10 minute read
One thing is for sure: we didn’t grow up with screens. So we salute you dear parents, guardians of the future and the keepers of inspiration.
Our education tips for parents contain advice based on research and our collective experience in education here at Studygate. You can also find snippet articles below, which address how to educate children in a digital age. Click the title to read the full version. While the table of contents is organized according to “teaching,” “parenting,” and “college,” the guide itself is organized from newest to oldest.
Click here to access a PDF guide to these articles.
Use the table of contents below to navigate through the guide:
Teaching:
Don’t Put Down That Tablet Just Yet: Online Learning and Test Prep Are Right At Your Child’s Fingertips
Fighting The System: Good Students Vs. Academic Dishonesty
How To Homeschool Your Children at a World-Class Level
Keys to Success: 2 Big Ways to Help a Digital Native Succeed in School
What to Do if Your Child’s Homework Looks Incomprehensible
Parenting:
Effective Parenting Tips: What NOT to do When Your Child Gets a Bad Grade
Helicopter Parenting: Being Overprotective can Help and Hurt Your Child
How to Motivate an Unmotivated Child to Enjoy School More
College and Career:
Four Reasons Why Vocational Classes Will Make AP Students Successful
Smart SAT Strategies to Survive the Test Prep Season
Think Your Child’s GPA Doesn’t Matter After Graduation? Think Again.
Why Harvard may not be the Best Choice for College
Get Your Child One-On-One Tutoring
How To Homeschool Your Children at a World-Class Level
Principle #1: Human beings are naturally different and diverse.
This means that, by homeschooling, your sole aim should be a comprehensive assessment of your child’s interests and strengths. Your job is to identify those areas and drive growth in those areas.
Principle #2 Human life flourishes in curiosity
Great teachers mentor, stimulate, provoke, and engage. Education is about learning. If there’s no learning going on, there’s no education going on. And people can spend an awful lot of time discussing education without ever discussing learning.
Principle #3: Human Life Is Inherently Creative
It’s why we all have different résumés. We create our lives, and we can recreate them as we go through them. It’s the common currency of being a human being. Great homeschool parents let children forge their own path.
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What to Do if Your Child’s Homework Looks Incomprehensible
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos would happily dismantle Common Core. However, the standards represent a series of benchmarks and not an actual curriculum. Which makes it pretty hard to tear apart since states decide whether or not to use Common Core. Not the federal government.
States are taking a wide variety of approaches to following the Common Core standards.
Listening to young people and empowering them to find their own answers are the best courses of action. So if your child’s homework looks incomprehensible, you can do one of two things:
- Make a donation to your local school district by writing a check in Common Core notation and remind teachers that you’re not enrolled in class this year.
- Find a tutor who knows what your student is going through, can check the work themselves, and can discuss the matter at a decent price.
Fighting The System: Good Students Vs. Academic Dishonesty
Technology doesn’t necessarily have influence over a student’s decision to cheat. The way students cheat today is the same way students cheated 30 years ago, but those methods have moved to an online format.
However, today’s students are aware that they have to understand the system they’re engaged in if they want to survive. Every course syllabus explains the weight of various assignments. The student decides what to focus on. If they slip up on a certain assignment, or perform poorly on a test, they understand that it’s not enough just to do well on the next one.
Academic dishonesty isn’t necessarily a route for lazy students to avoid applying themselves. It’s also a way for students to stack the odds in their favor. If we want to address the growing threat of academic dishonesty, we first need to understand the situation students all over the country contend with.
Four Reasons Why Vocational Classes Will Make AP Students Successful
Practice Over Theory
Abstract theories do not completely prepare students for the future. In short, students learn by doing things. The more things they do, the more they think about their skills and work they want to pursue in the future.
Practical Skills Are Essential For Survival
Home economics, wood shop, auto repair, and other vocational courses teach valuable skills that adults use every day. As students transition into college life, these skills will give them a sense of independence.
More Application, Less Memorization
Applying knowledge to real-world situations helps understand the material.
Mixing Students Of Different Academic Levels Could Be Beneficial
Mixing students of various skill has the potential to increase learning by removing status as a factor in academic success. The students normally suited to AP courses can apply their knowledge with other students and learn to become problem solvers. They learn how to work in a team of people with different backgrounds and skill sets.
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Smart SAT Strategies to Survive the Test Prep Season
Gather Some Intel
Go to your local bookstore or library and pick up a couple of books with complete tests that you can practice with every few weeks. If you search online, you can find actual tests from previous years that you can practice on.
Get The Lay Of The Land
Study the test format. The SAT is written with the easiest questions at the beginning and gets progressively harder as you go. Here is a link to connect with SAT tutors ready to assist.
Words Win Wars
Get some flash cards and learn the definitions of just five SAT words per day. 5 per day turns into 35 per week! Also, take the time to read anything you can: books, articles, journal entries, essays, and try to figure out the author’s main point as quickly as you can.
Meet Calculator, Your New Best Friend
Your mastery of your calculator can potentially slow you down or give you a much needed speed boost! Take some quality time to learn every function, every shortcut, and every formula you need for the test.
Train Yourself
Set aside about 1 to 2 hours every other week to sit down and take a practice test from beginning to end.
Assemble A Survival Kit
- A bottle of water
- Your calculator
- A couple of extra pencils
- An eraser
- Some (a lot of) snacks
- A watch (yeah, the ones with the hands that you wear on your wrist)
Energize
For a start, eat a good breakfast! Get plenty of sleep the night before the test! Do all the healthy things you’re supposed to!
How to Motivate an Unmotivated Child to Enjoy School More
Share Your Own Experiences
Tell your child what your life was like when you went to school. Be honest and share the things you were good at, as well as the things you struggled with.
No Competition
Isn’t it better for a student to do well and then outperform themselves, rather than worry about what everyone else is doing? Their biggest competitor is themselves. Help them measure their own improvements.
Be Their Ally
Let your child know that finding solutions and success is more productive than placing blame and starting fights. Be willing to stick up for them even if it isn’t pretty.
Cut Out The Superlatives
Success is subjective. Encourage them to maximize their potential, instead. They’ll be much more motivated.
Talk About Your Dreams
When you were their age, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did it happen? Or did you change your mind? Did you settle?
Effective Parenting Tips: What NOT to do When Your Child Gets a Bad Grade
DON’T raise your voice or display aggressive body language.
Remember that a bad grade isn’t the end of the world, remain calm, and ask your child what they think went wrong.
DON’T interrupt your child or place blame right off the bat.
Respect your child by listening attentively, and give him or her a chance explain the situation at hand.
DON’T nitpick or obsess over trivial details.
Any mistakes are in the past now, and the best possible option is to learn from them and move forward. Form a proactive solution with your child that targets the issue as a whole.
Helicopter Parenting: Being Overprotective can Help and Hurt Your Child
PRO: Your Child Feels Secure
By being involved in every aspect of your child’s life, he or she receives constant reassurance that you will always be ready and willing to love and support them.
PRO: Your Child Will Provide You With the Same Care and Attention as You Grow Older
A child who receives unconditional love and support will undoubtedly feel grateful and be more likely to treat you the same way.
CON: Your Child Will Not be Able to Survive Independently
Give your child space to learn and make mistakes; he or she will come to you if help is needed.
CON: Your Child Will Never become a Critical Thinker or Take Necessary Risks
If you teach your child that your way is always the right way, he or she will never be able to think for him or herself and decide what’s truly best.
Keys to Success: 2 Big Ways to Help a Digital Native Succeed in School
Encourage Your Child to Read Print Books
Print books discourage skimming and scanning that screen reading makes so easy.
Encourage Your Child to Exercise
Exercise is one of the best ways to fight off stress. Working your body improves your mood by releasing “feel good” antidepressants in your body, and can help relax your brain.
Why Harvard may not be the Best Choice for College
If your hobby is surfing, and you managed to hang ten while scoring a high SAT, Harvard probably isn’t the place for you.
Also, if your dream is to have a vineyard and mix fine wines, Harvard probably isn’t for you.
Consider that if you want to turn your comic book collection into a serious field of study, Harvard probably isn’t the place for you.
Finally, if you have a fondness for gunsmithing and have a tommy gun and brown bess stashed under your bed, Harvard probably isn’t the place for you.
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Don’t Put Down That Tablet Just Yet: Online Learning and Test Prep Are Right At Your Child’s Fingertips
Whether your child is a student that is struggling to catch up or you want them to learn effective test prep, tutoring stands as one of the best resources for parents and students. In a nation that has long cried for education reform, tutoring may be one of the most effective solutions in schools. This is backed by a study released in 2014 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which highlighted the benefits of tutoring for struggling students.
Think Your Child’s GPA Doesn’t Matter After Graduation? Think Again.
About 90% of companies will immediately reject candidates with a GPA lower than 3.0.
One 2017 study found that GPA is also highly correlated with how likely a person is to “engage in voluntary, helpful behavior in the service of co-workers and the organization.”