Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
2 - Motivation: From "Six Ways to A Private School Education and College Track without a lot of money"
by judiethcarol www.coolrocketschool.org
2. Motivation-The second of six ways to a private school education and track to college without a lot of money.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
________________________________________
According to Wikipedia, ‘intrinsic motivation’ has been studied by social and educational psychologists since the early 1970s. Their findings are: Motivation is associated with high educational achievement and enjoyment by students.
In sum: The more you learn and enjoy your achievements, the easier it is to learn and enjoy more achievements. You are motivated.
The summary about motivation and reaching goals (like finishing college) points out that rewards and competition (extrinsic motivation) do contribute (winning and rewards are motivating); but the greater pleasure and security--and the resulting motivation from within-- (intrinsic) comes to you when:
* You feel that you can control your results (for example, by the amount of effort);
* You understand that your results are not determined by chance or by luck (as in: you make your own luck—and the more you try, the luckier you are); and
* You are interested in mastering a topic—not just in getting good grades. You like that: ‘Ohhh, now I get it’—feeling on a regular basis.
When I graduated from college many years ago, the statistics were that 30% of the WORLD’s college graduates were graduating in the United States of America. Today, that percentage of all the world college graduates is now 15% or even lower.
In the meantime, the economy of the world, including the United States of America, has shifted so that the USA is desperate for college graduates and students trained in higher levels of math and science to fill the positions providing a good income and benefits for individuals and families. Then, (in today’s grandparents’ day), there were excellent positions in automobile plants and steel mills and family businesses. Today, the best positions require higher education and extensive training, especially in math, science, and reading.
Too, for the top rated colleges in America, over 90% of the students—specifically, the graduating students--are from the families with the highest income levels in the country.
Translation for students today: You can compete. You can find your intrinsic motivation that never stops. Your parents and grandparents were more likely to get good jobs and to live longer if they graduated from college, but they were also living with friends and family members who were able to have a rewarding and secure lifestyle by working at an interesting job not requiring college. In fact, they often worked up through the training programs.
Today’s students do not have the wide-ranging options of different types of ‘good’ jobs. Today’s students need more math and science and reading to do the new types of ‘good’ jobs in America.
‘Motivation’ to learn and to keep learning for a lifetime comes from within (intrinsic) and from outside (extrinsic). You have much control over both types. Your personal achievements grow as your enjoyment of the work itself grows. Take control. This is independence on the highest level. Be self-motivated. Use what you have to do what you want to do.
judiethcarol www.coolrocketschool.org or google blog cool rocket school tutor
2. Motivation-The second of six ways to a private school education and track to college without a lot of money.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
________________________________________
According to Wikipedia, ‘intrinsic motivation’ has been studied by social and educational psychologists since the early 1970s. Their findings are: Motivation is associated with high educational achievement and enjoyment by students.
In sum: The more you learn and enjoy your achievements, the easier it is to learn and enjoy more achievements. You are motivated.
The summary about motivation and reaching goals (like finishing college) points out that rewards and competition (extrinsic motivation) do contribute (winning and rewards are motivating); but the greater pleasure and security--and the resulting motivation from within-- (intrinsic) comes to you when:
* You feel that you can control your results (for example, by the amount of effort);
* You understand that your results are not determined by chance or by luck (as in: you make your own luck—and the more you try, the luckier you are); and
* You are interested in mastering a topic—not just in getting good grades. You like that: ‘Ohhh, now I get it’—feeling on a regular basis.
When I graduated from college many years ago, the statistics were that 30% of the WORLD’s college graduates were graduating in the United States of America. Today, that percentage of all the world college graduates is now 15% or even lower.
In the meantime, the economy of the world, including the United States of America, has shifted so that the USA is desperate for college graduates and students trained in higher levels of math and science to fill the positions providing a good income and benefits for individuals and families. Then, (in today’s grandparents’ day), there were excellent positions in automobile plants and steel mills and family businesses. Today, the best positions require higher education and extensive training, especially in math, science, and reading.
Too, for the top rated colleges in America, over 90% of the students—specifically, the graduating students--are from the families with the highest income levels in the country.
Translation for students today: You can compete. You can find your intrinsic motivation that never stops. Your parents and grandparents were more likely to get good jobs and to live longer if they graduated from college, but they were also living with friends and family members who were able to have a rewarding and secure lifestyle by working at an interesting job not requiring college. In fact, they often worked up through the training programs.
Today’s students do not have the wide-ranging options of different types of ‘good’ jobs. Today’s students need more math and science and reading to do the new types of ‘good’ jobs in America.
‘Motivation’ to learn and to keep learning for a lifetime comes from within (intrinsic) and from outside (extrinsic). You have much control over both types. Your personal achievements grow as your enjoyment of the work itself grows. Take control. This is independence on the highest level. Be self-motivated. Use what you have to do what you want to do.
judiethcarol www.coolrocketschool.org or google blog cool rocket school tutor
Monday, December 27, 2010
Six Ways to get the best education money can buy...without money!
Series for the Week: Six ways to get the best education money can buy...without so much money.
1. Aptitude
2. Motivation
3. Attitude
4. Resources
5. Mentor
6. Portfolio
ONE-Understand your personal aptitude. Be a sponge in the areas of your strengths. Flex your strengths tirelessly. This sets the stage for play and creativity in your personal learning style.
Every day, go to the Offical SAT Question for the day. (SAT=Scholastic APTITUDE Test) See the archives at Cool Rocket School Tutor for some past articles relating to these questions. See notes about strategies for the Dec 26th and 27th questions here. The post is today, December 27th and has the title 'Aptitude.'
Notice how using these ways of 'solving' the questions applies to many more types of questions--giving you an aptitude boost in how to look at the problem and move to solving quickly and accurately. Be your own guide to using a multi-sensory approach to learn anything.
If you love to play sports, use kinesthetic approaches to learning. If you love to watch sports, make up charts, analyses, and games yourself using the concepts of the games.
If you favor mathematics, mysteries, or puzzles--make logic, including debate and argument, a cornerstone in your personal approach to life. Consider what follows, logically, when you consider the facts.
If you love music, include background music appropriate to your slideshows to study vocabulary, terminology, and any type of memory work--from presentations to multiplication tables to working with square roots.
If you like to draw, mix in architectural type drawing in your math study or characters, even animated versions, in your literature study.
Remember that the more areas of aptitude you have, the better.
When I taught Beowulf to two high school seniors, one of them spontaneously drew the warrior in chalk on the blackboard. His drawing literally 'drew us'--the teacher and some of my younger students--into a great discussion with this senior about the character of Beowulf and about the monster in the ancient story, believed to be the first one written in Old English.
You can make connections all of the time--especially if you are making slideshows, designing brochures about how to fix a flat tire, how to make a pizza, or how to compose a brochure!
If you recognize, for yourself, the way to use a multi-sensory approach, you will be providing yourself with the most expensive type of individualized educational experience.
Here's how to do this: Think of ways to learn more about what you are studying using all of your senses--your hearing, your vision, your physical touch, your sense of smell, your sense of taste.
Appraisers often rub pearls against their teeth to feel whether the pearl is rough, the sign that it is not a manufactured pearl, that it is real. The test is a combination of texture and taste, and not a safe one either. You do not need to taste things that could be dangerous or germ-covered to use this method of learning. You can appreciate what happens in chemical fusions of foods in a clean environment. You can learn about yeast while making bread for pizza crust, and about pasturization in relation to milk--in person at a local dairy--or on line. Plants teach us much about science and economics--from genetics to dependence on imports.Two books that are great for reading portions to get chunks of understanding and food for thought: the classic Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and the family-friendly Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.
Make posters, photographs, maps, charts, and images on PowerPoint displays about terminology, vocabulary, and different languages. Read the descriptions on the sides of everything; and, then, read some of the parallel translations in other languages.
For the rest of your life, keep thinking: What is a multi-sensory approach? How can I use visual assistance? What music or voice (pronunciation of vocabulary) helps to learn what I am studying? What shapes help me to learn? What forms can I make with other textures to teach and to learn these concepts? How can I use vision, sight, hearing, touch, smell to understand and to remember?
Make cards, maps, mobiles, and business plans.
Make powerpoint displays of vocabulary words, adding google images for every word; make board games about what you are studying--then translate at least part of the game into a computer version. Analyze lyrics from music you like to find poetic devices (repetition, rhyme, rhythm, beat, tone, similes, metaphors, hyperbole, understatement, symbolism, character, plot, suspense. Pretend you are teaching to a fifth grader and make an A-Z book with illustrations about literary terms: A is for allusion. English teachers love for you to use allusions to literature in your writing.
Make brochures teaching someone else how to do things: How to cook a pizza, how to fix a bike wheel, how to care for a turtle, how to begin an exercise program, how to make a brochure!
Come back tomorrow for links about NUMBER ONE: APTITUDE. Then, we will continue to explore the way to have an expensive education without paying money you don't have. When we get to 'resources,' we will cover ways to choose when to go ahead and pay for a tutor or a private school for a particular period or for a particular purpose.
If you cannot pay or wish to figure out a way to get the guidance to keep you on track for college, you will need to research some of the standards that private schools use to incorporate the best for their clients. Sometimes the way to do this is to take one type of course with a particular school or instructor, and this should be the area of your greatest aptitude. That work will transcend the confines of a particular area and shine on your life!
See you tomorrow. judiethcarol and rocketcat
1. Aptitude
2. Motivation
3. Attitude
4. Resources
5. Mentor
6. Portfolio
ONE-Understand your personal aptitude. Be a sponge in the areas of your strengths. Flex your strengths tirelessly. This sets the stage for play and creativity in your personal learning style.
Every day, go to the Offical SAT Question for the day. (SAT=Scholastic APTITUDE Test) See the archives at Cool Rocket School Tutor for some past articles relating to these questions. See notes about strategies for the Dec 26th and 27th questions here. The post is today, December 27th and has the title 'Aptitude.'
Notice how using these ways of 'solving' the questions applies to many more types of questions--giving you an aptitude boost in how to look at the problem and move to solving quickly and accurately. Be your own guide to using a multi-sensory approach to learn anything.
If you love to play sports, use kinesthetic approaches to learning. If you love to watch sports, make up charts, analyses, and games yourself using the concepts of the games.
If you favor mathematics, mysteries, or puzzles--make logic, including debate and argument, a cornerstone in your personal approach to life. Consider what follows, logically, when you consider the facts.
If you love music, include background music appropriate to your slideshows to study vocabulary, terminology, and any type of memory work--from presentations to multiplication tables to working with square roots.
If you like to draw, mix in architectural type drawing in your math study or characters, even animated versions, in your literature study.
Remember that the more areas of aptitude you have, the better.
When I taught Beowulf to two high school seniors, one of them spontaneously drew the warrior in chalk on the blackboard. His drawing literally 'drew us'--the teacher and some of my younger students--into a great discussion with this senior about the character of Beowulf and about the monster in the ancient story, believed to be the first one written in Old English.
You can make connections all of the time--especially if you are making slideshows, designing brochures about how to fix a flat tire, how to make a pizza, or how to compose a brochure!
If you recognize, for yourself, the way to use a multi-sensory approach, you will be providing yourself with the most expensive type of individualized educational experience.
Here's how to do this: Think of ways to learn more about what you are studying using all of your senses--your hearing, your vision, your physical touch, your sense of smell, your sense of taste.
Appraisers often rub pearls against their teeth to feel whether the pearl is rough, the sign that it is not a manufactured pearl, that it is real. The test is a combination of texture and taste, and not a safe one either. You do not need to taste things that could be dangerous or germ-covered to use this method of learning. You can appreciate what happens in chemical fusions of foods in a clean environment. You can learn about yeast while making bread for pizza crust, and about pasturization in relation to milk--in person at a local dairy--or on line. Plants teach us much about science and economics--from genetics to dependence on imports.Two books that are great for reading portions to get chunks of understanding and food for thought: the classic Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and the family-friendly Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.
Make posters, photographs, maps, charts, and images on PowerPoint displays about terminology, vocabulary, and different languages. Read the descriptions on the sides of everything; and, then, read some of the parallel translations in other languages.
For the rest of your life, keep thinking: What is a multi-sensory approach? How can I use visual assistance? What music or voice (pronunciation of vocabulary) helps to learn what I am studying? What shapes help me to learn? What forms can I make with other textures to teach and to learn these concepts? How can I use vision, sight, hearing, touch, smell to understand and to remember?
Make cards, maps, mobiles, and business plans.
Make powerpoint displays of vocabulary words, adding google images for every word; make board games about what you are studying--then translate at least part of the game into a computer version. Analyze lyrics from music you like to find poetic devices (repetition, rhyme, rhythm, beat, tone, similes, metaphors, hyperbole, understatement, symbolism, character, plot, suspense. Pretend you are teaching to a fifth grader and make an A-Z book with illustrations about literary terms: A is for allusion. English teachers love for you to use allusions to literature in your writing.
Make brochures teaching someone else how to do things: How to cook a pizza, how to fix a bike wheel, how to care for a turtle, how to begin an exercise program, how to make a brochure!
Come back tomorrow for links about NUMBER ONE: APTITUDE. Then, we will continue to explore the way to have an expensive education without paying money you don't have. When we get to 'resources,' we will cover ways to choose when to go ahead and pay for a tutor or a private school for a particular period or for a particular purpose.
If you cannot pay or wish to figure out a way to get the guidance to keep you on track for college, you will need to research some of the standards that private schools use to incorporate the best for their clients. Sometimes the way to do this is to take one type of course with a particular school or instructor, and this should be the area of your greatest aptitude. That work will transcend the confines of a particular area and shine on your life!
See you tomorrow. judiethcarol and rocketcat
Aptitude
Aptitude:
www.collegeboard.com
This is the perfect site to do a question each day to develop your ‘aptitude.’ Aptitude, supposedly, is not something to study to increase. The fact is, however, you can greatly increase your aptitude for specific standardized tests—including the one that helps you the most in more ways than getting into college, the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
A great thing to do for your personal program of multi-sensory instruction to get a wonderful education without paying so much money is to understand the screening devices of places you may want to go some day. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a major screening device.
Why is this test so much a standard, and how can you use this sophisticated measurement of standards to your advantage?
Look at the question for December 26th first.
I almost missed this one because I was tempted to skip a strategy I know I need to use due to my personal strengths. My personal strengths are visualizing with a more familiar pattern when asked a question with percentages, fractions, or decimals. I especially do better when I use easier names in my pattern question—or letters for the unfamiliar names in the question itself.
Notice that the question for December 26th (which, by the way, was missed by almost seventy percent—70%!—of the thousands of people who responded) has some unusual geographical names. Drop those in your mind when you look at the problem. They do not have anything to do with the problem.
When you attempt to answer the question, be sure to look at the way the SAT shows you to visualize the way to do the problem by assigning letters to the different ‘unknowns.’
Now, let me tell you what I did. I filled in imaginary numbers and city names. I used numbers I could establish percentages easily to see the relationships easily.
A major strategy for aptitude tests is to write your own scenario with your own numbers into the scenario—to see relationships of the numbers. Throw out distractions like unfamiliar place names, too.
www.collegeboard.com Question for December 26th:
I grew up in Atlanta. Atlanta has many more than 200,000 people. However, to do the math easily, I visualized the question this way: Atlanta has 200,000 people (pretend!) and that number of people is one-half the total of the rest of Georgia. That would be 400,000 in the rest of Georgia, right (2 x 200,000)? So, if the rest of GA has twice the number of people in Atlanta, then Atlanta has 1/3 (or 33 and 1/3 % ) of the population of the state. (The rest of the state has 2 times that figure or 66 and 2/3. MAKE SURE YOU ANSWER THE CORRECT QUESTION!!!
Major strategies for aptitude development is to make the pattern of the question look familiar, and be sure to answer the correct question.
I chose 33 and 1/3%--which is the correct answer.
The next day’s question was so easy for me, due to my particular strengths, that I had to be careful to check it to make sure that I did not overlook something. If this type of question or problem is easier for you, too, use the caution I use to make sure I get the points I know! I rarely miss one of these.
The answering strategy is to read the sentence with fill-ins of the simplest word coming to mind that would fit in each of the two blanks. Then, I look below and find the words, in first and second order, that have the same tone and meaning as the words I chose to fill in the blanks.
I call this the RACECAR strategy because I use it on the questions I want to answer very quickly. I check them quickly, too.
This is a great strategy for noticing your aptitude because you force yourself to come up with a way not to go so fast on what you know that you miss something just because you did not pay attention in a test situation. This is the strategy I call the ‘RACECAR’ strategy because you go forward quickly, stop and mark the answer, then roll back just as quickly to eliminate two answers . ‘RACECAR’ is a palindrome—fast forward quickly—but roll back over it so you don’t miss the fast ones.
RACECAR is the same word forward and backward, a palindrome.
This strategy works for these questions every time. Again, this can get so smooth for those of us who enjoy this type of question that we can miss a hint of something else going on. The way to check is quick, however. Eliminate at least two of the other answers AFTER you have marked your answer.
To develop your aptitude, notice which questions your brain wants you to gloss over and answer quickly. Use your abilities and mark the answer. Then, make it a habit to make sure you are right by eliminating at least one or two of the other answers—according to how time consuming it is. If this is not fast, just eliminate one of the wrong answers as your check.
www.collegeboard.com
This is the perfect site to do a question each day to develop your ‘aptitude.’ Aptitude, supposedly, is not something to study to increase. The fact is, however, you can greatly increase your aptitude for specific standardized tests—including the one that helps you the most in more ways than getting into college, the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
A great thing to do for your personal program of multi-sensory instruction to get a wonderful education without paying so much money is to understand the screening devices of places you may want to go some day. The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a major screening device.
Why is this test so much a standard, and how can you use this sophisticated measurement of standards to your advantage?
Look at the question for December 26th first.
I almost missed this one because I was tempted to skip a strategy I know I need to use due to my personal strengths. My personal strengths are visualizing with a more familiar pattern when asked a question with percentages, fractions, or decimals. I especially do better when I use easier names in my pattern question—or letters for the unfamiliar names in the question itself.
Notice that the question for December 26th (which, by the way, was missed by almost seventy percent—70%!—of the thousands of people who responded) has some unusual geographical names. Drop those in your mind when you look at the problem. They do not have anything to do with the problem.
When you attempt to answer the question, be sure to look at the way the SAT shows you to visualize the way to do the problem by assigning letters to the different ‘unknowns.’
Now, let me tell you what I did. I filled in imaginary numbers and city names. I used numbers I could establish percentages easily to see the relationships easily.
A major strategy for aptitude tests is to write your own scenario with your own numbers into the scenario—to see relationships of the numbers. Throw out distractions like unfamiliar place names, too.
www.collegeboard.com Question for December 26th:
I grew up in Atlanta. Atlanta has many more than 200,000 people. However, to do the math easily, I visualized the question this way: Atlanta has 200,000 people (pretend!) and that number of people is one-half the total of the rest of Georgia. That would be 400,000 in the rest of Georgia, right (2 x 200,000)? So, if the rest of GA has twice the number of people in Atlanta, then Atlanta has 1/3 (or 33 and 1/3 % ) of the population of the state. (The rest of the state has 2 times that figure or 66 and 2/3. MAKE SURE YOU ANSWER THE CORRECT QUESTION!!!
Major strategies for aptitude development is to make the pattern of the question look familiar, and be sure to answer the correct question.
I chose 33 and 1/3%--which is the correct answer.
The next day’s question was so easy for me, due to my particular strengths, that I had to be careful to check it to make sure that I did not overlook something. If this type of question or problem is easier for you, too, use the caution I use to make sure I get the points I know! I rarely miss one of these.
The answering strategy is to read the sentence with fill-ins of the simplest word coming to mind that would fit in each of the two blanks. Then, I look below and find the words, in first and second order, that have the same tone and meaning as the words I chose to fill in the blanks.
I call this the RACECAR strategy because I use it on the questions I want to answer very quickly. I check them quickly, too.
This is a great strategy for noticing your aptitude because you force yourself to come up with a way not to go so fast on what you know that you miss something just because you did not pay attention in a test situation. This is the strategy I call the ‘RACECAR’ strategy because you go forward quickly, stop and mark the answer, then roll back just as quickly to eliminate two answers . ‘RACECAR’ is a palindrome—fast forward quickly—but roll back over it so you don’t miss the fast ones.
RACECAR is the same word forward and backward, a palindrome.
This strategy works for these questions every time. Again, this can get so smooth for those of us who enjoy this type of question that we can miss a hint of something else going on. The way to check is quick, however. Eliminate at least two of the other answers AFTER you have marked your answer.
To develop your aptitude, notice which questions your brain wants you to gloss over and answer quickly. Use your abilities and mark the answer. Then, make it a habit to make sure you are right by eliminating at least one or two of the other answers—according to how time consuming it is. If this is not fast, just eliminate one of the wrong answers as your check.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)