Brad Hoffman, Author at My Learning Springboard

Why Coding?

June 22, 2015 Brad Hoffman

What Most Schools Don't Teach

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Coding instruction is a hot topic, and never has the role of computer programming in education been more discussed, questioned, dissected, and applauded. So what’s the big deal?

Watch this great video from Code.org, a non-profit dedicated to growing computer science education by making it available in more schools, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color.

The opportunities that computer programming instruction in the form of coding can lead to are enormous, but, as discussed in this NY Times article, I Am Woman, Watch Me Hack,”…just 0.4 percent of all female college freshmen say they intend to major in computer science. In fact, the share of women in computer science has actually fallen over the years.”

Many young people, especially women, do not come into contact with engineers and programmers at a young age; and they don’t really understand what they do. Coding provides a point of entry for everyone to learn skills that will help them throughout their lives.

As more of our commerce and education takes place on computer screens, it has become increasingly important to learn coding. Working on a computer and starting to understand exactly what is involved in making a program work puts your child in a better position to thrive.

As a great introduction for kids, check out this awesome Hour of Code instruction video to get started on coding:

Hour of Code - Introduction

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Happy Coding!

Written by: Editorial Team, My Learning Springboard, Inc.

Helping Your Child Cope with Test Anxiety

June 16, 2015 Brad Hoffman

There is a four letter word, often heard in school.

This word can elicit fear, even panic for some students.

That word? TEST.

Most people feel at least a little nervous before an exam. A low level of anxiety can actually be helpful, as it can provide motivation and energy during the test. The problem is when the anxiety becomes so intense that it interferes with concentration or performance. When this happens, the student may zone out or freeze up on the day of the test and have trouble answering questions he or she actually knows. For some individuals, tests can even bring about physical symptoms.

What is Test Anxiety?

Test anxiety is a type of performance anxiety. In performance anxiety, one feels pressure to do well. Examples of performance anxiety include waiting to go onstage in a play, going to a job interview or making a class presentation. Test anxiety, like other performance anxiety can induce:

“butterflies”
shakiness
sweating
rapid heart beat
nausea
headaches

What Causes Test Anxiety?

Like other forms of anxiety, test anxiety is an effect of anticipating a stressful outcome. When one is under great stress, the body releases the hormone adrenaline (an adaptive mechanism which prepares us for danger. This is known as the fight of flight response). The release of adrenaline causes many of the physical symptoms described above. Focusing on negative outcomes can also contribute to test anxiety. One can become flooded with thoughts like:

What if I mess up?
What if the test is too hard?
What if I forget what I studied?
What if people notice how nervous I am?

There are essentially four main sources of test anxiety:

How will others view me?
How will the test outcome affect my own self-image?
How will the test affect my future?
Am I prepared for the test?
Tips to Help Students Cope With Test Anxiety

1. Be Prepared

The more confident your child is going into an exam, the less severe the test anxiety is likely to be. Encourage your child to familiarize himself or herself with the test format (what kinds of questions, how much time is allotted, etc). Organize the notes from the class. Make flashcards and create mnemonics to help with memorizing key concepts and terms. Set a schedule to help determine how much time is needed to study. Cramming the night before a test can intensify anxiety and is often ineffective. Getting a good night’s sleep and a hearty meal are important aspects of test preparation!

2. Think Positively

Be aware of negative thinking both before and during the test. Challenge the negative thoughts with positive statements. For example, if your child is thinking “There is no way I will do well on this test,” he or she could counter with “I studied hard. I know the information. I am going to try my best and will do as well as I can.” Positive thinking can go a long way.

3. Take Some Pressure Off

I often tell children with whom I work that it is physically impossible for them to “do better than their best.” What I mean by this is that students often feel like they have to achieve the impossible. It is as if they have to move a mountain or run a 2 minute mile. This can feel overwhelming and can cause children to freeze or even give up. Children who experience test anxiety need realistic expectations, while being encouraged to put in their best effort. Without minimizing the importance of the test to your child, you can also provide comfort in the fact that the test likely not make or break the rest of their lives. Focusing on the process (ie the effort) rather than the outcome can help put things in perspective for you and your child.

4. Practice Relaxation Exercises

Develop relaxation strategies to help your child feel calmer before and during the test. Breathing slowly and deeply through the nostrils and exhaling through the mouth helps to slow heart rate and normalize breathing. I recommend having your child practice this regularly when they are in a relaxed state, so they will have it ready as a tool come test time. Tensing and relaxing the muscles from the top of the body down is another way to ease tension. Some students like to squeeze a stress ball or other small object. Remind your child of the strategies prior to the exam. Some students find it helpful to write about their feelings prior to an exam. Actually, several studies have shown that writing for 8 minutes before a test can put students who worry on par with those who do not (Ramirez, G. & Beilock, S.L. (2011). Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom. Science, 331 (6014), 211-213).

5. Strategies During the Test . . .

If the material seems unfamiliar or you struggle at the start, find a question you can handle and then start there to build confidence.
Take breaks to recharge.
Take a few deep breaths.
Take a drink of water.
Close your eyes for a moment and envision a calming scene.
Try to think positively: Remind yourself that you prepared and are doing your best.
Think of a reward you will give yourself after the test: a treat, a movie or something else to look forward to when you are done.

Like any other skill, learning to manage test anxiety takes practice and patience. It is important for you the parent, to address the problem as early as possible, because it is likely to get worse over time without intervention. Rather than avoiding the unpleasant thoughts and feelings associated with test-taking, your child will benefit from working with you to develop the tools and support systems that will help them in the long term.

Ari Fox, LCSW-R is a child, adolescent and young adult psychotherapist in New York City. His practice, Cope With School NYC, helps individuals with a wide range of issues and specializes in school functioning.

Teaching Critical Thinking Through Science

June 15, 2015 Brad Hoffman

The goal of science education is much more than teaching students specific science content, it’s teaching students how to think with an emphasis on hypothesizing, planning, testing, reasoning from data, and drawing conclusions. Many of us are familiar with the scientific method, but science teaching, particularly at the elementary level, should focus on process skills. Process skills are the behaviors we want students to develop as young scientists. Regardless of the particular content or science kits used in schools (i.e. SCIS, Foss, STC), all students should have hands-on experience with scientific investigations that provide myriad opportunities to develop these process skills. Students who have regular access to real science work and investigations sharpen their critical thinking and develop both creative and analytical problem solving skills. Kids also LOVE “doing” science, and this subject matter becomes a major motivator for student engagement.

The National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) highlights basic science process skills as well as integrated science process skills.

Basic science process skills include:

Observing – using the senses to gather information about an object or event. Example: Describing a pencil as yellow.
Inferring – making an “educated guess” about an object or event based on previously gathered data or information. Example: Saying that the person who used a pencil made a lot of mistakes because the eraser was well worn.
Measuring – using both standard and nonstandard measures or estimates to describe the dimensions of an object or event. Example: Using a meter stick to measure the length of a table in centimeters.
Communicating – using words or graphic symbols to describe an action, object or event. Example: Describing the change in height of a plant over time in writing or through a graph.
Classifying – grouping or ordering objects or events into categories based on properties or criteria. Example: Placing all rocks having certain grain size or hardness into one group.
Predicting – stating the outcome of a future event based on a pattern of evidence. Example: Predicting the height of a plant in two weeks time based on a graph of its growth during the previous four weeks.

Integrated Science Process Skills include:

Controlling variables – being able to identify variables that can affect an experimental outcome, keeping most constant while manipulating only the independent variable. Example: Realizing through past experiences that amount of light and water need to be controlled when testing to see how the addition of organic matter affects the growth of beans.
Defining operationally – stating how to measure a variable in an experiment. Example: Stating that bean growth will be measured in centimeters per week.
Formulating hypotheses – stating the expected outcome of an experiment. Example: The greater the amount of organic matter added to the soil, the greater the bean growth.
Interpreting data – organizing data and drawing conclusions from it. Example: Recording data from the experiment on bean growth in a data table and forming a conclusion which relates trends in the data to variables.
Experimenting – being able to conduct an experiment, including asking an appropriate question, stating a hypothesis, identifying and controlling variables, operationally defining those variables, designing a “fair” experiment, conducting the experiment, and interpreting the results of the experiment. Example: The entire process of conducting the experiment on the affect of organic matter on the growth of bean plants.
Formulating models – creating a mental or physical model of a process or event. Examples: The model of how the processes of evaporation and condensation interrelate in the water cycle.

By Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed.
Board Certified Educational Planner and Learning Specialist
My Learning Springboard

Rebecca Resnik and Associates

June 13, 2015

Rebecca Resnik and Associates is trusted in the Bethesda area for providing excellent psychological care. Their highly-trained clinicians are dedicated to providing evidence-based care in a comfortable, supportive environment. They understand that their clients want to work with clinicians who have strong credentials, and they know their clients have high expectations. They also understand that choosing a highly qualified clinician does not mean having to sacrifice the quality of the experience. They believe that a family’s experience, their relationship with their psychologist, is the foundation for finding the right solutions.

Rebecca Resnik and Associates offers the following services:

Psychological testing
Neuropsychological Testing
Psychoeducational testing
Developmental Testing
Therapy for Young Children (2 through 6)
Therapy for Older Children (6 through 11)
Therapy for Teenagers (12 through 20)
Therapy for Adults

Rebecca Resnik and Associates, PC

Rebecca Resnik and Associates is trusted in the Bethesda area for providing excellent psychological care and evaluations.

5602 Shields Drive, Suite A

Bethesda, MD

20817

Phone: +1 (301) 581-1120

Last edited May 19, 2018 @ 9:47 pm

Key Messages that Instill a Growth Mindset for Students

June 12, 2015 Brad Hoffman

What do we want our students to learn?

How will we know they learned it?

What will we do if they already know it or if they didn’t learn it?

You can learn to be smart.

What we are doing is important.

I am here to help you.

The above questions and key messages were at the core of my instructional belief system during my years as an elementary principal. I shared them with my staff and our parents at the beginning of and during every school year. There are some things that are worth asking and repeating.

What do we want our students to learn? How will we know they learned it? What will we do if they already know it or if they didn’t learn it? If a school staff doesn’t know the answers to these questions, the instructional program will be directionless and without rigor. A framework for learning will be missing and student achievement will suffer. If a school staff has the end in mind, if they know what they want their students to learn and know how they will assess if the students have met those goals, then there is a road map for instruction, re-teaching and acceleration.

You can learn to be smart. What we are doing is important. I am here to help you. These are the messages I expected my staff to give to our students on a daily basis, explicitly and implicitly. Being smart isn’t something that we are born with or without. It is something that can and should be learned. We must give our students the message that we believe in them and that the work we do together in school is important, that they are valued and that as a school staff, we are here to help them succeed.

Taking this a step further, Carol Dweck, in “Even Geniuses Work Hard” says “individuals with a growth mindset believe they can develop their intelligence over time.” Research shows that students with a “growth mindset view challenging work as an opportunity to learn and grow. Students with a growth mindset are more likely to respond to initial obstacles by remaining involved, trying new strategies, and using all the resources at their disposal for learning.” They are also more inclined to become leaders.

We must provide our students with a learning environment that instills in them a growth mindset, teaches them the strategies to learn to be smart, ensures that they believe what they are doing is important and demonstrates that we, as teachers, are there to help them. This can only happen if we have a roadmap and know what we want them to learn and how we will follow up if they don’t know it yet or if they know the content already. This is not asking too much for our students.