In 2011, an unprecedented study found forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college. Many were stunned by the number of college students entering and graduating from college without critical thinking skills, a core 21st century skill necessary for making smart personal and professional decisions.
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Student achievement is high on the priority list, but as more educators focus on helping underachieving students progress, overachieving students are being forgotten.
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As the demand for innovation increases and the number of innovators drop, making students proficient in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects has become a hot topic. Now that STEM has become a household acronym for many concerned parents and educators, more attention is being paid to the unbalanced ratio of boys to girls interested in STEM subjects and careers.
Of the following two options, which would be your preferred way of learning how to change a tire? Option 1: You attend a lecture on how to change a tire and then have to change your first tire in a real-life scenario. Option 2: You take a hands-on class where you learn about changing the tire by actually changing a tire. Then, you’re confronted with a real-life scenario. Which option do you think would have better prepared you for the real-life scenario when you need to change your own tire? New research would say option 2.
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What does it look like when students are learning? Are they sitting quietly at their desks, listening to the teacher lecture, and scribbling notes? According to a recent article in the Washington Post, those are three of seven misconceptions people have about how students learn.
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In cities with the highest dropout rates, 40 percent of freshmen will repeat the ninth grade, and of those students only 10 – 15 percent will make it to graduation day. These numbers make up what is referred to as the “freshman bulge” – given that name because more students are retained their freshman year than in any other grade. So, what causes the freshman bulge? The school culture changes drastically for a high school freshman. The workload gets harder, relationships intensify, schedules get crammed with part-time jobs, after school functions, homework, etc., and the thought of college moves closer to becoming a reality. Students need guidance during this vulnerable time in their life to reach academic, social and emotional success.
Carol’s Summary:
How do high schools increase the number of graduating seniors? One way is to introduce career opportunities as early as middle school to expose students to all their options. We expect high school students to reach a goal, like graduating from high school, when they barely know themselves or their interests. What if we changed the goal not only to graduation day, but also to their life, their purpose, their mission? If students are given the choice to explore different careers, they will feel more involved in the experience, more motivated to advance to higher education, and develop the ability to see their education as the stepping stones to reaching their goals.
According to the ACT’s study, “Career Planning: Students need help starting early and staying focused,” students start thinking about career possibilities as early as 8th grade, and students gain their career interests as a result of experience. Cities and schools who join forces for workforce planning, can provide students the opportunity to meet professionals, network, and ask questions so that they can learn more about fields and paths of study. Exposing students to careers at a young age can make them intrinsically driven to complete high school, instead of externally driven by parents or teachers. If students are encouraged to learn about, develop and lead with their passions, their high school education becomes a stepping stone for a tangible goal. When the student owns the pathway to their future, they also own the responsibility of whether they reach their goal or not. How does anyone reach a goal if they never set it? How can an elementary, middle, or high school student be driven to graduate if we don’t show them the end of high school is just the beginning, and the rewarding context in long-term outcomes for challenges and sacrifices they may experience today?
Sources:
Career Planning: Students Need Help Starting Early and Staying Focused - act.org
Subject inspired by: Aurora school initiative looks at helping students’ career dreams come true
AURORA — Hinkley High senior Edwin Hernandez-Corral grew up dreaming of being an electrician.
Read the full article at: denverpost.com
Science teacher Robert Baxter was awarded $25,000 for excellence in the classroom in Buffalo, New York. As a black male, he says he was driven to succeed because no one expected him to be smart. After watching too many of his friends struggle with math and science, two of Baxter’s favorite subjects in school, he was determined to prove anyone can excel and anyone can learn. At Westminster, 98% of the students are minorities, and most come from poverty. Recently, 9 out of 10 eighth-graders who took Baxter’s science class had high enough grades to get high school biology credit.
In his column yesterday, Thomas Friedman raised the issue of America’s competitiveness now and in the future. By Newsweek’s latest account, the U.S. ranks number 11. When Friedman drills into the reasons for this lack of competitiveness, he cites the opinion of Washington Post economist Robert Samuelson:
Carol’s Summary:
Healthy Lifestyle Choices is a program dedicated to empowering children in grades kindergarten to eighth grade, through teaching lifelong skills in the areas of nutrition, safety, fitness, conflict resolution and violence prevention and substance abuse prevention. The program is currently in 40 states and is part of a nationwide initiative to improve youth health.
The HLC program realizes the power they can have in fighting the epidemic of childhood obesity, but the program aims to look at the bigger picture. HLC hopes healthy changes in children’s lives will not only give them a chance to turn their lives around before they reach adolescence, but also help HLC answer the question: “Do healthier students perform better academically and have less behavior problems at school?”
Article: Students take healthy lifestyle pledge
Students at Krotz Springs Elementary School, like fourth-grader Jaidyn Robinson, lined up Tuesday to take a healthy lifestyle pledge.
Read the entire article at: www.dailyworld.com
