Academic Coaching | Carol J. Carter

Google’s CEO Shares the Best Advice He Ever Received

Professionals and athletes aren’t the only people who can benefit from a coach, students who participated in an academic coaching program found increased retention and graduation rates. Through the process of coaching, students deepen their learning, take responsibility for their actions, improve their effectiveness, and consciously create their outcomes in life.

How can you use coaching to improve student outcomes? LifeBound’s Academic Coaching Training is a great professional development option for professors, teachers, administrators, counselors, and other education professionals who want to learn to be a coach for their student by listening, asking powerful questions, and encouraging problem solving. Our next 3-day coaching session is June 24-26. Let me know if you would like to learn more about our Academic Coaching Training in the comments or by sending an email to contact@lifebound.com.

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Upcoming at LifeBound: Now on Huffington Post, Summer Reading, Academic Coaches Training & More

This spring we’re definitely not sitting still at LifeBound. In the next few months we have many new events, trainings, blogs, and more that will reach communities who are dedicated to improving learning opportunities for students, teachers, and professionals. One initiative we’re supporting all summer long is to get more students involved in productive learning activities over the summer months.

Research shows all young people experience learning losses when they do not engage in educational activities during the summer. That’s why LifeBound is offering summer enrichment workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop for students in middle school through high school that foster self-awareness, critical thinking, and practical know-how. You can find out more about our week-long workshops for teens at our website. We are also encouraging students to read over the summer with our book display at the Tattered Cover Book Store on Colfax.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Accelerating the Developmental Path to a College Degree

As more students flock to colleges to earn a degree and better their chances at employment, more students are landing in developmental education courses before they can enroll in a degree-earning program. Though the demand for workers with a college degree only continues to increase in the 21st century workforce, college retention and graduation rates have failed to make significant gains.

Some states that are determined to greatly increase the number of college graduates are redesigning their developmental education programs in hopes of finding more potential graduates in the population of remedial students; a population which is significantly less likely than their non-remediated peers to graduate from college. In 2009, 29% of Colorado’s college students required remediation in reading, writing or mathematics, and over half (53%) of students attending two-year institutions needed remediation. Of 100 students enrolled in the lowest level of developmental math, only four will graduate.¹

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

How a Workplace Mindset Can Lead to Classroom Success

A new study by the Milken Institute found a strong relationship between a well-educated population and a region’s economic performance.¹ Though it’s common knowledge that well-educated workers often make more money and have better jobs than less-educated workers, this study stands out in that it also found that just by their geographic location, less-educated people can make more money if they live in the same area as more-educated people.

Other key findings from the report include:

Education increases regional prosperity. Adding one year to the average years of schooling among the employed in a metropolitan area is associated with an increase of real GDP per capita of more than ten percent, and an increase in real wages per worker of more than eight percent.
Better educated = bigger benefits. The better educated the worker, the greater the benefit of additional schooling, to both the worker and the region. Add one year of college to a region’s workforce, for instance, and GDP per capita jumps 17.4 percent.
Clusters count. In metros with clusters of high-skilled occupations, the share of workers holding at least a master’s degree is much higher than in metros without significant clusters, perhaps because of the intense competition for employment.

A Matter of Degrees: The Effect of Educational Attainment on Regional Economic Prosperity²

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Coaching the Developmental Student to Success in Math

As many as 1.7 million first-year students will take a remedial course to learn the math, reading, or writing skills they need to enroll in a credit-earning college-level course. Of all remedial courses most students are remediated in math skills. Due to a variety of factors — class dynamics, curricula, instruction, skill-level, academic support, financial standing, life — retaining and passing students in a remedial course is a major concern.

Colorado Community College System conducted a longitudinal remedial math study that tracked remedial math students for 4 years. They found that though the majority of students required remedial math, math had the lowest pass rate of all remedial classes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

The Changing Face of Developmental Education: So Goes Colorado, So Goes the Nation

This week, Denver will be hosting the National Association for Developmental Education Conference. This organization is made up of thousands of members who are dedicated to helping students who come to college without the skills required to enroll in a college-level course in math, reading or writing. As many as 1.7 million first-year students entering both two-year and four-year colleges will take a remedial course to learn the skills they need to enroll in a college-level course. Less than one-quarter of students attending a two-year college who take a remedial course will complete a college-level English or math class.¹

For many students who need to take remedial courses, they will be required to take up to three remedial courses per discipline before qualifying to enroll in a credit-earning class.² In some states, like Colorado, change is afoot. Instead of offering three classes in math and three in English and reading, these classes will be collapsed into one class for each discipline. Much of the learning will be self-paced at community colleges where the student to advisor ratio is 1500 to 1.³ Students will need to take initiative for their own learning, work with staff when they have questions they need answered and be accountable for their own personal improvement plans. These steps will provide a successful on ramp to other classes that are more challenging and require more rigor, self-discipline and collaboration with classmates once these basic requirements are met.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Reading Scores Drop, Demand for Literacy Skills Rise

It’s clear that literacy is important to America’s future, however, it’s also clear that we should begin to worry about what is to come if literacy scores in the U.S. continues to decrease.

Both the SAT and ACT scores in 2012 show poor reading levels. The SAT showed an average score that was one point lower than last year’s, and the lowest since 1972 (Layton and Brown 1-2). According to college readiness benchmarks in the SAT, only 49% of test takers were ready for critical reading at the college level (College Board 24). Only 57% of grads who took the ACT met their benchmark for reading scores, which is much the same result as last year’s tests; in fact, the average composite score for the ACT hasn’t shown much change at all in either direction since 2008 (ACT, Inc. 1,16). The reason these particular tests are important in evaluating high school graduates is because they’re one of the most important evaluation tools a college uses to determine whether an applicant should be admitted. As such, the tests are widely recognized by colleges as trustworthy in determining whether or not a student is ready for college-level work.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Study: More U.S. Students Graduating from High School and College

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/05/record-shares-of-young-adults-have-finished-both-high-school-and-college/4/#section-3-high-school-completion-among-young-adults

More U.S. students are graduating from high school and college than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The increase in grads can be attributed in large to our changed economy. Since the 2007 recession, students have been drilled on the importance of having an education in order to land a job in a highly competitive job market. Adults have also returned to school to gain higher pay, change careers, or increase their level of education after a layoff.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Living with Grit: 4 Gritty Articles for Parents and Educators

Grit.

What does it mean to you? Maybe you tapped into your grit to pass your college physics course. Or possibly to look for a new job or train for a race. Grit is a powerful soft skill that could stand between you and success in any area of your life, personal, academic, or professional.

At LifeBound we often talk about grit in our Academic Coaching Training and books for teens. We ask coaches to work with their students to help them tap into their intrinsic motivation, dig deep to see the power they have over their lives, and discover their grit. We also encourage educators and parents to use the power of grit in their own lives.
Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends:

Gearing Up to Improve College Success Rate in Kansas

Happy GEAR UP Day!

GEAR UP Kansas, the national grant-funded organization which helps 2,500 foster kids in Kansas attain college readiness, along with LifeBound is hosting a conference for students, parents and mentors today at Wichita State University.

Read the rest of this entry »

Share this Article with Your Friends: