Social studies is concerned with a wide array of disciplines that impact and affect human society on different levels. At the school level, social studies is a commonly taught subject and can include geography, history, anthropology, sociology, political science, and so on. Social studies is inherently important to any school curriculum because it teaches children the value of good behavior, ethic, and civics and molds them into better more productive citizens. Not to mention it is invaluable for any democratic society with global values.
When your child goes to school and then grows up further, they will undoubtedly need to interact with other children from other cultures or will read about them. Social studies provides a kind of map that can be followed for children to know how to live and behave in society and understand its underlying mechanisms.
Hiring a test prep tutor might just be the best investment you can make toward a college education. It may seem like a large investment, but the return you receive on the investment can be astronomical.
Consider this:
You pay $100 an hour for 5 hours for a test prep tutor = $500
Your student scores as well or better than the state index and qualifies as a National Merit semi-finalist
Colleges who have money set aside for the finalists will use merit aid to entice your student to attend: full tuition, room and board, books and fees, laptops, study abroad and even spending money.
Your student receives a full-ride scholarship for thousands of dollars
As parents, we all want the best for our children’s education. That’s why we often spend a fair amount of time selecting the right school based on everything from school table ratings to student testimonials. Yet, after these initial attempts to get schooling right, it’s surprising how many parents sit back and assume that their children will go on to flourish.
Unfortunately, as many parents go on to realise, not all children are created equal – a school situation that’s ideal for one could well hold another very much at the back of the class. In this respect, it doesn’t matter how highly rated or competitive your school of choice; the chances are that outside help from an English tutor or similar would still benefit your child. Far from being a sign that you made the wrong schooling choice, this is simply a testament to the different ways in which children learn and can fast help your child get back on track if you act quickly.
Here, we’re going to help you do just that by considering a few of the most obvious signs that your child could benefit from outside assistance like this.
Standardized testing can be stressful at best, terrifying at worst. An experienced private tutor offers students a huge advantage with their preparation. By devising a blueprint to prepare for these exams, students can reduce anxiety and drastically improve their scores. Here are some advantages of one-on-one test prep tutoring:
Stress Reduction
As I mentioned previously, the amount of stress during college application time can be overwhelming. Your child not only has to deal with school, maybe a job, and also think about being accepted to college. A tutor will reduce the stress of having to figure out testing dates, scheduling, and will customize a study plan that is specific to your child’s needs. Your child will also feel more at ease knowing the material they will test on, which will ultimately increase their chances at a higher score.
Target Strengths & Weaknesses
No student learns the same. One one one tutoring is the most customizable way of learning. A tutor will assess the student’s strengths and weaknesses, and customize a study plan. Applying a customized plan, will help your child focus on areas that are challenging that they might have otherwise overlooked. Not all students gain the same knowledge in school.
Strategies That Work
A tutor will instill test taking tactics that will alleviate wasted time. Tutors not only teach vocabulary and math formulas but can also suggest new approaches and strategies for questions. This will in turn help with time management and better decisions during test time.
Quality in Teaching
You get to pick a tutor to best match your child’s learning style, schedule, and your budget. While your child might be in the ten percentile of their class, they are also competing with the rest of the students trying to get into the same college. Not all students get the same background knowledge needed to excel at standardized testing. A one on one tutor will focus on managing your child’s unique learning style.
Motivational Boost
The tutor – tutee relationship can give your child that motivational push by encouraging a higher level of thinking. A good tutor not only provides your child with test taking information and different approaches, but can also help as motivation in this sometimes overwhelming undertaking. Tutors have been in their shoes, and they know what it is to feel overwhelmed during this time.
College Scholarships
Let’s face it, college is expensive! However, some colleges and universities offer awards based on test scores. It is no secret that the higher a student scores the higher the chances of receiving scholarship awards. It is important to note that some colleges give automatic scholarships for SAT/ACT scores. Good test preparation will return more than its cost in scholarship awards.
Ultimately, a good one on one tutor will help your child target strengths and weaknesses, alleviate stress, promote motivation and provide test taking and study abilities they can utilize later in life. A good tutor will strengthen the pathway to your child’s college career.
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Today’s guest post is from Idalia Gastelum, a private SAT tutor for Parliament Tutors. She offers tutoring in Miami, FL.
In February and March, your college bound teen could be taking the ACT or the SAT. This week, I’m going to discuss test prep. First on the list–should you hire a test prep tutor? Is it worth the investment? Will it improve your student’s score? Is a tutor really necessary with all the free help you can find online?
Here are five reasons you might
want to hire a tutor:
Motivation
For any student to do well on the test, they need motivation. A tutor could help your student find that motivation.
Accountability
If your student isn’t accountable for their study and progress, it’s easier to slack off and not keep to the plan. A tutor will keep them accountable.
Evaluation
Part of the study process is recognizing mistakes and coming up with a plan to improve. Tutors can help with formulas, test tips, and recognizing the cause of the errors.
Study plan
With standardized tests, “if you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail”. A tutor can provide a regimented study plan to help your student stay on track.
Measure progress
A tutor will have a view of the “bigger picture” and help your student measure progress. Progress spurs motivation and improves accountability.
Spending hundreds of dollars on an effective, well-chosen tutor will certainly improve your student’s standardized test scores. Improved scores will not only improve your student’s chances of acceptance, but it will also improve your student’s chances of becoming a National Merit finalist and/or merit scholarship awards from the colleges offering admission.
Before you hire a tutor, evaluate the benefits and the expected outcome. A small investment could reap huge financial rewards.
Need help finding a tutor, click here for my list of recommended test prep tutors.
For a list of upcoming standardized test prep registration and testings date, click here.
Most parents are thinking about their child’s collegiate future from the moment they enter high school, if not before. Some students are proactive about choosing a dream college and back-up options, while others need extra guidance from their parents to make those decisions. And regardless of whether your child is applying to one school or ten, the application process and months leading up to it are probably stressful for you as well!
You want to make sure they do their best work throughout their high school years, building up the knowledge and experience that will serve them in college, plus that they’ll put their best foot forward with the application process to increase their chances of being accepted. If this sounds like something you’re experiencing, here are some helpful tips you can follow to help your child prepare and be successful.
1. Find a volunteering opportunity to share with your child.
The benefits of volunteerism are plentiful. Kids who volunteer learn about an important social cause and that they have the ability to make a positive impact on the world around them, even in a small way. It’s a great bonding experience for parents and children to do together. It also makes a meaningful addition to any resume.
2. Help your child raise low grades.
Tutoring is a great resource for students of all ages. Tutors are trained to help students study and learn specific subject matter plus develop learning strategies that they can employ in the future. Students who partner with a tutor not only have the opportunity to bring up their grades, but to value the importance of working to overcome difficulties. They also learn that they are capable and competent learners, even in subjects that don’t come naturally to them.
3. Encourage your child to pursue a passion.
High school students have a lot to focus on as they prepare for college life. Many juggle schoolwork with part-time jobs, obligations at home, and time with friends. They can improve their quality of life and maybe even open the door for new opportunities in the future by pursuing a hobby with fervor and merging it with their academic interests. For example, if they love skateboarding, help them look for opportunities to take that interest to the next level. Are there any local competitions at which they can volunteer their time or a skate shop where they can work a day or two a week? If they’re an aspiring writer, can they volunteer to write an article for a local publication about the skating community where you live? Your child will appreciate the support you provide and feel empowered to pursue things that are of interest to them.
Most parents will attest to the fact that the best approach to take as you help your child prepare for college is to be their partner in the process. Consider their natural talents and interests, and help them get the support they need to excel in those areas that they find more challenging. By being a strong support system for them, you’ll be able to give them the extra tools and guidance they need to choose and be accepted into an excellent college.
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Dusty Fox is a full-time world traveler and freelance writer who contributes to the Ivy Trainers network. Visit the Ivy Trainers website to learn more about the services they offer.
In the 2009 film The Blind Side, one of my favorite characters was Michael’s tutor Miss Sue. Played by the charming Kathy Bates, Miss Sue wouldn’t let Michael quit when he became fed up with writing assignments, algebra problems or choosing the best college.
If your son or daughter is already college bound, it probably sounds unnecessary to think about hiring a tutor. After all, they have already made the grades they need. However, there are some surprising impacts which the right tutor can have in your teen’s life. And these unexpected benefits might be just what your family can use during the crazy season which comprises the final years of high school.
So here are 4 reasons that parents counting down till college might want to consider investing in a good private tutor Singapore for their prospective college student.
Image from thematadorsghs.com
1. Help! I’m Drowning!
In junior and senior years there is an overwhelming process of both beginning a new phase and closing an old one. Usually by tenth grade, high schoolers are already practicing for college entrance exams like the SAT or the ACT. From there on, it’s a mad dash to visit colleges, attend scholarship days, continue doing well in advanced classes, take rigorous tests, fill out applications, commit to a school, graduate and then hopefully breathe.
The calming presence of a tutor can serve as extra help with remembering guidelines and crafting college essays. A good tutor should be able to give useful guidance during this hectic time and help students focus on what is important.
2. Learning Skills
Another benefit of tutoring for teens is that they provide help with establishing valuable skills before kids go off to college. Organizational and planning skills along are imperative. Enhancing study skills, learning to speed read and ensuring that students write proficiently are also helpful in college.
And if a student is preparing for that daunting SAT exam, then a tutor may be able to offer tips and practice for success while instilling confidence in a seemingly pivotal time when it is easy to feel that the rest of life hangs on the outcome of one test.
3. Stress Relief
Preparing for college is an exciting time. But it can also be stressful as many important decisions are considered and life remains busier than ever. Bringing in a third party who is not quite as emotionally involved as you and your teen are might just be a good way to save your relationship with your child. You can find a tutor here who can help work with a student when your involvement results in tension.
4. Steady Presence
One of the best things about bringing in a tutor is that you can choose a positive influence over your teen in the last years that you have left with him or her. An older tutor, such as a retired teacher, might be able to speak experience into the situation. Younger tutors, perhaps a college students themselves, can have a different but equally beneficial impact as they are able to speak firsthand experience and relate to your child. In either direction, a tutor may be the perfect person to help foster enthusiasm back into your child when the worry of deadlines and decisions detracts from the excitement of graduation and beginning college.
So whether it is practicing timed essays for the SAT or reviewing South University accreditation, a tutor may be just the figure your child needs during the wonderful but challenging season of pre-college.
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This post is brought to you by Jessica Socheski, a freelance writer who specializes in articles on general tutoring.
Why was InstaEDU created and who are the creators?
InstaEDU was created to solve two big problems with the traditional private tutoring industry. First, while not every student needs an hour of tutoring every Tuesday from 3-4 p.m., every single student knows what it’s like to get stuff on a tough subject and need a little extra help. And second, private tutoring is prohibitively expensive for many students; in some parts of the country, tutors charge more than $100 per hour, making it difficult for many families and college students to afford. As a result, InstaEDU was launched to make high quality, one-on-one online tutoring accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and a desire to learn — regardless of time of day or if you planned ahead. The company was founded by Alison Johnston, her brother Dan Johnston, and a friend Joey Shurtleff in late 2011; all three went to Stanford University.
Is InstaEDU expensive?
Not at all. Every new student on InstaEDU gets to try the service out for free. After that, tutoring starts at just $24/hour, and it’s billed by the minute. So, if you only need help for a few minutes, you can pay just a few dollars. But if you want to work with your tutor for an hour or more, we want to make sure it’s affordable, too!
How does it work?
Students come to InstaEDU and let us know what subject they need help with. From there, we can get them connected with a tutor from a top college in under a minute. Here’s how it works: When tutors sign up with us, we require them to register with either Facebook chat or GChat. Once they do that, our service can tell when they’re online. So when a student comes to us looking for help with a specific subject, we can send chat messages to tutors who are both experts in that subject and online. If a tutor is available, they simply click on a link to take the lesson.
Beyond our on-demand service, we also know that many students like working with the same tutor on a regular basis — they want the traditional hour per week with a tutor they connect with. We also offer the option to message and set up lessons with tutors. This can be especially useful for students in college who need help with more advanced subjects and want to find a tutor who knows, for example, college-level organic chemistry.
What type of tutoring do you offer?
All of InstaEDU’s tutoring is done online in our collaborative lesson space (it has a whiteboard and document uploader with editing). Students can choose to use video chat, audio chat or text chat — it’s totally up to them. In terms of subjects, we cover all high school subjects and most college level subjects as well. Literally everything from basic algebra to advanced econometrics.
How do you vet your tutors and who are they?
All of InstaEDU’s tutors are either current students at, or recent graduates of top colleges like Stanford, Harvard and MIT. When they apply, we require them to sign up with Facebook — that’s how we can verify they’re associated with the school they say they are. We also have them do an interview where they tell us about past tutoring and teaching experience, which is required to work with us. After every session, students also have the option to rate their tutors, so it’s easy to see if a tutor isn’t doing a great job; if that’s the case, we’ll determine if they’re a good fit for InstaEDU or work with them to resolve any issues.
How can parents use this service for their high school and college students?
We frequently see parents come to InstaEDU looking for a tutor to work with their student[s]. With high school students, parents can set up an account for their child, and then from the parent account it’s simple to manage payments and scheduling. All the student needs to do is show up for his or her lesson. With parents of college students, what we’ll see is parents turning to InstaEDU when their college student is in over his or her head in a tough course or needs help with a paper. Just like with the high school students, parents can manage the payment aspect of the account so the only thing the student needs to focus on is their lesson.
Is it easy to get started using InstaEDU?
Absolutely. We give every new student on InstaEDU a free trial so they can see how the service works and make sure it’s a good fit. All that’s needed beyond that is an Internet connection and a desire to learn.
When your child is in their junior and senior year of high school, one of the most exciting things about that time in their life is knowing that they are just several months away from going away to college. But sometimes, even amidst all of the planning and excitement, it can be challenging to maintain the kind of grades that are needed to be accepted into the school of their choice.
If you have a college bound kid who appears to be struggling academically and you’re looking for some tips on how to help them, we have five proven ones that will have them ready to receive their college acceptance letter sooner than you might think:
Encourage them. Whether it’s been while we were in school or on our jobs, we all have experienced moments when we were simply burned out. That’s why, even in the midst of all of the hustle and bustle that comes with the everyday demands of life, it’s important check in with your child and keep them encouraged. Oftentimes a little pep talk can go a long way toward getting them back on track.
Suggest that they to get into study groups. In college, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for students to get together and have study sessions. So, in preparation for campus life, why not encourage your child to either become a part of a study session or to start one in high school? Having the support of their peers can also be a very effective tool.
Be willing to assist them. Yes, for many of us, it’s been years since we were in high school or college, but you might be surprised by the amount of information that you’ve retained. It doesn’t hurt to at least sit down with your child and ask them about the areas where they are having trouble and then offering your assistance where you can. If that doesn’t work, then there’s also the next suggestion.
Get them a tutor. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting your child a tutor. As a matter of fact, it could prove to be one of the best things that you could do for them if their grades are truly suffering. A wonderful thing about this particular option is that there are private tutors who can come to your home, or you can enroll them in something like a Sylvan’s Learning Center program, or there are even free online tutoring options available. Some of them include Khan Academy, Free-Tutoring-Online and LearnToBe.org. If your child is comfortable with a tutor now, they will be less hesitant to get one later should they need something like a GMAT tutor to prepare them for an MBA or law school entrance exams down the road.
Don’t rule out getting them tested. Sometimes, you can find yourself doing all of the “right things” and your child is still not excelling. If you sense that they are doing their best and you’re still not getting the kind of results that you would like, don’t be closed to the idea of having them professionally tested. If they do have some kind of learning disability, it’s better to know as soon as possible so that you can get them the appropriate help that they need before they get to college.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education has made its industry-leading personal digital tutor – McGraw-Hill LearnSmart – available for students to purchase directly. Traditionally, McGraw-Hill has marketed LearnSmart, which is available in almost every subject area, to universities and professors for class-wide adoption, which it will continue to do. But now, students can access LearnSmart on their own – a move the company made because of the solution’s growing popularity and proven effectiveness among students.
Students using McGraw-Hill LearnSmart have been proven to move up a full letter grade by studying smarter, not longer. With LearnSmart, students use their out-of-class study time to answer questions that are related to what they’re learning in their course. The fully digital system acts like a personal tutor, continuously assessing students’ knowledge and skills and providing personalized content and recommendations that help them master basic course concepts and retain their knowledge over time. Because LearnSmart is conveniently accessible online and via mobile apps, the technology and devices that students use every day will power a personalized, study-on-the-go experience that will give them the information and focus they need to ensure success in their courses.
Widely available for more than 100 best-selling McGraw-Hill college textbooks and across more than 40 course areas, LearnSmart is great even for students on a budget, starting at $24.99 per semester. Parents wanting to ensure their children get the most of their education can rest assured that LearnSmart is a smart investment. In a study released last year, LearnSmart was shown to turn C students into B students, and B students into A students.
“I have had so much success using LearnSmart,” said Tracy Chupp, an Anatomy & Physiology student at Ivy Tech Community College. “By using LearnSmart to study, I know exactly what I need to practice and how much I know about each topic.”
Originally developed in 2007, McGraw-Hill LearnSmart uses a wealth of data to continuously analyze students’ knowledge and skills and direct them to the exact material (in their e-book or print book) they need to study. LearnSmart also contains engaging gaming elements to push students to improve their performance by showing them how they rank relative to their peers. LearnSmart is perfect for today’s multitasking students, whether they are over-achievers seeking an added edge, struggling students who need extra help to prepare for their exams, or students who are simply pressed for time. More than 950,000 students have answered nearly 700 million questions using LearnSmart – which is good news for students, as LearnSmart gets smarter the more widely it is used.
“We have technology with the power to personalize the learning experience and give students an academic edge,” said Brian Kibby, president, McGraw-Hill Higher Education. “We’re making LearnSmart available directly to students – and their parents who want to help them succeed – so we can ensure that more students have the tools they need to empower themselves and get the most out of their college education. As a student in today’s highly competitive and expensive college environment, why wouldn’t you use a digital tutor that could increase your course performance by a whole letter grade?”
Students and parents can purchase immediate access to LearnSmart from the recently launched LearnSmart website at www.mhlearnsmart.com, by simply finding the McGraw-Hill textbook title for the courses they are taking. McGraw-Hill LearnSmart will also be available for purchase at Follett’s network of 940 college and university campus stores throughout North America and on Follett’s website. LearnSmart can also be purchased through the McGraw-Hill Education online store at www.shopmcgrawhill.com.
To promote the proven effectiveness and expanded availability of this exciting study tool, McGraw-Hill is also announcing today the Going Places with LearnSmart Sweepstakes, in which students who enter will be eligible to win prizes totaling more than $10,000, including gift cards students can use towards spring break travel, and free LearnSmart products. For more information and to register, students should visitwww.mhlearnsmart.com/goingplaces.
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About McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill Education is a content, software and services-based education company that draws on its more than 100 years of educational expertise to offer solutions, which improve learning outcomes around the world. McGraw-Hill is the adaptive education technology leader with the vision for creating a highly personalized learning experience that prepares students of all ages for the world that awaits. The company has offices across North America, India, China, Europe, the Middle East and South America, and makes its learning solutions available in more than 65 languages. For additional information, visit www.mheducation.com.
In February and March, your college bound teen could be taking the ACT or the SAT. This week, I’m going to discuss test prep. First on the list–should you hire a test prep tutor? Is it worth the investment? Will it improve your student’s score? Is a tutor really necessary with all the free help you can find online?
