This Week with Sara Fitts is all about reducing stress and struggle for students. For more than 30 years I've been working with students in various capacities - as a math teacher, a high school principal, instructional coach - and business owner committed to reducing stress and struggle for students as well as for their parents.
First of all, I think we can all agree that life has its stress and struggle - and that being said, schools should not be places for undue stress and struggle. Schools should be places for teaching and learning. Schools should be places for growth and development. Schools should be places where it is safe to practice new academic skills without fear of failure and added stress and struggle.
Schools should not be all about the test scores. Schools should not be only concerned with teaching to a test. Schools definitely need to examine what is being taught and what is being learned; however, testing only for the sake of getting a particular score is not the answer that is needed in education today. Schools today are often such stressful environments. Not much can ever be learned in stressful situations. No one can learn their best lessons - or teach their best lessons - when intimidation abounds.
And I strongly believe that rigor is an essential element in all curricula and in all classrooms. Rigor is very much needed; however, I see the lack of rigor in schools and classrooms where the only driving force is test scores. So here's my plan.......
Begin with the end in mind. By this I mean know what the final expectation of the course is - and then build the curriculum around that end result. After students are presented with the basics, and then master the concepts - bring on the rigor! Students will rise to the challenge because they will not be so stressed with the "threat" of test score numbers. They will only be achieving and rising to the next level of learning. And they will do so without intimidation, without stress, and without struggle. And I bet you money that the test scores will be better than ever!
This is my Simple Little Formula for educational success. And with it comes reduced stress and struggle for all students. And all students can succeed to even higher levels. And rigor will return to the classrooms once again. And test scores will be good!
Sara Fitts is an academic coach and educational consultant in Manassas, VA. She owns SLF Consulting and works with students to reduce stress and struggle. For more information, visit her website and to contact her, click here.
This Week with Sara Fitts is announcing SLF Consulting's Summer Session that begins next week - July 6. We are adding several different courses to our offerings this summer as a result of requests by students and their parents. For a complete list of our Summer Catalog of Courses, click here .
Some of the highlighted courses we are offering this summer include Math Improvement (both 3-week and 6-week editions) and Reading Improvement (both 3-week and 6-week versions). The need for these courses is crucial to students' sustained success for the next academic year. Just a few strategies and techniques will improve the learning for students and will create a broader base for success in the next academic level of coursework.
Senior Seminar is another excellent option for rising high school or college seniors. This 3-hour course is a must for providing a structure for success at the next level after graduation. We offer coaching to set goals with an action plan for success.
Vocabulary Builder is a course for all grade levels. It is designed for the specific needs of each student. A student with a strong vocabulary is a better student overall.
We also offer a College Math Placement Test Prep course that reviews basic algebraic skills, geometry fundamentals, and trig. This is a 3-hour course.
And our 6-week SAT Prep course in addition to math tutorials in all areas of mathematics are still our trademark courses.
For more information - or to enroll - please contact us today - visit our website today.
This Week with Sara Fitts looks at the pros and cons of balanced calendars in school systems. Traditional calendars have usually had school begin in southern states during the month of August and end in late May. Other systems have started the academic year after Labor Day and ended in June. Basically the school year is made up of 180 days of classes for students - regardless of start and end dates.
The current trend for many school systems is to balance the school calendar in order to keep students in school longer in order to avoid significant breaks in learning. Many believe that students forget too much over the summer vacation. A balanced calendar in education means that schools will have start dates in August and have several breaks built in for vacation days and still end in June having a shorter summer for students - with more chances for sustained learning and fewer chances for "forgetting" what they learn.
Balanced calendars bring pros and cons to the discussion. Among the pros are sustained learning time, a series of regular breaks within the academic year, more balance of time with school and vacation days, more consistency for time-on-task, and less time to forget what was taught over the summer.
Among the cons of balanced calendars in education are the loss of the summer - where many high school kids earn money for college from summer jobs, where many children spend sustained and quality time with the parents with whom they do not live during a traditional academic year - and the increased cost of child-care due to having more breaks in the school year.
There is no significant research at this point to prove that balanced calendars are better for improving learning or test scores. A lot of school systems across the United States are moving to change their calendars from traditional to balanced. There are costs associated with this move that many may not have thought about. The school systems may have higher costs associated with this calendar change.
More to come......
Sara L Fitts is owner and operator of SLF Consulting in Manassas, VA. She is a former teacher, administrator, high school principal, and instructional coach. SLF Consulting provides math tutorials, academic and instructional coaching and consulting, and test prep courses. For more information, visit our website , like us on Facebook , and follow us on Twitter
This Week with Sara Fitts is talking about trends in education for 2015 today. It is always a bit difficult to know exactly what will be trending in education this year; however, based on the trends of late 2014, I am comfortable and confident moving into some strong predictions for this calendar year.
I feel strongly that rigorous learning goals will be a strong trend for the entire year - if not decade. Everyone wants our students to be prepared and in position for the very best educational environments in every school system in 2015.
Data should drive all educational decisions regardless of location. If something is working, it should continue to be implemented for further growth. If something is not working, that data should be utilized to create or find something that will work. Data is important and should drive the decisions.
Assessments will continue to be important; however, the specific assessment may be refined and revised. It is so important to know that students are learning and that they can utilize what they learn in order to broaden future learning. I think that all major assessments will be reviewed and revised in order to be more meaningful to all - students, parents, and educators.
Technology will continue to be utilized at all levels and in all subject areas. The one trend for 2015 is that more technology will be available to be used on all devices - not just on iPads, for example. So many school divisions have BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) systems in place - with a large variety of devices in those classrooms. When apps can only be used with particular devices, the educational experience in classrooms declines.
Flipped learning will have a greater focus and greater impact in 2015. More teachers will be implementing this trend and, as a result, we will see much more of its use this year.
Personalized learning in every classroom will be a huge trend this year. With the fact that most students will have devices in every classroom, it will be the expectation that each student can make the strong case for differentiation on a daily basis.
Individual student outcomes will have a sharper focus in 2015. Again, data should drive all decisions making individual student outcomes easier to determine and assess.
Professional development for teachers is extremely important in 2015 due to technology and digital tools for all classrooms. The teacher is still the one who facilitates all learning - so the PD programs need to be state-of-the-art in order to provide the necessary information to all teachers in 2015 - and beyond.
Sara L. Fitts, an academic and instructional coach, owns and operates SLF Consulting in Manassas, VA specializing in math tutoring and test prep, academic and instructional coaching and consulting, and college readiness and transition. For more information please visit our website and follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
