The Late Work Game: teachers, do you want missing work, late work — or no...
Welcome back to the late work game! First semester is up and teachers and students across the country are recovering from that last minute freak out: get that missing work in! Stressed kids near...
View ArticleWhat do grades measure, anyway? How to make sense of grades and student learning
Parents! If schools were meant for learning, why do we have grades? In other words, if learning were the goal, wouldn’t every student have to get an A+ before moving on to the next level? If, when a...
View ArticleMegan Rocks! How the A+ Club assignments and grades updates help students and...
Megan Rocks! Megan and Michael discuss how the A+ Club helps students, parents and teachers. Featuring Megan Schneider, Office Manager at School4Schools.com LLC Megan manages the A+ Club service that...
View ArticleBeating back procrastination part 1: start now and finish later
Fight the need to finish now! Getting started on studying, homework and large assignments means just that: start a little now — and don’t worry about finishing until later. Cramming is a difficult...
View ArticleBeating back procrastination part 2: smoothing out your workflow
One of the most effective strategies to defeat procrastination that we have used with students in our A+ Club academic program is what the procrastination experts call “just getting started.” As posted...
View ArticleBrenda & Her Mom Don’t See Eye-to-Eye on Her School Work
Meet Brenda & her mom. They both know that parenting a teen through middle and high school isn’t always easy. And being a teen isn’t always easy, either. At the A+ Club, we provide academic...
View ArticleBrenda discovers that she actually can learn the quadratic formula! (with a...
Brenda’s mom is upset about her grades and that she’s not doing her homework. Brenda thinks her mom is being too pushy. Like high school teens & parents everywhere, they’re both a little right —...
View ArticleProcrastination, values, and connecting long term goals to short term choices
Parents and teachers think that if only students would connect their short term decisions to long term goals, such as college and jobs, they would quit procrastinating and do their homework. That’s why...
View ArticleStudent web searches on why I have to do homework & how a misguided SEO...
Search engine results reveal much about ourselves, something worth reminding both teens and their parents. Not only can a search history flag a teen’s behavioral choices, such as being frustrated over...
View ArticleHow to know if your student is really learning: “If you can’t teach it you...
We hear it all the time. Students say, “I get it when my teacher shows it to me, but I can’t do it on the test.” Then parents tell us that their child “doesn’t test well.” When children say, “I get it...
View ArticleThe Learning Process
Or, where do grades come from? Have you ever considered what, exactly, do grades measure? They measure something, but can they really measure everything? And of what they do measure, is it fair, is it...
View ArticleProcrastinators unite!
Nah, we’ll get around to it later. “Hi, my name is Michael, and I’m a procrastinator…” In our inaugural podcast, Gabriela Bromley, a neuroscience major at Simmons College, introduced to our listeners...
View ArticleDo your grades Spring forward or Fall back?
Beware the Daylight Saving! Sleep, rhythms and grades My wife has long held a theory that life gets more difficult for students when the clock changes every November. The early sunset makes it dark and...
View ArticleProcrastinator Panic: is your brain rewarding putting it off?
Procrastinators are motivated by deadlines. Clarity and purpose, hard to find and easy to dismiss, now assemble at the last minute. Focus arrives, hard work ensues, and the job gets done. That urgency...
View ArticleHow to avoid procrastination: getting the urge (and not relying on it)
Is it urgent enough yet? A student of ours mentioned that he couldn’t bring himself to getting some work done over the break, but the night before classes start again, he finally “got the urge” to...
View ArticleAgenda books and schools: making good little secretaries
Why are we teaching kids to use 1970s technology? Ever hear of Day Timer? Yes, the personal agenda book still exists, but only for a few old school types. Except in schools, where the kids are supposed...
View ArticleHow to stop procrastination: Ten (10) tips for getting your work done
How to avoid procrastination: building self-awareness & specific steps to avoid procrastination. You really can do something about procrastination. If you think you “work best under pressure,” or...
View ArticleFeeling like it: how to get your homework done even when you don’t feel like it
So if you don’t feel like it now, when will you? Here’s the problem: your mood won’t match your work, and the less work you do, the less your mood will guide you towards doing your work. The only way...
View ArticleReal solutions for procrastination from Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, part 2
Real solutions for procrastination from Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, part 2 Student Success Podcast No. 14, Jan. 22, 2014, recorded Jan 15, 2014 Today’s Guest: Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. Dr. Pychyl shares his...
View ArticleThree Simple Ways to Make Memorization Easier from The A+ Club
While it is best to retain information through a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter at hand, sometimes that’s asking too much. Particularly for young students who cannot yet choose their...
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