The kid are back in school from a long holiday break. Do you know how your children are doing in school? This time of year is a great time for you to check in with your child(ren) and their teachers to see where they are as far in their grades and what they are learning in all subjects, but especially math and science. If they are doing well, it is a great time to encourage them to continue to great job. Find fun ways over the holidays and every day to keep the excited, engaged and learning math and science. Whether it is finding online games, visiting your local science museums or engaging in math and science related events in your community. If they are not doing well, it is plenty of time for them to recover and do well the rest of the year. Find out from them the areas in which they are struggling and make time for them to review the concepts with you. In addition, find educational support for them to ensure they are able to get the concepts whether it is teaching them study skills, finding tutorial support with online homework help or tutorial support, or finding hands on activities to help them grasp the concepts. Whatever, it is don't let your child continue to struggle in math and science when it is plenty of time to recover and do well.
In addition, to ensuring that your child is doing well with coursework, it is important that you prepare them for standardized test. Testing season is around the corner, it is important that you get involved in your child's standardized test preparation because unfortunately the educational climate is one where we are teaching to the test instead of encouraging lifelong learning. So if you want your child to learn the concepts beyond the test, you must be involved in their test preparation. The school can provide you with old test or practice test and some states even have the content for standardized test on the department of education's website. Not only ensure that your child understand the concepts on the test, but practice with them in testing conditions. Many children don't do well on standardized test not because they don't know the material, because they haven't mastered finishing questions in a certain time frame.
Our children won't have the ability to pursue STEM careers if they aren't academically prepared to do so. So let's do what we can to ensure that our children are achieving and excelling academically in math and science. We can't rely on the schools alone to educate our children. Learning must take place inside and outside of the classroom.
Showing posts with label parental involvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parental involvement. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Making STEM a Part of Your Holiday Break
It is the winter holiday break and most of you have a minimum of two weeks to think about what to do with your kids. Breaks from school are a great opportunity to provide outside of the classroom learning experiences for your children. So don't just let your children sit around the house, watching TV and playing video games, but engage them in doing and talking about science.
Earlier this week, there was a lunar eclipse. If you didn't get a chance to see it,there are plenty of articles on the web. Have a discussion not only about the eclipse but astronomy as well as some of the cool things that NASA is doing in space. NASA has some great activities on their website to discuss astronomy and space travel. As you prepare your holiday meal, you can discuss the advances that STEM played a part in the advances in food science and technology. Take a look at all your kitchen gadgets as well as talk about the organic versus non organic food that you will use to prepare your meal. If the weather permits in your area, go on a hike and discuss what you see outside or visit your local science museum. If it is just too cold or rainy to go outside, play one of the many fun math and science games on the web. The things is that holidays are time for fun with family, so why not make some of that fun a learning opportunity in math and science.
Earlier this week, there was a lunar eclipse. If you didn't get a chance to see it,there are plenty of articles on the web. Have a discussion not only about the eclipse but astronomy as well as some of the cool things that NASA is doing in space. NASA has some great activities on their website to discuss astronomy and space travel. As you prepare your holiday meal, you can discuss the advances that STEM played a part in the advances in food science and technology. Take a look at all your kitchen gadgets as well as talk about the organic versus non organic food that you will use to prepare your meal. If the weather permits in your area, go on a hike and discuss what you see outside or visit your local science museum. If it is just too cold or rainy to go outside, play one of the many fun math and science games on the web. The things is that holidays are time for fun with family, so why not make some of that fun a learning opportunity in math and science.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The importance of relationship building in math and science education
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much"-Helen Keller. When I came across this quote today in my Twitter timeline, I thought this is a powerful statement. This quote is so applicable to many aspects of life. What this quote made me think about is how important relationships are to achieving our goals. Everyone has things they want to accomplish in life. But no matter how driven you are, you can't do it alone. Since our focus as an organization is promoting student achievement and career exploration in math and science for K-12 students; I want to talk about the important of relationship building in math and science education.
Academic achievement in math and science is determined by what students are exposed to and their performance inside of the classroom. Nowadays, we have put so much responsibility on the schools to educate our children with little accountability other than test scores. If you look at test scores, you will see that our children aren't achieving in math and science. Yes, we can say many things about the schools, but part of the problem is the lack of parental involvement in most schools. If you look at the test scores of schools that are performing well on standardized tests and/or are well known for a great curriculum; those schools have strong parental involvement. The first relationship that needs to be established in order for children to achieve academically in the relationship between parents and teachers. The first contact between teacher and parent should not be when a student has done something wrong. Parents should attend open house, have regular phone or email contact with their child(ren) teachers. I have friends that are parents and educators and they tell me when there is a good parent/teacher interaction, it fosters a great environment for children to succeed. The parents are aware of what is going on in the classroom, the teacher feel support from the parent and the child(ren) knows that they can't get away with under performing because both the parent and teacher are holding them accountable.
The next relationship that parents should build is relationships with their local school board. This relationship is important because the school board is where decisions are made concerning your child's education- the curriculum, the budget, etc. Unfortunately many parents can barely make it to PTA meetings let alone school board meetings. But I have seen schools get additional resources just because the parents were very vocal at school board meetings. Therefore I encourage you to attend school board meetings and if you just can't fit them into your schedule build a relationships with the school board member that serves your district. It can really make a difference in the resources that are available at your child's school.
The next relationship that is important for enhancing the math and science educational experience for youth is relationships between the schools and the community. With state budgets being cut every day, schools have less and less resources available to educate our children. Although, schools aren't the only place where learning should take place, it is the primary place for learning. In order to enhance the resources at schools that are available to educate our children it important that individuals, nonprofits, colleges and universities and corporations partners with schools. The resources can be as simple as volunteering some time to provide classroom, support or tutoring or a big as making a financial contribution. Nothing is too great or small if it will assist in creating a great learning environment for our children.
The final relationship that needs to be built is between nonprofits and individuals, businesses, colleges and universities. Nonprofits exist to meet a need in the community, most of which can't be meet by a government agency. Most nonprofits have limited resources and need people who believe in their mission to support them note just in word or spirit, but in deed. Each individual, business and college and university should find a nonprofit whose mission they believe in and not only support them by volunteering and/or making a financial contribution, but telling people in their network about the organization and them to support them as well.
If we want to "unveil potential through exposure" and ensure that students are academically prepared to pursue STEM careers, we all have to work together to ensure our children succeed.
Academic achievement in math and science is determined by what students are exposed to and their performance inside of the classroom. Nowadays, we have put so much responsibility on the schools to educate our children with little accountability other than test scores. If you look at test scores, you will see that our children aren't achieving in math and science. Yes, we can say many things about the schools, but part of the problem is the lack of parental involvement in most schools. If you look at the test scores of schools that are performing well on standardized tests and/or are well known for a great curriculum; those schools have strong parental involvement. The first relationship that needs to be established in order for children to achieve academically in the relationship between parents and teachers. The first contact between teacher and parent should not be when a student has done something wrong. Parents should attend open house, have regular phone or email contact with their child(ren) teachers. I have friends that are parents and educators and they tell me when there is a good parent/teacher interaction, it fosters a great environment for children to succeed. The parents are aware of what is going on in the classroom, the teacher feel support from the parent and the child(ren) knows that they can't get away with under performing because both the parent and teacher are holding them accountable.
The next relationship that parents should build is relationships with their local school board. This relationship is important because the school board is where decisions are made concerning your child's education- the curriculum, the budget, etc. Unfortunately many parents can barely make it to PTA meetings let alone school board meetings. But I have seen schools get additional resources just because the parents were very vocal at school board meetings. Therefore I encourage you to attend school board meetings and if you just can't fit them into your schedule build a relationships with the school board member that serves your district. It can really make a difference in the resources that are available at your child's school.
The next relationship that is important for enhancing the math and science educational experience for youth is relationships between the schools and the community. With state budgets being cut every day, schools have less and less resources available to educate our children. Although, schools aren't the only place where learning should take place, it is the primary place for learning. In order to enhance the resources at schools that are available to educate our children it important that individuals, nonprofits, colleges and universities and corporations partners with schools. The resources can be as simple as volunteering some time to provide classroom, support or tutoring or a big as making a financial contribution. Nothing is too great or small if it will assist in creating a great learning environment for our children.
The final relationship that needs to be built is between nonprofits and individuals, businesses, colleges and universities. Nonprofits exist to meet a need in the community, most of which can't be meet by a government agency. Most nonprofits have limited resources and need people who believe in their mission to support them note just in word or spirit, but in deed. Each individual, business and college and university should find a nonprofit whose mission they believe in and not only support them by volunteering and/or making a financial contribution, but telling people in their network about the organization and them to support them as well.
If we want to "unveil potential through exposure" and ensure that students are academically prepared to pursue STEM careers, we all have to work together to ensure our children succeed.
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About SEM Link
- SEM Link
- Science, Engineering and Mathematics Link, Inc. (SEM Link), a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, was founded in 2004 on the premise that exposure to members of the science, engineering and mathematics (SEM) communities is critical to student development in math and science. Our mission is to promote student achievement and career exploration in math and science while increasing student exposure to the science, engineering and mathematics communities and enhancing resources that are available at local schools and community organizations. Our two core programs, Math and Science Career Academy and Experimental Design Program, provide students with an opportunity to develop their math and science skills by enhancing the classroom learning experience and teaching them skills that are transferable to other areas of life. We recruit students and professionals for our programs that have backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.