self-help
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Overlooked Skills for Success
Ask employers what skills are desired in graduates and you will not see academic competence at the top of the list. In schools we talk about creating life long learners and similar qualities but the major focus in the 7+ K-12 schools in which I have served is academics, or more appropriately grades as a…
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Address Skills at Performance Points
In the photo above you see a contrast between how children learn and how educators often teach necessary skills. Children learn to ride a bike by actually performing the target skills. This is a performance point – the setting in which the child actually performs. In school students are often taught necessary skills in isolation,…
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Perseverance in Math
A major challenge for students is not content but how to “do math” which includes perseverance. The photo above shows a table that can be used to monitor progress on perseverance. It addresses two situations involving perseverance (see below). The focus of perseverance in math is making an informed attempt when a path or next step is unclear…
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Self-Help Skills Video Presentation
See the video (link below) to find out about this photo.I believe one of the greatest problems in education is the challenge students have in taking an active role in the learning process. This is a video of a presentation on issues related to academic self-help skills and how to develop them. This is especially…
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Scaffolding Multi-step Math Problems
This is the figure from Mrs. Olsen’s Sidewalk Problem from the CT CAPT test 2010 (released to public). The problem has four major steps: divide the figure into common shapes, use Pythagorean Theorem to find height of the resulting triangles, find area of these shapes and compute total cost for pouring the asphalt for the…
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Art = Critical Thinking
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Lone Ranger vs Self-Help
In leadership class I studied the Lone Ranger approach to problem-solving. When a problem arose in an organization the boss would ride in and solve the problem. Afterwards he or she would ride off and the employees would be no better prepared for the next crisis or problem. The point of the analogy is empowerment…
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Notebook Strategy
I use what I call a table of contents notebook strategy. Each item (notes, handout etc.) that is to be placed into the notebook is dated and labeled with a “page” number. Each page is recorded in the table of contents. This helps students maintain work in chronological order. For example, on a single day…