College Counseling Archives

The Science of Scientific Studying

November 8, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

So, you are tutoring a student in science and they are having trouble with a particular concept- to be a successful teacher you have to have a variety of different approaches on hand for moments like this. If your student is having trouble getting a grasp on tough biology or chemistry topics, you have to figure out how to re-present the information in a new way that might work better for the way your student learns. Here are five simple tips to revamp the way you approach science concepts as an instructor- they will also help make the information stick long after the test:

1) Make a story out of it!

Science textbooks are full of jargon that can be not only incomprehensible but also uninteresting. Students can be turned off from learning about a topic that seems too complex or boring because of poor presentation. The solution? Encourage your student to devise stories with characters, settings and plots based on the material at hand. The more creative, detail-specific, and relevant to your child’s life and interests the story can be, the more likely he or she will ultimately grasp the information. As teacher and MIT Ph. D. candidate Tyler Dewitt points out in this TED Talk, crafting a narrative around a difficult topic can make it easier to understand as well as much more interesting for your student. The act of narrative generation pushes your child to process and understand the material to a higher level that simply reading a textbook does not achieve on its own.

2) Map it out

Another way to re-present challenging information to facilitate learning is via mind maps. Mind maps are one way to outline information in diagram form that emphasizes connections between topics. Although simple in concept, they can be a powerful way to reorganize information that may be otherwise tedious to remember. Check out this YouTube clip for more information and suggestions on how to begin, but as with study strategies in general, your student should experiment with different methods to find out what works best. A variety of free mind mapping software can also be found online.

3) Note your questions

Take note of how your student takes notes. Does he or she write text verbatim? Are there bullet points, stars, or drawings? While any number of styles might work, one helpful strategy might be to help your child create a structured way of recording questions during class or while studying. Highlighting what we don’t know can be as helpful later on as marking down what we do. Designate a portion of a notebook or select a specific font that stands out. The final and most important part? Look up the answers later on!

4) Why is it called that?

Writing down words that are unfamiliar and looking up their definition is always a good idea. Looking up the origins or roots of a new phrase can be equally powerful. For example, consider this information about the heart. The heart is effectively a muscular pump, and like every other muscle of the body, it needs the oxygen and nutrients found in oxygenated blood to function. It receives its supply of blood from the coronary arteries. Without any additional knowledge, making the arbitrary association between “coronary arteries” and “blood supply to the heart” might be a stretch on a tricky multiple choice question or a diagram of various arteries in the body. Thankfully, the word “coronary” is there to help out. The word coronary is derived from a Latin phrase that means wreath or crown, and the coronary arteries wrap around the top of the heart like their namesake. Having this extra piece of information makes the association between the arteries’ name and function less arbitrary by alluding to the location and path the coronary arteries follow. Taking a few seconds to look up the roots behind other difficult biological phrases will cut down on the amount of strict memorization and will aid in fact recall during assessments.

5) Bit by bit

While cramming for exams may be unavoidable at times, learning how to master challenging topics through frequent study is instrumental to success in the long run. Help your student generate a routine to work on the subject or topic they struggle with the most (the very one they may be avoiding) for a little bit each day. Set aside about thirty minutes each day to review the content of that day’s class and to map out how it fits into the broader scheme of the course – and then start on the associated homework. If possible, previewing material for the next day of class by looking ahead at class notes or relevant pages in the textbook can help your student get a jump on the material. The point is to avoid those cram sessions and empower your student to construct their own study routine – your student will thank you when they get to college!

Mix and match these strategies to see what works best for your student. Ultimately, the goal of these tips is to inculcate simple strategies for proactive learning that will assist with your science classes now and in the future!

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

7 Survival Skills for 21st Century Students

October 18, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Tony Wagner’s book, The Global Achievement Gap, explains the competencies high school and college graduates need in order to be successful young professionals and global citizens in today’s society. Wagner explains how much of the way we go about traditional schooling is truly obsolete, and he challenges educators to redefine what we mean by a rigorous curriculum and schooling experience. To help students become the “knowledge workers” we need for the 21st century, and to remain competitive as a nation, Wagner outlines these 7 survival skills below, which have been informed by interviews with business leaders and educators across the nation at every level.

So frequently, parents and teachers get caught up in short term education problem solving. Parents and teachers, naturally, become narrowly focused on an upcoming standardized test or the content demands of a particular course or grade level. In fact, we see this happen at every type of school–public, charter, and private. However, if we all take a step back, and spend some time in the helicopter rather than the blender, we can see what really matters. This reflection rarely happens for a teacher working in isolation. In order to effectively assess one’s teaching practice and raise the bar on teaching and learning, educators must work collaboratively and constructively, a model that happens much less frequently than you might imagine, even at the most elite schools.

Since learning is a lifelong journey, our goal as educators must be to help our students meet the demands of today’s world – with consideration for these 7 survival skills – while also helping students to remain engaged, motivated, and curious. Learning should be meaningful and applicable. Two of the most important skills we can help our children master is the ability to research and communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing. At all grade levels, we need to stretch our children’s ability to think critically, synthesize information, and present their findings. When we tutor students at My Learning Springboard, we consider the investment in lifelong skills and use each assignment as an opportunity to develop these competencies. We never lose sight of our role as mentors.

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

7 Survival Skills For 21st Century Students

From Tony Wagner’s website:

CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

“The idea that a company’s senior leaders have all the answers and can solve problems by themselves has gone completely by the wayside…The person who’s close to the work has to have strong analytic skills. You have to be rigorous: test your assumptions, don’t take things at face value, don’t go in with preconceived ideas that you’re trying to prove.”
—Ellen Kumata, consultant to Fortune 200 companies

COLLABORATION ACROSS NETWORKS AND LEADING BY INFLUENCE

“The biggest problem we have in the company as a whole is finding people capable of exerting leadership across the board…Our mantra is that you lead by influence, rather than authority.”
—Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Cisco

AGILITY AND ADAPTABILITY

“I’ve been here four years, and we’ve done fundamental reorganization every year because of changes in the business…I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills.”
—Clay Parker, President of Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards

INITIATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

“For our production and crafts staff, the hourly workers, we need self-directed people…who can find creative solutions to some very tough, challenging problems.”
—Mark Maddox, Human Resources Manager at Unilever Foods North America

EFFECTIVE ORAL AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

“The biggest skill people are missing is the ability to communicate: both written and oral presentations. It’s a huge problem for us.”
—Annmarie Neal, Vice President for Talent Management at Cisco Systems

ACCESSING AND ANALYZING INFORMATION

“There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren’t prepared to process the information effectively, it almost freezes them in their steps.”
—Mike Summers, Vice President for Global Talent Management at Dell

CURIOSITY AND IMAGINATION

“Our old idea is that work is defined by employers and that employees have to do whatever the employer wants…but actually, you would like him to come up with an interpretation that you like—he’s adding something personal—a creative element.”
—Michael Jung, Senior Consultant at McKinsey and Company

Key Messages That Support The Learning Process

October 13, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

No matter their students’ location or grade level, there are a number of key messages that educators need to communicate to students in order to help them to be effective learners and to see their teacher(s) as an integral part of supporting them in the learning process. Key messages are the core concepts that a speaker wants their audience (in this case, students) to hear and remember and, most importantly, believe. Effective key messages both resonate in the moment and stay with the listeners long after they first hear the messages.

Maslow’s hierarchy reminds us as educators that students’ needs for safety, belonging, and self-confidence must be addressed in order for them to learn academic material effectively. With these considerations in mind, our key messages for students are based not in scholastic content but in social-emotional principles. These messages help students see that achievements that may feel unreachable to them now will be reachable soon. These messages encourage social-emotional learning transfer by helping students identify and activate positive attributes they already possess, as well as by helping them cultivate new ones. These messages encourage students to take intellectual risks — an essential aspect of being a fully actualized learner — by reassuring them that they have a safety net and that the teacher believes in the student and their ability. These messages help learners build stamina and give them the confidence to persist when learning is challenging — both when the educator is there beside them and when the student is working independently. These messages help students conceptualize their work with their teacher as something that helps them both in the immediate moment and in the long term.

The key messages below should be shared directly with your students as well as embedded implicitly in your communications with them during each interaction. Repeated use makes a critical difference.

My Learning Springboard believes in these key messages for our students:

Our work together is important.
You can do this.
I am here for you and won’t give up on you.
Learning new things can be hard, but remember you’ve done hard things before (remember when you…).
You may not be able to do this YET, but the key word is “yet.”
Effective effort + persistence = success.

Think back to a time when you struggled alone with something as a learner — perhaps when you floundered in isolation, felt misunderstood, or were hesitant to ask for assistance. Imagine how things could have been different if you had been able to work with a teacher who was consistently encouraging and who made it safe to ask for help. How could hearing these key messages have benefited you as you tried to master that concept or skill set? We believe that these messages could have let you know that you were not alone, that someone cared about you and believed in you, that some struggle is an integral part of learning, and that your efforts would be fruitful in the end. With that growth mindset and belief system, you would be more willing to take risks, which, as we note above, is really what learning is all about.

Encouraging messages are always important in education, but we find them to be even more vital in the current moment, when students, parents, and educators are navigating the new landscape of remote learning along with a set of larger uncertainties. For many students right now, learning feels less fun, harder, more abstract, perhaps less relevant to their daily lives. A teacher who works to connect with a student, who expresses confidence in them, and who is unwaveringly there for them helps the student understand that this too shall pass and that in the meanwhile, we are all working to move forward together.

By Laurie Gross, M.A.T. and Learning Specialist, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

Classroom Management Strategies for Distance Learning Success

September 20, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

While a lot of the plans for this school year are changing from day to day, one certainty is that many students will be distance learning or experiencing a hybrid model of education. Naturally, families are concerned about how to support their learners. While parents often feel grounded in subject areas like math, reading, or history, or at least have good enough research skills to find helpful instructional videos online, many families feel out of their league when it comes to helping children strengthen their executive function skills, particularly in subjects that posed a challenge during in-person school terms. Quite simply, executive function skills are the skills we use to plan, organize, start, stay focused on, and complete a task. They are essential in every educational subject. The good news is that executive function skills are the same skills that adults employ to be successful in their lives and careers — which means that most parents have the aptitude to support their children as they develop these skills. And in fact, every student benefits from support with executive function skills during distance learning. One of the best ways of helping students strengthen executive function skills at home is by employing successful classroom management strategies.

Classroom management strategies are the procedures and guidelines that skillful teachers put in place in order to make instruction run smoothly; they are quite similar to executive function skills, but for a group of people instead of with one student in mind. Good classroom management systems take into account students’ needs in terms of learning space, resources, visual stimulation, bodily movement, time management, and self-monitoring. Because your child’s home learning space functions as a classroom space, classroom management considerations can help you and your child establish an optimal home learning setup.

The best way to identify which classroom management strategies your student needs help with is to have a conversation with them. Approach the initial discussion as a brainstorming session where all suggestions will be considered. Be open to listening to your student, and be willing to consider ideas they generate. If you are not sure whether an idea is feasible, agree to try it out for a trial period. It is essential for students to be deeply involved in this process, as it helps them build their executive function skills and increases their sense of agency and their investment in their learning.

Before School: Classroom Management Strategies

A good way to start the conversation is with the “Before.” These are the things that need to happen before the student starts school each morning. List the routines you can establish as a family to start the day successfully. What time must they be up to allow enough time for breakfast, getting dressed, getting ready? How can you build in some physical movement to help your child wake up and to give a sense of transition — is it possible to take a short, brisk walk together before class? If a walk is not possible, can you turn on some music and dance together before the school day begins? Then, make plans for what happens during learning breaks. If possible, try to eat lunch together; if not, let them know what the plan will be for lunch. Make sure your student knows how to get your attention if they need you during class. To the greatest extent possible, keep these routines and guidelines consistent from day to day.

During School: Classroom Management Strategies

Next, begin to talk about the “During.” Ask your child: What worked best for distance learning in the spring? What was really hard or could be improved upon? Are there things they wish would have happened differently?

As you plan for this year’s learning, one thing to discuss with your child is their spatial needs. If they often felt distracted with previous distance learning, take a good look at their workspace. Some older students might prefer working solo in their bedrooms, while some younger students might find it lonely. Also, some families have limited space, and having a quiet, private room with a door might not be possible. As a family, discuss what the options could be. Talk about the places where your student might learn best: At a desk? On the floor? In a comfortable chair? With younger children, setting up a yoga mat or beach towel allows them to move around during class within a defined boundary and camera range. Once you have established a learning setup, figure out how to optimize that setup for learning. If a student will be using their bedroom, discuss why it is important to make the bed each morning and to turn off and put away distractions like toys, TVs, and phones. Make sure the space is comfortable and sends a message that learning is happening there. Once you settle on a workspace, create guidelines for how other family members should use or avoid that room when the student is working.

Next, brainstorm the resources and supplies your student will need to have close by. If possible, consider a hard wired setup for your student’s computer in case the household WiFi lags, and get your student a headset with a microphone. Additionally, although your student is attending classes online, do not overlook the importance of physical supplies. Educational research demonstrates that most students learn better when they take notes by hand rather than when they type them. Maintaining a binder or notebook for each class, as they would during “regular” school times, helps many students stay grounded in the physical world and makes distance learning feel more “real.” Have your student help you choose supplies — pencils, pens, highlighters, crayons or colored pencils, maybe some stickers, the fun things they would buy in a normal year. We also recommend a small whiteboard with dry-erase markers, print copies of their books, and a water bottle to stay hydrated. A fancy custom storage system is not needed; a shoebox can hold the supplies, and your student can decorate it themselves if they’d like.

Visual needs are an especially important consideration with distance learning. While physical classrooms are often full of colorful, helpful and inspirational posters, learning online means that your student’s eyes are already absorbing a lot of stimulation. Eye strain is not just a problem for adults when staring at a screen for a long period of time — and anything over 20 minutes is a long time! Encourage your child to purposefully blink their eyes while online. Make sure their physical workspace is well lit. Together, decide whether posting a picture on a far wall or having a window view would give them something to look at to take a moment from focusing on their screen. If a student will be sitting at a table or desk, consider setting up a white trifold board in front of their workspace to help them stay focused. Some students benefit from posters on their board, such as printouts of their daily schedule and of the alphabet or the periodic table of elements. Some students thrive on personalizing the board, as they would a locker door. Others benefit simply from having a clean sea of white as a respite from the lights and noise online.

Physical needs during lessons are another topic to discuss with your student. If it is hard for them to sit still during synchronistic teaching, consider what you do to stay focused when you are at work. Can you teach them how to stretch in their chair? Can they drum their fingers on a pillow? Can they keep a fidget toy nearby that is soothing, but not distracting? Could you place a piece of stick-on velcro on the bottom of their desk or chair to run their fingers back and forth on? Can they rub their feet on a small textured mat? Would sitting on an exercise ball be better than sitting in a chair? Would a standing desk option by helpful?

Physical needs during breaks go hand in hand with physical needs during lessons. Make a list of physical activities and the places in your home where the activities can happen during scheduled breaks. Practice a few yoga poses until the student can do them independently; a few minutes in child’s pose helps most students quickly recenter. If one of your student’s scheduled breaks aligns with a time when you also can take a break, do a mini workout together. For some students, a few minutes alone listening to music may help them unwind. These activities are helpful not just during instructional breaks but during students’ independent work time, as they help the student break big blocks of time into manageable segments. Because students already are spending so much time online, encourage them to avoid break time activities that require a screen.

Just as physical note taking can help students stay focused and rooted in the moment, so can self-monitoring their learning. If they are listening to prerecorded lessons, encourage them to develop a habit of stopping the video occasionally, thinking about what they just heard, and stating it out loud and/or summarizing it in their notes. Younger children can teach what they are learning to a favorite stuffed toy sitting nearby. If a student struggles to recall important information or summarize the lesson effectively, they might need more support learning that particular concept.

After School: Classroom Management Strategies

After discussing the “Before” and the “During,” it is time to discuss the “After.” No matter where the workspace is, decide how your child will “close shop” at the end of the day. Where will materials be stored? Where will their device be charged? What transitional routines will help them to change the space from a learning space back to a home space?

Once you have used classroom management strategies to establish a workspace and some routines and guidelines, set a schedule for checking in with your student. Some students need a daily debriefing, while for others, every few days will work. Ask them open-ended questions and give them time to form their thoughts. Some questions might be:

What is working well in your workspace?
What changes do you think you need to make?
Are you able to manage the LMS (Learning Management System, i.e. Google Classroom, Canvas) the teacher is using?
Is there anything you want to ask your teacher or share with your teacher? Do you know how to reach the teacher? Have you reached out to the teacher? Have they responded?
Are you able to pay attention during instruction? What might make it easier to pay attention?
Do you need any new supplies?
What did you learn in reading? In math? In science?

Continue to observe what classroom management strategies are working for your student and which ones are not. Be sure to give them specific feedback when you see them using a strategy that is successful. Reach out to their teacher, or help them reach out to the teacher themselves, if you see them struggling. Be as specific as possible when describing your concern. Be open to the teacher’s suggestions and bring them to your next family brainstorming session. Post the day/time for that session on a family calendar where the student can find it easily. The important message your child needs to hear is that they can grow their executive function skills by trying new strategies and by reflecting on what works for them as a learner. With these improved skills, they will find more success in school not just this year but in the challenges that await them farther into the future.

Written by Maggie Sisti, M.Ed. and National Board Certified Teacher, who is a classroom teacher in a large, high performing school district in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She has been supporting her own four kids and 30+ years of students with developing and enhancing executive function skills inside and outside of the classroom.

ACT Essay Section: It’s Manageable!

June 1, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

In 2015, the ACT essay section was revised to include more challenging writing prompts. And yet, as a tutor for the ACT, I find the revised format provides more ways to simplify the writing process. Every essay that a student writes for the ACT requires taking a position on a topic, providing examples, and coming to a clear conclusion.

The most important strategy to impart is teaching students a format to write the argumentative essay in 5 paragraphs:

Introductory paragraph with a clear thesis
Example in support of one’s thesis
Example in support of one’s thesis
Example anticipating the opposition to one’s thesis
Clear and decisive conclusion.

The challenging part is getting students to invent excellent examples.

As a tutor, I ask my students to brainstorm examples from their own personal lives, and connect the point they argue to History, Philosophy, Politics, and Current Events. Some of these examples are great, others don’t make the connections necessary to support the thesis. Ah, but there’s hope!

The NEW ACT essay prompt provides the thesis and examples for the students. What’s great about this new format is that the guesswork of how to structure the essay and what kind of examples to give are now EMBEDDED INTO THE PROMPT. In other words, there is one less step for students to take.

Instead of inventing perspectives, students are given them and asked to respond to differing viewpoints.

Albeit while this may make the task of writing an ACT essay less organic and creative, the new essay format provides a framework simplifying the task of writing the argumentative essay considerably.

Just ask yourself, which task you’d rather respond to:

To argue both sides of a point and produce 3+ excellent examples including ones with which you do not agree.

To be given three opinions (perspectives), rewrite and examine these opinions, and choose one you support the most using the ideas for examples given by the prompt?

Prepping for this essay will be less arduous. With a strong outline and applied practice there’s no reason not to earn a strong score.

While there is more writing on the page, which perhaps makes the ACT essay task appear overwhelming, it’s really quite manageable. All of this information helps by laying the groundwork for the essay and outlining what is to come.

Want to practice?

By Grant Bergland, MFA and Private Tutor