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YOUR DAUGHTER’S SELF-ESTEEM & HALLOWEEN

10/25/2017

 
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Halloween is supposed to be a night filled with fun and candy. However, the pressure to find a great costume that fits within the “norms” portrayed in the media can leave teenage girls feeling insecure. Your daughter may want to dress up like Eleven from Stranger Things, but feel pressured to be a “sexy” bunny instead.

So what can you do to help boost your daughter’s self-esteem? Below is some advice from The Child Mind Institute:

1. Model body acceptance. Moms should be cautious about obsessing out loud about food or putting down their appearance in front of their daughters. This negative talk can have a huge impact on your daughters’ own body image.

2. Make your daughter media literate.  Watch TV with your daughter and ask questions about the media portrayals you observe. This can help your daughter develop a critical eye through which to decode and filter media messages.

3. Direct your praise away from appearance. Challenge yourself to match every compliment you give about your daughter’s appearance with at least two compliments about something non-appearance based.

4. Encourage positive affirmations. Teach your daughter to stop looking to external sources for self-validation and instead look within and find their own strengths. This can be encouraged by asking your daughter to write down four things she likes about herself each morning before school.

5. Praise your daughter for her efforts rather than her performance. Your praise should focus less on the outcome and more on efforts and the development of new skills. Mastery is what builds confidence, and learning to tolerate failure fosters resilience.

6. Make sure she know you love her no matter what. Even though teens are heavily reliant on their peers for feedback, they also truly care what their parents think of them. Make sure your daughter know you’ll love her no matter how she looks or how she performs at something.

Want more information on building your daughter’s self-esteem? Here is an article from The Child Mind Institute providing information on how to help girls stop saying ‘sorry’ and express confidence.  Also, check out Barb Steinberg - a local life coach and workshop facilitator who focuses on improving the lives of adolescent girls and the adults who care about them.

Have a healthy Halloween!

Kristi, Katie & Elizabeth

Study Skills 101

10/19/2017

 
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Jason VanMeter (WHS Academic Interventionist) and Lisa Johnson (WHS Educational Technologist) delivered a session to all Freshman students on the topic of study skills and note-taking best practices. Information from the Note-taking section was shared in a previous post.
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During our session with Freshman, Mr. VanMeter shared his top ten effective study skills and elaborated on each. For those of you that would like a recap or missed the session, we have included all 10 steps below.
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Top Ten Effective Study Skills
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1.       WHAT WORKS FOR YOU?: Find a system/setting that works for you. What one person finds helpful may not always work for all.  Use a variety of methods to help remind yourself of important dates and manage your time. (Planner/Calendar, Phone, I pad, Google calendar, etc.)

2.       FIND a ROUTINE: Establish a routine that you follow to study each day in an environment with minimal distractions to be productive. Put away the phone. Make “to-do” lists daily and update accordingly after sessions. Check your definition note cards or study sheets throughout the day when you have time. (Waiting in line, lunch, riding in the car etc.)

3.       DO HOMEWORK: Do the assigned homework. The teacher has chosen the material to study for a reason. Chances are that you will need this information for future assignments and/or tests and quizzes.

4.       PRACTICE DIFFERENT STYLES OF NOTES: Practice different ways of taking notes depending on the subject matter. Studies show that sketches and diagrams are helpful reminders. There are many online programs/apps available to students to help them take better notes. Check with Ms. Johnson in the tech dept. for more.

5.       CAN YOU RECORD A LECTURE?: Ask your teacher if you can audio record a lecture or lesson to listen to again later. Make sure to get permission as some may be concerned about privacy rights.  If not, many classes have links to videos available on youtube.com that are integrated with their curriculum, as well.

6.       GO TO TUTORING: Go to tutoring offered in the library after school. Sometimes having another teacher explain the subject matter from a different perspective or style can be helpful. Check for time availability.

7.       GET ENOUGH SLEEP: Make sure that you are getting enough sleep. Physicians agree that young people should sleep at least 9.25 hours a night in order for their brains to be at optimum performance levels.

8.       DON’T PROCRASTINATE: You should begin more challenging and time consuming projects/papers as soon as possible. Waiting until the last moment to begin not only negatively affects the quality of your work/grade but contributes to stress and anxiety.

9.       TAKE BREAKS: Take breaks and reward yourself when you have completed what you have set out to do in that time frame.  You will remember more if you study in concentrated time slots where you give your brain time to encode and review what you have just learned. Have fun when work’s done.

10.   ASK FOR HELP: If you find yourself having trouble keeping up with your school work, don’t be afraid to ask for help from your teacher, counselor or myself. There are other ways and methods that we may be able to offer you, if you request our assistance. Also, don’t hesitate to make us aware of anything that could be contributing to your having difficulty at school that you feel we should know about. It is our job to help!

Thanks,
Kristi, Katie, and Elizabeth with the much appreciated words of wisdom from Lisa! 



How to Organize Your Digital Notebook

10/12/2017

 
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A few weeks ago, Jason VanMeter (WHS Academic Interventionist) and Lisa Johnson (WHS Educational Technologist) delivered a session to all Freshman students on the topic of study skills and note-taking best practices. Information from the Study Skills section will be shared in an upcoming post.

The note-taking portion included research on note-taking best practices as well as survey results from our staff on the topic of note-taking (e.g. how often students take notes a week and what type of notes teachers encourage).


While students may take notes by hand, many of them also use digital tools for note-taking, drafting papers, and projects. In the olden days, students were taught to organize a binder and prepare it with tabs and they didn’t need wifi to access their notes or binder. While digital tools offer affordances like back-ups, speech to text, and searches, students also need to be cognizant about how they organize their digital binder, what tools they use for what purpose, and how to ensure these digital tools are organized and content will not be lost.

Honestly, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this. Everyone uses different apps and has a different process… but being aware of how you organize your content and having a system is really half the battle.

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The chart above is how I organize my digital tools. It is not meant to be prescriptive… just an example of a process:

  • Notes: I use Notes for quick stuff. If you update to iOS 11, you can also use it to scan PDF’s. It has a collaborative element… which is nice… if you wanted to create a shared checklist while working with a group. It also has a drawing feature.
  • Notability: Every secondary student has access to the Notability app. We shared info with Freshman on how to organize notes into folders for easier access. Notability allows you to create multimedia notes as well as to annotate PDF’s. It also has a built in recording feature which is great for recording a lecture. It accepts text as well as handwriting. One main thing for students to remember is to back up Notability to Google Drive (see pic below) so if Notability ever crashes or they have to swap out their iPad, then all of their notes will still be available. Google Docs: Google Docs has fantastic word processing and collaborative features. The main thing to remember is that you will have to make certain documents available offline if you need to access them when you don’t have wifi. If you have a Senior, it is suggested that in the spring, they start sharing their documents with a personal gmail account so they don’t lose access to them after they graduate.
  • Evernote: Evernote is used by a fair number of college students and industry professionals. It is suggested to have students sign in to it with a personal email account as if they leave the district (prior to 12th grade and/or after graduation) then they will still have access to their notes. Evernote also has an audio recording feature and OCR (Optical Character Recognition).
  • Paper by 53: Paper by 53 is a great tool for those that like to create mind-maps or sketchnotes. It also has backgrounds and graphic organizers.
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I hope this info is helpful. Stay tuned for more nuggets on the topics of digital organization, study skills, and note-taking tips and best practices.

Thanks and Stay Healthy, Chaps!
Guest Blogger - 
Lisa Johnson M. Ed.

PBS Learning Media Digital Innovator for Texas

Apple Distinguished Educator 2013
Book Creator Ambassador
Thinglink Expert Educator
Tackk Advocate
Educational Technologist
Westlake High School
Room 287 Ext: 20887
@TechChef4u
WHS WIFI site
2100+ iPad Lessons and Resources

The Power of Journaling

10/5/2017

 
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With a focus on social emotional learning, self-awareness and self-management become increasingly important. Self-awareness focuses on identifying emotions, accurate self-perception, and recognizing strengths. Self-management focuses on stress management, self-discipline, self-motivation, goal-setting, and organizational skills.
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One of the ways to meet these needs is to journal. Beyond self-awareness and self-management, there are also some interesting benefits to journaling:
  • Form new Conclusions and Perspectives (Stevens & Cooper, 2009, p. 3 & 9)
  • Increase Creative and Reflective Thinking (Stevens & Cooper, 2009, p. 15-16, 33)
  • Enhance Immune Function, Drop Blood Pressure, Improve Sleep (Grothaus, 2015)
  • Lessen Depression and Anxiety, and Increase Positive Mood (Grothaus, 2015)
  • Stretch your Vocabulary, Evoke Mindfulness, Boost Memory and Comprehension, Strengthen Self-Discipline (Nguyen, 2015)
  • Improve Memory and Problem-Solving Skills (Werrell, 2017)
  • Gain Clarity, Feel Calmer, Boost Cognition, Track Patterns ("Confined to Success”)
  • Help Prioritize Problems, Fears, and Concerns
  • Provide Opportunities for Positive Self-Talk (University of Rochester)
If you are interested in starting a journal, but uncertain where to start… try some simple prompts. The ones shown below (and linked here) should take no more than 10 minutes. They are PDF’s so they can be physically printed and/or annotated with an app like Notability.

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Guest Blogger - 
Lisa Johnson M. Ed.

PBS Learning Media Digital Innovator for Texas

Apple Distinguished Educator 2013
Book Creator Ambassador
Thinglink Expert Educator
Tackk Advocate
Educational Technologist
Westlake High School
Room 287 Ext: 20887
@TechChef4u
WHS WIFI site
2100+ iPad Lessons and Resources

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