By myKlovr

When it comes to their college-bound high school students, the primary focus for parents and teachers is academics. A rigorous curriculum, good grades, and high SAT scores are crucial for college admissions success. Yet lost in this quest for top marks is attention paid to the non-academic challenges faced by teenagers transitioning between high school and college.

In this article, we’ll explore some of the most common non-academic challenges that teenagers experience during the transition to college. Then we’ll dive into what parents and teachers can do to help during this complicated and often frustrating time.

The Challenges

Every student’s non-academic challenges are unique, yet there are a few common threads that tie together the vast majority of college-bound high school students:

• Living away from loved ones and old friends
• Different expectations from teachers/professors
• No oversight/support from a parental figure
• Exposure to new beliefs and ideas
• Taking personal responsibility for one’s actions

For some students, these challenges result in negative consequences. For example, a student who grows up in an authoritarian home may abuse the freedom college life provides. He or she may take up negative habits and neglect schoolwork, a combination that often leads to dropping out.

The goal of supporting students throughout the transition is to make sure that they meet challenges like these in a constructive and successful way.

What Parents Can Do

Parents, even those who did not attend college, can help prepare their children for this important transition. In this section, we’ll explore what parents can do throughout their child’s time in high school.

Freshman Year

The experience of transitioning from middle school to high school mirrors the transition between high school and college. The new school is much bigger. Classes are more challenging. Finally, there are many new faces. Take advantage of this opportunity to teach your child many important life skills.

• Help your child with curriculum mapping. When choosing freshman-year courses, be your child’s advisor, but not their boss. For example, discuss their grades from 8^th grade as you both study the list of possible freshman year courses.
• Promote your child’s extracurricular interests. High school is a time of experimentation. Your child may like one activity freshman year but loathe it the next. Make sure he or she knows evolving preferences are fine.
• Encourage your child to expand his or her circle of friends. The beginning of high school, like the beginning of college, is a time when your child will meet new people. Give him or her a gentle nudge to start new friendships.

Sophomore Year

Sophomore year is the perfect time to begin promoting autonomy and personal accountability in your child:

• Promote leadership roles. During the school year, your child may want to try a leadership role within an extracurricular activity. While leadership roles always look good on college application, they also teach students much about responsibility to something greater than themselves.
• Encourage your child to have a summer job between sophomore and junior year. Not only will he or she learn many valuable life skills, but the job can also act as a source of money to help pay for college.

Junior Year

For many high school students and their families, junior year is the beginning of the college search. With many college fairs, tours, and letters of interest, it is easy for your child to feel overwhelmed.

• Discuss finances with your child. Many families struggle with how to pay for college. The worst thing you can do is not be honest about what your family contribute to your child’s college education. Have this discussion early on so that your child can start researching scholarship, grant, and/or loan opportunities.
• Use breaks from school for college tours. College tours can act as a good bonding experience between parents and their college-bound children. In addition, you will have the opportunity to ask questions that your child may not have considered.
• Have your child go on an overnight college tour. Staying in a dorm and shadowing a college student can open your child’s eyes to whether a particular college is a good fit.
• Keep at that summer job. Another summer job between junior and senior year will further hone your child’s life skills and add to the college fund.

Senior Year

Senior year is a hectic time for students and their families. Even if your child gets into his or her top choice college, there is still much to do.

• Invest in organization tools. Whether an app for your child’s smartphone or a paper calendar, assist your child in keeping track of the many important deadlines in the fall semester.
• Anticipate rejection. Though some students get into their top-choice college, just as many do not. As a result, a rejection letter can cause genuine heartbreak. If this should happen to your child, be there for emotional support.
• After high school graduation, help your child create a ‘college readiness’ checklist. This list includes trips to pick up essential supplies and completing last minute necessities such as vaccines. Though there is much to do, organizing everything should help your child feel less stress as college move-in day approaches.

What Teachers Can Do

It is the first responsibility of every high school teacher to help students succeed academically. Despite these good intentions, many teachers forget that their students require help transitioning between high school and college. Below are some simple strategies that all high school teachers can employ.

Teachers of Underclassmen

• Use teaching strategies that promote autonomy and personal responsibility. From checklists to personal reflections, there are many ways teachers can instill these two skills that every student (on the college path or not) will need later in life. For example, flipped classrooms closely mirror the format of many college courses. Take the first quarter to introduce the concept so that your students can adapt. Applying it for the rest of the year, the majority your students will gain the skills necessary to become autonomous learners throughout high school and college.

Teachers of Upperclassmen

• Teach students how to share their ideas in an open setting. Through Socratic seminars, you can encourage reserved or shy students to share their ideas, something their college professors will ask them to do in seminar courses.
• Have your grading system reflect what students will experience in college. In college, a student’s grade in a course comes down to a handful of high-stakes tests and/or papers. Employ a similar strategy in your classroom, giving your summative assessments the greatest (e.g. 85-90%) weight of all graded items. Students will still have some wiggle room when it comes to their grades, but you will be giving them a preview to what their college professors will expect. Note: Be sure to gain approval from your principal before changing your grading system.

Final Thoughts

For parents and teachers, the prospect of transitioning to college might seem somewhat difficult. But for teenagers, with their limited life experience, transitioning to college might seem like climbing Mt. Everest. That’s why it is important for parents and teachers to become college transition sherpas. Show your child or student the way, and he or she will surely succeed.

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By myKlovr

We are all born differently; different ways of thinking, different ways of observing, and different ways in which we learn about the world around us.

According to several studies, there are actually eight different ways in which people typically learn. There are linguistic learners who excel through reading, writing, listening or speaking; rhythmic learners who excel through music, melody or rhythm; kinesthetic learners who excel by actually doing what they are being taught; spatial learners who excel through visual aids; mathematical learners who excel by classifying, organizing and using numbers; interpersonal learners who excel by working with other people; and intrapersonal learners who excel when they work alone.

Beyond these differences in learning, our students face a number of other differences in and out of the classroom. Different family circumstances, different extracurriculars, different strategies for coping with stress and life in general. I think you get the point that the list of differences is endless.

So why is it then that when it comes to teaching, we standardize our education?

We sit students down in a classroom, organize them in neat rows ordered with the same desks, chairs and materials, and lecture them with the same type of information regardless of how they excel.

In some ways, the reason for standardization in education is pretty obvious actually. For one, the average student to teacher ratio in the United States is 16 to 1. In other words, for every teacher in a classroom there are 16 different individuals trying to learn. It’s not possible for every teacher to tailor their lessons specifically to every type of student they have; that just wouldn’t make any sense.

Another reason? The education system in the United States has been virtually the same since 1893 when the National Education Association appointed The Committee of Ten to standardize public education in order to prepare students for college. The curriculum hasn’t been changed much since then.

So what’s the solution here? Hire more teachers? Reduce classroom size? Write individual lesson plans for each and every type of student?

No, no, and definitely no.

We believe the answer lies in personalized learning through technology. We are entering a new day in age where the feats of the tech world are incredible – Big data has become a very hot topic within tech, and more companies across the world are beginning to use it to get insight on a number of different key sectors ranging from financial trade to meteorology to public health. But what about education?

Believe it or not, I am not the first person to come up with the idea of using big data to improve our education system. In fact, it’s already been done – Many times.

In an article published by the Washington Post, Pasi Sahlberg, one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and educational practices, states, “One thing that distinguishes schools in the United States from schools around the world is how data walls, which typically reflect standardized test results, decorate hallways and teacher lounges.  Green, yellow, and red colors indicate levels of performance of students and classrooms. For serious reformers, this is the type of transparency that reveals more data about schools and is seen as part of the solution to how to conduct effective school improvement.”

The United States has become obsessed with the wrong type of big data in education. Rather than focusing on data that tells us more about our students, we’ve been focusing on data that only tells us about our students’ performance on standardized testing. Sahlberg continues, “These data sets, however, often don’t spark insight about teaching and learning in classrooms; they are based on analytics and statistics, not on emotions and relationships that drive learning in schools.”

The result of focusing on test scores alone? “..there is now more data available than can reasonably be consumed and yet there has been no significant improvement in outcomes.”

The problem isn’t using big data to solve our education woes; the problem is using the wrong type of big data. Instead of focusing on just standardized test scores, we need to use big data to really learn about our students and teachers – Everything from their emotional intelligence to their goals to what they’re currently doing to try and get better results.

Once we can amass this type of data, we can use technology to better tailor learning on an individual level. We can analyze how different students best excel, and then give them better tools, lessons, and guidance to help them succeed both academically and with their goals in general. Integrate this with schools, and you have an education system that can much better meet the needs of every type of student.

If my opinion alone is not enough to convince you that personalized learning through technology and data is worth investing in as a country, maybe Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s’ opinion will be.

In a recent phone interview with Education Week, Zuckerberg said, “We think that personalized learning makes sense. We want to see as many good versions of this idea as possible get tested in the world.” Last December Zuckerberg announced that him and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, would donate 99% of their Facebook shares (worth around 45 billion dollars) to a number of different causes, “headlined by the development of software ‘that understands how you learn best and where you need to focus.’”

If Zuckerberg and other leaders in education are betting big on personalized learning through technology, maybe it’s time we seriously consider it.

By myKlovr

We all have goals in life. Whether it’s your lifelong goal of inventing the next Facebook and becoming as a rich as Mark Zuckerberg, or your short-term goal of losing three pounds before spring break down in Palm Beach, each and every one of us have goals that we want to achieve. Why is it that some people are able to set a goal and tackle it with seemly little effort, while others try again and again only to find themselves right back where they started? We have some answers.

Here are the top 5 reasons YOU struggle to reach your goals:

1.Your Goals are More Vague than this Fortune Cookie

While you may have an idea of what you want in the end, your goal might just be too vague to accomplish. There’s a big difference between “wanting to lose some weight” and “wanting to lose three pounds in two weeks.” When you don’t get specific with what you’re trying to accomplish, you leave room for your mind to wander and become unfocused. By adding some way of measuring your goal, you can center your aim and make it easier to achieve. Adding in a timeline is also super key. Not only do you want to know your end objective, but you also want to be able to keep track of your progress in order to hold yourself accountable.

2.Your Goals are Bigger than Shaq’s Shoe

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big. In fact, setting goals that are massive can often lead to success way above and beyond the success you would have had with realistic goals. The old saying, “Shoot for the moon: even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars” definitely has some merit to it. With that said, it’s important to divvy up your goals into smaller portions so you can track them and have a better shot at reaching your moon.  Supporting structure and incremental steps are absolutely crucial, because they remind you of the progress you are making. With overarching, massively exciting and ambitious goals, it’s sometimes hard to keep your head on the court, where it needs to be, because progress can seem really slow on a psychological level. You have the end game in mind, but the little steps you’re taking each week don’t register because you’re so focused on how far away the future seems.

3. You’re about as committed as your ex

Sorry to bring that up, but seriously – often times not reaching your goal has to do with the fact that you weren’t 100% committed to it. You may like the idea and think it would be nice to accomplish, but it’s not a burning desire of yours. That’s not to say, however, that it’s the end of the line for you and your goal. Sometimes it’s just a matter of rewording what you’re undertaking and pivoting, turning it into something that’s more appealing and in line with your values. Effective goals are all about something you truly want to happen! Be real with yourself!

4. You’re Terrified of Falling Flat on Your Face

No one wants to commit to something, only to fail at it. Fear comes from thinking about all the things that can go wrong, and not focusing on all the things that could go right. Sometimes when we set a goal, we don’t fully indulge ourselves in it, because we are afraid that if we give it our all and fail, it’ll be a disaster for our self-esteem. The truth is that fear can be a good thing. Not only does it force you out of your comfort zone and into an area of growth, but it also means that there’s an opportunity for learning. Rather than fearing possible failure, it’s best to embrace the idea that if you do fail, you’re going to learn how to get back up and try again.

5. You Aren’t Telling Yourself or the World

Sometimes it’s great to stay quiet about your goals, smash them, and have all your friends look at you like you’re a genius. BUT — Sometimes it’s even better to tell some people who can hold you accountable. Something as simple as telling a few close friends about what you want to accomplish automatically puts social pressure on you to make them happen. Social pressure can be a very powerful thing. Still want to stay quiet about them? That’s okay, but be sure to tell YOURSELF, at the very least. Don’t just think about it in your head; take out a piece of paper and write it down. A study carried out in the Harvard MBA program shows remarkable statistics about what happened to graduate students who wrote down their goals. In a given class, 3% of students wrote down their goals, 13% had goals in mind but didn’t write them down, and 84% had no goals at all. After 10 years when that same group was interviewed again, the 13% who had goals in mind earned on average TWICE the amount the 84% who didn’t have any goals in mind earned. The 3% who wrote them down? On average they earned TEN TIMES as much as the other 97% combined. Taking 5 minutes to write your goals down is well worth the while!

In summary, it’s not that you’re bad at achieving your goals – it’s just that you were approaching it wrong! We hope this was helpful; just remember: you can do it!

By myKlovr

Are you fresh out of college and looking for some interview tips on how to get your favorite job?  Great! You are on the right track, let’s see how you can prepare for your Entry Level position interview.

1. Be yourself

Interviews are very intimidating and nerve-racking. However, there is one tip that is very helpful to go through the stress. Be yourself and try to recall your past experience. Give some time before the actual interview day just to refresh your memories on your former jobs. This is really going to give you confident to explain clearly to the interview about your past experience. Remember, the interview does not know you and does not know exactly what you did in your past job. So, it is very important to explain clearly what you did and how you did.

2. Know the insights and the results of your former job

Most of the interviewers ask: So, tell me about the insights, results or any achievement that you did in the previous job.

In order to know the insights and the results, you should start preparing while you are in the previous job or previous internship. For example, if you are helping a marketing team with customer acquisition, you might want to know how many new customers were you able to acquire. You can do so by asking your supervisor or keeping track in your journal.

Related articles:

myKlovr’s Top 8 Tips for Finding a Job After You Graduate

Myklovr’s 5 More Tips for Finding a Job After You GraduateMyklovr’s 5 More Tips for Finding a Job After You Graduate

3. Read the job description carefully before you go in for an interview

Read and analyze what the job description is and what the company is looking for. Note down what skills are they looking for? What kind of software, tools or things that are required for this position. In case you do not know some of the descriptions, you can do some research about it and prepare to ask some questions to the interviewer.

4. Wear something professional and also clean

Yes, It is very important to wear something that is not overdressed or underdressed. The best way to wear for an entry level position is to wear black dress with plain design and great length for ladies, and a nice shirt and some black pants for gentlemen.

5. Be optimistic, and it is okay for you to say “I don’t know”

There is a chance that you might not know the answer for some questions because you have just graduated. It is okay to say you don’t know and ask politely to explain more about the things that you do not know. It shows that you are willing to learn and interested in know new things. May be you can say something about the thing that you know which is similar to what the interviewer asked.

6. Write a Thank You letter 

The interviews took their time out of a busy schedule to meet you and interview you. Sending a thank you letter is a great way to show how much appreciated you are and it makes you stand out from the crowd. However, I suggest it is better to not include in your thank you letter anything that seems like you are forcing the interview to choose you.

7. Be patient

Most companies are interviewing a lot of candidates and they have different timelines on their decision process. Give a week to get notified from the recruiter or the interviewer. In case they have not replied you back for over a week, you can send a follow up email asking about the decision timeline.

I wish you all the best! Job hunting is stressful. However, you should take time choosing the right company for you as well. Think positive and be patient. I know you can do this!  Good Luck!