing essays tip it more in favor of students with means and against poor kids?
• 2. If your purchased admissions essay gets you into a better school where you can’t compete, will you be more likely to drop out than if you went to a school that your real skills can get you in?
• 3. I would hope that most teachers would have students submit writing samples done entirely in class along with outside assignments. This would allow the teacher to see each student’s skill level, which they could compare to submitted work done outside of class. Would this cause more kids to get caught cheating?
• 4. It seems that going through the process of selecting an author, providing him or her with a sample of your writing and negotiating topic and price would be a valuable experience that requires critical thinking and problem solving. As a result, the student could be building skill for life in the real world.
• 5. Would it be possible for a service to help a student edit a piece or writing? This wouldn’t involve any more cheating than kids do when they ask a parent or friend to read what they have written. I know my wife read everything my daughter wrote for submission and gave her suggestions for making it better. She also proof read everything I wrote while I doing working on my doctorate. Getting good feedback from a professional writer is valuable. If you can afford to purchase help, this is what I suggest.

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