While studying and practicing can help improve test taking scores, there is something more important, especially for success on the SAT.  Because a large part of the test focuses on reading and writing skills, extensive vocabulary is a must.  This can be gained through practice.  There are lists of good vocab in SAT study books.  There are “word of the day” calendars and emails, and you can buy flash cards and study guides.  The best way to improve vocabulary, however, is to read.  By reading, I do not mean pulp, or Tom Clancy and Danielle Steel.  I mean classic books.  Authors like Dickens and Hugo can be difficult to tackle in any situation, especially six weeks before the SAT.  Even more fast-paced books such as The Three Musketeers and the Lord of the Rings Series (yeah, the books, seriously read them) can be difficult to get through.  The main point should be to focus on the vocabulary usage in the writing.

The chosen book should be by an author who really knows his or her English (for example, Tolkien was an English professor).  Fantasy and science fiction books, however, such as Tolkien’s or Herbert’s (Dune) are not the most appropriate because they may confuse some students with their made up words (character names, places).  Because of these, students with little experience in literature might confuse these made up words with real words or be unable to find good context clues.  For these reasons, works of historical fiction, biography, or simple novels would be better.  They provide normal writing structures, vocabulary, and experience in how English writing should sound (for proofreading skills).

To a recent tutee, I suggested reading “Twilight” after hearing my mother read it to my reluctant little brother.  She had to stop every few minutes to explain a word’s meaning or a metaphor to him.  Although the book does not have the most complex vocabulary, it does have the necessary depth to instill new words into a reader who is paying attention.  I suggested this book to the tutee because she, like many high school juniors, does not have much time to dedicate to reading.  For this reason, “Twilight” is appropriate because it is enjoyable, as well as being not too long or involved.

Although getting a student to read before the test to increase vocabulary skills is a good idea, the problem begins with the student’s education before his or her arrival in the junior year.  The lack of reading experience of good literature is the cause of this problem for students.  While catching up in the months and weeks before the SAT is a necessary object for students, they would be better prepared by reading in the years before the SAT.  Additionally, their vocabulary would be much improved if their parents read to them at a young age.

In summary, flashcards and rote memorization are often neglected by students studying vocabulary.  Reading is a great alternative that can be enjoayble and effective at the same time.

• Teachers have higher expectations placed on them but fewer days in which to teach all students to higher levels.
• Students also have higher expectations placed on them as they try to deal with heavier academic loads, accelerated classes, and insanely heavy backpacks.
• Even parents are feeling the strain as they feel caught somewhere between wanting their child or children to excel on the one hand and wanting them to just be children on the other. It seems as if there is never enough time for it all.

Interestingly enough, there may be happy medium between high expectations and having a somewhat normal paced existence. This phenomenon is what I call “Slow Motion Accelerated Movement.” The idea or premise behind it is that you can actually achieve more in less time and have fun doing it. For people who are more tech orientated like myself, this principle is similar to the “Warp Drive” engine in the Star Trek series. As you may or may not know, the “Warp Drive” is based not on the idea of going faster (as in faster than the speed of light) but on the idea of warping or bending space and time so that you move your intended destination closer and thus don’t have to travel as far. The result of this bending of space and time is accelerated movement.

In terms of education and homework this is the idea behind “Slow Motion Accelerated Achievement:” the idea that students can actually accelerate their learning by slowing down and taking inventory of a few, but powerful set of principles. When these principles are applied, they have the effect of “bending” or shortening the “space” between the concept that is to be taught and the students’ own intellectual and personal interests. In a similar fashion, when these principles are applied “time” seems to be warped in that students are able to gain cognitive and applied understanding of a principle almost instantaneously.  The following are steps that I have found essential in engaging in “Slow Motion Accelerated Movement.”

Step 1: Slow down and ask yourself what do you really enjoy in life?

What are you really passionate about and what subjects do you really love? For me, I love history, education and everything tech. This may seem like a ridiculous exercise that seems to have nothing to do with getting homework done, but trust me, it is fundamental.

In one of the great classics on organizational development “Good to Great,” Collins (2001) identifies a series of companies that were able to make the leap from being simply “good” companies to ones that were “great.” One of the central reasons these companies were able to make the “leap” was because that they were able to identify what he calls the hedgehog concept: 1) They were are able to identify what they as a company were passionate about 2) They were able to identify what they could be the best in the world at and 3) They were able to indentify how they could turn their passion and their expertise into a profit.

Although Collins (2001) was talking about business, the same principles apply in terms of achieving in education. In order to accelerate your achievement you really have to know what you really love and are passionate about.  This is the “engine” of accelerated movement. This is what allows for faster than normal achievement rates. When you tap into what you really love,  it creates a force or an organic “Drive” that allows one to move and understand concepts very quickly because they are naturally aligned with one’s personal interests. For example, if a student really loves baseball and one slows down enough to understand her love for the sport, this can be a huge leveraging force. Instead of forcing her to focus on something else, instead of trying to get her to leave those foolish ideas concerning baseball alone, recognize it for what it is; a dynamic force for accelerated achievement.

Step Two: Find a way of relating what you really love to the task at hand.

Even math and science homework can be related to something that you find exciting. If you love to shop, try and find a way of looking at your math homework in a way that it can actually help you to have more money to shop.  If you like video games, try to use your science homework to figure out a better way of defeating your friends in Halo and World of War Craft.

I know this sounds hokey, but some of the best gamers are great at what they do because they intuitively use analytical math skills in their strategies without knowing it.  Researchers at The University of Wisconsin-Madison have an entire lab set up to study how video games can help improve educational achievement. There are also lecture courses, scheduled for the fall of 2009 (some of the biggest on campus) connected to  gaming and education. In addition, every summer the UW Campus is host to the Games Learning and Society Conference (GLS 5.0) that attracts researchers from around the country.

In short, relating homework and achievement to what you really love is more reality than it is fiction. When you relate what you love to the homework at hand, you are able to get your stuff done faster because you don’t have the emotional block (or drag) of not wanting to do it. You come to really understand math or science from another perspective, a perspective that you love and makes sense to you. You begin to better understand the theory behind the work, because you understand what it looks like and how it operates in “your world”.  In addition, the quality of your work (via grades) will likely also improve as you are genuinely engaged in the work and assignments. The result is a “bending” or shortening of “space” between what you love and what you are being taught.

Step Three: Finally, identify the basic elements that need to be understood or accomplished and automate them.

Consider the rest free time. Homework and achievement tend to be hard because so much of the work seems redundant, meticulous and arduous. Automate the parts of your work that you are less excited about and focus on the parts where you find connections that you genuinely enjoy.

Usually, there are only two to three basic parts of any given assignment. When any assignment is understood as being made up of only two to three parts, the assignment has the appearance of being easier. This is what we commonly experience as an “A-ha” moment; the moment when we understand the basic simplicity of something that seemed very complicated at first.

For example, in a research paper, the basic parts are introduction, body and conclusion. The bulk of the work goes into finding the research, but in the final analysis, this research needs to be presented in these three very basic parts. To facilitate assignments like this in an accelerated manner, I am big fan of using templates when working with homework. In MS Word and just about any other software program you can create templates that have the basic elements of your assignment, so that you don’t have to do these elements every time you have to do your homework. In the case of the research paper, you can have the sections of introduction, body and conclusion already framed out so all you really have to do is dive into the parts of the research that you really love and present that information into the three parts. Even simply having your name , course name and the words introduction, body  and conclusion at the appropriate place in the template is very useful.  In fact, when you use templates, you save time, automate the boring stuff and get to the really good stuff. An added bonus of using templates is that it helps your work to look more professional and it tends to be less prone to mistakes.  The result is a “bending” or shortening of time between how long it would normally take you to finish your homework  and  homework that takes only a third of the time.

Conclusion

While these principles may sound complicated and hard to execute, remember is really all about taking your time. Understand what you are really passionate about, relate that passion to the task at hand and execute the basic but fundamental steps for homework and learning execution. It really can be as easy a 1…2…3

This post is © copyright 2009 Byron K. Sharer Robertson.

Bibliography
Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . and Others Don’t. New York: Harper Business.

Our brains are great at inventing little tasks to fill time when we want to avoid doing something.  Sure, I’ll just check some emails, chat a bit online, browse Facebook, etc.  Before you know it, and hour has passed and you haven’t even started!

Today I’m going to share with you the greatest single thing you can do to get more work done in less time: eliminate all distractions and interruptions when doing your homework.

Studies have shown that interruption is the greatest enemy of producivity.  Why?

Well, it takes our brains a while to get into a good rhythm when working on a problem.  You may have noticed this when writing or doing math problems.

The very first sentence or problem takes a disproportionate amount of time.  We might shuffle papers for a while, get comfortable in our seat, fidget and think for while, etc.  When we FINALLY manage to get the first sentence or problem done we are on a role.

The next sentence or problem goes a little bit faster, and the next a bit faster, until we are really in a good “flow” state.  We’re actually getting homework done!

The worst thing that can happen at this point is an interruption.  A phone call.  A chat IM window.  A notification about a new email arriving.  Someone walking by to say hi.

These are all bad because even if you just look at your phone and don’t answer it, your flow state has been broken.  Instead, you are thinking about why that person might be calling and whether it’s important.  By some estimates it can take up to 10 minutes to get back into your “flow” state EVERY TIME you are interrupted, and that’s wasted time.

How many times were you interrupted last time you worked on homework?  Multiply that by 10 minutes and that’s how much time you’re wasting.

Do you homework in uninterrupted blocks of about 1.5 hours and then take a break for half an hour before starting again.  During that time, turn off all phones, chat programs, email programs, and isolate yourself from people who may interrupt you.

Still not convinced?  Check out this study which showed how people who constantly checked their blackberry did WORSE on an IQ test that people stoned on marijuana.

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College in London administered IQ tests to three groups: the first did nothing but perform the IQ test, the second was distracted by e-mail and ringing phones, and the third was stoned on marijuana. Not surprisingly, the first group did better than the other two by an average of 10 points. The e-mailers, on the other hands, did worse than the stoners by an average of 6 points.
In a digital world of infinite distraction, it is “single-tasking” — shutting out interruption instead of facilitating it — that will save us. What’s the alternative? Checking e-mail once every five minutes, then every minute, then every second? It’s not a scalable coping mechanism.

Remember, interruption is the enemy of getting your homework quickly!

Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson, TEDTalks)

Hint: Don’t tell your kids that they are. More than three decades of research shows that a focus on effort—not on intelligence or ability—is key to success in school and in life.

A brilliant student, Jonathan sailed through grade school. He completed his assignments easily and routinely earned As. Jonathan puzzled over why some of his classmates struggled, and his parents told him he had a special gift. In the seventh grade, however, Jonathan suddenly lost interest in school, refusing to do homework or study for tests. As a consequence, his grades plummeted. His parents tried to boost their son’s confidence by assuring him that he was very smart. But their attempts failed to motivate Jonathan (who is a composite drawn from several children). Schoolwork, their son maintained, was boring and pointless.

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability—along with confidence in that ability—is a recipe for success. In fact, however, more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children’s innate abilities, as Jonathan’s parents did, reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.

The Opportunity of Defeat

I first began to investigate the underpinnings of human motivation—and how people persevere after setbacks—as a psychology graduate student at Yale University in the 1960s. Animal experiments by psychologists Martin Seligman, Steven Maier and Richard Solomon of the University of Pennsylvania had shown that after repeated failures, most animals conclude that a situation is hopeless and beyond their control. After such an experience, the researchers found, an animal often remains passive even when it can affect change—a state they called learned helplessness.

People can learn to be helpless, too, but not everyone reacts to setbacks this way. I wondered: Why do some students give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people’s beliefs about why they had failed.

In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. In 1972, when I taught a group of elementary and middle school children who displayed helpless behavior in school that a lack of effort (rather than lack of ability) led to their mistakes on math problems, the kids learned to keep trying when the problems got tough. They also solved many of the problems even in the face of difficulty. Another group of helpless children who were simply rewarded for their success on easy problems did not improve their ability to solve hard math problems. These experiments were an early indication that a focus on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.

Subsequent studies revealed that the most persistent students do not ruminate about their own failure much at all but instead think of mistakes as problems to be solved. At the University of Illinois in the 1970s I, along with my then graduate student Carol Diener, asked 60 fifth graders to think out loud while they solved very difficult pattern-recognition problems. Some students reacted defensively to mistakes, denigrating their skills with comments such as “I never did have a good rememory,” and their problem-solving strategies deteriorated.

Others, meanwhile, focused on fixing errors and honing their skills. One advised himself: “I should slow down and try to figure this out.” Two schoolchildren were particularly inspiring. One, in the wake of difficulty, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips and said, “I love a challenge!” The other, also confronting the hard problems, looked up at the experimenter and approvingly declared, “I was hoping this would be informative!” Predictably, the students with this attitude outperformed their cohorts in these studies.

Two Views of Intelligence

Several years later I developed a broader theory of what separates the two general classes of learners—helpless versus mastery-oriented. I realized that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different “theories” of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount, and that’s that. I call this a “fixed mind-set.” Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. They avoid challenges because challenges make mistakes more likely and looking smart less so. Like Jonathan, such children shun effort in the belief that having to work hard means they are dumb.

The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else. After all, if you believe that you can expand your intellectual skills, you want to do just that. Because slipups stem from a lack of effort, not ability, they can be remedied by more effort. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating; they offer opportunities to learn. Students with such a growth mind-set, we predicted, were destined for greater academic success and were quite likely to outperform their counterparts.

We validated these expectations in a study published in early 2007. Psychologists Lisa Blackwell of Columbia University and Kali H. Trzes­niewski of Stanford University and I monitored 373 students for two years during the transition to junior high school, when the work gets more difficult and the grading more stringent, to determine how their mind-sets might affect their math grades. At the beginning of seventh grade, we assessed the students’ mind-sets by asking them to agree or disagree with statements such as “Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can’t really change.” We then assessed their beliefs about other aspects of learning and looked to see what happened to their grades.

As we had predicted, the students with a growth mind-set felt that learning was a more important goal in school than getting good grades. In addition, they held hard work in high regard, believing that the more you labored at something, the better you would become at it. They understood that even geniuses have to work hard for their great accomplishments. Confronted by a setback such as a disappointing test grade, students with a growth mind-set said they would study harder or try a different strategy for mastering the material.

The students who held a fixed mind-set, however, were concerned about looking smart with little regard for learning. They had negative views of effort, believing that having to work hard at something was a sign of low ability. They thought that a person with talent or intelligence did not need to work hard to do well. Attributing a bad grade to their own lack of ability, those with a fixed mind-set said that they would study less in the future, try never to take that subject again and consider cheating on future tests.

Such divergent outlooks had a dramatic impact on performance. At the start of junior high, the math achievement test scores of the students with a growth mind-set were comparable to those of students who displayed a fixed mind-set. But as the work became more difficult, the students with a growth mind-set showed greater persistence. As a result, their math grades overtook those of the other students by the end of the first semester—and the gap between the two groups continued to widen during the two years we followed them.

Along with Columbia psychologist Heidi Grant, I found a similar relation between mind-set and achievement in a 2003 study of 128 Columbia freshman premed students who were enrolled in a challenging general chemistry course. Although all the students cared about grades, the ones who earned the best grades were those who placed a high premium on learning rather than on showing that they were smart in chemistry. The focus on learning strategies, effort and persistence paid off for these students.

Confronting Deficiencies

A belief in fixed intelligence also makes people less willing to admit to errors or to confront and remedy their deficiencies in school, at work and in their social relationships. In a study published in 1999 of 168 freshmen entering the University of Hong Kong, where all instruction and coursework are in English, three Hong Kong colleagues and I found that students with a growth mind-set who scored poorly on their English proficiency exam were far more inclined to take a remedial English course than were low-scoring students with a fixed mind-set. The students with a stagnant view of intelligence were presumably unwilling to admit to their deficit and thus passed up the opportunity to correct it.

A fixed mind-set can similarly hamper communication and progress in the workplace by leading managers and employees to discourage or ignore constructive criticism and advice. Research by psychologists Peter Heslin and Don VandeWalle of Southern Methodist University and Gary Latham of the University of Toronto shows that managers who have a fixed mind-set are less likely to seek or welcome feedback from their employees than are managers with a growth mind-set. Presumably, managers with a growth mind-set see themselves as works-in-progress and understand that they need feedback to improve, whereas bosses with a fixed mind-set are more likely to see criticism as reflecting their underlying level of competence. Assuming that other people are not capable of changing either, executives with a fixed mind-set are also less likely to mentor their underlings. But after Heslin, VandeWalle and Latham gave managers a tutorial on the value and principles of the growth mind-set, supervisors became more willing to coach their employees and gave more useful advice.

Mind-set can affect the quality and longevity of personal relationships as well, through people’s willingness—or unwillingness—to deal with difficulties. Those with a fixed mind-set are less likely than those with a growth mind-set to broach problems in their relationships and to try to solve them, according to a 2006 study I conducted with psychologist Lara Kammrath of Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario. After all, if you think that human personality traits are more or less fixed, relationship repair seems largely futile. Individuals who believe people can change and grow, however, are more confident that confronting concerns in their relationships will lead to resolutions.

Proper Praise

How do we transmit a growth mind-set to our children? One way is by telling stories about achievements that result from hard work. For instance, talking about math geniuses who were more or less born that way puts students in a fixed mind-set, but descriptions of great mathematicians who fell in love with math and developed amazing skills engenders a growth mind-set, our studies have shown. People also communicate mind-sets through praise. Although many, if not most, parents believe that they should build up a child by telling him  or her how brilliant and talented he or she is, our research suggests that this is misguided.

In studies involving several hundred fifth graders published in 1998, for example, Columbia psychologist Claudia M. Mueller and I gave children questions from a nonverbal IQ test. After the first 10 problems, on which most children did fairly well, we praised them. We praised some of them for their intelligence: “Wow … that’s a really good score. You must be smart at this.” We commended others for their effort: “Wow … that’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard.”

We found that intelligence praise encouraged a fixed mind-set more often than did pats on the back for effort. Those congratulated for their intelligence, for example, shied away from a challenging assignment—they wanted an easy one instead—far more often than the kids applauded for their effort. (Most of those lauded for their hard work wanted the difficult problem set from which they would learn.) When we gave everyone hard problems anyway, those praised for being smart became discouraged, doubting their ability. And their scores, even on an easier problem set we gave them afterward, declined as compared with their previous results on equivalent problems. In contrast, students praised for their effort did not lose confidence when faced with the harder questions, and their performance improved markedly on the easier problems that followed.

Making Up Your Mind-set

In addition to encouraging a growth mind-set through praise for effort, parents and teachers can help children by providing explicit instruction regarding the mind as a learning machine. Blackwell, Trzesniewski and I recently designed an eight-session workshop for 91 students whose math grades were declining in their first year of junior high. Forty-eight of the students received instruction in study skills only, whereas the others attended a combination of study skills sessions and classes in which they learned about the growth mind-set and how to apply it to schoolwork.

In the growth mind-set classes, students read and discussed an article entitled “You Can Grow Your Brain.” They were taught that the brain is like a muscle that gets stronger with use and that learning prompts neurons in the brain to grow new connections. From such instruction, many students began to see themselves as agents of their own brain development. Students who had been disruptive or bored sat still and took note. One particularly unruly boy looked up during the discussion and said, “You mean I don’t have to be dumb?”

As the semester progressed, the math grades of the kids who learned only study skills continued to decline, whereas those of the students given the growth-mind-set training stopped falling and began to bounce back to their former levels. Despite being unaware that there were two types of instruction, teachers reported noticing significant motivational changes in 27 percent of the children in the growth mind-set workshop as compared with only 9 percent of students in the control group. One teacher wrote: “Your workshop has already had an effect. L [our unruly male student], who never puts in any extra effort and often doesn’t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+. (He had been getting Cs and lower.)”

Other researchers have replicated our results. Psychologists Catherine Good, then at Columbia, and Joshua Aronson and Michael Inzlicht of New York University reported in 2003 that a growth mind-set workshop raised the math and English achievement test scores of seventh graders. In a 2002 study Aronson, Good (then a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin) and their colleagues found that college students began to enjoy their schoolwork more, value it more highly and get better grades as a result of training that fostered a growth mind-set.

We have now encapsulated such instruction in an interactive computer program called “Brain­ology,” which should be more widely available by mid-2008. Its six modules teach students about the brain—what it does and how to make it work better. In a virtual brain lab, users can click on brain regions to determine their functions or on nerve endings to see how connections form when people learn. Users can also advise virtual students with problems as a way of practicing how to handle schoolwork difficulties; additionally, users keep an online journal of their study practices.

New York City seventh graders who tested a pilot version of Brainology told us that the program had changed their view of learning and how to promote it. One wrote: “My favorite thing from Brainology is the neurons part where when u [sic] learn something there are connections and they keep growing. I always picture them when I’m in school.” A teacher said of the students who used the program: “They offer to practice, study, take notes, or pay attention to ensure that connections will be made.”

Teaching children such information is not just a ploy to get them to study. People do differ in intelligence, talent and ability. And yet research is converging on the conclusion that great accomplishment, and even what we call genius, is typically the result of years of passion and dedication and not something that flows naturally from a gift. Mozart, Edison, Curie, Darwin and Cézanne were not simply born with talent; they cultivated it through tremendous and sustained effort. Similarly, hard work and discipline contribute much more to school achievement than IQ does.

Such lessons apply to almost every human endeavor. For instance, many young athletes value talent more than hard work and have consequently become unteachable. Similarly, many people accomplish little in their jobs without constant praise and encouragement to maintain their motivation. If we foster a growth mind-set in our homes and schools, however, we will give our children the tools to succeed in their pursuits and to become responsible employees and citizens.

1. The vast majority of behaviour problems in the classrom involve minor breaches of discipline.
2. These incidents originate in the classroom situation itself and are within the control of the teacher.
3. Disciplinary problems in the classroom are symptoms of underlying weaknesses in total learning situation.

BY CONTRASTING METHODS OF HANDLING THE SAME CLASS, TECHNIQUES ARE SHOWN FOR SECURING CLASS DISCIPLINE and STIMULATING THE INTEREST OF STUDENTS.