Another interesting article from Carl:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2013/09/paying_attention_is_a_skill_schools_need_to_teach_it.html
Can you develop grit if you don't know how to pay attention?

How Children Succeed - Interview with the author
Paul Tough gives an interview (about half hour) discussing the details of How Children Succeed from Toronto Public Television: http://www.thelavinagency.com/blog-education-speaker-paul-tough-on-not-treating-failure-as-a-disaster.html
The interview closely follows his book and expands a little on Tough's thoughts since he wrote the book. It is interesting that he now feels the most effective program included in the book is the OneGoal program, even though their data is incomplete (the students involved are only now college sophomores) and he spends more time in the book on some of the other programs.

Multi-tasking While Learning

This blog post reinforces what you may already believe about the distractions of technology in the learning process. It's not surprising that researchers found students were only working about 65% of the time they thought they were working hard on their homework.
Multi-tasking Research
The New York Times is on the same page with this article about distractions:
Toggling Tasks

2 Conflicting Ideas of Struggle

I've considered the role of struggle regularly over the past few years, both as a teacher and a coach.  The NPR clip is from this morning and details cultural differences between East and West concerning "struggle" in schools.  The Psychology Today link downplays the role of struggle, even going so far as to argue it's negative.  As a coach, I bounce between teaching technique and proper training, both of which occur at low intensities- intensities which are far below those in a race.  As a teacher, I want my kids to struggle, especially in the classroom, but there are basics they ought to know to make any struggle relevant.

Both are quick and easy, though the topics are not.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/12/164793058/struggle-for-smarts-how-eastern-and-western-cultures-tackle-learning?ft=1&f=1001

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201008/what-doesnt-kill-you-makes-you-weaker