Curtis WestbayEvery year, G8 parents ask...
What can I do to prepare my student for high school? For college applications?
Slow down! That's the best answer I can give. Too often, students strive to reach the next benchmark. Goal upon goal, they spend high school always looking ahead. I think one of the best things students can do, not just after Grade 8 and not just after a year has concluded, is reflect.
Year after year, students might get similar results in similar classes. For example, maybe math has been a struggle for them in middle school. Then, when they get into high school, the same low results come. What is the problem? In the student's eyes, they are "bad at math." While it's true that students may come to BASIS with a deficit in math, this "bad at math" narrative is toxic to their success. This kind of thinking absolves them of the responsibility to improve. If I am bad at math, they think, there is nothing I can do. It's out of my hands. Success is not an option.
This couldn't be further from the truth. Every failure (or unmet goal) is an opportunity to get it right.
How can students "get it right?"
Step 1: reflect on the results. Take time to think about what didn't go your way, yes. More importantly, break down a course into what went well, what went okay, and what went poorly. What were the areas where your grade took a hit?
Step 2: reflect on your reaction to feedback. How did you prepare? If the result in a math course was low performance on tests, how did you respond to feedback? When you received a graded exam, how much time did you spend trying to understand the questions you missed? Did you take the problems to student hours, to a peer tutor, to a trusted friend? Did you ask for new problems to work through? Did you communicate your thought process as you went through the new problems, first under the supervision of a teacher, peer tutor, or friend? Did you try to isolate the steps where things went wrong for you? In short, did you take the time to get it right?
Step 3: reflect on your study habits. Few students can understand their error and fix it with logic alone. The next step is not to practice, but rather to understand how you practice. Do you study regularly? Do you study while distracted, either by friends or by technology? Do you simply passively study, letting the content wash over you (e.g. reading your textbook), or do you actively try to own the knowledge and skills you need to succeed? Here are a few ways that you can transform your study habits:
- If you are reading and highlighting, try highlighting only names (of people, places, events) and dates. If the purpose of highlighting is to make it easy to find key information, then doing this (for example, in an AP history class) will make a second or third reading of material easier.
- Ask for additional practice or find it online. Try to determine what is difficult for you and how you can improve, first. Then, collect additional practice problems.
- Find a reliable study partner. Find someone focused and committed to improvement. Then quiz each other, race each other, and challenge each other to explain things. Take a study guide for a test and make practice problems for each other, then critique the other's solutions. If you're working on something that can be memorized by rote, then make a game or race out of it.
- Make your own study guide. In advance of a quiz or a test, first understand what will be assessed. Make a list of key items. Then, first from your memory, write down what you know. Then fill in gaps and correct with your notes.
- Use flashcards, if they fit the subject. Flashcards are one of the best tools for vocabulary acquisition or memorization of key events. Don't limit yourself to only paper flashcards, however. You can make flashcards using online tools (e.g. Anki, Quizlet, Remnote) or even with a PPT. If using a PPT, pose a question on one slide and answer it on the next. This format is super flexible, and even permits different types of answers (e.g. illustration of the parts of a cell).
- Rewrite your notes. If a class seems to go fast, you're probably not taking great notes. If you are taking great notes, you're probably not listening closely. Rewriting your notes is a great way to reexamine the lecture and its contents, and make succinct, clear study materials for later on.
Step 4: practice. Now that you know what went wrong, what you did before, and what you can do now, make a plan and practice. Do this in an undisturbed place. Study efficiency is drastically worsened by distractions.
Step 5: seek feedback once more. Go to student hours, go see a peer tutor, find a trusted friend, and try a new problem in front of them. Explain your process, and in so doing you are sharpening your metacognitive abilityβ you are thinking about how you think.
As always, if you get stuck or need help making a plan, there are so many people in our community who can help! If your student is stuck in a cycle of self-blame and repeats the same mistakes, teachers, counselors, deans, and peer tutors can help them break the cycle. All they have to do is ask for help.