Blog - GenParenting

Dec 21 2021

Learn to Parent Adults in College

My husband and I headed back to Berkeley a year ago after EJ completed his last set of finals. We were picking him up for the last time to complete his final school semester at home. Was college already coming to an end for him? We collectively decided to complete EJ’s final semester at home in Los Angeles. The move back home made the best financial sense.

When your child leaves as a senior in high school and returns as a senior in college, expectations and parenting shifts tremendously. My husband and I had to learn how to step back and reset boundaries for ourselves and our young man. Nothing could prepare us for how much he had grown, developed, and changed in three years. It is tough to be clear about expectations without smothering my adult child. Having him home for the holidays was fantastic, but we had to make some agreements and set new rules for how we would coexist in this new young adult season. [Read more…]

make a pdf

Dec 14 2021

Student Learning Goals

This post is seventh of a series based on excepts from my book on Student-Engaged Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke (2020). You can purchase the book from Roman and Littlefield for charts, examples, and worksheets on how to engage students to become owners of their learning successes.

Sample Student’s Learning Goals and Assessment Plan

Students can personalize their learning goals to make them more relevant, achievable, and interesting. The chart below illustrates how Davi, a second-grade student, personalized his learning goals and plan in each of his subject areas. These goals combine his understanding of what he needs to learn at his grade level as well as his specific interests. As appropriate, this may start with peer feedback. Then Davi meets with his teacher to discuss his progress and in due course, with his parents at student-parent conferences. He continues to modify and revise his goals for each cycle after receiving feedback. [Read more…]

make a pdf

Dec 07 2021

What Does an Engaged Classroom Look Like?

This post is sixth of a series based on excepts from my book on Student-Engaged Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke (2020). You can purchase the book from Roman and Littlefield for charts, examples, and worksheets on how to engage students to become owners of their learning successes.

How to Create Learning Goals from Academic Standards

In the classroom, clear and actionable goals are a good start to supporting student learning. Students can then deconstruct standards and big picture goals into their own individual learning aims and intentions. The level of challenge must be feasible for the students. If the goals are too easy, students will get bored and complete their assignment quickly. If the goals are too hard, students become discouraged leading to low-quality outcomes, or none at all. [Read more…]

make a pdf

Nov 30 2021

How Parents Can Support Student Learning

This blog is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s November 2, 2021 post “What teachers and parents can do to increase student learning” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

Most second-generation Asian Americans were prodded by parents to achieve the “American Dream” by becoming a doctor, engineer, or lawyer, my parents gave me the freedom of choice. My Asian American idea of achieving the “American Dream” was not so much defined by a career, but that a successful life was one in which I had every opportunity to fulfill my destiny. When I was young, my parents encouraged me to pursue my passions, to develop my talents, and to follow the sense of calling in my life. During this season of Thanksgiving, I am eternally grateful for the gift of freedom my parents have bestowed on me. [Read more…]

make a pdf

Nov 23 2021

Engaged Student Assessments

This post is fifth of a series based on excepts from my book on Student-Engaged Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners by Laura Greenstein and Mary Ann Burke (2020). You can purchase the book from Roman and Littlefield for charts, examples, and worksheets on how to engage students to become owners of their learning successes.

What Do Engaged Students Look Like?

Teachers have observed that engaged learners:

Find motivation and personal meaning in learning and assessing.
Rely on verified practices and routines for practical and participatory assessment.
Display indicators of engagement including interest, purpose, and resolve.

Engagement is at the heart of motivation. This applies to preschoolers playing tee ball as well as to adults in the workplace and teachers in the classroom. When 3^rd grader Torrance says he is not interested in playing ball but wants to ride a horse, his father says they can’t afford riding so he has to play ball. As a result, he’s disengaged and wanders around the outfield without purpose.

After reading about “boring” poets and traditional poetry forms in English class, Keenan hastily decides he loathes poetry, so he writes an original rap to describe DNA. When his teacher returns his “poem,” the note says that it doesn’t align with the school’s writing standards for supporting claims with evidence. Here’s a small segment of Keenan’s poem in which he explains deoxyribonucleic acid, it’s structure, and purpose.

Listen to a story that I’m going to tell.

How DNA is found inside all your cells.

In your hair, blood, skin, and lungs as well;

Even got some DNA to help me smell.

My DNA is not for your replication.

Use your own nucleic a’ for your mutation.

Keenan’s wants no part of your creation.

I need my DNA for life’s duration.

[Read more…]

make a pdf