This summer, we partnered with the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC) to present a summer series of FREE webinars on Academic Coaching.  Over the past few weeks we’ve presented on the following topics, which are now available to view on archive.

SESSION 1: Coaching for College and Career Readiness: It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Know How To Do

Presented by Carol Carter, Maureen Breeze, and Lynn Troyka

This session shares hands-on ideas of how educators can coach students to master specific, practical connections for excelling in reading, writing and math. We discuss the development of professional skills as well as setting structures for accountability, challenge, and growth that can ensure success in college, career, and life.

WATCH NOW

SESSION 2: Academic Coaching for Advisors and Student Success Staff

Presented by Carol Carter and Maureen Breeze

In this informational webinar tailored to student success staff and advisors, participants will learn about various academic coaching strategies and professional development options for student services staff supporting redesign efforts in developmental education.

Through academic coaching, faculty and advisors ask powerful questions and promote deeper level thinking to help students make connections, set goals and action plans, create a vision for the future, and develop persistence, grit and accountability.

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SESSION 3: Introduction to Academic Coaching for Reading and Writing Faculty

Presented by Carol Carter 

In this informational webinar tailored to reading and writing instructors, viewers learn about various academic coaching strategies to support reading, writing and critical thinking skills necessary for college success. Discover how academic coaching promotes academic, professional and life success.

WATCH NOW

Coming up this Thursday, August 22, is the final session of the NROC/LifeBound summer series. Space is limited.

SESSION 4: Introduction to Academic Coaching for Math Faculty

Thursday, August 22

2:00 pm ET

Presented by Maureen Breeze

In this informational webinar tailored to math instructors, participants will learn about various academic coaching strategies to support math understanding and quantitative reasoning skills for college success. Discover how academic coaching promotes academic, professional and life success.

REGISTER NOW

What are some webinar topics you would like to attend? I look forward to hearing from you in the comment section.

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.

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.

Coming up on Wednesday, April 10th, I’m excited to give a keynote to faculty at University of Oklahoma’s First-Year Experience Program. If you’re in the area, the event is free and open to the public. You can find out more at the event website.

Also coming up this month, is our three-day academic coaching training. Academic Coaching is an ongoing partnership to help students produce fulfilling results in their lives. Through the process of coaching, students deepen their learning, take responsibility for their actions, improve their effectiveness, and consciously create their outcomes in life. We conduct trainings for professors, teachers, administrators, and counselors. LifeBound Academic Coaching trainings are available year-round. Learn about our lead trainers, check out upcoming dates, and register for your next coaching session at our coaching website www.lifeboundcoaching.com.

Last but not least, I am now blogging for the Huffington Post under “Impact”.  For the next two months, I will be focusing on remedial students, posting every Tuesday.  Check out my most read article, “Why Aren’t Low Income Students Succeeding in School?” You’ll see some of the best insights include what readers posted in response.  Below is a sample of some of the topics I will be exploring in the future. Let me know in the comments if you have any additional ideas for blog topics.

• “From Trailer Park to Corporate Executive: One Woman’s Path to Personal and Professional Success”
• “Where Are We Struggling With Literacy?”
• “Why And How Are We Struggling with Innumeracy?”
• “Why And How Are We Struggling with Thinking Skills?”
• “Why And How Are We Struggling with Communication?”
• “Pipeline Success for Developmental Students.”

I look forward to sharing more about this eventful season. For inquiries about academic coaching, speaking engagements, summer reading, and anything else, call the LifeBound office at 1-877-737-8510.

Half of employees were either ready to leave their jobs or unhappy in their position, according to last year’s Mercer survey.¹

As we discuss how to get more students graduating from high school and college and into a career, it’s important individuals, schools, and businesses align their definitions of success so that an individual’s strengths and abilities are maximized. In school, success is largely measured by class standing and grades. In your career, success can be measured by status or money. But what about fulfillment? Purpose? Meaning? Contribution?

I recently attended TEDxMileHigh where I heard Dr. Natalie Baumgartner speak on how she helps people find “fit” in their careers.  When companies are concerned with the fit of people in their company, instead of just filling chairs, they create a culture that supports highly productive individuals. As a student or an employee, we are responsible for our own “fit,” meaning our happiness and fulfillment in work is directly tied to the connection between our abilities, skills, and knowledge and what a specific job requires.  We have the responsibility to identify and change a bad fit – in school or in a job—as well as excel in a good fit, taking the job to a new standard of quality and contribution. We all have a choice, whether it is getting out of an academically directed school if you are a student who prefers to make things with your hands or you are a lawyer and you are wondering why you took that path when you’ve finally realized you’re not competitive. Life is a series of options and we can decide to pursue things that align with our strengths and say “no” to the things that don’t measure up.

When individuals are filled with purpose, whether they are students or seasoned professionals, they are more committed and happier in their positions. Imagine if we encouraged more students to follow their passion and find their purpose, instead of only earning a grade, passing a standardized test or getting a paycheck. It could mean more dedicated college students who persist to graduation day. It could mean more graduates excited to see how their ideas can influence the world of work and improve the world as a whole. It could mean the difference between a bad fitting job and a rewarding career that creates prosperity, purpose and passion. When people feel “lit up” and inspired, they can surmount every challenge and change the world in major ways.

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The most effective teachers, like the most effective students, are lifelong learners. While  many schools require educators to have ongoing training and professional development, many educators can craft their own learning experiences just like the most motivated and active students.  Teachers like this provide a model for students of vibrancy, imagination, and active learning; they  prove to all of us that learning doesn’t end with a certificate or degree.

Traditional professional development can be more nebulous than it appears. Some teachers work in environments that have outdated curricula that are as unwavering as the brick-and-mortar institutions they teach in. Other teachers may be in a district that’s completely overhauled the curriculum and left the teacher instructing from entirely new material. Throw in the fact that new advancements in technology, student trends, and education dos-and-don’ts will continue to surface daily, and it can be hard for the already overworked teacher to find time, reason, or the appropriate resources to change their challenging teaching routine.

That being said, making change a staple of your teaching style should do more than fulfill your school’s requirements of you. Changing your routine accomplishes these two things for starters:

• What skills can you learn this summer that would make you a more effective teacher? Every teacher’s answers will be different, but could include listening, organization, availability, media literacy, or allowing more personal time during the work week.  Think about the books you want to read this summer which will enrich and expand your mind.  Some that I recommend are:  IMAGINE, by Jonah Lehrer,  THE 10x Rule:  The Only Difference Between Success and Failure  and ALONE TOGETHER: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.
• What professional development training can you have over the summer, or look forward to in the next school year? Use the summer months to find a professional development training that aligns with your personal and professional goals.  Sign up to attend a local Ted Talk or download a podcast that interests you, like THIS AMERICAN LIFE.
• How can becoming an academic coach help you become a better teacher? Academic Coaches help students arrive at their own answers through asking a series of powerful questions, which can greatly change the classroom dynamic as well as the way teachers interact in their own lives. When teachers don’t give students the answer, students ultimately learn how to coach themselves by use of powerful questions to get through scenarios in school, career, and life. LifeBound’s Academic Coaching Training dates in Summer 2012 are  June 18,19, 20 and July 23, 24, 25. 
• How can you strengthen your digital skills? There’s always room for growth in the digital arena. This summer you might get more familiar with social media by creating a Twitter account and following the hashtag #edchat for classroom insights from educators around the world. You could also take a community or online class to gain skills in blogging, digital photography, photoshop, digital design, Word Processing, and more.  Or, hire one of your best digital students to teach you and your friends skills.  You will learn a lot and your student will get some great entrepreneurial training experience.

Change can open new opportunities that you never knew possible. Consider using your free months to relax, explore, and set goals that inspire change, personally and professionally. You will return to school in the fall invigorated, with many new dendrites and the passion which can inspire even the most apathetic students. Beyond that, you will have nurtured and restored yourself in ways that will last all year as you transform young minds into tomorrow’s chemists, lawyers, mechanics, doctors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and, because of your impact, twenty-first century teachers.

Summer vacation will be here before we know it, and while it is an exciting time for students to take a break from academia, it is also where students experience the largest learning losses. No student is safe from summer learning losses if their brains aren’t kept active throughout the summer months. However, students in lower-income families are generally at a much higher risk to suffer from learning losses which continues to increase the achievement gap between lower and higher income youth.

According to the National Summer Learning Association:

• More than half of the achievement gap between lower- and higher-income youth can be explained by unequal access to summer learning opportunities. As a result, low-income youth are less likely to graduate from high school or enter college (Alexander et al, 2007).
• Parents consistently cite summer as the most difficult time to ensure that their children have productive things to do (Duffett et al, 2004).

This week, the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading announced more than 100 communities across the country pledged to improve literacy among early learners. This national campaign hopes to close the reading achievement gap by addressing the top issues that keep underserved students from reaching their full potential. The four topics the campaign will focus on are:

• Chronic Absence
• School Readiness
• Summer Learning Loss
• Parent Engagement

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.

Even though the subjects of the study were second-year college students, this study also showed us that critical thinking doesn’t get enough emphasis in the K-12 classroom leading up to higher education. Learning to think critically is not something that can wait until students are in their young adult years when they are starting to make some of the most important decisions of their lives.

In the article “Critical Thinking: A Necessary Skill in the Age of Spin,” former teacher Randy Kasten illustrates why maturing kids are especially in need of critical thinking skills to navigate their changing world.

“….Young people — without significant life experience and anxious to fit in — are especially vulnerable to surface appeal,” says Kasten.

Critical thinking is one skill that can keep kids’ social and emotional pulls to surface appeal in check and help them make well-informed decisions.

Consider the decisions students make from an early age that have the power to impact future outcomes. Kasten lists targeted advertising that creates their buying and eating habits, friends that help them make good or bad decisions, and romantic relationships that do or don’t end well. Strong critical thinking skills help students make healthy choices for their academic, personal, and professional lives.  It also gives them the courage to say “no”, manage impulsivity,  resist peer pressure and manage conflict diplomatically.

Developing critical thinking skills must be a priority for educators, students, and parents before students leave their K-12 education.  LifeBound’s book CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING FOR TEENAGERS asks students to solve today’s biggest problems, by  developing an inquisitive mind, strong investigation skills, the ability to ask powerful questions, and the skills to imagine, dream and create.

When and where do  you see students exercise their critical and creative thinking skills? What is the cost when students  aren’t exercising their critical and creative thinking skills? Do you think critical and creative thinking skills could solve our nation’s “innovation crisis”? What could strong critical thinking skills do for us in terms of solving problems around the world like poverty, AIDS, the aging population, the  sex slave trade and the exploitation of workers on foreign shores?

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Source:

“Critical Thinking: A Necessary Skill in the Age of Spin,” by G. Randy Kasten. 2 March 2012. Edutopia. Accessed on 5 March 2012. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/critical-thinking-necessary-skill-g-randy-kasten

It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students.

1 in 7 students in grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying.

71% of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school.

www.makebeatsnotbeatdowns.org/

Bullying and cyberbullying have been high profile stories in recent years. There isn’t evidence that points to bullying being on the rise, but rather that awareness is on the rise due to a combination of variants like bullying getting more dangerous, new forms of digital bullying emerging, and too much/lack of parental vision, according to education.com.

Many companies, schools, and organizations have rallied behind the movement to raise awareness and end bullying using a variety of methods. Charles Maclay Middle School decided to take the approach of ending problems before they really begin.

Maclay was a school known for student conflicts until they implemented the peer mediation program, funded by the Center for Civic Mediation, a nonprofit based in Los Angeles, according to the article “Settling School Disputes Before They Escalate.” In the peer mediation program, a group of students are trained to be mediators who their peers can confide in, instead of having to go to the principal or another authority figure when a problem arises. Mediators don’t pick sides or offer advice. They sit with students who are having a dispute and extinguish the problem by opening the problem up to conversation before it escalates to a full-blown altercation.

In the 2007-08 school year, before the school implemented the peer mediation program, the school had 418 days of suspensions. This last year the school cut it down to 152. “Peer mediation models for them the appropriate way to speak when you have a conflict,” the principal said in the article. “That’s why it works.”

LifeBound’s books People Smarts and Success in Middle School were adopted by the Cheyenne Mountain District to use in their elementary classes. After using the books for four years, the district saw a decrease in principal referrals and an increase in their test scores as students were learning more about themselves emotionally as well as how to plan, read, and anticipate what is ahead in middle school.

How could peer mediating be adopted in your school or class? How about peer mentoring? Can you use the influence of peers to positively influence your class and student community? What can you teach students about Academic Coaching that could help them help their peers?

Carol’s Summary:
The method by which to identify gifted students at a New York City high school is now being challenged, as the school admits students based on the results of a single test, which is written by a teacher at the school. This test ultimately determines a student’s eligibility to attend, and has  sparked a debate about what qualifies a student as gifted, particularly because this test has caused a decline in black and Hispanic student enrollment at the school.

Critics say that the test gives certain students an unfair advantage, whereas many others who come from less fortunate backgrounds may not be as well-prepared to take such a test. The cost of prep materials and tutoring gives wealthy students a good chance at being accepted, while students who come from less fortunate families may not be able to pay for the preparation.

Therefore, they may not be as well-prepared to take such a test. They say that the admissions tests should utilize several kinds of evaluations, including portfolios of students’ past work, essays, and interviews.

There are currently 3 million students nationwide who are identified as gifted, and it is believed that there are many more who have not yet been noticed or who have undergone one-sided tests such as the one previously mentioned. It is necessary to employ various strategies to identify gifted students, so that they may receive the education they deserve.

To hold back a student who is gifted may make the student likelier to grow bored with school and possibly even drop out, because their abilities are not being recognized. At LifeBound, we believe it is incredibly important to tailor teaching to individual students, their abilities and their needs. In our curriculum that accompanies each of our books, we have included activities for both gifted and at-risk students, so that no child’s needs are left unattended to. Visit www.lifebound.com or e-mail contact@lifebound.com for more information about our books and curriculum.

Article:
Identifying Gifted Students
By Walt Gardner

The latest chapter in the gifted student saga was on display at Hunter College High School in New York City when a graduating senior delivered a commencement address that called into question the basis for admission to the storied school (“Diversity Debate Convulses Elite High School,” Aug. 5). The school uses a single, teacher-written test that has not changed for decades. Although the test is defended by Hunter College, which oversees the high school, as “very valuable in terms of preserving the kind of specialness and uniqueness that the school has,” it has resulted in a decline in the percentage of black and Hispanic students enrolled.

To read the full article: www.edweek.org