A quick note on our SAT scores for our junior and senior class. We have very good individual scores and very good averages as a school. As you can see, we compare very well to the national and state averages. Praise God!
AZ Reading: 516
U.S. Reading: 501
Bios Reading: 596
AZ Math: 521
U.S. Math: 515
Bios Math: 608
AZ Writing: 497
U.S. Writing: 493
Bios Writing: 594
Monday, April 26, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Bios: A Growth Mindset School in a Fixed Mindset World
One of our now eleventh grade students raised his SAT scores 100 points to over 650 to the 84th percentile through the efforts of his math teacher, parents, and his hard work. This is in addition to the increase of his reading score on the SAT by 40 points - also over 650 to the 94th percentile. He is a hard working student who had been underachieving before he arrived this year. A large part of his success is due to the high effort put in by everybody towards his achievements. But, another factor played a role in this. His teacher and all the teachers at Bios work from a different mindset than most educational systems.
For most public and many private schools, students are already type cast into a fixed mindset as to their abilities. Think about it. There are special programs for “gifted,” “learning disabled,” and “mentally handicapped.” Even non-labeled students are type cast by not being placed in a special program but left in “regular education.” In this fixed mindset, you are less apt to take on challenges. Or as quoted in their book Switched by the Heath brothers, “. . . you fear that others will see your failure as an indication of your true ability and see you as a loser.” You don’t try really hard at your work because smart or talented people do not have to and you want people to perceive you as being one of them.
On a regular basis, we have families with students who come to us with stories of being called “idiot” by a teacher, parents who say a child isn’t very smart, or something like “My child will never go to college, but he is a nice kid.” This mindset continues even with positive comments like “You’re great at soccer.” Or “Look how smart you are.” It keeps the person in a fixed place.
Contrast the fixed mindset with a growth mindset. Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University coined both phrases and shows in her research that the growth mindset is necessary if you want to reach your full potential.
Back to the book Switched. Their writings on the success of one study by Dweck to see if the growth mindset would help junior high students improve in math. Quoting from the book, “The growth-mindset students were taught that the brain is like a muscle that can be developed with exercise – that with work, they could get smarter.” After all, Dweck told them “nobody laughs at babies and says how dumb they are because they can’t talk.” The study was a dramatic success showing that the “growth mindset can be taught and that it can change lives.”
While working as a teacher of learning disabled children in a public school, the director of the learning disabilities department was unhappy with me because I was “discharging” students from their learning disabilities class and label because of their successful “mainstreaming” work over time in a regular education class. The director’s claim was “once a special education student, always a special education student.” When I showed her published research which differed and the student’s achievements she reluctantly said yes to the switch in placement. A fixed mindset says you were born this way and this way you will always be.
A growth mindset is more than just telling a student “you’re not stupid” or “you are smart.” A growth mindset involves educating both teachers and students that acquiring skills requires hard work and time.
The teachers and students at Bios have been very successful with the growth mindset. Whether it is raising a new student’s underachieving scores a 100 points in math on the SAT or changing a parent’s and student’s perceptions from “nice but not going to college” to “you have so many opportunities ahead of you when you complete college.”
I will finish with one more quote from Switched on the potential of the growth mindset. “The growth mindset, then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that’s critical, because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than failing. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down – but throughout, we’ll get better and we’ll succeed in the end.”
At Bios Christian Academy, the growth mindset is a strong part of our culture which is observed through the actions of our students and teachers.
For most public and many private schools, students are already type cast into a fixed mindset as to their abilities. Think about it. There are special programs for “gifted,” “learning disabled,” and “mentally handicapped.” Even non-labeled students are type cast by not being placed in a special program but left in “regular education.” In this fixed mindset, you are less apt to take on challenges. Or as quoted in their book Switched by the Heath brothers, “. . . you fear that others will see your failure as an indication of your true ability and see you as a loser.” You don’t try really hard at your work because smart or talented people do not have to and you want people to perceive you as being one of them.
On a regular basis, we have families with students who come to us with stories of being called “idiot” by a teacher, parents who say a child isn’t very smart, or something like “My child will never go to college, but he is a nice kid.” This mindset continues even with positive comments like “You’re great at soccer.” Or “Look how smart you are.” It keeps the person in a fixed place.
Contrast the fixed mindset with a growth mindset. Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University coined both phrases and shows in her research that the growth mindset is necessary if you want to reach your full potential.
Back to the book Switched. Their writings on the success of one study by Dweck to see if the growth mindset would help junior high students improve in math. Quoting from the book, “The growth-mindset students were taught that the brain is like a muscle that can be developed with exercise – that with work, they could get smarter.” After all, Dweck told them “nobody laughs at babies and says how dumb they are because they can’t talk.” The study was a dramatic success showing that the “growth mindset can be taught and that it can change lives.”
While working as a teacher of learning disabled children in a public school, the director of the learning disabilities department was unhappy with me because I was “discharging” students from their learning disabilities class and label because of their successful “mainstreaming” work over time in a regular education class. The director’s claim was “once a special education student, always a special education student.” When I showed her published research which differed and the student’s achievements she reluctantly said yes to the switch in placement. A fixed mindset says you were born this way and this way you will always be.
A growth mindset is more than just telling a student “you’re not stupid” or “you are smart.” A growth mindset involves educating both teachers and students that acquiring skills requires hard work and time.
The teachers and students at Bios have been very successful with the growth mindset. Whether it is raising a new student’s underachieving scores a 100 points in math on the SAT or changing a parent’s and student’s perceptions from “nice but not going to college” to “you have so many opportunities ahead of you when you complete college.”
I will finish with one more quote from Switched on the potential of the growth mindset. “The growth mindset, then, is a buffer against defeatism. It reframes failure as a natural part of the change process. And that’s critical, because people will persevere only if they perceive falling down as learning rather than failing. We will struggle, we will fail, we will be knocked down – but throughout, we’ll get better and we’ll succeed in the end.”
At Bios Christian Academy, the growth mindset is a strong part of our culture which is observed through the actions of our students and teachers.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Five Reasons Saxon Math Works for Bios Christian Academy
We use Saxon as our textbook for teaching math beginning in grade four and continuing through to calculus. I have used it for over fourteen years at both private schools I have headed with very consistent and impressive results. Often I am asked for my opinion on the best materials for homeschooling and why we use certain materials to educate our students. Here are some thoughts on Saxon.
But first, a little about our teaching methods at Bios Christian Academy. Like it says on the front page of our website, if you were to observe our classrooms K-12 you would observe classrooms that look like homeschool instruction with a few more students, years of experience, and very focused learning objectives. Our goal is to train your child(ren) to be highly-skilled, independent learners who know a lot about the God of the Bible. Recently a parent, who after checking out our website and then observing the students in the classrooms commented “You don’t spoon feed your students, but are actually developing independent learners for the future.” Another name for our approach is Differentiated Instruction.
Back to Saxon. Here are the five reasons for using Saxon.
1. “Spiraling” is used in Saxon. Spiraling is a superior method of presentation for learning. It is the idea of presenting a concept, learning it, and practicing previously learned concepts on a daily basis, in other words continual practice and review. Our students develop mastery of math because Saxon does just that – teach a concept, provide adequate practice (two to ten problems), and then spend the rest of their math period maintaining previously learned skills with two to four problems of each skill in their lesson of thirty problems. One major advantage of this concept, and it is big, is that you can’t fake your way on understanding a skill because it keeps showing up day after day. Our teachers can then focus on assisting students as they master the concept if it was not fully understood at first. The type of text book used in most lecture based classrooms involves a text that teaches a concept one day and leaves it, not to been seen until the test. Usually the assignment for the day is 25 to 35 problems of the same type of problem introduced that day. Five problems are all that is really needed to understand a concept, the other 20 to 30 problems are there just to provide busy work for the students.
2. One-on-one Instruction Our teachers rarely lecture, but instead discuss with each student 3-5 times in a period their understanding of the lesson being worked on. This is possible because the Saxon daily lessons are so well written by Mr. Kake. Clear explanations and supportive examples allow our students to read the lesson which builds upon previously learned skills and explain to their instructor what their understanding of the lesson is. The teacher is then able to decide if the student understands the material presented or if there is need by the teacher for further explanation, examples, and/or additional materials.
3. Mental Math Or work that doesn’t involve pencil and paper. Oral review of basic facts and concepts - what an idea! Every day that our students work a lesson, in the fourth through eighth grades our students work through the six to ten mental math exercises which involve all four operations of money, square roots, fractions, decimals, and so on. Over the days, weeks, months, and years our students become very proficient in their math skills by daily working through and reciting these mental math problems.
4. Frequent Testing Tests occur every five lessons. Testing is good. Frequent testing is better. Saxon tests only the material learned up to five lessons prior to the test. Before a test happens it is well practiced day after day. By the time they get to a test the material has been practiced a lot. If the student does not pass the test, you as the teacher should be surprised because you have had plenty of opportunities to observe the student working all the problems on the test. Frequent testing allows a teacher to ascertain whether a student understands the material in a different format outside of the daily lessons.
5. Math Facts Saxon daily reinforces the learning and mastery of basic math facts in the fourth through the pre-algebra book. Students begin learning and mastering basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts in kindergarten. Saxon reinforces these skills with time tests every day. Our expectation is forty-eight facts in less than one minute.
Saxon is not perfect. But so far they best meet our needs in instructing our students towards mastery in math.
But first, a little about our teaching methods at Bios Christian Academy. Like it says on the front page of our website, if you were to observe our classrooms K-12 you would observe classrooms that look like homeschool instruction with a few more students, years of experience, and very focused learning objectives. Our goal is to train your child(ren) to be highly-skilled, independent learners who know a lot about the God of the Bible. Recently a parent, who after checking out our website and then observing the students in the classrooms commented “You don’t spoon feed your students, but are actually developing independent learners for the future.” Another name for our approach is Differentiated Instruction.
Back to Saxon. Here are the five reasons for using Saxon.
1. “Spiraling” is used in Saxon. Spiraling is a superior method of presentation for learning. It is the idea of presenting a concept, learning it, and practicing previously learned concepts on a daily basis, in other words continual practice and review. Our students develop mastery of math because Saxon does just that – teach a concept, provide adequate practice (two to ten problems), and then spend the rest of their math period maintaining previously learned skills with two to four problems of each skill in their lesson of thirty problems. One major advantage of this concept, and it is big, is that you can’t fake your way on understanding a skill because it keeps showing up day after day. Our teachers can then focus on assisting students as they master the concept if it was not fully understood at first. The type of text book used in most lecture based classrooms involves a text that teaches a concept one day and leaves it, not to been seen until the test. Usually the assignment for the day is 25 to 35 problems of the same type of problem introduced that day. Five problems are all that is really needed to understand a concept, the other 20 to 30 problems are there just to provide busy work for the students.
2. One-on-one Instruction Our teachers rarely lecture, but instead discuss with each student 3-5 times in a period their understanding of the lesson being worked on. This is possible because the Saxon daily lessons are so well written by Mr. Kake. Clear explanations and supportive examples allow our students to read the lesson which builds upon previously learned skills and explain to their instructor what their understanding of the lesson is. The teacher is then able to decide if the student understands the material presented or if there is need by the teacher for further explanation, examples, and/or additional materials.
3. Mental Math Or work that doesn’t involve pencil and paper. Oral review of basic facts and concepts - what an idea! Every day that our students work a lesson, in the fourth through eighth grades our students work through the six to ten mental math exercises which involve all four operations of money, square roots, fractions, decimals, and so on. Over the days, weeks, months, and years our students become very proficient in their math skills by daily working through and reciting these mental math problems.
4. Frequent Testing Tests occur every five lessons. Testing is good. Frequent testing is better. Saxon tests only the material learned up to five lessons prior to the test. Before a test happens it is well practiced day after day. By the time they get to a test the material has been practiced a lot. If the student does not pass the test, you as the teacher should be surprised because you have had plenty of opportunities to observe the student working all the problems on the test. Frequent testing allows a teacher to ascertain whether a student understands the material in a different format outside of the daily lessons.
5. Math Facts Saxon daily reinforces the learning and mastery of basic math facts in the fourth through the pre-algebra book. Students begin learning and mastering basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts in kindergarten. Saxon reinforces these skills with time tests every day. Our expectation is forty-eight facts in less than one minute.
Saxon is not perfect. But so far they best meet our needs in instructing our students towards mastery in math.
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