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Online Learning: Supporting Preschool Students

April 14, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Supporting Preschool Students

Are you and your preschooler having difficulty adjusting to distance learning? Believe me, you are not alone. This isn’t easy, in fact sometimes it’s completely overwhelming. For parents, assisting with online learning feels like a third job and our kids are confused by their new daily routine. The transition to virtual classrooms has been difficult for all ages. That being said, distance learning presents a unique set of challenges for supporting preschool students which leave most of us wondering — is this even worth it?

In preschool, our primary curriculum is based on social/emotional growth. Of course, we also teach pre-reading skills, handwriting, early math and science concepts but the primary goal is to teach children how to learn and function as part of a group. For this, continuing interaction with classmates and teachers is necessary. Given that Rule #1 in early childhood education is to limit screen time, it is no wonder we are all so confused now that screens are the only way to maintain this connection. Yes, Zoom sessions are far from ideal, but they are the best tool we have at the moment. Based on my decade and a half of working with children ages 3-7, I’d like to share a number of helpful hints to make this experience easier and more beneficial. But first, let me share one thought very specific to how we are teaching at the moment and supporting preschool students.

You know that camera in the middle of the laptop? The one we are all looking at all the time now — that shows every facial expression, every flaw — forget about it! Nobody is judging you as a parent (or your child) based on what we see on Zoom. Seriously. They roll on the ground, that’s fine. They run off to look at something else, it happens. In a physical classroom, there are up to four adults whose job is simply to educate your children, anticipate difficult situations and be their guide in every moment. At home, you may have three other students on three other devices, or you may be on a conference call, or you may simply be using the time to disengage for five minutes. Your teachers know this. Let your child be who they are, and you can be who you need to be. If you can engage in the lesson, wonderful. If not, don’t worry. We aren’t judging you just as we hope you aren’t judging us. We’re in this together supporting our preschool students – and we all have to give ourselves a break!

Remember, your preschooler needs two simple things to thrive: predictability and consistency. What stinks right now is that we have neither, so it is up to us to create a framework for our kids. Your teachers provide the foundation through live sessions, videos and assignments. So now you have the daunting task of filling in the other 10-12 waking hours of your child’s day. There is a lot of advice out there — I’m a teacher and even I find it overwhelming. So, here are my real-life suggestions for supporting preschool students:

Set up a schedule.

Simple right? I know it takes a little time, but it is worth it! Make it fun, involve your child if you can, and do yourself and your kid a favor — don’t put times on it. Rather make it a pictorial sequence with words. For example: free play, ZOOM, snack, then scooter time, puzzles…you get the idea. If you are looking for an activity, have your child draw the pictures (if not, figure out whatever is easiest for you). There is a reason that most early childhood classrooms have a pictorial schedule hanging on the wall. Your child has no actual concept of time, but the schedule gives a sense of order and autonomy. Without your help, your child knows what to expect and how the day will look. What’s more, and this is the added benefit, it allows you to keep the day on course for both of you.

Do what works for you, your kid and your family.

Some of the parents I speak to want more ZOOM, all day zoom. Others say, it’s too much, they can’t do all of this with their child. They have calls to make, work to do, other things they need to take care of. It is ok, take care of what you need to take care of. Nothing, I mean it, nothing is going to happen to your child if they miss a Zoom class with their teacher in Pre-K. You have the ability to take Zoom off the schedule for the day. Also, you have the ability to do the following: throw in the towel for an afternoon, serve breakfast for dinner and let them watch Trolls Two on repeat. It will be fine. As long as it isn’t all day every day.

Make the most of Zoom sessions, when you can.

It is a reasonable expectation that your child can sit in on the zoom sessions with an adult somewhere nearby. Ideally, within earshot in case they need you, but you don’t need to be on top of them. This has dual benefits — you get a bit of a break and your child has a bit of independence. This autonomy is actually the reason that social emotional learning can continue virtually. Teaching on Zoom is much different than having four teachers physically in the room making sure your child doesn’t call out or has time at a specific drawing, puzzle or word station. This very fact makes Zoom excellent for building frustration tolerance and problem solving skills as a way of supporting preschool students. Waiting for a turn to speak on Zoom can feel like an eternity, especially when your child has gotten used to A LOT of one-on-one adult attention. However, children learn quickly that if they wait patiently, they will get a chance to speak. If a child needs help with something on zoom, the teacher cannot physically help so our goal is for our kids to try to problem- solve on their own, before going to a parent. Again, this takes time, but each week should become a little easier as students adjust to the new rules.

Get some help.

You are not alone – even though it sometimes feels like we all are. You and your child’s teacher are partners in this. If something isn’t working for your child, reach out. Don’t be shy about (kindly) asking the teacher for suggestions to make the day easier. There are tons of resources online for independent work your child can do with minimal guidance. Get together with other parents to have virtual playdates through zoom or FaceTime. Give it a theme — share stuffed animals, have a dance party, chat over snack. My kids actually like building with Legos next to each other – they build in silence, occasionally having side conversations and they love it! This can be done successfully in pairs or in small groups (don’t try to get everyone together at once). Keep it simple and keep it short – if it’s a hit, you can always do it again. If it’s not, whoops — try something different next time!

Bring in someone to help.

Some teachers, myself included, are available for 1:1 private tutoring via Zoom or Google Meets. Some children just refuse to do work with their parents. If you are concerned that your child will not be ready for school in the fall or simply feel that you need someone else to step in to supplement your child’s daily learning, we are here.

Remember none of this is normal, we are all struggling and your kiddo might be as well (this also might be the best vacation ever). Make the best choices for your family, feel free to take a break when you need one. There will be no judgment. Supporting preschool students is something we are all figuring out together, and we will.

To schedule private sessions, please contact us to discuss your family’s needs.

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

Common Application Essay Coaching

April 8, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

“When I was still small enough to fit in the sun-drenched space between the armoire and the couch, I sat cross-legged and spun the world.”

“There I was, hanging from the precipice, muscles trembling, fingers aching, sweat dripping onto my spotter twenty feet below.”

“On one hot night in a dark room at the heart of Boston, I became friends with 19,580 people in one single moment.”

What things do these sentences have in common? They all feel like the beginning of a story. They all are specific enough that readers start picturing a scene. They all make us want to keep reading.

And they could all serve as the opening line of a Common Application essay.

As with other parts of the college application process, the prospect of writing the Common Application essay can be fraught with misconceptions: applicants worry that they will need to compose a formulaic piece under enormous pressure. It’s true that it is a high-stakes essay, with a hard and fast deadline, that tends to ascribe to a few broad conventions. But writing it doesn’t have to be so stressful. And as demonstrated by the lines above — from essays published by Hamilton, Johns Hopkins, and Tufts, respectively, as exemplars from admitted students — Common Application writers can produce essays that are vivid, memorable, and a pleasure to read.

We find that the factor that determines whether writers have a positive experience in creating their Common Application essays—and whether writers ultimately are happy with the piece they submit—is time. Applicants need time to get to know the genre, whose pieces tend to mix narrative and reflection. Applicants need time to try out a few different ideas and to compose several drafts, understanding that repeatedly revisiting the piece is a part of the writing process. In a departure from the text-based and research-based essays that dominate high school writing, the Common App essay asks students to draw upon their own lives for material. Applicants need time to generate ideas and to consider how their experiences and passions can help them share a bit of themselves with readers.

Each year, the Common Application itself “resets” in early August, so we advise rising seniors to wait until then to fill out its typable forms; similarly, colleges tend to post their individual supplemental essay prompts in August or early September. But the Common Application has already released its essay prompts for the upcoming application cycle, making spring an ideal time to begin the writing process—particularly this year. In a season when everyone’s plans have been upended, starting the Common Application essay injects a bit of normalcy. It allows students some control while challenging themselves creatively, with no pressing deadlines. It is one of the concrete steps that they can take in shaping their future, an opportunity to reflect on where they’ve been—such as a nook on a living-room floor, a treacherous rock wall, or a thumping concert arena—where they are, and where they will go.

If you’re ready to get started with your common application essay work, we can help to support your process with writing coaching and supplemental college counseling. Please contact us to further discuss your planning.

By Elizabeth Walters, MFA and Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and CEP

Online Learning: Anxiety Management

April 8, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

As the coronavirus pandemic continues and we all settle into new routines, chances are that you and your family are experiencing some stress and anxiety around the state of the world and the uncertainty that comes with it. This situation can be especially challenging if your child is already dealing with high levels of anxiety and/or a diagnosed anxiety disorder. Plus, it can be tough to help kids stay calm when you’re not feeling so calm yourself!

But while online learning and guiding children’s education at home are certainly unfamiliar hurdles for many families, the good news is that they can also be great vehicles for practicing anxiety management. There are lots of helpful tools out there for helping manage children’s anxiety, but it can be hard to find ways to actually practice them in day-to-day life. By making the most of your child’s new at-home school day, you can build anxiety management into daily routines and help your child develop healthy habits that will be help them keep their cool for years to come.

Set Daily Intentions

Studies show that children tend to benefit when they have clear—and high!—expectations to live up to. That doesn’t mean that you need to hold your child to an unrealistically high standard, but it does mean that they should know what’s expected of them each and every day. This is especially true now, when the lack of commitments outside the home can make kids feel like the days are all the same and the stakes are low. In turn, that sense of not knowing what to expect can exacerbate kids’ anxiety.

Accordingly, one helpful anxiety management technique is to start each school day with a predictable ritual that makes it clear what the rest of the day will hold. This should include a few key components:

A quick review of what the day’s schedule will look like. What will your child do first? When will they take a break? What time is lunch?
A rundown of the tasks that will be completed. This might be a concrete goal (finish chapter 3, for instance) or a set amount of time devoted to a topic (read for 30 minutes).
An assessment of what supplies will be needed, and where your child can find them. Will they need a calculator, markers, or a timer? Work together to gather those supplies now so that your child doesn’t have to waste worry looking for them later.

Then, it’s also helpful to include a “bonus” in your child’s morning ritual, so that they—and you!—remember that the day can be as much about fun as anything else. Be creative here—what does your child enjoy and find exciting? This could be reading a bit of a favorite book, spending time playing with a pet, or checking on the plants growing on your terrace. Any quick activity that brings calm and focus to your child’s morning is a great way to start off the school day on the right foot.

Make the Most of Breaks

Having enough time to just breathe is a huge part of effective anxiety management. If your child feels pressured to focus and achieve every minute of the day, they’re likely to have higher levels of anxiety—especially now, when they might be scared about the pandemic and having difficulty processing their feelings.

That’s why it’s essential to take plenty of breaks during the remote school day. Depending on your child’s age and personality, you might schedule short breaks in between subjects, have one longer break in the middle of the day, or try a 50/50 model—for instance, 30 minutes of work followed by 30 minutes of play. Experiment with different break structures and see which one works best for your child. You can even use different structures on different days to break up the week; maybe one structure is for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while another is for Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Beyond just taking breaks, it’s also important to build anxiety management tools into your child’s breaks as much as you can. They might just want to reach for an iPad game—and sometimes, that’s completely okay! But you’ll also want to encourage them to use more focused stress-busting activities when you can. For example, this might include:

Having a quick dance party to a favorite song—music and physical activity can both help relieve anxiety!
Taking a walk outside or even just sitting by a window for some fresh air and sunshine.
Spending a bit of time on a creative project, whether that’s playing with clay for a few minutes or coloring in a drawing page.
“Meeting up” with a friend for a FaceTime snack break. Kids need to keep in touch with their loved ones just as much as you do!

By being purposeful about breaks and what your child does with them, you’ll make anxiety management a regular touchpoint throughout the day.

Celebrate Small Wins

During these unprecedented days of remote learning, it can be hard to know whether you and your family are “doing it right.” But rest assured—there’s no one right way to handle this situation! It’s important to emphasize this point to your children, whether they’re used to getting straight As or struggling with the new requirements of online learning. Just by getting through the days during this uncertain time, kids and families alike are reaching a meaningful goal that deserves to be celebrated, and marking achievements (even ones that might seem small) is another great way to practice anxiety management.

To do this, try closing out your child’s school day with a rundown of what went well that day. These might be academic milestones, like a good grade on an online quiz, but it’s also helpful to guide your child in celebrating other kinds of success. For instance, did your child demonstrate any of these positive behaviors today?

Sticking with a challenging task
Helping out around the house
Caring for a pet or sibling
Coming up with a creative idea
Being quiet or focused when asked

Any chance you have to compliment your child and focus on how they’re succeeding is a chance to support anxiety management, so make this a daily habit to round out the school day on a positive note.

It’s an overwhelming time for most of us, and anxiety management is really critical. If there are any ways our team can help to support your family with online learning, school planning, or parent coaching, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

By Hannah Sheldon-Dean, MSW and Private Tutor, Brad Hoffman, MS.Ed. and CEP, and Faya Hoffman, M.A. and CEP

Online Learning Routines

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

Executive Functions and Our New Normal: How to Make Remote Learning Work for Your Family

For students and parents across the nation (and the world), the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting education in a truly unprecedented way. With schools switching to various kinds of remote instruction and timelines for the future remaining uncertain, it’s very difficult for families to know how best to serve their children’s educational needs at this time and to develop new and effective online learning routines.

But while the situation is evolving rapidly, there are nonetheless some concrete steps you can take to meet this challenge and make the situation easier on your kids—and yourself. The first thing to realize is that you’re not alone in your confusion. No one is completely sure what to do right now, and that’s okay! Know that if you’ve got your children safely at home and their basic needs are being met, you and your family are already in a fortunate situation compared to many.

What’s more, this unique set of circumstances can also provide some surprising opportunities for growth that your child’s regular school year might not have. Without the day-to-day pressures of school, extracurriculars, and social commitments, you and your family have a chance to dig into some of the skills that can get lost in the shuffle. Think executive functions, organizational skills, building new online learning routines—all these are skills that are critically important to academic success, and transitioning to remote learning can be a valuable way for your child to practice them. Students who have been homeschooled (myself included!) often report that these skills are the key assets that help them succeed later in life.

Plus, when it comes to executive functioning, you don’t need any special background to support your child. For instance, if you’ve been fretting that subpar multiplication skills will hold your child back during their remote math classes, you can breathe easy; you don’t have to be a content expert to help your child get a lot out of remote learning. By shifting your expectations for the rest of this school year and focusing on the following tips, you’ll be able to support your child in building valuable skills and effective online learning routines during the coming weeks and months—even though the learning experience looks much different than we all thought it would.

Keep Things Predictable

In executive function coaching, we often focus on the value of routines, especially during the school week. You’ve probably experienced this yourself—for example, you may have noticed that your child does better in school or is in a better mood when they do their homework on a consistent schedule. The same thing is still true now: having a steady routine can help students feel balanced and give them a chance to practice being responsible and independent, even though the routines themselves will be somewhat unfamiliar.

As your family is building your new routines, including online learning routines, consider the following questions:

What does the school require of students right now? When are online classes, and what do students need to do to prepare for them? How about homework?
What extracurriculars can we try to maintain at home? For example, kids who are missing out on a school play can write skits with siblings, or kids who usually play sports can come up with warmups and stretches to do at home.
What hobbies does my child enjoy? Now is the time to give kids space for activities—reading for fun, playing games, doing crafts—that might not usually fit into their daily schedules.
How can we socialize right now? Consider FaceTime with friends and extended family, or visits to open spaces like parks where you can still practice social distancing.

With all of the above laid out clearly, you can piece together structured days that meet your family’s needs and give your child a sense of stability amid the chaos.

Plan With Your Child

As important as routines are, it’s also important not to force them on your child unilaterally. Helping your child develop a sense of ownership and responsibility in this situation is key to supporting them in building their executive function skills. Even more important, making sure your child buys in to your family’s new day-to-day life will give them a much-needed sense of agency in these uncertain times—and likely help you avoid fights and tantrums, too.

Where you can, give your child choices about how to structure daily routines and online learning routines. You might ask:

Which tasks would you like to do earlier in the day? How about later on?
How would you like to organize your workspace?
What would you like to do during breaks in your schoolwork?
What should we try to do the same way as your school does? What would you like to try doing differently?
Which tasks (or school subjects, or kinds of homework) do you want to try doing on your own? Which ones would you like more help with?

All these details will vary according to your child’s age, their learning style, and your family’s circumstances overall. And of course, not all of your child’s ideas and preferences will be practical. But even with very young children, it’s worth opening up these conversations and working together to make sure their voices are heard.

Prioritize Mental Health

Especially during times of crisis, it’s important to remember that your child’s mental and emotional health are even more important than their academic development. As you establish your family’s new routines, make sure that you’re paying plenty of attention to managing stress and giving your child outlets for their feelings. Taking some responsibility for these needs is also another way for kids to build executive function skills—maybe they can use their newfound free time to help you plan healthy meals, for example.

This will look a little different for every child and every family, but a few essential areas to consider include:

Sleep hygiene: As much as you can, try to maintain regular sleep schedules for everyone in your family. Just because you don’t need to leave home early in the morning doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to stay up late or ignore the difference between weekdays and weekends.
Physical exercise: Make sure your child stays moving! Go for walks or jogs outside if you can, take your child to play in an open space like a park, or explore child-friendly online yoga videos.
Nutrition: Kids generally eat at set times at school, and they should do the same at home. Make sure that meals and snacks are predictable and wholesome, and that kids don’t see being at home all day as permission to snack whenever they want.
Setting boundaries: As any adult who works from home knows, it can be hard to switch out of work mode when your workspace overlaps with your living space. Try to set up a designated space for children’s schoolwork and online learning routines, and then use that physical boundary as a way to mark transitions from work to play throughout the day.
Managing anxiety: Understandably, a lot of kids are anxious about the current state of the world. Acknowledge their fears, give them space to talk, and lead them in calming activities like painting, listening to music, or even simple mindfulness meditations.

The coming weeks and months are bound to be challenging for all of us, but by focusing on the unique opportunities of these very strange circumstances, you can help your child come out the other side with new skills that will support them long into the future.

By Hannah Sheldon Dean, MSW and Private Tutor, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist

Online Learning: Supporting Elementary Students

March 21, 2020 Brad Hoffman Leave a Comment

The COVID-19 pandemic took us all by surprise. As we collectively braced ourselves for a different reality and adjusted to our new normal, our students’ school experience changed dramatically and shifted to online learning. Educators around the country took to the internet and quickly engineered a classroom experience without the classroom.

As we all swiftly settle into the world of online learning, it becomes increasingly essential that we equip elementary students with the tools and know-how to be capable, independent remote learners. Furthermore, it is pivotal that families have the tools and skill set to help support elementary students in that transition. For those only familiar with the traditional classroom experience, remote learning can be a daunting new world.

What is online learning?

Online learning takes on many forms and is largely responsive to the needs of the learning community–what works for teaching a group of fifth graders may be entirely useless during a private tutoring session with a first grader. The utility of each platform and set-up for remote learning is as unique as the students and teachers themselves.

Although new to many outside the educational field, the world of online learning was thriving well before we sat quarantined in our homes. Educators, school based and at-home, have utilized online platforms as a practical medium for teaching for years, often as a supplement to classroom instruction or a bridge between in-person tutoring sessions. So, while for many families, this may feel like uncharted terrain, most teachers and tutors have an expansive understanding of remote learning and have used it regularly to build their students’ skills and complement their curriculum.

We can classify nearly all digital learning as being either synchronous or asynchronous. Synchronous learning allows educators and students to come together in real time to deliver instruction, discuss understanding, and provide feedback. Asynchronous learning enables educators and students to work on tasks at different times. Most traditional schools use a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning to replicate the classroom experience and move through curriculum. You might find your student’s online learning experience to reflect this combination, with a menu of self-guided tasks alongside a daily or weekly expectation to log on for live instructional streams from their teacher or tutor.

Asynchronous virtual learning is an expansive domain, covering everything from self-guided video lessons to skill-based learning games. Your student’s teacher or tutor is likely pulling from a number of resources to create a full and rich online curriculum to meet their learning goals. Just like in a classroom, some skills, such as building multiplication fact fluency, might be best practiced independently in game play with digital feedback, while others, such as multiplying fractions, are best left to a guided, video-based tutorial.

What does online private tutoring, or e-tutoring, look like?

Similar to the classroom experience, online tutoring is responsive to students and their individual learning needs. Tutors still work to provide individualized, dynamic support to students, often using synchronous, video-based instruction as the platform for learning. Video conferencing platforms allow screenshares and digital whiteboarding, so tutors are able to provide a full range of interactive and visual support during their session. By integrating digital slides and whiteboards into instruction, tutors are able to recreate the physical session experience, providing immediate feedback on students’ work and interacting instantaneously in response to their questions, comments, and concerns. Online tutoring can also add value to tutoring in ways that are hard to replicate when working on paper and pen. For example, tutors can support students’ writing process in real time as they work through an essay, providing organizational support and feedback nearly immediately on a digital document. A session spent working on the organization of online documents and folders through screen sharing can help students maintain order and build independence as they transition to becoming full-time remote learner.

How can I support my elementary student’s transition to online learning?

The unexpected move to fully remote learning is a big transition for everyone. Students, educators, and families all play a role in making sure that virtual learning is successful and impactful. Families can support their young students by building technological independence and keeping structured routines in the days ahead.

Most elementary school students are still growing comfortable on laptops and tablets. Giving your student practice in the basics of navigating the internet will prove exponentially useful in the coming days. Parents can host their own child in an online conference call using Zoom, Hangout, or Facetime. During this time, help familiarize them with the basic features of the platform–how to join, hang up, make the screen bigger or smaller, and react to items. Your child’s tutor or teacher might provide a similar tutorial, but it doesn’t hurt to get a head start. Especially with younger students, you may need to work alongside them in the beginning stages of online learning. But, fade that support quickly. Just because you can be there to help does not mean you should be there to help. Just like any other skill, gaining competence as a remote learner comes through exploration and making mistakes.

Routinizing the online learning experience will prove invaluable in the long run. While online classrooms and tutoring sessions might feel novel now, it is likely that students will be learning remotely for at least the next several weeks. Set a routine that works for your household schedule and stick to it. Allowing students to build their own schedule from a menu of necessities and options will not only provide them with agency during a stressful time but also build their capacity to manage their own time and tasks.

What do I need to make online learning successful in my home?

First and foremost, set up a permanent, designated learning station in your home. This should be outfitted with a Desktop, laptop and/or tablet, paper and writing tools, and any school books your student might need while working. If they already have a desk in their bedroom, make sure to clean off unnecessary materials or distractions before launching online learning. You may also want to consider having the workspace face a wall or set up a small privacy divider (easily made out of file folders) around the area–distractions are plentiful in a home environment and you want to minimize them.

It is also an ideal time to place an online supply order. Elementary school classrooms are well stocked with supplementary supplies and tools, ones that are often not present in the home. You will also want to invest in a headset with built-in microphone, if you don’t already have one. In addition to helping your student focus on the content, it will also optimize their participation in live sessions. A small white board and dry erase markers are also vital tools. They allow your student to show their thinking to teachers and tutors in an efficient way during live stream sessions. Writing paper, either with raised lines or traditional, is also essential. As students adjust to online math instruction, having manipulatives at home will also be crucial. Start with Base 10 Blocks, a Ruler, Fraction Circles, Fraction Towers, Wooden Geometric Solids, and Attribute Blocks.

And finally, the most important tool in this transition is your approach. Encouraging students to be flexible and adaptive learners on this new, unscheduled adventure is important. They will take their approach and outlook on remote learning from you. So, gear up, and lean in!

By Marisa Krohn, Ed.M. and Learning Specialist, and Brad Hoffman, M.S.Ed. and Learning Specialist