Fall in Love with College Prep

It’s the season of love! February is a time for eating delicious chocolates, receiving fluffy teddy bears, and recognizing the sacrifices and successes of African Americans during Black History Month. 

But, during moments filled with red, white, and pink hues, the spirit of the month of February can also be channeled into a love of college preparation among high school juniors and seniors. For students with aspirations to pursue post-secondary education, whether a community college, technical school, or university, I've outlined below a few steps to take during the month of love.

Parents of Juniors:

I. ACT/SAT Prep 

February is a good month to prepare to take the ACT or SAT, the top two college entrance exams. These tests provide colleges an overview of students' academic strengths and weaknesses. Taking the ACT or SAT during one’s junior year can give the student an idea of the areas in which they may need to improve. If your child’s school district offers the ACT or SAT on-site during the school year, I advise that they also register for an additional test during their junior year, so they can gauge their progress from the previous test or need for improvements. Students can check with their high school counselors for available testing fee waivers. 

The ACT and SAT offers tests several times during the year. Specifically for the ACT, if you were notable to meet the testing deadline for the February ACT, the next ACT offered during the 2018-2019 school year is Saturday, April 13, 2019, with a registration deadline of March 8, 2019. (If possible, take the writing section of the ACT at least once because some schools require this section for admissions.)

More information about the ACT concerning costs, additional test dates, and more can be found at actstudent.org. Information about the SAT can be found on College Board. Check within your community for ACT and SAT workshops which are often hosted at churches or tutoring centers. 

II. Transcripts 

Also, during the month of February of a student’s junior year, it is good to obtain a current Grade Point Average (GPA) from the high school counselor. Students or parents should be able to request an official transcript to reflect grades from freshman and sophomore years as well as the first semester of their junior year. 

Knowing your GPA gives an idea of the gap (if any) between current performance and college entrance or scholarship goals. Working to obtain a high GPA results in more options for college admissions, scholarships, and grants when students begin to apply for college during their senior year. 

III. Extra-Curriculars 

College admission officers often value students’ participation in extra-curricular activities.  Encourage juniors to get involved in clubs and organizations at the high school and in the community. Their involvement can provide opportunities for leadership and ways for them to showcase their talents. They may also become more eligible for scholarships in areas like leadership, sports, or music.

Parents of Seniors:

I. The List 

For seniors, February is a time to take the ACT or SAT, obtain a current transcript, and participate in extra-curricular activities. This is also a time to narrow a list of colleges for admissions and scholarships. Parents can work with students to create a list of about 6 colleges which includes schools that are in-state, out-of-state... a student’s dream school or the most economical schools for your budget. Always search for cheaper alternatives in case your student does not receive the amount of financial aid expected and to avoid taking out thousands of dollars in loans. Be determined to send your child to a school that is accredited and is the best option financially!

After creating the list, place schools in a chart that includes the following categories: Admissions Requirements, Scholarships, and Tours. Check off each category upon completion. For example, under the category of Admissions Requirements, ensure that all items are submitted as stated by the college or university. Some items may include an official copy of the ACT scores, an official transcript, and immunization forms. 

II. Scholarships 

For the category of Scholarships, be sure that the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) is completed for the upcoming school year, and that scholarship applications are complete. Some schools only require one application to be eligible for all scholarships, and other schools may award scholarships from admissions items. Common scholarship requirements include a letter of recommendation, a transcript, and an essay, which your student can learn how to write here. 

It is best to begin searching at the schools of interest before searching for external scholarships. Institutional scholarships include academic, leadership, sports, music, art, foundation, and alumni. These scholarships have a smaller competition pool than state or national scholarships. Often, institutional scholarships are valid for the duration of a students' college tenure. In other words, if a student is awarded this kind of scholarship, tuition, fees, room and board may be covered for up to 4 years. I give more information about the types of scholarships in my book. 

After applying for all eligible institutional scholarships, search for local, state, and national scholarships. These scholarships can be offered through banks and credit unions, sororities and fraternities, rotary clubs, and places of employment such as Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo. Also, organizations such as Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Ron Brown Scholars Program, and United Negro College Fund offer national scholarships. Many of these also require an essay. 

III. Tours 

Lastly, arrange college tours for high school seniors. Visiting the campus provides a different perspective as students walk the grounds, meet students, and engage with professors. Most schools provide guides for campus tours or have "high school student days" for prospective students.

For more information about navigating the college process, visit my website at www.edwritingservices.org. 

For more information on obtaining scholarships and composing scholarship essays, check out my book, Write Your Way to a Successful Scholarship Essay!

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A very special thanks to guest blogger, 

Candace Chambers, CEO of Educational Writing Services LLC. 

Candace is an academic coach, educator, and writer 

who's snagged over $100,000 in assistantships, grants, 

and scholarships by writing essays.

Couponing for a Cause: Improving math skill with real world experiences

Before we begin this post, I have to make a confession: prior to writing couponing blogs and becoming a stay-at-home mom (now a homeschooling mom as well), I was a math teacher. A middle school math teacher. Yes. I know... quite terrifying. And you know what? I loved it.

Teaching math is my passion. It's so much a part of me, that when I began taking advantage of couponing deals, all I could think about was how valuable the experience would've been for my middle school students during my teaching days. You see, couponing hacks are all rooted in math. 

If you want to learn more about how to coupon, check out my FREE ebook that offers couponing basics for beginners. This couponing guide teaches readers how to invest 20 minutes a week and save hundreds of dollars a year on groceries. 

Below are six reasons it's worth the effort for math teachers to join the couponing community.

Fractions
Ratios, proportions, and unit price may all be written as fractions. In order to solve these kinds of problems (during a test and in the real world), we need to have a basic understanding of the properties of fractions. This can be challenging for many students, because understanding fractions requires us to generate a mental model of fractions operations. If fractions is a pain point for the students in your life, make fractions operations  more tangible through couponing.

Adding and Subtracting Decimals
When working with money, two places after the decimal represent cents (a fraction of a dollar). If an item costs $1.99, and the coupon takes off $1, it doesn’t make sense that the item would now cost $1.98. Lining up the decimal places when you add and subtract makes a lot more sense when you do it with money!


Unit Conversions
Couponing requires understanding of unit price. When you are trying to find unit price, items price labels may show different measurements. For instance, one bottle of soda gives volume in ounces but another shows volume in liters. In this case, couponers (and students) need to tap into their math skills to convert between the two units. A different example of unit conversions involves tripling the serving size of a recipe. Instead of purchasing 21 Tbsp of a grocery item, it may be necessary to convert this amount into cups.

Percentages
A coupon or sale may provide for a certain percentage off the price of a certain item. Couponing teaching learners to calculate discounts in this way: students learn how to determine the resulting price after taking 25% off a certain amount. Why use percentages worksheets, when couponing gives real world experiences? Would you learn more from percentages word problems or saving cold hard cash in real life? Calculating discounts and sales tax are opportunities to solve multi-step mixed operations with whole numbers and decimal numbers.

Ratios, Proportions, and Unit Price
As couponers, we're always after the best deal. If six rolls of toilet paper cost $3, and eight rolls of toilet paper cost $3.50, which is the better deal? You have to brake it down into how much one roll costs with each deal. This involves using proportions to find the rate in price per roll, which is the unit price.


Greater than, less than, or equal to
An app called Flipp scans grocery stores near you. Searching the app shows the cost of grapes at different stores, for example. This feature of the app provides an opportunity to defend decisions about which store has the best deal. This approach is especially useful for comparing decimals.

There are many ways that coupons can help children master math standards; these are six important approaches to improving math skill with real world experiences. If you have other ideas, or you just want to share how you were able to use these tips, I would love to hear about them. 

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Tiffany Thomas is a former math teacher and SAHM who loves finding good deals! She and her husband launched The Crazy Shopping Cart. They enjoy spending time with family, geeking out over sci-fi, and saving money.

Education Stakeholders as Lifelong Learners

This is likely not the first blog post you've read about educators as lifelong learners. The reason: there's value in viewing learning as a journey as oppose to a means to an end.

We're conditioned in some ways to study material for tests and research topics for papers. The end-goal in both instances involves achieving a passing score. Then, many move on to the next imposed challenge. The cycle lives on in those of us who go through the motions. We follow steps and engage in processes prescribed by outside entities without reflecting on meaning and value.

There are moments when educators fail to question understanding, to apply knowledge and skills in novel ways. Upon reflection, it's helpful when educators adopt the model of lifelong learning. Though we don't yet have the capacity to ameliorate our younger selves, it is possible that educators, parents, and students advance as lifelong learners.

What does this mean? The traits of a lifelong learner are numerous; providing a full list of these would take up more space and time than we have. Since education stakeholders tend to focus on identification of appropriate instructional approaches and learning strategies, let's truncate the definition of "lifelong learner". Here's my version...

A lifelong learner is one who pursues problem-based research and 

performs experimentation to assess the fitness of possible solutions 

on an ongoing basis. 

How does it look? In short, we develop processes to learn on our own. We intrinsically seek and solve problems. Four phases are encountered during this journey. Lifelong learners (in any field) tend to...

1. pursue problem-based research
2. identify possible solutions
3. examine solutions via experimentation
4. repeat this process to address a new (or old) problem

Why is it valuable? Many education stakeholders benefit when one person adopts this model of learning. Stakeholder behaviors evince curiosity. For instance, parents model curiosity when they inquire about strategies to address academic challenges and behavior setbacks during parent-teacher conferences. Also, as educators, we manifest curiosity by offering alternatives to struggling families and peers.

Our efforts are not in vain, because lasting growth ensues. Five minutes dedicated to responding to a parent or co-worker activates dormant knowledge and skills. Weeks dedicated to researching strategies for a learning disabled student lead to permanent personal and professional growth, plus undiagnosed and borderline students benefit from the new instructional outlook.

Improving confidence, easing family tensions, facilitating learning, increasing performance, and bridging the transition to more challenging environments are borne out of the intrinsic motivation to view one problem through different lenses. 

As lifelong learners, stakeholders understand that no education is ever complete. We value professional development opportunities and look beyond these to seek solutions to immediate threats to the development of more independent learners. This is the mission of my firm, Jackson Education Support.

Custom products and personalized services offered for educators, parents, and students. Specialty subjects are literacy, math, and science. Schedule a consult to discuss challenges and goals here.

Educational Support: Shaping My Future

I am young enough to recall specific pivotal moments in life that influenced personal choices along my professional path. Yet, I am old enough to reflect on how those moments served as a springboard during my journey. 

Formal education was rocky for me in the beginning. School was not easy. I, like many children who have trouble learning, deflected by misbehaving.  I remember being labeled by teachers and other adults; my self-esteem shrank.  I vividly remember the pain these labels caused.

Fortunately, a fourth grade teacher saw past the superficial and encouraged me.  At first, I applied myself simply because I wanted to please her.  Oh, how I yearned for more positive reinforcement. I became attentive in school and soon found I no longer had a desire to misbehave.   My grades improved, and I passed to the next grade instead of being held back as others had predicted. Eventually, I embraced my mother's love of reading. I viewed books as an escape from reality. I read everything - whether age-appropriate or not - to my mother's chagrin. My mother encouraged reading by purchasing books and newsletters within her limited budget. When I was of age, I registered for a library card at local library. The more I read, the more curious I became about the world and what it had to offer.  I would - and continue to - get lost in books.  

I also received encouragement from my grandmother to do well in school.  Due to her limited 2nd grade education, she could not offer assistance with homework, but she offered support. My grandmother purchased school supplies and attended every school award ceremony. This was no small feat because my grandmother had serious health issues; it took Herculean effort for her to be present.  Later in life, I understood the value of my grandmother's support and encouragement, the value of seeing her in the audience as I accepted an academic award.  Believe me when I say this: I scanned the audience until I found her beautiful face!  Even then, I knew that disappointing her was not an option. She made sure that I had an opportunity to have what she was denied. I was motivated to strive toward her expectations.

Yet another teacher took an interest in me and went beyond the call of duty by exposing me to museums, art galleries and higher education. She would often spend Saturdays with me at Cambridge Commons and Harvard Square "teaching" in a way that many classrooms preclude.  Because of her, I experienced the classroom of life outside of my neighborhood school. This stoked the flames that had arisen from reading.  

Due to the encouragement, exposure to unfamiliar experiences, and educational support received, I developed the self-confidence needed to overcome (what I believe was) an undiagnosed learning disability. Educational support was vital to propping me up so that I could achieve successes and persevere in the face of failures. We know that failures are part of life, but students have to experience success. A record of success is the foundation which fosters the wherewithal to power through obstacles, to once again relish the sweet taste of success. 

Without educational support, my life could have been very different. For these reasons, I am so thankful for a structured educational services provider like Jackson Education Support. This firm provides the  encouragement, exposure, and academic support needed to build self-esteem and promote success among students and citizens. 

Don't let your child's natural-born flame to learn be extinguished. Contact Jackson Education Support to foster your child's life-long love of learning.

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A very special thanks goes to
guest blogger, Mrs. Pamala Feehan.
Pamala is a wife, mother, grandmother, and entrepreneur.
She has experiences as an instructor and director in academia.

5 Back-to-School Reminders

The Fall semester begins as early as August 8th for students in my area, so this post highlights strategies to get a jump start on the new school year.

Elementary and secondary level stakeholders, primarily educators and parents, will want to bookmark this back-to-school checklist. From school supplies and attire to reminders about back-to-school nights, this checklist promotes proper preparation to prevent poor performance in the coming school year. Some strategies on the list are reminders; others you may be reading for the first time.

School Supply Lists
As outlined by the GreatSchools Staff, there are certain staples students need across grade levels. These include notebooks, paper, pencils, and pens. I've gathered a couple of resources that offer grade-appropriate school supply lists below. We want to have these on hand for learners, so they're equipped to meet the challenges to come.

• School-Supply-List.com offers a printer-friendly list by grade level (K-12) or visitors can email the list to themselves and friends.
• Office Depot & Office Max sell supplies online and in stores. Supplies are categorized by grade level through college; plus, there's a section for classrooms.

Budget cuts are a hot topic in education. This causes schools to shift responsibilities to families. Often, parents and teachers dole out funds for basic school supplies needed to succeed. The cost of school supplies adds up quickly for families already strapped for cash. This year, consider buying supplies for a family that's less fortunate. Implement a drive in your community. If you'd like to join the effort, Jackson Education Support is collecting school supplies to donate during Fall semester.

Uniforms & School Attire
Having access to appropriate materials and resources solves part of the problem. It's not enough for students to be equipped to play the part, they need to look the part as well. For younger students, this is less of an issue. Conversations with students about proper school attire may have lifelong effects. Discuss: What is proper school attire? How does school attire differ from street clothes or casual dress? Expose students to the notions that uniforms are intended to foster focused learning environments and that, in the absence of uniforms, wearing proper school attire has similar effect. In worst case scenarios, students learn to disagree without being disagreeable as they understand reasons behind the rules.

Back-to-School Night
When is it? Where is it? Who's my child's teacher? Who is my professor? These are a few questions to ask early on. When the big day arrives, make every effort to attend. Work schedules make this next to impossible for some. If you find yourself in this category, think outside the box. Think beyond parental engagement. Think family engagement! Often times, information shared early on is integral to student success. Share this information-gathering responsibility with family members and friends.

Prepare for student success with discussions centered on these questions...

1. What are your goals for the course?
2. What resources (e.g., books, websites, apps) will you use during the course?
3. How often will you require homework?
4. May I have a copy of the syllabus or pacing guide?

Build rapport with conversations centered on these questions...

1. What is the best way to monitor progress toward learning goals?
2. How can I support your classroom management system?
3. When is the best time to contact you with questions or concerns?
4. How can I encourage learning at home?

Academic Pacing Guides
Pacing Guides are tools used by K-12 educators to prepare students for state assessments. They're similar to syllabi handed out the first week of higher education courses. Classroom learning activities are chosen based on pacing guides. Lessons are designed based on pacing guides. Educators are also assessed based on how closely classroom instruction at any point in time aligns with grade-level pacing guides.

Mississippi pacing guides are available by an assessment company known as TE21, Inc. (Individual districts make these available as well.) TE21, Inc produces CASE Benchmark Assessments. Benchmark assessments gauge student performance during the school year; assessment results provide timely feedback to teachers and are used to inform classroom instruction. Though pacing guides may differ from district to district, consider printing the Mississippi Pacing Guides offered by TE21, Inc.

The goal of this reminder is that parents print pacing guides early on to prepare students for learning challenges. A student who struggled with fractions last year will like struggle with fractions in the Fall semester. With pacing guide in hand, we morph into a super heroes. As students transition from one language arts concept to the next, stakeholders predict the future by simply following the pacing guide.


Online Performance Records
We live in a data-rich society. Technology allows us to make data-driven decisions more quickly now than ever before, and educators are leveraging this fringe benefit of the 21st century. Districts aggregate student data in online portals. Parents access to student data in real-time by logging into these portals. Teachers share virtual (online) grade books that reveal attendance, missed or late assignments, and exam and homework grades. Applications like PowerSchool afford an opportunity to help students correct behavior and address misconceptions about content in a timely manner.

After viewing my top five back-to-school reminders, I hope you feel more prepared to help students bridge the transition from summer to school mode. Jackson Education Support offers a number of options to aid this transition that include exam proctoring, parent and student events, private tutoring, and writing assistance. Specialty subjects include literacy, math, and science. Visit je411.com to learn more.