Increasing student academic achievement or performance is an ever present and ongoing challenge. However, many of the usual or tradtional solutions are not performance based. These 5 quick tips may help you quickly raise the performance of your students and school. 1. Raise the bar of expectations. If you have a grading scale like this one: Grading Curve: A (93-100), A- (90-92), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+ (67-69), D (63-66), D- (60-62), F (0-59) Run do not walk to the nearest garbage can and throw it away. Raise the bar. Low expectations always lead to low results. Expect more from your student and tie those expectations to specific measurements. HINT: If you actually use this curve for your students, do you use it for your teachers? See tip #2. 2. Be consistent in rewarding all behaviors or punishing all behaviors. Also be consistent in your daily beliefs (attitudes) and behaviors. Be up at all times even when you feel down. Model consistency to ensure sustainable performancefor your staff or your students. 3. Communicate clearly your expectations. Don't presume that a staff or student knows something. Communicate and verify that expectation. Remember, conditioning from previous work experiences, school experiences and home experience is ever present and that the majority of this conditioning is negative. 4. Place a higher value on academic and student leadership success than athletic success. Some schools actually have "Letterman Jackets" for academics. For it is the academic success that will carry 99% of your students into the real world, not their athletic abilities. Return to the previous 3 hints. 5.Remove the waste by evaluating your learning strategies. For example, if you are using cooperative learning, assess the skills necessary to be successful. Chances are many young people lack all of these skills and hence you are not leveraging this dynamic strategy. A lot of wasted time is being spent on classroom management issues that should be devoted to engaged learning. |
