Author: Vincent Perry

Parents, this article outlines a process that your student can go through to start catching up on overdue assignments in classes they’ve fallen behind in, as well as a worksheet they can use here.

When you’ve fallen behind in your homework, it can snowball. Pretty soon, you haven’t looked at your powerschool account in weeks. You know things are bad, but you don’t want to know how bad.

Throughout the day, you try not to think too much about your classes. When you do, the fragments of overdue assignments, tests approaching, and warnings from your teachers make you feel anxious. You push those thoughts out of your mind, and you get through your days with a mild sense of unease.

But whether the trigger is an email from a teacher, a progress report, or your own impending sense of doom, today is the day to get a handle on your classes and start catching up on those overdue assignments.

But how do you begin? The thought of digging yourself out of what feels like a bottomless chasm can feel overwhelming.

How not to begin

Unless there is an emergency, don’t start by just working on any old overdue assignment. The reason? Doing a single assignment, while it does make progress, is a way to procrastinate on the far more important task: getting a handle on the scope of the problem.  If you have to build a house, the first step is not to go out and buy a doorbell. You’ll get an assignment done, feel a mild sense of accomplishment, and be left with the same sense of dread that may prevent you from making further progress.

Before you can take effective action, you need to gather information, and you need to triage. 

Phase 1: Information gathering (Peering into the abyss)

The hardest step first. Not that it won’t take a lot longer to get all of your homework assignments done, but untangling that black, scary mess is the primary thing you’ve been avoiding for weeks. The good news is that once you’ve untangled it, it is almost always WAY less scary!

It’s time to be brave, and dive in.

Step 1: Mind dump

It’s tough to focus and work effectively if your mind is running non-stop, filled with cluttered with fragments of information you are trying to keep hold of. The way to quiet the mind is to do a mind dump. Spend 5 minutes writing, non-stop, anything and everything running through your mind. It’s OK if what you are writing gets repetitive. Pay particular attention to any thoughts around concerns about classes, homework assignments, projects, etc. This isn’t about remembering every single thing that you need to get done. It’s about telling your mind, “Hey, you don’t need to keep thinking this thought over and over again. I’ve got it written down…I won’t lose track of it!”

Once you have written for five minutes straight (don’t stop!), look over what you’ve written. Is there anything in what you’ve written that is something you need to get done or need to remember for one of your classes? If so, circle or highlight it. We’ll come back to it later.

You will feel a LOT better after this exercise. You’ll be able to let go of the repetitive thoughts running through your mind that distract you and prevent you from maintaining focus.

Step 2: Powerschool/google classroom

Next step is to create a list of the assignments that you are missing in each class. Create a google sheet: this is where you are going to create your master list of assignments to make up. HERE is an example of a google sheet you could use. Feel free to make a copy of it yourself for your personal use.

Log into your powerschool and, class by class, find out which assignments you haven’t turned in. If powerschool doesn’t provide enough information about the assignment (for example, it lists “Assignment 2.1) but doesn’t make clear what the assignment is, find that info on your google classroom/assignment sheet.

This master list should be the only place you need to look to get information about assignments. Include page numbers, problem numbers, links, etc. You should be able to look at this document and have all the information you need to get to work. This is key: when you sit down to work, it should be as easy as possible to get started.

For each assignment, estimate how long it will take to complete. Be generous to yourself and err on the side of longer.

Are there any assignments for which you need more information or materials? That is, if you wanted to begin working on it right now, would you have everything, and know everything, you need to get started? Add an asterisk next to any assignment for which you need more information or materials.

Are there assignments you believe you’ve turned in late, but do not have confirmation from the teacher (either on powerschool or by email from the teacher)? Email the teacher to confirm.

Step 3: Additional information/materials

OK, so you now have a list of all outstanding assignments. For each assignment with an asterisk, write down what information/materials you need to get started on the assignment.

For example:

• You need to know if an assignment will still be accepted late. Email your teacher now to ask.
• You have a book to read, but the book is in your locker. Create a reminder on your phone to go off when you get to school to remind you to put the book in your backpack.
• You have a project to complete, and you need poster board to complete it. Make a reminder on your phone for next time you leave the house to pick up poster board at the drug store.

As you get this information, add it to your google sheet and delete the asterisk.

“Ask teacher about it tomorrow” is not an action taken now. “Email my teacher now” and “Create a reminder for 10:40am, the minute I walk in the classroom, to ask the the teacher” are actions taken now.

Each item that requires more information/materials should have a specific action taken now, and that action (and today’s date) should be documented on the google sheet. 

Finally, look back at your mind dump. Is there anything in your mind dump that needs to be added to this sheet? If so, add it.

Phase 2: Triage (stop the bleeding)

Ok, so we now have our master list of outstanding assignments, with all the information we need in order to complete them. What’s next?

Our next step is to determine in what order the assignments need to be done. There are a variety of factors to consider when determining the order.

• Urgency: Are there any assignments coming up against a deadline for late assignments? If so, these assignments should be ranked near the top.
• Resistance: Are there any assignments that you are feeling particular resistance to starting? If so, those should be near the top.
• Order dependent: Are there some assignments that need to be done before other assignments? For example, assignments in a chemistry chapter that build on each other?
• Momentum/quick wins: Is there a class that you are just about caught up on? Near the top. Is there a series of short, related assignments that you can knock out quickly, one after the other? Do them in order to build momentum.

Order your assignments to complete, starting with 1 (first). Don’t agonize over this step. The key is to create an order so that every time it’s time to start an assignment, you don’t have analysis paralysis over what to do next.

If you used the google sheet I linked to above, you can click on a cell in Column A, click “Data” -> “Sort sheet by column A, A->Z” to sort your assignments in the order you intend to complete them. You can also sort by class or by how long the assignment will take by sorting by the appropriate column.

Phase 3: Schedule your time to catch up

Now that you have all of your assignments in one place, in order, and you know how much time it will take to complete everything, you need to schedule the time it is going to take you to finish everything. So get out your planner (and if you don’t have one, get one). Day by day, schedule the necessary blocks of time that it will take you to finish everything.

Scheduling the time doesn’t mean “three hours of catch-up on Saturday”. It means “Saturday 11am-2pm: Catch up on homework”

Make sure that you are allowing time to stay caught up with your current work.

Don’t overestimate what you are reasonably capable of. Obviously, you are going to need to push yourself, but it isn’t reasonable to plan to stay up until midnight every weekday, right? Make use of your weekends especially. If you haven’t been keeping up with your work so far: yes, it is going to take sacrificing some of your free time.

Once you have all the necessary time scheduled out to catch up completely, begin!

Phase 4: Getting the work done

You know what to do, and when to do it. Here are a few points to keep in mind as you get through your overdue assignments.

Focus on one assignment at a time:

This means much more than just complete one assignment before you start another one. It also means THINK about just one assignment. The reason you did all the above information gathering and planning work above is so that, when you sit down to work, you can focus all of your attention on JUST the task at hand. Not grapple with the totality of everything you are responsible for and try to figure out what to do next.

Better to complete an assignment than half-finish one

If your scheduled work time has 30 minutes left, and your next assignment is going to take you 45 minutes, see if you have a 20 minute assignment coming up in your queue. Better for your organization (and your spirits!) to get an assignment completed.

Turn in your assignments as you complete them.

For assignments that are turned in electronically, turn them in immediately upon completion.

For assignments that are turned in in person, turn them in the next day. Don’t let complete assignments linger on your computer, in your backpack, or on your desk. They’ll get lost or be forgotten, or at minimum will be just annoying thought you still have in the back of your mind until you actually turn it. Close the loop!

Label your assignments well

Make your teacher’s job easier by clearly and neatly labelling all physical paper homework assignments. For digital assignments, choose descriptive filenames like “Assignment 2-1”, not “Untitled Document” or “homework”.

Take pictures

This is a good habit to have regardless of whether you are turning in an assignment late or on time. Take pictures of every page, every side of every homework assignment you turn in. That way, down the road, if your teacher loses track of an assignment you handed it, you can show them the time-stamped picture of the completed assignment.

Email your teachers as you hand in your assignments.

Teachers have a LOT of assignments coming in, every day. It’s not surprising that, if you are turning in several late assignments, they might be mis-placed. When you hand in your assignments, you should email your teacher to request confirmation that they received the assignment. Be gracious and thankful in your email, and let them know you don’t expect it to be graded right away. You just want confirmation that it was received for your records (or to show your parents).

Be Brave

The first step to tackle any big undertaking is understanding how big it is. It can also be the scariest part, especially if you’ve been dutifully trying to avoid knowing. But the low-level anxiety you are feeling over a class you are falling behind on isn’t going to go away until you take action. If you go through the process outlined in this article, I guarantee that you are going to feel a lot less stress. Having a plan does that!

If you are looking for some support in helping your son/daughter get a handle on and get caught up in outstanding assignments, give us a call at 858.551.2650 or email help@wellsacademics.com

In a month, we are going to start getting calls from parents whose kids have fallen behind and are feeling overwhelmed

How can your son or daughter make sure that that doesn’t happen to them?

Unfortunately, planning is one of these things that students are expected to understand, but aren’t really taught in school. Considering that our students have to deal with 6 classes, sports and other extracurriculars, and personal and family responsibilities, it’s really a tragedy that we spend so much time and effort we spend teaching our kids how to graph hyperbolas, but so little on how to organize and order our affairs. So how can our kids use their planners effectively?

Level 0: How students use planners (to-do list)

Look at a student’s planner (one who uses it), and you’ll see the START of a plan.

That is, you will see homework assignments added to the calendar for today. You may see tests, quizzes, or projects added to their due dates as well. Students will have filled these out in class when the teacher gave the assignment.

But as we all know…knowing when something is due is a prerequisite for a plan, but is not itself a plan. How will we do it? When will we do it? What do we need (information, supplies) to have in order to do it? These are questions that we ask in level 1:

Level 1: Plan and schedule your to-do’s

So you have a homework assignment due tomorrow? Great! Let’s create a plan!

-At what time will you do it? How long do you anticipate it will take?
-Do you have everything you need to do it? If not, what do you need? How can/will you get it?
-Do you anticipate any challenges in getting it done? How will you overcome those challenges?

For a simple homework assignment, it might be very simple and look like the following

4-4:45 Math Assignment 2.1 (on website)

Setting the time that the task will be done creates an intention that will be more likely to be fulfilled. It also allows the student to understand how much time their responsibilities that afternoon will take up and what they can reasonably handle.

For a big, complex project, it might be more complex

10/1/21 3:30-4 Choose a prompt and collect links for research
10/4/21 9-10 Write thesis statement for essay, create outline, and write introduction
10/5/21 4-5:30 Write rough draft
10/7/21 2:30 Go to teacher’s office hours to review rough draft and get feedback
             5:30-6 Edit rough draft using teacher feedback
10/10 10am Hand in essay

Looking at this list, boy does it look complicated. But once we plug these individual items into our planner, each individual step feels simple to complete.

Look at what this plan does

1. It breaks a large project up into manageable chunks to be completed day by day. The student will always know if he is on schedule or falling behind. No surprises the day before that it is going to take longer than anticipated.
2. It allows the student to “download his brain”. Once he’s got his plan set, the student doesn’t need to think about the task anymore until the appointed time, clearing his mind to focus on the present.
3. The student has predicted difficulties (that he will want assistance from the teacher and their tutor) and has planned for those.
4. If something unexpected happens on one of these days, there is no need to panic. Successfully completing the essay will withstand a day or two disruption, since the work is spread out over a period of time.
5. It separates “planning time” from “doing time” which prevents overwhelm when a student sits down to “start working” on a big project.

Remember, knowing when something is due is NOT a plan. A plan is the step-by-step process and timeline by which the end is to be accomplished.

Level 2: Planning to achieve bigger picture goals (beyond to-do’s)

So is your daughter’s goal to get a 5 on the AP chemistry exam? What is it going to take to accomplish that? It is definitely going to take a lot more than reacting to day-to-day homework assignments.

It is going to take doing things like:

-Going to teacher’s office hours regularly (weekly perhaps) with questions

-doing additional practice (challenge problems in textbook/from an AP test prep book)

-meeting with a study group regularly

-studying frequently (or nearly daily)

These are not “to-do’s” that a teacher assigned. These are things the student needs to do to achieve a larger goal (in this class, a 5 in AP Chemistry)

Doing these things also requires a lot of planning. Each of these items individually has steps that need to be taken in order, time devoted and scheduled. Crucially, what isn’t planned regularly won’t be done regularly.

Let’s take the office hours. Seems pretty simple, just go, right? But the student needs to do a couple things

1. Decide on a day time that will work regularly, or plan a time each week to decide what day he’ll go to office hours after consulting your calendar for the week. If your child doesn’t do this, he won’t create consistency, and he’ll stop going.
2. Make sure that homework and reading is done ahead of time for the office hours, so that you have good questions to ask the teacher and can get help that you need. This means that homework time and reading time needs to be scheduled appropriately so that he is at least a bit ahead of the class (in reading at least). Otherwise, you won’t make good use of your teacher’s time.

Level 3: Plan to plan

I’ve written about this before, but in short: if planning time isn’t planned, planning won’t happen. The most important 15 minutes a day for a student is the 15 minutes they take each day to:

1. Look at their planner and see their schedule for the next couple days
2. Add any new tasks, with due dates, to their planner
3. Plan out the steps they need to take to accomplish their to-do’s/goals

A planner that isn’t looked at and written in daily doesn’t help. Which means the highest priority is making sure that daily time is created to read and write in the planner.

Writing is doing

A successful semester is a result of hundreds of individual steps. The more of these steps we write down and plan, the more of these steps will be done, well and timely, and more of our mental energy we’ll be able to divert to the task at hand, rather than endlessly chasing the shadows of poorly understood tasks and goals.

-Vince

Is your son or daughter struggling in school? It may be that they need help with organization and planning. Give us a call at 858.551.2650 or email help@wellsacademics.com to talk with us. We can help!

Language: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them that a community uses to communicate

Language fluency: the ability to comfortably use a language in a practical way to communicate and solve problems day to day

Language foundation: explicit knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar of a language

My experience in 18 years of SAT/ACT prep is that the skills you need to succeed on these tests are the skills that we need to succeed in school, college, and “real life”. Seeing my students succeed on the test, but also seeing them use what they are learning to succeed in their classes and in challenges they face outside of school, is what keeps me fired up about this work!

And of course, that’s a much more motivating message for students than “Spend a lot of time learning how to take a test, take it, and then never think about it or what you learned again.” The students who see the greatest level of improvement on the SAT/ACT (and anything really) are the ones that throw themselves into the work, and believe that the work they are doing is valuable rather than pointless.

So what are the two languages student need to master, and what are they currently missing?

English

Most high school English classes do not teach English mechanics in a systematic way. Students  may have had some instruction in elementary school, but middle and high school classes typically focus on reading stories, discussing them in class, and writing an essay every 4 weeks or so. The essays get handed back with grammar corrections, and the student is left to figure out on their own why the comma they used was unnecessary.

Students (and adults) get by with an intuitive understanding of English mechanics. We know when something “sounds” wrong, but we can’t explain why it is wrong.

Here is an example:

Give the calculator to he.

Is there something wrong with that sentence? What is it?

Almost everyone can answer, “It should be ‘him’ not ‘he’”

Great! But WHY should we use “him” rather than “he” here?

In my 18 years of SAT prep, I’ve yet to have a student able to answer that question clearly. Can yours?

How do our kids get 10+ years of education in the English language, and yet can’t explain seemingly basic grammar concepts?

We expect our students to read novels and textbooks, and write essays, but our students can’t answer very basic, fundamental questions about the building blocks of language: words and phrases!

This is like expecting a student to be able to write proofs without understanding what a theorem or postulate is.

It’s like a student saying “I know 2+2=4 because it sounds right, but I don’t really understand why” and expecting that student to be able to build a strong math foundation on that knowledge.

Most students have strong fluency in English but have weak foundations. They can use language day to day to understand and be understood in most simple situations, but they have a poor understanding of why and how different types of words, phrases, or punctuation are used and get into trouble when things get more complex.

The SAT/ACT tests students’ understanding of the underlying principles of English grammar, and having a strong implicit understanding is not enough. The SAT will ask questions that students won’t be able to “sound out”, meaning they will need to rely on their explicit understanding of English mechanics.

The bad news: for most students, English mechanics is going to feel like a brand new subject. I’ve yet to meet the high school student who knows even basics like the parts of speech, identifying subjects and predicates, or how to use commas.

The good news: our high schoolers are more than capable of mastering the basics (and that’s all that’s needed for a significantly improved score.) Our program is based heavily on “A Writer’s Reference” (largely pulling from chapter B, P and D), focussing on parts of speech, punctuation, and the most common errors that the SAT/ACT test.

No matter what career path your son or daughter chooses, their mastery of the tools of the English language (words, phrases, and clauses) is going to make them more effective communicators. This is work that every student should be doing, regardless of whether or not they are taking the SAT/ACT. SAT/ACT prep is a great excuse to do it.

Math

If a language is “the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community”, wouldn’t it be fair to consider math a language? After all, don’t we use math words and symbols to communicate ideas? Doesn’t an equation communicate information just like a sentence does?

Students prepping for the SAT/ACT typically have the opposite problem in math that they do in English.

With English, students typically have strong fluency, but weak understanding of the English mechanics. They can form simple sentences that are usually correct, but they can’t explain why a more complex sentence is incorrect or how to fix it.

With math, typically students have a stronger foundation. They have a stronger grasp on math principles, and can explain how those principles work (at least relative to their grasp on English mechanics). But when it comes to using these principles to actually solve novel problems in the real world (or on the SAT/ACT) they struggle.

Here is an analogy:

Look at how students study (and how they are tested) in a foreign language class.

• They memorize vocabulary.
• They repeat model sentences.
• They learn grammar rules.

They usually know a lot more about Spanish mechanics than English ones!

But ask a student who has taken 4+ years of Spanish to have a simple conversation with you. Most can’t. They’ve learned loads of facts about Spanish, but can’t actually use what they’ve learned to communicate effectively.
Same with math. Students learn algorithms, and memorize how to solve problems in their math classes. But give a student a real world challenge that can be solved using ratios, algebra, geometry, and they freeze. The same thing happens when they look at an SAT/ACT problem they don’t recognize. They aren’t fluent in mathematics.

The SAT/ACT is going to throw a wide variety of math problems at your son or daughter, many of which they have never seen. Success on the math portion of the test is going to come down to how comfortable and confident a student is at digging into a brand new problem.

The bad news: the way students learn and study math in school is not going to prepare them well for the SAT. They need to learn new skills and new mindsets to turn the math knowledge they’ve acquired over the year into a great math score

The good news: problem solving and creative thinking are skills that can be taught and practiced! And boy, does it feel good to actually use all these math skills you’ve learned over the years to do something novel and creative! Just like developing fluency in Spanish, it takes curiosity, diving in, and being OK with and learning from mistakes.

Your son or daughter may not be graphing hyperbolas on a day to day basis ten years from now. But they will need to learn how to use what they’ve learned (in school and out) to creatively solve new problems. SAT/ACT prep is a great opportunity to help them build those skills (and the spirit!)

Interested in learning more about arming your kids with the skills they need to succeed on the SAT/ACT and beyond? Call 858.551.2650 or email help@wellsacademics.com to schedule a free diagnostic exam and consultation.

“This class is too hard!”

As a parent, it’s heartbreaking to hear these words. We can understand our kids’ frustration with a challenging class. More importantly, we want our kids to succeed at anything they put their minds to, and to see our kids, feeling defeated, believe that something is beyond their abilities is crushing to us.

In these moments of self-doubt, your child is almost certainly underestimating their intelligence. And of course, we want to remind them how brilliant they are! But responding to your child, “Of course you can do it!” may not be enough to restore their confidence: more likely, they’ll just disagree with you (teenagers, right?) And, at any rate, contradicting your child doesn’t actually help them with the class they are finding troublesome.

But what if there were steps the student could take that just take effort? Steps that a student, no matter how much they were struggling with a class, know would almost certainly lead to a greater level of success?

Well, there are!

Try “Of course you can do it! Maybe you’d have more success if you…”

Try something new

Of course, this is a list of what those “something”s could be. But this list is not exhaustive. When students are struggling in a class, often part of the issue is lack of engagement. Lack of engagement leads to struggling, which leads to more lack of engagement, and the cycle of passivity continues.

The way to interrupt that cycle is to take action, even if we aren’t 100% sure that action will help. 

Maybe I can read that section again? Or practice another problem? Watch a video? Review my notes? Create a mind map? Explain what I think I understand to a parent? 

Doing something is always going to do more than doing nothing, and at minimum, it will get the student re-engaged in the material. One of the biggest reasons that students struggle in their classes is long periods of disengagement that result from frustration. At minimum, “doing something” will end the disengagement. And maybe, just maybe, the “something” the students does is exactly what is needed to be done to make progress. Doing “something” and engaging with the class daily WILL make a big difference. Ask your son or daughter “What can you do differently?”

Ask Questions (be curious)

“Why am I so bad at this?!” isn’t really a question. It’s more of a cry of frustration than a genuine inquiry. But if we can get more specific about exactly what the student finds challenging about the class, we can actually come up with strategies that address the specific challenges the student is having. 

For example, a student who asks “What about the tests is so challenging?” might come up with answers like “because I feel so rushed”, “because the test covers things I didn’t study”, or “because the problems are tricky and different from the homework”. Each of these answers suggests different approaches to improving on future tests. But if we don’t ask these questions, it’s tough to figure out the root causes of the struggle. When we DO ask those questions, however, sometimes the solutions are obvious (or, at least, solutions can be found.) The more specific the questions and answers, the better.

The same goes for individual concepts a student is struggling with. If the student is struggling with logarithms, try asking “What is a logarithm?” If a student can’t answer that, it’s no wonder they are struggling! Now, the student has a path to understanding (ask a teacher or a tutor what a logarithm is, look it up online, find the answer in a book, etc)

Write it down

I always say “writing is doing”. There is magic in writing…writing things down makes them more real. It allows you to process a lot of information 

“Write it down” can mean a wide variety of things, like:

-Mind Dump: Just write for 5 minutes straight, without stopping, about the class you are struggling with. Get down all those repetitive thoughts and half-formed ideas. Get it all out. Once you’ve done that, go through what you’ve written down and find the important information. The tasks you have to complete. The ideas you have to improve. Do this once a week, or anytime you are feeling overwhelmed.

-Taking notes: Notes are NOT just about reviewing later. They are also a way to make sure that you are staying engaged in class. It’s easy to passively listen to a teacher lecture and assume that you understand what is going on. Forcing yourself to paraphrase in notes give you the opportunity, in real time, to discover what you don’t understand (and ask questions in class!)

-Use a planner: So often we find that students who are struggling with their classes are struggling, in large part, because they are reacting to day-to-day emergencies, rather than taking a larger view of what they need to do to succeed on a week-to-week and month-to-month basis. Looking at what is coming up over the next few weeks in the class, getting important events added to a planner, and scheduling DAILY study time will make a big difference for a student’s sense of control in the class.

The most important first step in making progress in a difficult class (or any difficult problem) is establishing a sense of control. Often students will focus on external causes (this material is too difficult, my teacher is terrible, etc), and when we assign an external locus of control, it can feel helpless. Instead we need to help the students focus on internal loci of control so they can take action and make progress.

Is your son or daughter struggling with a class? Give us a call at 858.551.2650 or email us at help@wellsacademics.com. We’ll help your child get a sense of control back!

…if we change our attitude about standardized testing.

The messages that we constantly get from teachers, counselors, and even test prep companies, is that standardized testing is an annoying and pointless hoop we need to jump through. We’re told that people who are “good test takers” do well on the test, and that you aren’t being tested on anything relevant. Test prep is focussed on “strategies” and “tactics”. Get through the test, and when you’re done, breathe a sigh of relief and never think about it again.

With messages like these, is it any wonder that students dread the test and test prep? Is it any wonder that so many students go through the motions in their test prep? It’s hard to get energized to put your best effort into something that you believe is barely better than pointless.

I LOVE test prep. It is, by far, my favorite work we do. And I’ve got a much more uplifting and inspiring message about test prep:

Test prep is an opportunity to learn valuable skills and lessons that students need to succeed in college and in life. And many of these lessons, they aren’t learning in school. Here are two of them:

Quality matters. Careless mistakes matter.

In our kids’ math classes, teachers often don’t even look at homework assignments. Students quickly learn that as long as they’ve written something down on the page, they’ll get a stamp on the homework and get their points in the gradebook. If they get a problem wrong on the homework, no big deal, the correct answer is in the back of the book. And if they make an arithmetic mistake on the test, they’ll get partial credit for “understanding how to do the problem”. When students miss a question because of a “careless mistake” they don’t tend to take those as seriously, and they give themselves credit for still knowing “how to do the problem”.

In the real world outside of school (and the SAT), no one cares why you made a mistake. There is no partial credit. What they care about is that the job is done correctly. A brilliant student who understands how to do a math problem but makes an algebra error gets the same number of points on a problem as a student who had no clue how to do it. No points for being brilliant. The points go to the students who can execute, over and over again, for 4 hours.

Similarly, re-orienting students to focus their attention on the root causes of the execution mistakes they make is a crucial skill for them that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Instead of, “Oops, I accidentally added those numbers incorrectly. My bad.” students need to think about WHY that mistake happened, and what they need to do differently next time to avoid that mistake. It’s easy to just say “that was a dumb mistake” but there is always ACTION that can be taken to make sure that mistake doesn’t happen again, if we take the time and mentally energy to engage. And if we don’t identify that behavior change, no matter how trivial it seems, we are losing ALL the opportunity to improve.

Caring about quality means:

• Showing work, neatly and completely, on every problem.
• Not taking problems, even “easy” ones, for granted.
• Identifying most common sources of error.

For most students, a focus on execution errors is the simplest way to improve their scores.

“I don’t know” is a FANTASTIC answer

Students learn to be afraid of “I don’t know” in school.

To students, “I don’t know” is being embarrassed when a teacher calls on them, or a bad grade on a test. Students look at their entire job as “to know” and, to them, “I don’t know” is a failure. To them, “I don’t know” means “I need to go talk to someone who does know and have them tell me the thing I need to memorize.”

Here is the problem: No matter how much your son or daughter prepares for the SAT, they are going to see problems that they don’t know how to solve. Their success is going to depend on how comfortable they are in saying, “I don’t know” and diving in and exploring what they do know, asking questions, and trying ideas.

This is especially difficult for more advanced students, since they are used to looking at tests and know how to answer all the questions, because they practiced those problems. It is not at all unusual for a student in calculus to underperform on the math section of the SAT. It is because that student is not used to seeing problems on a test that they don’t know how to solve right off the bat.

“What do I do when I see a problem I don’t know how to solve?” is a crucial skill for students to master. And while teaching creative problem solving is crucial, what is even more important is changing the energy around “I don’t know” from frustration to curiosity. The world is 99.999%+ “I don’t know”s and showing students that they are capable of independent thinking, analysis, synthesis, unlocks their limitless potential. Students that are paralyzed by “I don’t know” will never become the successful problem solvers that they CAN become.

The most successful people in life are the people who bravely and confidently dive into and solve the world’s “I don’t know”s. Showing students that they can bravely and confidently dive into the “I don’t knows” in their SAT prep (and on test day!) is an important step toward producing those brave and confident adults.

Having the right framing when you take on a difficult task, like improving SAT scores, is crucial. Knowing that the work you are doing is going to have a large and lasting positive impact on you is motivating. Motivation is crucial to ensure that students have the energy to push themselves hard in their SAT prep. Improving SAT scores is not a matter of listening to an instructor speak to you two hours per week. It takes consistent sustained effort. Students that find that effort meaningful will exert themselves more consistently than those who believe that the SAT is little more than a bureaucratic hoop to jump through.

-Vince

Call us at 858.551.2560 or email help@wellsacademics.com to discuss how we can help your family get the most our of the test prep process!

As parents, it’s heartbreaking to see our kids put so much time and effort into studying, but still not see the kind of success in their classes that they should. Do you see your child reacting to day to day homework assignments, and scrambling to put the pieces together to study a day or two before the test (or worse, surprised that a test is coming up in a do or two)?

We want to teach our kids that they will be successful if they work hard. But, as adults, we know that working hard, while very important, isn’t everything. We also need to work effectively.

Do your kids know how to study effectively?

In my experience as an academic coach for over 18 years, most students don’t.

Sure, they may have picked up some tips and tricks here and there. But that isn’t the same as having an overall learning strategy that can be changed and adapted as the need arises.

Our education system spends a lot of time and effort telling our kids what to learn, and precious little on how to learn, which, in the long run, is the far more important skill.

Wouldn’t it be great if your child could take a chapter/unit view of their courses, starting the weekend before a new unit begins, and confidently map out a strategy of what to do, day by day, to create the success they want to have on the test?

This is why I am so excited to offer our Summer Study Skills workshop. Students who go through this workshop go into the next school year more confident and more able to deal effectively with challenging classes.

In this workshop, your child will learn:

• how to “activate” passive studying and get more engaged.
• how to use visualization to make memory a superpower.
• why studying starts before the unit begins, and how to prepare for lectures.
• how to (and why) take notes they can use.
• study cheat code: communicating with teachers outside of classtime:
• how to use homework to study

And much much more.

The big picture: students are not victims of difficult classes or tough teachers. With a growth mindset (and of course, the right tools) your child can perform at a high level in any of their classes next year (and into college too!) Arm your kids with these tools and sign up for this workshop today!

Course info:

Weekly, 1 hour, weekly workshop. 8 weeks (week of 6/28-week of 8/16)
Day and Time: TBD (will fit schedules of participants)
Where: Online
Cost: $440 ($400 if paid by 6/15)
Students per workshop: Maximum of 6

Call 858.551.2560 or email help@wellsacademics.com to reserve your child’s spot!

Why do some students spend so much time studying and still underperform on their exams?

There are many reasons, but one underlies almost all of those ideas: passivity. People (not just students!) tend to do the easiest things that feel like progress. For example:

• Language learners use Duolingo (easy/passive) rather than speaking to people in the language they want to learn (difficult/active).
• Programming learners watch a tutorial video (easy/passive) rather than create a website (difficult/active).
• Math learners by “looking over” homework problems (easy/passive) rather than working through new problems (difficult/active).
• History learners study by reading the text (easy/passive) rather than taking notes on the text or answering review questions (difficult/active).

But even for the students who get to “doing” in their studies, almost all of them are missing something important. When students are practicing for a test by working through problems or answering practice test questions, in correcting their work, they usually ask just one question:

What is the correct answer?

Particularly diligent students might ask a second question:

Why is this the correct answer?

On a math problem, they will try to look over their work to see how the correct answer can be arrived at. On a biology question, they’ll look back through the text to the information that they needed to answer the problem correctly. Once they are satisfied that they see how to arrive at the correct answer, they move on.

This is an important process. But it is not enough. If it was, every student who watched a teacher work through a problem on the board would be acing their tests. Observing how to get a missed problem correct is not enough to ensure that the student will be able to get a different problem correct on a test.

There are two questions every student should be able to answer when they are reviewing a homework problem or practice test question that they missed:

• Why did I miss this question?
• What do I need to do differently in order to not make this mistake again?

If the student can’t answer these questions, they are not learning from the error they made in their practice. And these aren’t always easy questions to answer! An academic coach can be a very efficient way to help students answer these questions, but one technique that students can use to make sure they are digging down to the root causes of the error is the “Five ‘Why’s” technique.

What is the “Five Why’s” technique?

When you have a problem you need to get the root cause of, ask a “why” question. Then ask a “why” question about that answer. Ask a total of five “why” questions. Why five? No special reason for five. Four might be enough, and on some problems you might benefit from more. But five is a number that usually ensures you are pushing yourself and squeezing every ounce of value out of the question. 

Let’s say a student missed the following problem:

Most students (and most tutors) will say something like this:

The answer is ‘D’ because when you want to find the original value of something before percentages were applied, you have to divide by the percentage taken. For example, if you want to know 25% of what number is 70, you would divide 70 by .25. And when we take multiple percentages, we have to multiply or divide them one at a time, not add them.

Reading this feels like you are making progress. Oh, I know how to solve that problem now! a student will say. It will make sense to them. But they will NOT necessarily be able to apply that idea next time. So let’s try a more active, effortful approach that forces the student to go through the reasoning process themselves.

Here is what the “5 Why’s’” process might look like

Q1: Why did I pick A?
A1: Because she only paid 80%, and then added 8%, so .88 seemed like the obvious answer as it was the sum of these. I also thought that since we were taking a percentage of something, I should multiply the percentage, not divide.

Q2: Why did I add the percentages?
A2: Because I saw two percentages so I figured I could add them together.

Q3: Why did that not work?
A3: You can’t add those percentages together, you have to multiply each percentage. And multiplying by the percentages rather than dividing would lead to a lower original price, which doesn’t make sense.

Q4: Why do I have to divide p by the percents rather than multiply them?
A4: Because I’m not finding 88% of p. I’m finding 88% of some other number, which means I am multiplying .88 by that other number, not by p. So it is definitely not .88p.

Q5: Why did I not catch this mistake?
A5: I was rushing. I didn’t test my answer. I was confident in the answer.

Now the student, having gone through this questioning process, can answer the key questions:

Why did I miss this question?
Because I didn’t look at all of the answer choices. Because I rushed and picked the “obvious” answer.

What do I need to do differently in order to not make this mistake again?
Look over the other answers in the multiple choice problem, and test my answer.

These takeaways are the entire point of a student’s practice. If the student doesn’t get these, then solving the problem was almost pointless. It was focussing on actions rather than outcomes.

The “Five Why’s” is a great technique because it trains students to look for questions. Questions are the key to unlocking what students know, and help light the way to possible paths to explore. It certainly take more effort than reading an explanation of the answer. But if the objective is a student who can independently work through a variety of different problems, the “Five Why’s” technique will help them discover what is getting in the way.

How you can help

When students are studying for an exam, ask them to explain to you what they are studying, and get curious and ask them “Why” questions that dig down to the foundation of the question/concept. Even if you don’t understand the material they are studying, you will still be able to hear when your son or daughter is unsure (and more importantly, your son or daughter will.) If you son/daughter works with a tutor, listen in and see if the tutor is just “telling” the student the process, or if the tutor is helping the student ask questions to explore their process and understanding.

With school starting, many students who had an uneventful (or at least relatively) summer are going to be going from waking up at 9am-or later-and not having a ton to do to having to keep track of dozens of pieces of information every day. School is going to put their executive function skills to the test! Authors Mike Williams and Mark Wallace call these pieces of information “open loops”. In their fantastic book “Getting Things Done for teens”, one of the concepts that they discuss at length is is the idea of “open loops”. Understanding what open loops are, how they help you, how they can be harmful, and how to handle them can be the difference between a student who feels in control and one who feels overwhelmed.

What are open loops?

Have you ever laid in bed, mind racing with all the things you’ve got to do tomorrow? If so, you know what an open loop is. Put simply, an open loop is a piece of unresolved information. Information that needs to be acted on, either now or at some point in the future. It’s something that you want to keep in mind so you don’t forget. Open loops are things like

• Get my geometry book out of my locker
• I have to take the SAT sometime this year
• Take the trash out to the curb tonight.

Certainly, having your mind periodically review information can be valuable. If you are driving to the grocery store, having the idea “I need to return this movie to Redbox” pop into your mind a couple times is incredibly useful. Otherwise you might get an exasperated sigh from a parent (or, in my case, my wife) when you get home!

It becomes less valuable when we’re trying to keep track of dozens of ideas. (which we cannot do while remaining sane). In practice, what usually happens is 

-Our minds keep going over the same information, over and over again, 

-It is usually about our most unpleasant, stress inducing tasks, and

-these repetitive, stressful thoughts take our focus away from what we need to be focussing on NOW.

The problem boils down to a simple idea: you only need a thought to enter your mind at the exact time you need the reminder. No earlier, and no later. Do you need to think about an upcoming test when you’re driving? When you’re taking a different test? Or trying to enjoy a movie? Absolutely not! Not only is it unnecessary, but it can be very distracting and prevent you from performing well or enjoying the other things you want and need to do!

On the other hand, we don’t want to banish the idea of a test coming up in three weeks from our minds entirely. We know there are steps we need to take between now and the test so that we perform as well as possible.

How can we keep track of the information that our open loops represent so that we can keep our commitments? At the same time, how can we banish those thoughts from our minds during times when they are not useful (or worse, are counter-productive)?

Do the task now

Don’t want to waste precious mental real estate on an open loop? The surest way to close the loop is to complete the task right now. This works great for:

-tasks that are going to take two minutes or less. Why spend time writing a reminder to yourself, or spend all day thinking about the task, when you can just do the task very quickly?

-tasks that you are dreading. These tasks are so distracting because you anticipate how much you are going to hate doing them. Do it first and you save yourself the pain of dreading it all day long.

Create a reminder

Sometimes you can’t complete the task right now. If you need to talk to a teacher during lunch tomorrow, you want to remember that tomorrow right before lunch, not now. Surest way to deal with this is to process the information so that it comes back to you when you need it. Here are some ways you can do that

-create a reminder on your phone to go off right when you need the information. In this case, right when lunch starts.

-if you write out your scheduled every day (you should! I write mine in my memo pad!) add it to your schedule (so long as you refer to it frequently).

-put a sticky note somewhere you are sure to see it at the start of lunch (your wallet? Your locker? Your planner?)

Get creative. If your mind believes that you will be reminded of what you need to remember, it will feel safe to let go of the information.

Plan the process and schedule each step

For bigger open loops that represent projects, part of what makes them stressful is the unknown. You have project for your history class, so your mind keeps reminding you, “You need get started on this vague, undefined thing!”

The key for getting a bigger project out of your mind is to schedule time to plan the project out. That way, even the undefined nature of the project isn’t stressful. You are telling your mind “Hey, don’t worry about it. Tomorrow, right when I get home from school, I’m going to plan the whole thing out.”

Once tomorrow right when you get home from school arrives, plan out and schedule each step of the process. Scheduling is important. Even if you have a defined process and first step, if you don’t know WHEN you are going to take the first step, your brain is going to keep bringing it back to you.

Make that first step VERY SIMPLE and clear. You need to know EXACTLY what you are going to do when you sit down to do it. That will allow your mind to let go.

Write it down

Some open loops are just repetitive thoughts or distractions. Perhaps you don’t need to act on them at all, and certainly not right now. Imagine you are working on an essay for your English class and the following thoughts occur to you.

1. I wonder what college major earns the most money?
2. I wonder if the song I’m listening to is a cover?
3. Oh I should probably go dump the trash!
4. I wonder if anyone liked my picture on Insta?
5. What should I get mom for her birthday?

I hope that you immediately realize that the purpose of these distracting thoughts is to take your attention away from what you are trying to focus on. You mind is going to keep trying to take you off task, and it’s going to try HARD. Looking at these items above, some of them ARE important, while other are really just transparent attempts by your mind to distract you. But the point is this: none of them are important enough to take you away from what you want to focus on NOW. And if you let any of them take you off task, I guarantee that your mind will find more distracting ideas just like them ::walking back from dumping the trash:: “Oh, I should probably take Jojo for a walk now!”

The way to deal with these open loops is to compromise with your brain by writing them down (do you keep a memo pad handy?) In the most patronizing tone possible, say, “OK brain, yes, we DO absolutely need to check Instagram. And as soon as we’re done with this paper that’s the very first thing we’ll do!” Write it down, give your brain a knowing look (“See? I listened to you and valued your VERY important idea!”) and then get back to work. Then, when what you want to focus on is complete, all those important ideas will be there ready for you.

In summary

Information that is bouncing around in your mind needs to be processed in some way. If you process the information in a way that your mind trusts, your mind will feel comfortable letting go of it, freeing up your mental energy to focus on what you want to focus it on.