, Author at My Learning Springboard

Pamela Slifer

December 7, 2023

With a strong passion for educating all students according to their abilities, Pamela Slifer adapts her teaching style to the unique needs of each student.

Pam has had a lifelong affinity towards teaching and working with children and knew her calling upon entering college. Beginning as an undergrad, Pam worked towards a dual degree masters in both special and elementary education. As a central part of her training, she observed and assisted with cooperating teachers within several New Jersey public schools.

After initially working in some other educational institutions, in 2016, Pam began working in her current role at a school for students with language-based learning disabilities. Over the past 8 years, she has taught 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade children. Pam’s training is multi-faceted having trained in Heggerty, a phonemic awareness program that sets the foundation for a child’s ability to manipulate sounds. Additionally, she is trained in PAF, an Orton Gillingham-based program to teach reading. For math, she has learned with Marilyn Zecher, who created a multisensory math program to complement common core aligned math curricula. She was also trained in Judy Hochman’s The Writing Revolution, an evidence-based program that takes students from just writing sentences to composing paragraphs, helping them to write in a coherent and structured manner.

In addition to her classroom experience, Pam has done extensive private tutoring for students in 1st through 5th grades in reading, writing, and math. Pam has broad experience with reading neuropsychological evaluations in order to come up with the best plan for her students. She is passionate about infusing executive function skills into her tutoring work and with the support of her school, has implemented a number of techniques developed by Sarah Ward.

While not teaching, Pam spends her time baking, playing board games, and exploring Prospect Park in Brooklyn.

What is A Holistic Review For College Admissions?

December 3, 2023 Brad Hoffman

Grappling With College Admissions: Test-Optional Policies And Holistic Reviews

We’re observing that many families are feeling overwhelmed and/or confused by the state of college admissions (e.g. test-optional policies, holistic reviews) and what they should be doing. We’re here to help you make sense of it.

If we had to boil it down to one sentence, we’d say: Do everything within your control from grades 9 to 12 – including standardized test preparation – and cast a wide enough net (12-15 applications).

But unpacking what a holistic review means for your student cannot properly be boiled down to one sentence, and it keeps changing, so here’s quite a lot of information that’s important to carefully consider and digest. Go make an espresso or a cup of tea and settle in!

Common App Research Brief: Application Trends Through November 1, 2023

To better understand the state of college applications, here’s some interesting data recently published by Common App in this research brief dated November 15, 2023. It reveals application trends through November 1, 2023 benchmarked against pre-pandemic norms from the 2019-20 admissions cycle. NOTE: the UC system is NOT part of Common App.

Key Findings:

65% increase in total application volume (3,353,516) to 834 institutions that have been part of the Common App membership since 2019-20 (last application season not affected by Covid).
41% increase in distinct first-year applicants (836,639) planning to enroll for the 2024-25 academic year.
About 68% of domestic applicants (565,045) live in ZIP codes with family incomes above the national median; students early to the application cycle are often targeting Early Decision and Early Action programs.
34% (421,161) of applicants submitted standardized test scores. However, Common App member institutions requiring standardized testing is just 4% in comparison to 55% in 2019-20.
Applications to public members grew more than those to private members since 2019-20 (82% vs. 47%). Growth in applications since 2019-20 was slowest for those most selective institutions (admit rates below 25%) and highest for more selective institutions (admit rates between 50% and 74%).

Demographic Trends:

67% increase for applicants identifying as an underrepresented minority race/ethnicity (URM) in comparison to the 2019-20 season, driven largely by an 86% increase for applicants identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, and a 70% increase for applicants identifying as Black or African American.
30% increase in applications by non-URM students
67% increase for first-generation applicants, about twice the rate of continuing-generation applicants over the same period.
Increase in applicants from lower-income ZIP codes (52%) was substantially greater than by their peers from higher-income areas (34%).
Domestically, the ten highest volume states for first-year applicants include: New York (#1 with 50% growth since 2019-20), Florida, Texas, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Domestically, growth in applicants is roughly equal across urbanicity levels, though growth was by far the fastest in the Southwestern regions (109%). Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Dakota were the fastest growing states.
International applicants increased by more than twice the rate of domestic applicants since the 2019-20 admissions cycle (87% vs. 38%). This growth is fastest among applicants with citizenship in Ghana (1,066%), Bangladesh (514%), Nepal (470%), Ethiopia (369%, and Nigeria (347%).

What does it take to be a “competitive” applicant?

From our perspective, competitive applicants should NOT be giving up any ground. We urge all parents to be more skeptical about the messages they may be hearing from well-intended school faculty, admissions representatives, and the national media about holistic reviews and admissions criteria. The hard truth is that college admissions criteria are more subjective than ever, and families ought to apply control where they can; the opportunities to shine aren’t even across all colleges, and the goal is to keep as many doors open as possible.

When high school seniors ultimately submit applications for college, they have the following ways to differentiate themselves from their peers:

Academic achievement via grades, class ranking, and GPA
Academic achievement via standardized testing, including ACT, SAT, APs, and IBs
Extracurricular activities, including clubs, sports, and volunteer work
Independent study and/or college coursework
Awards and accolades
Internship or part-time job
Art or music portfolio
Auditions
Sports recruitment
Demonstrated interest of a particular college(s) through ongoing engagement, summer programming, and early application processes
Successful interviewing with admissions officers, alumni, and/or student representatives

For good reason, institutions are working to ensure they receive more diverse applicants – broadly defined – which has necessitated the disruption of standardized testing as a barrier to entry, but students are now subject to holistic review relative to the context of their circumstances. Not all of the items above are attainable or manageable for every student, especially with the demands of a rigorous and selective high school program, so families have to realistically assess what they’ll be able to bring to the table when it comes time for college admissions.

What is an “Individualized Holistic Review” for admissions?

The College Board published a 28-page document titled “Understanding Holistic Review in Higher Education Admissions”. Optimally, three common characteristics are included:

Mission alignment, which is focused on advancing the institution’s core educational goals through the admissions process.
A two-part inquiry for assessing applicants, which considers: a) their likely ability to succeed and thrive at a given institution, AND b) their ability to enhance the educational experience of their peers in and out of the classroom.
Consideration of multiple, often intersecting, factors – academic, nonacademic, and contextual – that, in combination, uniquely define and reflect accomplishments and potential contributions of each applicant in light of their background and circumstances.

Here’s an example of this language in practice at Stanford.

Stanford: Holistic Admission

At Stanford, we practice holistic admission. This means that each piece in your application is reviewed as part of an integrated and comprehensive whole.

One piece tells us about your background and life experiences, another about your school and your academic achievement. We learn from others about your character and intellectual contributions. In your essays, we learn about your ideas and interests, and what is meaningful to you.

Each year (and in conformance with the law) we aim to enroll a class of diverse backgrounds and experiences, talents, academic interests, and ways of viewing the world.

In a holistic review, we seek to understand how you, as a whole person, would grow, contribute and thrive at Stanford, and how Stanford would, in turn, be changed by you.

Context

Just as no two Stanford students are the same, each applicant to Stanford is unique. This means that as we review each application, we pay careful attention to unique circumstances. We take into account your background, educational pathway, and work and family responsibilities. By focusing on your achievements in context, we evaluate how you have excelled in your school environment and how you have taken advantage of what is available to you in your school and community.

Considering Your Own Circumstances

Therefore, if students are undergoing a holistic review during the application process, families must logically consider their own circumstances:

At which school is your child enrolled? Which type of school is it (e.g. mainstream, specialized, therapeutic)? Private? Public?
Which colleges and majors are you most interested in?
Which class levels has your child opted into (e.g honors, advanced, regular)? Is AP testing available to showcase subject-matter knowledge?
Can your student manage standardized testing based on their learning profile?
In which ZIP code does your family reside?
Who is your child’s direct peer competition?
What other evidence might differentiate your child (academic and nonacademic)?

To Test or Not To Test?

Depending on your answers to these questions, we would argue that opting out of standardized testing isn’t a good strategy for everyone as part of a holistic review. And proceeding without standardized testing may create friction following an acceptance with regards to accessing certain majors or avoiding certain courses, particularly math. Anecdotally, almost all of our students continue to apply with standardized test scores, and this hasn’t changed since the 2019-20 academic year. As a result, we continue to experience tremendous success with college admissions, and our students continue to secure multiple acceptances to desired schools. Exceeding expectations has always mattered, and it still does.

Especially for families at selective private and public schools, nothing about a holistic review and the current admissions landscape makes things any easier than they were before the pandemic started. Though many school administrators, college counselors, advisors, and college admissions representatives may appear to emphasize and rally around eased admissions criteria with regard to test-optional policies, we worry tremendously that many families are misunderstanding and giving up considerable control in a high stakes process.

School faculty can’t roll out different messages for different students. There has to be a single message (which, ironically, runs counter to the notion of differentiation and individualization). So if an auditorium full of parents from diverse backgrounds are all brought together for a level setting conversation about college admissions and holistic review, it’s not surprising that a school would message that standardized testing isn’t that important anymore. Doing so diminishes short-term stress and frustration among their constituents while aligning with the heavy marketing push from colleges; and college representatives are keen to drive up application numbers and boast more selective acceptance rates.

In order to sufficiently rack up experiences and accomplishments to shine in a climate of “holistic review”, students need help making the most of their entire high school experience both in and out of school. Therefore, this planning should really start in late 8th grade or the beginning of 9th grade in order to avoid a scramble; it’s stressful enough with a solid and actively managed plan in place! In this article, we backmap this planning to 7th grade.

For standardized test preparation, we currently lean heavily in favor of the ACT while monitoring seriously big changes with the newly established digital-only SAT set to roll out in March 2024. We recommend formalizing test preparation with diagnostic work as early as January of 10th grade; and if you’ve passed that point already for your 11th grader, it’s not too late. We have always valued standardized test preparation as a vehicle for auditing prerequisite skills and bolstering college readiness, which is proving more important than ever with diminished academic performance and reported grade inflation as a result of continuous disruptions over the past several years. Notably, the national average for the ACT has plummeted to a 30-year low of 19.5.

Take Action And Make A Plan

Please contact us with your questions and wonders so that we can have a more cogent discussion by phone or by Zoom. We urge each family to put on blinders to those around them and focus discussions on your needs and goals, based on your particular circumstances, with an eye towards your student’s holistic review and application process.

By Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Board Certified Educational Planner, and Faya Hoffman, M.A. and Board Certified Educational Planner

High-Dosage Tutoring

November 27, 2023 Brad Hoffman

Following several years of significant operational disruptions, schools are focused on stabilizing routines and expectations and reconciling underdeveloped skills given the overwhelming data on pandemic learning loss experienced to some degree for the majority of learners in both private and public schools. In a recent research brief from July 2023, NWEA estimates that the average student needs 4.1 additional months of reading instruction and 4.5 additional months of math instruction in order to catch up to pre-pandemic levels. Nationally, the average 8th grader is one full year below grade level.

The antidote to skill gaps is high-dosage tutoring, which is generally defined as intensive 1:1 tutoring at least 3x per week, or for about 50 hours over a semester. We’ve seen an increase in the requests for high-dosage tutoring over the past 18 months, and this trend has continued this fall.

Our conversations with parents and school faculty in addition to our own observations confirm the following concerns across the curriculum:

Writing skills across all grade levels, and for all writing purposes (e.g narrative, informational, and persuasive), needs improvement. Subcategories of writing work include:
- Prewriting strategies
- Basic and advanced grammar and syntax
- Sentence fluency and varying sentence structures
- Transition words and phrases
- Sequencing and chunking ideas to create effective, multi-paragraph pieces
- Incorporating quotations and citing references
- Systematically editing and proofreading
- Incorporating stronger vocabulary
- Improving close reading skills, including note taking, annotating, and properly outlining, is a common need for students in the upper elementary, middle, and high school divisions.
Decoding, reading fluency, and comprehension work with students in elementary and middle school, which includes effectively summarizing texts and determining / justifying the main idea of a non-fiction text.
Automaticity of basic math facts (all four operations).
Work with fractions is complex and spans common fractions, decimal fractions and percentages. We see a lot of skill gaps here.
Executive function skill building is needed, particularly as it relates to work prioritization, goal setting, time management, minimizing distractions, and developing enhanced metacognition so that a student learns to set themself up for optimal performance under particular circumstances.

As a result of academic doubt, we’ve seen a return to admissions testing requirements at most NYC day schools and some highly selective boarding schools in addition to many colleges. Despite the continued use of “test-optional” language at various schools, this testing is NOT really optional for everyone. It remains a filter. We know that media buzz can sometimes be confusing and misleading, and this is absolutely true as it relates to test-optional policies for the majority of our students. We continue to help our students achieve success with school and college admissions because we continue to take the harder, more steady road exceeding expectations everywhere we can. Submitting strong test scores continues to be a way to demonstrate academic mastery in a climate where there is considerable doubt. Moreover, “holistic reviews” by admissions committees take each student’s specific context into consideration, so “being competitive” is relative to each student’s situation and environment.

Of note, the average baseline performance we’re seeing for admissions testing is lower than the average performance we saw prior to the pandemic. This data is reinforced by the lower scores we’ve seen at large on private school achievement test data, such as CTPs or MAP testing. Therefore, students engaged in ISEE, SSAT, ACT or SAT work have the specific advantage of auditing prerequisite skills and systematically closing any gaps before moving onto accelerated instruction.

With most planning and establishing new routines, it’s important to not let perfect be the enemy of good. Plans can always be tweaked or recalibrated as more information becomes available. With that in mind, if you have any questions or concerns about your child’s academic performance, or if you have an interest in pursuing a private school or college admissions process, please contact us to schedule an appointment for further discussion without delay!

By Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed., Board Certified Educational Planner, and Faya Hoffman, M.A., Board Certified Educational Planner

Math Competitions Enhance Problem Solving Skills

November 15, 2023 Brad Hoffman

$Math Competitions$ The thing about math is that when it makes sense it’s easy. Most tutoring of course is aimed at making the math make sense in the first place. However, for kids who find the math in school to be too simple and too straightforward, the lack of challenge and novelty can become frustrating and even demotivating. For any student, the goal is for the learning to be appropriately challenging, and that requires flexibility, creativity, and skillful teacher judgment.

One simple response is to engage a private tutor to teach this advanced student more: more topics, more knowledge, more concepts. While it’s undoubtedly fun to forge ahead and discover new ideas and new concepts, the “more is more” approach sometimes helps to create the very problem you’re trying to avoid.

Therefore, rather than actively trying to extend your child’s knowledge, it’s more useful to broaden it and deepen it, which really translates to developing the mental flexibility to see how to apply this knowledge to a wide variety of problems. And this endeavor, in fact, is the purest reason for why it’s really worth getting involved in math competitions.

Math competitions take concepts familiar to students of a certain grade and present them in quirky, new and unfamiliar ways that force the student to explore the meaning and implications of these concepts. As the student examines ideas from different angles, they develop greater flexibility of thought, combined with greater creativity and inventiveness. Processing an unfamiliar situation and getting comfortable enough with it to come up with a strategy to deal with it is not just a desirable academic outcome but is surely the ultimate dream of any parent who wants to prepare their child for all the unforeseen challenges that life will inevitably throw at them. The value in education, and the greatest gift that parents can endow on their children, is preparing them to be able to solve the problems that they are going to encounter on a daily basis in high school, in college, in the workplace and in their everyday lives. Since we cannot know ahead of time what those problems will be, it makes sense to develop a general talent for handling problems. Teaching often emphasizes knowledge and facts, which remain important; but the real value lies in learning to take that knowledge and do something with it.

Math competitions give students a purpose and a goal, something to work towards and to work for. It is a common refrain among kids who aren’t enjoying their work to wonder “what is this for?” because it is not obvious what value they’re getting out of it. Math competitions not only provide that motivation, but they also create an environment of collaboration and exploration, not to mention the camaraderie and society of other motivated students who can share their passions, their curiosities and their friendship.

There are more prosaic reasons, however, for the more pragmatically-minded parent. Math competitions are without question excellent preparation for the ACT or SAT tests, which remain strategically advantageous to submit when applying to college. These all-important tests frequently derail even the best students, not because they are hard – far from it – but rather because they present familiar and basic concepts in an unfamiliar and complicated way. The challenge of the SAT or ACT lies in being able to untangle the superficial complexity of the problems and recognize the simple sense that lies beneath them, which is exactly what math competitions do, too.

Compare these questions from an ACT test and an AMC-8 problem set:

There is a list of seven numbers. The average of the first four numbers is 5, and the average of the last four numbers is 8. If the average of all seven numbers is 6, then the number common to both sets of four numbers is…?

To increase the mean [average] of 7 numbers by 3, by how much would the sum of the 7 numbers have to increase?

Both these questions coincidentally happen to involve lists of seven numbers. More significantly, both rely on an appreciation that the average of a group of numbers is directly tied to the total of that group of numbers. So in the first question, to allow the average to be 6, the total of all seven numbers must be 46 (i.e. 6 x 7), while the total of the first four numbers must be 20 (5 x 4) and the total of the last four numbers must be 32 (8 x 4). Since the first four numbers and the last four numbers add up to 52 (20+32), while the total of all seven numbers is 46, that difference of 6 (52-46) must be the value of the ‘extra’ eighth number that is common to both sets of four numbers – as the question requires. In the second question we do not know what the original average is, but from the wording of the question it’s clear that it doesn’t really matter: the answer would be true for any scenario that fitted the description. Thus, if the original mean average was – for sake of example – 2, meaning that the total of all seven numbers originally was 14 (2×7), then the bigger mean average after the increase of three would be 5, and an average of 5 would come from the seven numbers having a total value of 35 (5×7). We can conclude that the total had to go up from the original total of 14 to the new total of 35 by an increase of 21.

The math involved in these solutions is teachable, but the number-crunching is not the important point here. The important point is that the first question comes from a math competition aimed at 8th graders, while the very similar second question comes from an ACT math question typically handled by 11th graders. Developing the mental flexibility and ease to deal with these questions in the 8th grade would clearly not only help attain a great GPA in regular schooling, but would also mean that by the time the ACT or SAT testing comes along, your child is already in a great position to do well, which frees them up to concentrate on regular schoolwork which is more demanding and time-consuming by the 11th grade; it also leaves them with more time for those extracurricular activities that enrich their lives and differentiate their high school experience.

If that isn’t enough, then it’s worth considering that if your child is particularly invested in math competitions and turns in a noteworthy score, it’s this sort of accomplishment that is a real standout accolade for a student. The accomplishment boosts a student’s confidence, and it’s a data point that exceeds any classroom expectations and validates strong math achievement. From a college application perspective, it’s the type of accomplishment that adds extra clout and sends the message that the student is not only talented but also motivated and invested: exactly the kind of person that colleges are seeking to take on.

Ultimately, however, math competitions are a risk-free way to add value, fun and intrigue to your child’s academic life. They can challenge themselves, and make like-minded friends, all while discovering the playful and creative side of problem-solving that is often lost in day-to-day schooling. Meanwhile, if the results of the competition aren’t great, then it makes no difference to your child’s academic record, so there’s no downside; but if the results are good then it can only be an advantage for many years to come.

By Nick Thomas, Private Tutor and Math Specialist

Partial Products Multiplication

November 6, 2023 Brad Hoffman

Do you remember fourth grade? You were not yet confronting middle school angst but no longer a little kid in your elementary school. You likely were not worried about your overflowing inbox, catching up on laundry, or figuring out dinner plans back then. What were you worried about? Think back. Ahh, that’s right. Your math homework. You likely just learned how to multiply two digit numbers. Multiply, carry, multiply, add, shift to the left, add, repeat. So many steps and, while it got the job done, you had no idea what you were doing or why you were doing it. It was just the way to solve multiplication problems. The standard algorithm. And, for something so complicated, once you memorized the computation patterns, it was pretty simple. No one mentioned partial products or alternative algorithms at all.

Fast forward a few decades and here you are, helping your fourth grader with their math homework. Multiplying two two digit numbers? Simple! You pull out a pencil and paper and start your standard algorithm tutorial. Multiply, carry, multiply, add, shift to the left, add, repeat. “Why do you do that?” they ask as you work through the steps with arrows and plus signs sketched in concert with your lecture. Why do you do that? No one ever covered that in the first round of standard algorithm instruction. You don’t have the answer you need to explain the complicated iteration of steps or why it works or how to figure out when it does not work. It was just the way you learned. Your math instruction focused on efficiency rather than conceptual understanding. Your fourth grader takes the pencil and demonstrates partial products multiplications. They draw a rectangle, call it an array, and label each side. They then divide their numbers up by place value, end up with four equations in the rectangle and add their totals together to arrive at a final answer. It worked, sure, but is it the most efficient? Five minutes and four extra steps later, they just arrived at the answer they could have gotten using the standard algorithm you modeled.

Partial Products | Good to Know | WSKG

Watch this video on YouTube

Has Math Really Changed?

Has math really changed that much over the years? The long and short of it is no. Math has not dramatically changed since you were in school. Fourth graders still, sometimes begrudgingly, learn to multiply and divide. Scrap paper and times tables are still important elements of the upper elementary school math experience. And, while on the surface, solving using the standard algorithm and solving using partial products and an array seem wildly dissimilar, conceptually, they fall along the same continuum in computational understanding.

Using the standard algorithm, you learned that to multiply is just an annotated version of what your child is doing in solving by place value on an array. Their computational instruction has slowed down and added this important stepping-stone in their math learning journey to ensure that they know why they are doing when multiplying.

Partial Products

There are a few important reasons to learn multiplication using partial products and a visual model. First and foremost, it supports a strong conceptual understanding of the place value element of multiplication. When you learned to use the standard algorithm and shift your second row of numbers over to the left, it is likely that no one explicitly reinforced that “the shift” actually symbolized the multiplication of ten in the overall problem. When that concept is not developed, it is incredibly challenging to conceptualize the magnitude of the numbers in a problem. Dividing numbers into place value using an array helps ground the abstract concept of magnitude in a very tangible construct through the use of the array. A rectangular array, when set up to solve a multiplication problem, is nothing more than an area problem. Young mathematicians can see the magnitude of each piece of the multiplication equation as they multiply one side of the array by the other side, often on graph paper, in a set up that is just an extension of their previous geometry work. Additionally, this visual conceptualization of multiplication lends itself to understanding more efficient and flexible computation strategies. For example, using an array to show that 3×4 and 6×2 are the exact same area helps illustrate the commutative property and supports understanding why doubling and halving when multiplying leads to the same product.

As students grow in their mathematical development and expand their computation fluency, arrays become more abstract and less representational, serving as more of a graphic organizer for solving than as a direct representation of area. At that point, students may shift to using the standard algorithm entirely, now coupled with an appreciation for what each step means in the greater solution and an expectation for the magnitude of their product. However, arrays will continue to be an important component of their mathematical trajectory and an essential building block of understanding. As students move from whole number work to fractions computation, the array lends its support again, providing a meaningful context for fraction multiplication and division.

Supporting Your Mathematician

But, how can you support your budding mathematician when the math work feels new and complicated? There are many ways to appreciate and develop your students even when their math instruction might look different than your own:

Be a student, not a teacher. Homework is reinforcement for learning that already happened in the classroom. When your child asks for help on their homework, ask them to show you what they learned today and what they are able to do. Often, students just need to talk through their process and refer back to their previous learning to work through a challenge. By asking your student to teach you what they know rather than you teaching what they do not know, you are empowering them to synthesize their understanding and reinforcing that their classroom work is valuable and important.
Use YouTube for support. A quick search in YouTube for partial products, array multiplication, or even fraction multiplication on an array will lead you to hundreds of competent, skilled teachers delivering quick lessons on these concepts. By spending ten minutes watching an instructional video, you and your student can learn alongside each other and make it through math homework unscathed!
Sign up for an account on Splash Learn. This website is free and content is grouped by grade level standards so it is accessible and easy to navigate. In addition to games and tasks that align well to classroom strategies, the website offers plenty of parent support with definitions and examples of most math concepts and ideas, such as partial products.
Reach out to your child’s teacher. Most math curricula actually includes parent resource tools! Ask your child’s teacher if there is a parent guide, website, or workbook to help you understand what your child is learning. They should be able to point you in the right direction whether it’s partial products or any other concept or topic.

By Marisa Krohn, Learning Specialist

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