Curating resources & sharing stories to empower teacher & student ownership, wonder, and daring.
“But there isn’t though enough sharing by those who are embedded in the work [of 21st century learning]. There isn’t enough shared deep reflection, video, or examples of what the how looks like in action. But we can fix that, right?” ~Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach.
Across the country, high school seniors are receiving their letters of acceptance to their chosen colleges. Next up: financial aid. Check out some advice from a few of us at HonorsGradU (most of us aren’t too far removed from that game, and some are still there) as you consider your college financing plan!
Ashley: Apply for everything!
“I never applied for any [scholarships] because I was always under the impression that you had to maintain a certain GPA or be some kind of genius to qualify for any scholarship. Turns out, I could have been earning scholarship money every year, just because my parents never went to college. Being a first generation college student can get you a scholarship. Who knew?”
Mary: Follow up with your scholarship donors!
I got a scholarship from my city’s rotary club. Six months later, I found out that they were willing to offer additional funds if my college GPA met their standard, and I ended up getting my books unexpectedly paid for that semester!”
Ashley: Think outside the GPA/ACT’s box
“There are scholarships like ours, where you apply with an essay or a project, there are scholarships for students with specific ethnic or cultural backgrounds, scholarships for being an honor student with a great GPA, all kinds of options. All you have to do is apply, and even a tiny $50 scholarship for being a red-head would be helpful in financing someone’s education. I had a friend who spend all summer every year just scouring the web for any scholarship he could apply to. ”
Brittany: Don’t wait for graduation to start paying back
“If you can’t afford [college], take out student loans and get done as quickly as possible. Besides that, I’d say that you should pay off your interest even while you’re going to school if you can afford it! My sister has done that and says it makes a world of difference as far as how much they will owe once she’s graduated.”
Jared: Finish faster with loans instead of dragging out school
“It recently hit me that I will not be able to go to school full time without financial aid in the form of loans. Unless I get married and can get money from the FAFSA, I will have to take out student loans. It kind of still upsets me when I think about having thousands of dollars of debt after school, but I figure that I will have a good job, and I won’t have to go through school slowly. I think I prefer being able to graduate in 4 years instead of dragging it out and trying to pay for it all myself.”
Jared: Start with a junior college & use academic advisers!
“Another option is to go to a junior college to get your associates degree. This can help you save a lot of money. If you work with an academic adviser they can help you prepare to enter a 4 year university and make sure that your credits will transfer. Community colleges are very affordable and even have programs that can help you get jobs after a 2 year degree.”
Bart: Get your finances–and your true passion–in order before you start school!
“If you think you can’t afford college, have you considered putting it off for a year, getting some real experience, and finding out what you are passionate about?”
Bart: Find authentic job experiences during college
“Try as hard as you can to have your work while at school mean something. Find a job that has something to do with what you might want to do with your life…frankly, your work experience might be the only thing you have going for you in the job search after you graduate.”
Bart: Prioritize physical and mental health over graduating a semester earlier
I worked a job full time at night (9pm to 6am) while going to school full time. That went ok for about a year until I crashed and suddenly couldn’t function at all, and had to learn how to adjust my life to handle work and school in a more healthy manner (I cut back on classes and switched to working during the day until graduation). (see more about Bart’s story in our post on studying).
Heard of any other awesome financial advice? Share in the comments below!
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After boring both my students and myself with largely direct instruction math for a couple of years, I decided to try guided math. The results? Increases in interest, one-on-one time, student initiative, and just plain joy in math learning.
Most math programs are still set up in very traditional, teacher-centered constructs. In the name of “offering support,” some even provide scripts! This is typically followed by a barrage of worksheets. Then quiz tomorrow. Spiral review. Repeat.
Perhaps the monotony would be worthwhile if we all become mathematically literate adults, but this does not seem to be the case. As the National Center for Education Statistics keeps confirming in surveys conducted since the 1980’s, most Americans’ math skills remain lacking:
It’s time to look outside the box of traditional math education in order to foster life-long mathematical illiteracy!
One day, while complaining to another teacher about how I’d started hating the sound of my own voice, she introduced me to guided math. What I found most intriguing:
I started literally the next day.
And while it took longer than that to refine my approach, the beauty of guided math is you can easily adapt your school’s math program to its structure.
Any other questions, tips, or experiences? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!
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If you’re a teacher, chances are, you’ve experienced parents upset over both too much and too little assigned homework. Have you ever wondered why opinions on the issue tend to be emphatic, polarized, and emotional? So did we. We decided to do some serious digging, and we were shocked at what we found…
Continue reading “6 Reasons the Homework Debate is a Mess”
It’s easy to get caught up in the frenzy of efficiency as teachers. Standards and tests and data and reports bear down on us with pressure to make every. minute. count.
There also seems to be an endless supply of initiatives to maximize our efficiency–many of which seem to simply offer more fodder for burnout, like some ideas found in the video below (at the proposition for increased class sizes for quality teachers, I could only visualize the exhausted expression of one of my mentor teachers the year they increased her first grade class size–because she could handle it, right?).
2/3/15 UPDATE: It appears that OpportunityCulture.org has removed their video after we published this post a couple of weeks ago. So, to fill you in if you missed it, the ideas we found most worrisome in the video included: 1) increasing class sizes for “excellent teachers” so more students could feel their influence (while decreasing class sizes for novice teachers); 2) implementing rotating classes for those “excellent teachers” so they could reach even more students each day; 3) an apparent oversight of the teacher-student relationship in general. Instead, their page now says the following:
“Watch this space for an updated motiongraphic, based on the experiences of the first pilot schools to implement their own Opportunity Cultures, showing the importance of models that let teams led by excellent teachers reach many more students, and let all teachers earn more and learn more—through more school-day time for collaboration and planning, and without forcing class-size increases.”
10/29/2015 UPDATE: A new video has been published. The model is explained differently, but the basis still rests on class-size increases for excellent teachers and efficiency, which still leaves us concerned about the lack of discussion on teacher-student relationships.
Kim Collazo’s response on Twitter brings to light what’s most worrisome about these kinds of ideas:
Is it just me, or is a lot of this video disturbing? What about the importance of relationships? http://t.co/QEhIraVqFo #ncadmin
— kcollazo (@kcollazo) January 14, 2015
Efficiency values time-management; empathy values taking all the time that is necessary to build relationships. Both have their place in our classrooms, but we must be careful that the more aggressive pursuits for efficiency don’t swallow up the daily opportunities to foster our relationships. To learn more about why empathy is so important in every relationship, see the poignant RSA video below in which Dr. Brené Brown describes how to discern genuine empathy.
After all, what does it matter if our students ace every test and memorize every chart if they lack the ability to connect and reach out to one another in compassion and understanding?
Whatever your subject matter, empathy should take a prominent place in all your instruction–both indirectly in general interactions with students, and directly as you point students’ attention to learning opportunities.
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Welcome back to HGU for a fresh year! We hope you enjoyed a restful and relaxing holiday break, and that you are feeling rejuvenated for school. Here to offer some inspiration for your classroom New Year’s resolution-making are a few of our readers’ favorite posts in 2014, along with some suggestions for low-stress, high-impact goals.
If you are currently researching language arts programs, you won’t want to miss this teacher-tested review!
#3: 10 Read Alouds for Upper Elementary GradesResearch continues to back up the fact that reading to your children–even older children–provides literacy benefits. So don’t skimp on read-aloud time just because you teach preteens!
Several members of our HGU team tried out and reviewed Fluenz, Pimsleur, and Rosetta Stone to help give some guidance in choosing a foreign language program.
30 different math, science, and art games–all free, student-tested, and teacher-screened!
With the abundance of free professional development opportunities online, there’s no reason not to start taking your PD into your own hands in 2015! What we especially like about Google Courses for Educators is that they help teachers fully harness Google resources in the classroom, broken down into bite-sized 5-30 minute lessons.
*Create a Donors Choose project:Math board games, a document camera, 2 iPad Mini’s–these are just a few items I received through the generous donors on Donors Choose over the past few years. Be sure to watch for match offers or Chevron’s Fuel Your School to increase your chances of funding!
Cut up card stock and reserve just a couple minutes of your prep time each day to write a couple of meaningful letters to students each day. Express your admiration for their perseverance, confidence in their potential, and enthusiasm for their progress. Not only will you foster a positive class atmosphere, but you’ll help beat out the gray midwinter blues to which so many of us are susceptible.
Instead of getting overwhelmed by the many choices for technology integration in the classroom, choose just one this year. Student blogging, Twitter, flipped classrooms, and virtual field trips are a few of our favorites.
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Featured Image (visible on mobile layout only this version): BazaarBizarreSF vis Flickr
The long term effects of learning to study can stretch much further than than the average high school sophomore may think.
When Bart started school with a half-tuition scholarship that would renew yearly pending his GPA performance, his college career future looked bright. Once classes began, however, he says he “blew off” his classes and lost the scholarship after two semesters. This required him to get a part time job on campus, and eventually a full time job–ultimately extending the time until graduation as he had to cut back on classes in order to function. He hadn’t realized the thousands of dollars he could lose–beyond just the scholarship itself–until it was too late.
Bart’s story is becoming an increasingly familiar one for college students. Research shows a significant decline in time students are devoting to their studies. Until the 1960’s, undergraduates spent about 40 hours per week academically. Today, that number is down to 27 hours each week–which includes both class time and studying. The time spent on studying alone is comparable; in 1961, it was 25 hours per week–by 2003, it had whittled down to 13 hours.
Bart urges other students to carefully examine the monetary value of their time spent studying. Below are some figures to consider:
Whatever the tuition rate, the value of time spent studying to keep up grades and scholarships is worth more than the $7.25 minimum wage jobs students would otherwise need to work.
Informing our students of the numbers listed above is just one small step in preparing them for the realities of college and beyond. We believe that it is paramount that students cultivate intrinsic motivation if we hope they will dedicate every effort required to succeed in their desired field as adults. What do the child who has always been denied sugar and the student who always been denied opportunities for self-directed learning have in common? Both are likely to spend their time and resources unwisely the moment they gain autonomy.
That said, we also find value in encouraging “college and career readiness” strategies to help students view the long term effects of developing study skills. An example might be teaching a third grader to develop stamina in reading a book without distraction.
As we empower students to develop such motivation and skills, our expectations of them should remain high–not out of pressure-inducing fear that they could otherwise fail in the “real world,” but out of belief in their ability succeed. This is key in fostering the kind of love of learning now that will truly prepare them prepare them for the future.
What are some ways you prepare students for the future while still encouraging them to live and learn with passion now? Share in comments below!
Sources:
Campo, Carlos. Jan. 29, 2013. “A Challenge to College Students for 2013: Don’t Waste Your 6,570.” Huffington Post.
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Featured Image: Francois de Halleux
University of the Fraser Valley