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What Teachers Can Do to Increase Student Learning

What Teachers Can Do To Increase Student Learning

This post is second 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.

Student Ownership of Their Learning

Student ownership of their learning abilities encourages deeper learning. This means exploring learning through multiple lenses to uncover the complex intricacies of learning. For younger children, it is not attending a field trip to a bee farm, but thinking about what would happen if there were no longer bees in the world. Or perhaps, learning about dinosaurs and then creating a dinosaur that could live in today’s environment. Deeper learning helps students recognize that straightforward information often has weightier and broader meanings: And that it can be fun and creative to delve into these ideas. [Read more…]

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How Parents Can Support Student Success

How Parents Can Support Student Success

This post is a parallel commentary from the parent perspective on Mary Ann Burke’s October 19, 2021 post “How You Can Support Student Success” from her series Student Engagement Assessment: Strategies to Empower All Learners.

Students Must Feel Safe and Secure

One of the basic foundational steps parents could take to foster success is to make sure your child has a designated spot for their studies. When children return home from school, this specific spot signifies a consistent, regular rhythm in their school day. They know that their learning and studies continue in this spot because it is reserved especially for them. When all their learning supplies are in one, accessible location, this spot becomes a reliable source for students to meet the challenge of learning something new, applying knowledge, and accomplishing their dreams. Students feel safe knowing that they can complete assignments and projects in this one spot. [Read more…]

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How You Can Support Student Success

How You Can Support Student Success


This post is first 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.

Students Must Feel Safe and Secure

If children are to be successful, they must first feel safe and supported. Maslow taught us this in 1943 through his hierarchy of needs. Yet, for some learners, life is not safe. They may live in crime-ridden neighborhoods where it’s not safe to walk home from school. Others are chronically hungry. A student named Jake qualified for free/reduced lunches, but his mother was too proud to accept help. Jake would routinely show up at the learning lab, hoping there were some leftovers from the day’s snack. The teacher always put a little aside for him, and he was always appreciative in his own shy way.

By his junior year, he had taken and did well on ASVAB (the military aptitude test) and enrolled in the Delayed Entry Program. Two years after his high school graduation, he returned to his school to tell his story and thank his teachers, counselors, and especially the principal who mentored him through the process. He was proud of his promotion to Specialist and had already earned a service ribbon. Privately, he told me that he was glad to finally be able to pay his mother back for all the sacrifices she made for him. For Jake, building foundations of food, medical care, and stability in his life were essential foundations for success. [Read more…]

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Nurturing Our Kids’ Health and Spiritual Growth

Nurturing Our Kids’ Health and Spiritual Growth

It is important to guide children in their healthy growth by helping them select a balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and protein foods each day. Parents can model healthy meal preparations that can have a significant impact on children’s health, academic performance, and sense of well-being throughout life. Parents must take the time to ensure that their children have time for outside daily play for healthy growth and development. Children can play at parks and participate in afterschool sports, recreational activities, and performing arts activities. [Read more…]

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Guiding Our Kids’ Decision Making Independence

Guiding Our Kids’ Decision Making Independence

As children gain the social and emotional skills to manage their daily responsibilities, they slowly learn how to become more independent in their decision-making skills at home and at school. Initially, they learn how to play responsibly in their home and in their backyard. They will eventually learn how to play in their front yard. Depending on traffic and the location of their neighborhood, primary grade students must learn how to cross busy streets to visit friends and travel to school. Independent decision making skills with predetermined consequences expand as children enter middle school and start socializing with their friends at public places while taking public transportation.

The path to becoming independent is slow and continuous. During children’s early years in school, parents can help their children identify how they can complete their daily responsibilities. Some parents and teachers create an expanded list of activities that must be completed daily. This “star chart” can help each child identify specific responsibilities that must be completed daily. The list can include how each child will manage their personal care, household chores, and school homework and preparations. [Read more…]

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