#struggling students Archives - Page 8 of 8

Oct 18 2021

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…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.

May 04 2021

How to Help Our Children Enjoy Reading at Home

When our children are small, they are eager learners and love to hear us read stories at bedtime. Many will fight with us to read just one more story. When our children start elementary school, they will learn to read. Some will struggle with learning vowels sounds, memorizing sight words, summarizing what they just read, or applying new concepts to the story. When working with primary grade students, here are some tips on how to make learning fun when practicing reading with your children at home:

Continue to read with your children each night and take turns reading to each other.
Let your children select the book that you will read. Many children want to read beyond their reading ability or below their reading ability. Let them enjoy that opportunity after they practice reading their assigned book.
Make reading fun by incorporating an art project. Some children like to act out the stories and they cut out characters and act out the story while you both take turns reading.
Some children love to illustrate the story and write summary sentences about what they read under the story.
Other children prefer to rewrite the story and create their own unique ending.
Get a journal for your reader and let them create new chapters or stories about their favorite characters.
Children love to create songs and write poems based on a story.
Reinforce learning skills by having the children sound out the words and use relaxation skills when they become frustrated. Some children prefer memorizing words instead of sounding them out.

[Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert

Sep 29 2020

Engaging Our Children in Daily Assignment Assessments

As many students begin their school year in a remote classroom, teachers and parents can help their children understand their learning intentions and identify effective assessment strategies for demonstrating learning. Assessment definitions typically include these key ideas:

Measures the outcomes of teaching and learning
Gathers and uses information about students’ knowledge and skills
Relies on empirical data

A More Comprehensive Definition

An assessment also relies on gathering, analyzing, and using evidence and information from multiple sources about learning outcomes in ways that best support students, inform instruction, make educational decisions, and improve learning outcomes. It is most effective when it benefits both the giver and receiver. What if there was a way to document a “return on assessment?” This chart describes what happens when students are engaged IN the process of assessment as compared to the benefits when they are empowered AS assessors. [Read more…]

Laura Greenstein, Ed.D.

Laura Greenstein has been an educator for over 30 years serving as a teacher, department chair, and school leader in multiple grades and subjects. She combines this background with her experience as a school board member and professional development specialist to bring fresh and original ideas to educators about teaching, learning, and assessing. She consults with schools and districts and presents at workshops and conferences locally and nationally. As an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut and the University of New Haven, she teaches Human Development and Assessment to undergraduate and graduate students and more recently, Teaching, Learning, and Assessing with Technology in the 6^th year Digital Literacy program. She has a B.S. from the University of Connecticut, an M.S. from the State University of New York at Oneonta in education, a 6th year from Sacred Heart University in administration, and an Ed.D. from Johnson and Wales University in Educational Leadership. Her website, http://www.assessmentnetwork.net, is a valuable source of information on issues and topics in assessment. She is the author of multiple books on assessment including What Teachers Really Need to Know About Formative Assessment, Assessing 21st Century Skills: A Guide to Evaluating Mastery and Authentic Learning, Restorative Assessment: Strength-Based Practices to Support all Learners, and Sticky Assessment: Classroom Strategies to Amplify Student Learning.

Feb 04 2020

Yikes! My Child Is Struggling with School

Winter report cards were just distributed and your child is struggling with various core subjects. Many parents feel overwhelmed when their child is not happy with the daily school routine. The report card may reflect many of these ongoing challenges. To clarify frustrations, consider asking your children these questions:

What frustrates you about school?
How do you get along with your teacher?
What can I do to help you succeed in the classroom?
What can you do to improve your relationship with your teacher?
What can we do at home to build your learning and resiliency skills?
How can we partner with the school to ensure your success?

[Read more…]

Mary Ann Burke, Digital Education Expert