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Word of the Day: verdant

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Word of the Day: verdant

The word verdant has appeared in 91 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on June 15 in “The Quiet Strength of an Old-Growth Forest” by Lauren Sloss:

In a grove of old-growth trees, in Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park, emerald-tinged light filters through a dense green canopy. Fallen tree trunks are coated in a riot of fluorescent verdant growth and crescent-shaped oyster mushrooms. Stumps, 20 feet wide, are obscured with budding wildflowers and ferns. Earlier, I drove along the Avenue of the Giants, a 31-mile scenic road that winds through a tunnel of green and gold.

Can you correctly use the word verdant in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how verdant can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try one of our monthly vocabulary challenges.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

Introducing WordleBot, the Upshot’s Daily Wordle Companion

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Introducing WordleBot, the Upshot’s Daily Wordle Companion

WordleBot is a tool that will take your completed Wordle and analyze it for you. It will give you overall scores for luck and skill on a scale from 0 to 99 and tell you at each turn what, if anything, you could have done differently — if solving Wordles in as few steps as possible is your goal.

It’s very easy. First, play Wordle. Then visit the Wordle Companion, ideally using the same device and web browser.

Every Wordle game starts with one of 2,309 possible solutions as the hidden word. At each turn, WordleBot chooses the word that will allow it to solve the game in as few steps as possible, assuming any of the remaining solutions are equally likely. It keeps doing this until only one solution remains — the right answer.

Months ago, before The New York Times bought Wordle, we, like many others, began wondering about the best starting word. It seemed like a straightforward mathematical question — yet every person who approached the problem seemed to come up with a different answer.

WordleBot started as an attempt to settle this question once and for all. But along the way we realized that (a) the answer was more complicated than it seemed; and that (b) we were more interested in how closely our guesses matched those that would be chosen by a machine designed to solve Wordles.

Thus, WordleBot was born.

We hope the bot’s advice will help you think about Wordle more analytically, which will help you get better at solving the puzzles in the long run.

In addition, it may serve as a tiebreaker of sorts for those of you involved in competitive text chains with friends and family. If a Wordle took you five turns but you answered more efficiently than your friends, WordleBot may provide some bragging rights. If you did everything right and were simply unlucky, it will tell you that too.

We’ll leave it to you to decide which is more important.

WordleBot solves the 2,309 possible Wordles using the fewest number of guesses when it starts with CRANE in normal mode and DEALT in “hard mode.”

This may surprise some readers, who have seen, in various places across the internet, people claim that words like IRATE, SALET or RAISE are the best openers. The truth is that it depends exactly how you’re playing and whether you are a human or a computer.

The various Wordle algorithms all take slightly different approaches in how they solve the puzzle. Some start with knowledge of the solution list; others do not. Some allow any of the almost 13,000 five-letter English words as valid guesses; others (like WordleBot) use a smaller set. We restricted WordleBot to about 4,500 words that are more common among English speakers — it didn’t seem particularly helpful for a piece of software to recommend words like VOEMA, CUSSO, SKATT or ZEBUB.

Apart from all that, it’s worth noting that the perfect opening word for a computer isn’t necessarily the perfect opening word for you. WordleBot has perfect knowledge of the 2,309 solutions stored in its memory. It’s likely that you do not. So while the bot might know the precise optimal path to take from a given guess, it’s possible that you might not and that a different guess would be more likely to lead you to the answer.

More important, unless you’re playing in hard mode, every game of Wordle is solvable regardless of which word you choose first. So go ahead, start with FUZZY, we won’t stop you. (And note: WordleBot ignores your first guess when calculating your overall skill score. Be free.)

No. WordleBot will never analyze an incomplete or unsolved game; it will give you advice only for completed Wordles.

By default, it will analyze whichever Wordle you’ve completed most recently on your device, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser. But you can also upload a screenshot of any completed Wordle — even if it’s from months ago, provided you’ve saved the screenshot — and it will analyze that for you instead.

No. It knows the full list of solutions, but nothing more. It also doesn’t know whether a Wordle solution has already been used.

No. The bot solves all Wordles in six turns or fewer.

Yes. The bot will give advice on your Wordle however you play. But hard mode presents a challenge.

It complicates things from a computational perspective: While eliminating the largest number of solutions with each guess is a tempting approach, it isn’t always the best idea. WordleBot needs to think several steps in advance to make sure that it’s eliminating solutions now and won’t get stuck in a losing position later.

For modern computers, this additional complexity is nothing to worry about, but we are somewhat constrained by the computing power of some smartphones and the amount of time we can reasonably expect you to wait for the bot’s analysis to load.

As a result, we did have to make some small shortcuts for the bot to analyze games in hard mode. In particular, it’s not always the best at knowing when it might be stumbling into a situation where there are more possible solutions than there are valid guesses remaining to differentiate them. In some cases, other guesses might have avoided these hard mode traps.

All this means is that the version of WordleBot that’s powered by a supercomputer would probably differ slightly from the version that runs in your phone, but the differences are mostly minor and we don’t suggest worrying about them.

No. It does all of its calculations on demand, on your smartphone or computer.

Absolutely. It’s hard to solve more efficiently than the bot, but quite easy to be luckier.

No.

No. It may change how you play Wordle, but it’s completely independent of Wordle itself.

A skill score of 99 is what WordleBot assigns to its chosen word at any given step. In its view, this is the most efficient choice to make to solve the puzzle in as few guesses as possible, averaged over all possible remaining solutions.

A skill score of zero is what you get if you just skipped a turn altogether. (While it’s impossible to actually skip a turn in Wordle, you can get the same effect by guessing a word you’ve already guessed: You lose a turn and you don’t learn anything new about the possible solution.)

Your skill score measures how close you were to the bot’s chosen word relative to the worst word you could have picked for that turn.

Suppose, for example, you guess CRANE on your first turn. The best thing that could happen would be if the hidden word were actually CRANE — you would solve the Wordle in one guess. That’s obviously very lucky.

The worst result would be five gray squares; you would be left with 263 possible solutions to sift through. Considering that 89 percent of the solutions share at least one letter with CRANE, that result would be very unlucky, despite a strategically sound choice.

Our luck measurements represent how unexpected the outcomes of your guesses are, conditional on what we’d expect, on average, given what we know about the solution at that time.

Maybe you’re familiar with the game Guess Who, a popular two-person board game in which players use yes-or-no questions to try to guess the identity of their opponent’s hidden character. A guess like “does your person wear glasses?” divides the remaining possibilities into two groups: people who wear glasses and people who don’t. You get only one piece of information with each guess.

It’s similar with Wordle, but guesses can reveal much more information: Each letter of each guess can turn green, yellow or gray. That means a guess could theoretically divide solutions into up to 243 different groups (three to the fifth power, or 3^5, for the mathematically inclined). Realistically, because not every combination of letters is a valid word in English, a guess can divide solutions into 150 different groups at most, found by guessing TRACE on the opening guess.

In general, as a solver, you want your guesses to divide the possible solutions into as many groups as possible.

Here’s an example. Suppose, with your previous guesses, you’ve narrowed the possible solutions to five: BATCH, CATCH, LATCH, MATCH or PATCH. What should you guess next?

If you guess BATCH, you’ll divide the remaining solutions into two groups:

If the hidden word is BATCH, great! But if it isn’t — which is the more likely outcome — you’re stuck with four possible solutions.

A smarter guess would divide these groups more efficiently, putting you in a position to solve the puzzle regardless of luck. Here, WordleBot would guess BLIMP. See how that changes the picture:

With this approach, you divide the solutions into five groups of one word each. You’d be guaranteed to get the answer on your next turn!

When Josh Wardle created Wordle, he and his partner, Palak Shah, picked a subset of the roughly 13,000 valid five-letter English words to be potential solutions, meaning that many guesses, while perfectly adequate words in English, are not Wordle solutions. (Many plural forms of nouns, for example, are excluded from the solutions list.) WordleBot knows the full solutions list, and if you guess a word that isn’t on it, it will tell you.

It may be because you’re using a different web browser to play Wordle than you are in using the Wordle companion. (When you complete a day’s Wordle, your guesses and preferences are stored in a small file on your device called a “cookie,” and the information in that cookie is not, at the moment, stored across different devices or browsers.) So you can either make sure to use WordleBot on the same device you play Wordle on, or upload a screenshot of your Wordle to WordleBot instead.

Many mathematicians and programmers have tackled this problem, but we’d recommend watching Grant Sanderson’s 30-minute video on solving Wordle with information theory.

His (shorter) follow-up video, where he lands on SALET as the optimal opener, is also worth watching.

We’re at your service. Email your questions here, or leave them in the comments.

What’s Going On in This Graph? | April 13, 2022

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What’s Going On in This Graph? | April 13, 2022

4. After you have posted, read what others have said, then respond to someone else by posting a comment. Use the “Reply” button to address that student directly.

On Wednesday, April 13, teachers from our collaborator, the American Statistical Association, will facilitate this discussion from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern time.

5. By Friday morning, April 15, we will reveal more information about the graph, including a free link to the article that includes this graph, at the bottom of this post. We encourage you to post additional comments based on the article, possibly using statistical terms defined in the Stat Nuggets.

We’ll post more information here on Thursday afternoon. Stay tuned!


More?

See all graphs in this series or collections of 60 of our favorite graphs, 28 graphs that teach about inequality and 24 graphs about climate change.

View our archives that link to all past releases, organized by topic, graph type and Stat Nugget.

Learn more about the notice and wonder teaching strategy from this 5-minute video and how and why other teachers are using this strategy from our on-demand webinar.

Sign up for our free weekly Learning Network newsletter so you never miss a graph. Graphs are always released by the Friday before the Wednesday live-moderation to give teachers time to plan ahead.

Go to the American Statistical Association K-12 website, which includes teacher statistics resources, Census in the Schools student-generated data, professional development opportunities, and more.

Students 13 and older in the United States and the Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Teenagers in The Times: March 2022

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Teenagers in The Times: March 2022

Here is the March edition of Teenagers in The Times, a roundup of the news and feature stories about young people that have recently appeared across sections of NYTimes.com. We publish a new edition on the first Thursday of each month.

For ideas about how to use Teenagers in The Times with your students, please see our lesson plan and special activity sheet, both of which can be used with this or any other edition.

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Education

School Inequality Isn’t Always Just Black and White

“We care too much about the racial demographics at exclusive schools,” writes the author of this Opinion essay.

I Followed the Lives of 3,290 Teenagers. This Is What I Learned About Religion and Education.

“Boys from working-class families benefit from the social capital that religious belief can provide,” writes the author of this Opinion essay.

Making the SAT and ACT Optional Is the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

“Intended or not, it sends a message that some students of color are less capable,” writes the author of this Opinion essay.

New Mexico Will Make College Tuition Free for Residents

As states take the lead in the tuition-free movement after President Biden’s plans failed to gain traction in Congress, New Mexico emerges as a leader.

Bringing Personal Finance to the Classroom for Generation Z

Twenty-three states require high schoolers to take the subject, and more could join them in an effort to boost the next generation’s financial literacy.

Caught in a Culture War, Georgetown Day School Holds Fast to Its Mission

After Republicans attacked the school during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, parents, students and alumni said they firmly embraced its values.

Taliban Renege on Promise to Open Afghan Girls’ Schools

The schools were supposed to reopen this week, and the reversal could threaten aid because international officials had made girls’ education a condition for greater assistance.

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Civics, Politics, Economics and Business

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Science, Health and Technology

Many Teens Report Emotional and Physical Abuse by Parents During Lockdown

New data on teen mental health during the pandemic suggests that for many, home life was full of stressors like job loss, hunger and even violence.

What Is ‘Bigorexia’?

A social media diet of perfect bodies is spurring some teenage boys to form muscle dysmorphia.

The Loophole That’s Fueling a Return to Teenage Vaping

Sales are rising of flavored e-cigarettes using synthetic nicotine that evades regulatory oversight, a gap that lawmakers are now trying to close.

Vaccine protection against moderate illness waned among adolescents, new C.D.C. data suggest.

Booster shots, however, drastically increased that protection.

Omicron Blunted Vaccine Protection Among Adolescents

The vaccines shielded adolescents only against life-threatening Covid, not less severe illness, scientists reported. Still, hospitalizations remained rare in children, compared with adults.

There’s a Mental-Health Crisis Among American Children. Why?

The pandemic is not the only reason.

After Covid, Are You ‘Mask Fishing’?

The Skiing Aigners Are a Nation Unto Themselves

The visually impaired siblings and their guides accounted for more medals at the Beijing Paralympics than several powerhouse countries.

The Video That Changed the N.C.A.A.

One 38-second clip showing differences between the men’s and women’s tournaments led to profound overhauls in gender parity.

On a Dirt Court, a Ravaged School Planted the Seeds of a Championship

A Louisiana high school lost its gym when a hurricane tore through town. Practicing on a dirt court, the girls’ basketball team adopted a defiant motto: No gym, no problem.

Nine Dead, Including Coach and Six College Golfers, in Texas Wreck

The University of the Southwest said its golf coach, Tyler James, was among the dead and that two people were in critical condition.

13-Year-Old Boy Drove Truck That Hit Van in Texas, Killing 9, Officials Say

The fiery crash killed a golf coach and six of his players, along with the boy and a man who was traveling with him.

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Arts, Media and Culture

At a School for the Deaf, Signs of Change Are Clear

Sara Novic’s new novel, “True Biz,” takes readers beyond the hearing world.

This Rap Song Helped Sentence a 17-Year-Old to Prison for Life

“Rap music is increasingly showing up as evidence in criminal trials,” writes the author of this Opinion essay.

Assassin Princesses, Magical Lakes and Warrior Jinn in New Y.A. Fantasy Novels

Three new Y.A. fantasy novels — “Castles in Their Bones,” by Laura Sebastian; “Lakelore,” by Anna-Marie McLemore; and “This Woven Kingdom,” by Tahereh Mafi — blend romance and magic to tell enchanting tales.

The Morphe Beauty Saga Isn’t Pretty

What happens when a beauty brand’s collaborators become too controversial, makeup trends change, and Gen Zers flock to TikTok?

‘Olivia Rodrigo: Driving Home 2 U’ Review: Songs on Overdrive

The singer-songwriter is in a reflective state in the director Stacey Lee’s film, which documents a trip from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles.

‘You Are Not My Mother’ Review: Parental Misguidance

A lonely teenager is traumatized by her mother’s volatile behavior in this impressive horror debut.

‘Bronco Bullfrog’: Hello Young Lovers

Barney Platts-Mills’s 1969 feature about aimless East End teenagers in love comes to Film Forum after a cinematic rediscovery.

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How To Become A Project Manager At A Tech Company

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How To Become A Project Manager At A Tech Company

Are you a big-picture thinker? A good decision-maker? Do you like collaboration? How about owning a project from start to finish? If you answered “yes” to these questions, then a role as a Project Manager could be a good fit for you.

Project Managers work at companies in every sector, from technology to healthcare to real estate. They oversee the day-to-day tasks that are required to make projects successful. And these professionals often bring subject matter expertise to their role that they gained prior to transitioning to project management. For example, a Project Manager at a software development company might’ve worked as a developer for several years before moving into project management. At a machine learning company, a Project Manager might’ve been a Data Scientist before they took on their current role.

But you don’t have to come from a tech background to land a Project Manager role at a tech company. As long as you’re willing to develop some new skills and learn tools that Project Managers use on a daily basis, it’s totally possible to make the transition to Project Manager at a tech company. Here are tips to plan out your transition, plus advice on how to get started.

But first: What is project management?

Project management involves a variety of hard skills and soft skills to lead a team to meet specific goals and deliverables within a set of given constraints. In software development, an example of a project is developing a new app or software package, and a Project Manager would spearhead the operations of getting that project to the finish line. This person would ensure that the team is meeting deadlines and working within the budget.

Here’s another example: Imagine you’re in charge of building your dream house. Over the course of this project, you’ll be hiring and talking to dozens of specialists, like real estate agents, architects, permit agencies, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, and engineers. Not only that, but you’ll be working within a specific budget and a timeline.

To get everything done in the right order, on time, and within budget, you’ll apply project management principles. For example, you’ll prioritize tasks based on what’s most important in the construction process, and you’ll figure out which tasks are dependent on other tasks being completed. Then, you’ll purchase the materials to build your house, keep track of what everything costs, and line up all the professionals before construction starts. You’ll also oversee the work and make sure everything is on schedule, pivoting if need-be.

But project management goes far beyond these tasks. The most successful project managers are experts in risk management, communication, and foreseeing problems before they come up. They’re also great leaders who know how to motivate their teams and quickly adapt to changes. If they work in tech, they don’t need nitty gritty knowledge about how products are built, but they need to understand the field well enough to communicate effectively between stakeholders. (And the more subject matter expertise they can bring to the team, the better!)

Here are five steps you can take to pursue a Project Manager career.

1. Look for project management skills you already have

You might not realize it, but you probably already have a handful of relevant skills that’ll help you become a Project Manager. This is because many of the fundamental project management skills are universal.

Maybe you’ve coordinated volunteers for an event or planned a retirement party for a family member. Have you ever put on a bake sale or a car wash? What about putting together a vacation itinerary? To pull off any of these, you would’ve used skills, and in some cases tools, to get the job done that gave you some exposure to the skills you’ll need as a Project Manager. These include leadership, communication, scheduling, prioritization, time management, budgeting, and organization — and that’s all without doing any formal project management training.

2. Build the project management skills you need

Once you’ve figured out your existing project management skills, you can build on them by learning some hard skills in project management. These include Agile methodologies (such as Scrum and Kanban), the Waterfall software development method, risk management, planning and forecasting, resource allocation/budgeting, and analytical skills.

There are a number of different ways to develop these skills, from online courses to webinars to traditional college classes. If you’re looking for self-paced online options, you can check out our Analyze Data with Microsoft Excel course to get started building your analytical skills.

If you’re interested in being a Project Manager on a web development team and you haven’t worked in the space before, you could consider taking some courses to familiarize yourself with what developers do all day. Having knowledge of the work your teammates do can be really helpful and make your job easier as a Project Manager, especially when it comes to scheduling, prioritization, and communication.

Our Learn How To Build A Website Skill Path is a great way to learn the basics of web development while also learning how to collaborate with developers. And you’ll also complete the Skill Path by creating a personal website, which you could use as a portfolio to use for applying to jobs.

You could also check out any of our programming language courses, like Learn JavaScript, Learn HTML, and Learn CSS, which can give you insight into what it’s like to be a developer. Another course you could look into is our Code Foundations Skill Path, which gives you an overview of web development, as well as computer science and data science.

3. Learn to use project management tools

Project management software helps teams collaborate, stay organized, and track their progress over the lifecycle of a project. As a Project Manager, you’ll likely use a project management software on a daily basis to collaborate with your team, so it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with one or more of these software packages.

Also, depending on the role and job description, the name of a project management software could be a keyword that hiring managers and applicant tracking systems (ATS) look for on applications. So don’t forget to list these on your resume when you’re applying for jobs.

Some popular project management tools to check out are Jira, Asana, Notion, Monday.com, Trello, Wrike, and Hive. We also rounded up some other collaboration tools that developers use to work together more seamlessly.

Once you have the skills you’ll need to start a career in project management, it’s time to apply for jobs. When you’re searching for roles, look out for job titles like IT Project Manager, Technical Project Manager, and Engineering Project Manager, as well as simply Project Manager. You can also find these jobs listed with a descriptor. For example, Software Project Manager, Project Manager – Web Development, Agile Project Manager, and Senior Project Manager are popular ones. If this is your first job or you’re switching careers, some entry-level job titles to watch out for are Project Coordinator, Project Administrator, and Project Management Specialist.

Hiring managers will expect to see a resume from a Project Manager, so you’ll want to highlight all your technical skills, as well as your soft skills, on your resume. Check out this guide on how to build a technical resume, as well as this advice on how to showcase your soft skills.

One way to increase your chances of getting noticed by hiring managers is to submit an online portfolio with your application that highlights the skills that you’d bring to the position. Consider picking one or two case studies to feature and include details like the project scope, budget, timeline, and client testimonials. If you have any images or videos of the final product, include those too since they help the hiring team visualize how you’ve managed projects in the past. You can also discuss major challenges you faced during the project and how you overcame them — hiring managers like to learn how you approach issues and solve them. Remember that you can include a wide range of projects in your portfolio, from organizing a local fundraiser to working on a major software update.

Here are some tips to help you put together your technical portfolio.

5. Prepare for a Project Manager interview

All of your training, job searching, and resume writing have been leading up to this moment: the interview. This is your chance to prove your technical knowledge, demonstrate your soft skills, and show the hiring manager that you’re the best fit for the role.

Each company has its own interview process, which may involve a single meeting with the hiring manager or multiple rounds with different people from HR and the technical team. So you’ll want to make sure you’re as prepared as possible for your interviews.

One of the most effective ways to prepare is by setting up a mock interview. You could ask a friend or family member to play the part of the interviewer and ask you questions. If this isn’t an option, even just saying your answers out loud is a good way to practice. Another tip for the interview is to memorize examples that highlight your skills. For example, you’ll probably be asked a question about budgeting, so take some time to think through your past experience and find an example that illustrates your budgeting skills in the best way possible.

Want more interview advice? Read more tips on how to ace your technical and behavioral interview.  You can also find more resume writing tips, portfolio guidance, and interview prep support at our Career Center.


Code Foundations Courses & Tutorials | Codecademy

Interested in learning how to code, but unsure where to start? Our Code Foundations domain provides an overview of the main applications of programming and teaches important concepts that you’ll find in every programming language. This content will prepare you to chart a course to a more technical c…

GUEST POST: Matching instruction to preferred learning styles does not raise achievement

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GUEST POST: Matching instruction to preferred learning styles does not raise achievement

1. Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x

2. Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166–171. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.006

3. Pasquinelli, E. (2012). Neuromyths: Why Do They Exist and Persist? Mind, Brain, Education, 6(2), 89–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2012.01141.x

4. Sharp, J. G., Bowker, R., & Byrne, J. (2008). VAK or VAK‐uous? Towards the trivialisation of learning and the death of scholarship. Research Papers Education, 23(3), 293–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671520701755416

5. Willingham, D. T., Hughes, E. M., & Dobolyi, D. G. (2015). The Scientific Status of Learning Styles Theories. Teaching Psychology, 42(3), 266–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628315589505

6. Dekker, S., Lee, N., Howard-Jones, P., & Jolles, J. (2012). Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence and Predictors of Misconceptions among Teachers. Frontiers Psychology, 3(429), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00429

7. Baker, L. A. (2020). Releasing students from the cognitive straitjacket of visual-auditory kinaesthetic learning styles. Impact: Journal Chartered CollegeTeaching, 3(10), 57–60. Also available from: https://impact.chartered.college/article/releasing-students-cognitive-straitjacket-visual-auditory-kinaesthetic-learning-styles/ (Accessed 15 September 2021).

8. Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say to practice. London: Learning and skills research centre.

Vocabulary in Context: Women Off-Road

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Vocabulary in Context: Women Off-Road

“Getting here and being in our first drivers’ meeting gave me ,” said Atefa Saleh, 41, a Siemens engineer from the United Arab Emirates. “I’m excited to be the driver. But we’re switching if something goes really wrong,” she quipped.

Ms. Saleh’s co-driver, Eleanor Coker, 48, is an American living in Saudi Arabia. She had an unusual method to prepare for her navigation duties. “My son came home from school and caught me on his PlayStation doing the Dakar game,” Ms. Coker said, referring to Dakar 18, a racing simulator.

Heated Conversation

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Heated Conversation

Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration — or, tell us about a memory from your own life that this image makes you think of.

Tell us in the comments, then read the related article to learn more.


Want more Picture Prompts? Find them all in this column.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

Word of the Day: subsume

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Word of the Day: subsume

The word subsume has appeared in five articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 30 in “The Roots of the Ukraine War: How the Crisis Developed” by Dan Bilefsky, Richard Pérez-Peña and Eric Nagourney:

Then the Cold War turned hot: Vladimir V. Putin’s ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine. The repercussions were immediate, and far-reaching.

Now, following the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, the largest mobilization of forces Europe has seen since 1945 is underway. So far, Moscow has been denied the swift victory it anticipated, and has failed to capture major cities across the country, including Kyiv, the capital. It has been weighed down by an ill-prepared military and has faced tenacious resistance from Ukrainian soldiers and civilian resistance fighters. Still, Russia has superior military might, and Mr. Putin has indicated that his ultimate goal is to capture Kyiv, topple Ukraine’s democratically elected government, and subsume the country into Russia’s orbit.

Can you correctly use the word subsume in a sentence?

Based on the definition and example provided, write a sentence using today’s Word of the Day and share it as a comment on this article. It is most important that your sentence makes sense and demonstrates that you understand the word’s definition, but we also encourage you to be creative and have fun.

Then, read some of the other sentences students have submitted and use the “Recommend” button to vote for two original sentences that stand out to you.

If you want a better idea of how subsume can be used in a sentence, read these usage examples on Vocabulary.com.

If you enjoy this daily challenge, try one of our monthly vocabulary challenges.

Students ages 13 and older in the United States and the United Kingdom, and 16 and older elsewhere, can comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff.

How Often Do You Treat Yourself to Something Special?

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How Often Do You Treat Yourself to Something Special?

Treat yourself! What comes to mind when you read these words? (If you think of the show “Parks and Recreation,” you’re certainly not alone.)

Do you have any habits or rituals that help you feel better? That help remind you that you are a special, worthy person? That get you through difficult moments? What are they?

In “Yes, You Do Deserve a Little Treat,” Julia Carmel writes about the practice of “making time for simple joys.” The article begins:

These days, whenever Jules Zucker has to run an errand, she throws a Reese’s Fast Break candy bar into her bag.

“We’re living in an era where security and ‘the big joys,’ if you will, are not guaranteed at all,” she said. “So all we have to fall back on are small comforts. It’s almost like a poor man’s hedonism.”

“It’s about giving ourselves tiny wins,” she added. “Like a tiny symbol of resistance against systems that are sucking us dry and then telling us we’re failing.”

Ms. Zucker, a 26-year-old music coordinator living in Brooklyn, is just one of the many people who have been reimagining their lives to include more small pleasures after two years of canceled plans and lowered expectations throughout the pandemic.

Tracy Llanera, 35, a philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut who studies nihilism, said that this treat-forward approach is one way people are reclaiming some of the freedom and stability that has been lost since early 2020.

“In the Covid pandemic, the thing that confirms that you’re suffering from existential nihilism is the lack of control,” Ms. Llanera said.

Amid these feelings of ongoing helplessness and grief, she said, people try to find consistent and reliable pleasures.

“Something about treat culture is that you’re always regularly going to get the treat,” she added. “You can depend on that, at least. There’s a guarantee that this small little ritual that you have every week will at least satiate something in you.”

The article points out that while spending money is a common part of “treat culture,” it’s not required. It also explains that creating these breaks can be just a function of one’s mind-set:

Bettina Makalintal, a 29-year-old reporter at Eater, said she has always been treat-inclined, but working from home has made it easier for her to take the time and space to care for herself.

“A big shift in this idea of treats is approaching mundane, everyday tasks and seeing it in a way that makes it feel like a treat,” she said.

“If I go for a walk to get coffee, then it’s not just a walk; it’s an outing,” Ms. Makalintal added. “Sort of just re-shifting how I’m seeing everything so it feels like something I want to do as opposed to something I have to do.”

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

  • What are some ideas you might add to your list after reading this article?

  • What would you do if you had a “Treat Yourself” day? Would you bring someone else along with you? If so, who, and why?

  • How is treating yourself different from receiving a gift from someone else? How are they similar?

  • What are some ways people can be kind to themselves without spending much, if any, money?

  • What role, if any, do you think the pandemic has played in people’s desire for “small comforts” and “tiny wins” in daily life? Is there anyone in the article with an opinion similar to yours?


Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.