Cognitive Tutor and Rational Tutor - How They Help Students

Cognitive Tutor and Rational Tutor - How They Help StudentsCognitive Tutor and Rational Tutor are both related to the algebra portion of the SAT. If you do not already know, a whole array of complex concepts and words are discussed in an algebra course, so it is best to learn algebra before the SAT takes place.Just about every chapter of the test consists of a section's topics, and they are broken up into topics that relate to math, science, and language. Students who want to succeed in algebra are going to need to know the concepts, and possibly even understand a few different equations. Both these books provide all the tools needed for helping students achieve this goal.Cognitive Tutor is designed by a leading expert in both introductory and advanced college algebra courses. It has been used by thousands of students who passed their courses and earned their college degrees. The author understands that just reading an algebra text book does not guarantee success in an advanced class . The text book that is in Cognitive Tutor has all the tools you need to pass the course.A valuable feature of the book is the numerous sections on time management, study habits, and problem solving strategies. These sections include helpful suggestions, exercises, and practice problems. Once students start learning the topics that are covered in the book, they will begin to see improvements in the time that they spend studying, as well as in their ability to solve math problems.Most algebra books focus on one or two subject areas, such as geometry, trigonometry, or even calculus. However, the author includes a substantial number of question banks that you can use at your leisure. The main feature of the text book is the repetition and revision that it provides, making it an excellent choice for students who want to review the topics they need to master in algebra class.The cost of Cognitive Tutor is reasonable and is very reasonably priced, especially given the number of concepts a nd ideas that are covered. For many students, the cost of the book is not something they are concerned with. In addition, there are multiple versions of the book available, including an inexpensive paperback edition.Some students choose to teach themselves first, but others have their own theories from other sources. The author has designed this book to be simple enough for anyone to understand, regardless of the knowledge that you already have.

3 Fun Rhythm Guitar Patterns So You Can Learn to Sing and Play

3 Fun Rhythm Guitar Patterns So You Can Learn to Sing and Play Megan L. Mastering a few basic rhythm guitar patterns is key to learning how to sing and play guitar at the same time. Follow this guide from guitar teacher Andy T.  and youll be strumming like a boss in no time Singing and playing guitar at the same time is one of the most challenging things that  a musician can do. It’s like patting your head and rubbing your stomach, only ten times more  difficult. Today, we are going to look at three easy and hip rhythm guitar patterns that you can use  to get started. For the purposes of this article, we are going to use a guitar as the example instrument.  However, with a little creativity, these rhythmic patterns can be converted to piano, ukulele,  banjo, or any other chordal instrument. Each rhythm guitar pattern is notated using slash notation  and is accompanied by an audio clip. Above each beat, you will see either of these two symbols: a downstroke or an upstroke . These symbols refer to downstrokes and  upstrokes, respectively. Don’t forget to play the rests! In other words, any time you see a rest,  go ahead and move your strumming hand over the strings like you’re strumming, but don’t  actually touch the strings. This will keep your hand in sync so that you are strumming down on  downbeats and up on upbeats. You’ll also notice that each pattern has two versions. The only difference between two  versions of the same pattern is where the change in chord takes place. By altering where the  chord change takes place, you can significantly change the feel of each pattern. Pattern #1 This is one of the most common types of strumming patterns and is a good start to getting a  song under your fingers. The trick to nailing this progression is remembering to start the  second group of notes on an upstroke, so that you can smoothly land the downstroke on the  downbeat of the next measure. Strumming Pattern 1A: document.createElement('audio'); /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern1A.mp3 Strumming Pattern 1B: /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern1B1.mp3 Pattern #2 Take note that this pattern is swung by observing this notation: This means that all  upbeats are shifted from perfectly in between each downbeat, to about 2/3 after each  downbeat (or 1/3 before each downbeat, depending on your perspective). While difficult to  explain in words, hearing and feeling a swing rhythm is much easier. Just imagine the sound  of a train clunking along the tracks, or your car’s tires as you drive over a bridge, or a pair of  boots or high heels walking around on a hard surface. You’ll notice this kind of strumming  when listening to artists like Jack Johnson. Strumming Pattern 2A: /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern2A.mp3 Strumming Pattern 2B: /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern2B.mp3 Pattern #3 This is one of my favorite patterns, especially the second version with the quicker chord  changes. That’s because the chord change happens on the last beat of the second measure,  as opposed to the first beat of the third. It’s that unexpected (and early) change that makes  this so groovy. This pattern and its variations are frequently used by artists like John  Mayer. Strumming Pattern 3A: /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern3A.mp3 Strumming Pattern 3B: /blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/StrummingPattern3B.mp3 Practicing These are three fun, easy strumming patterns to get you started. Before you go, let’s talk a  little bit about the best way to practice these: Slowly. Start by playing much more slowly than  you think you need to. Make sure that you have the pattern looped smoothly before increasing  the tempo. Despite popular logic and opinion, it is much harder to play slow than fast. Which  brings me to my next (and last) point: Use a metronome. A good place to start is typically 60  bpm. See if you can loop a chord progression for at least three minutes (the radio ­standard  length for a song) before increasing the tempo. Good luck, and have fun! Get more guitar guidance by studying with a private music teacher. Guitar teachers are available to work with you online via Skype or in-person depending on location and availability. Search for your guitar teacher now! Andy T. teaches in-person guitar, performance and songwriting lessons in Austin, TX. He has a degree in education from the University of Texas at Austin and has been teaching private guitar lessons for 6 years. Learn more about Andy here! Interested in Private Lessons? Search thousands of teachers for local and live, online lessons. Sign up for convenient, affordable private lessons today! Search for Your Teacher Photo by  Mathias Miranda

4 Rules for Improving Academic Performance

4 Rules for Improving Academic Performance Improving Academic Performance Based on our work with students every day and in our review of the research on academic performance (and really, any type of performance), we’d encourage anyone wrestling with doing better in school, preparing for a standardized test, obtaining admission to college, graduate school, or business school, to follow four simple rules. This article will describe these four rules, and also provide links to easy-to-read books that explore each in much more detail. At the end of the article, we’ll offer a brief summary of how these rules work together to improve academic performance. Rule #1: Adopt a growth oriented, ownership mindset It turns out that what we believe about the nature of intelligence, ability, or even personality traits can literally determine how successful we’ll be in a variety of areas. Why? Because, some beliefs dramatically increase your ability to learn, improve, and take ownership over your education, while others prevent you from even trying to learn new or difficult things, let alone actually learning enough to excel at them. A belief that you can improve, that you “own” your education, leads to extremely high levels of “grit” and the drive to persist when you are struggling. So, your mindset matters â€" a lot. Adopting the growth mindset is critical. It’s a foundational concept and the absolute key to improving and excelling at anything. It unlocks your ability and your willingness to follow the rules we’ll be discussing next. The growth mindset theory was developed by Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford Psychologist who, for years, has been studying the impact of mindset on performance and success in a wide range of age groups. She identified two basic mindsets: fixed and growth. People with a fixed mindset tend to think their abilities, personalities, and intelligence is given at birth, and can’t be changed. They may tend to avoid activities at which they fear they’ll fail, since this will expose a lack of ability which of course, can’t be changed. People with a growth mindset believe that abilities and talents are built up over time through hard work, persistence, and feedback.They believe, accurately, that the brain is a muscle that can be improved and built to “grow” through exercises that make it strain, but ultimately get bigger and better. To learn more about rule #1, consider reading these books: Rule #2: Build the right skills deliberately It turns out that words and concepts such as natural intelligence, talent, and ability, don’t really mean what many of us tend to think they mean. Instead of having, say, mostly to do with your DNA and “natural gifts,” they arise from intense, highly focused, and high quantities of practice. But, that practice must be performed in specific ways that build skill. This literally means that Mozart and Albert Einstein may not have had fundamentally different mental capacities than your or me -they just completed far more deliberate practice in their areas of expertise. So, you might have a growth mindset, and you might have a lot of grit. But, you may not build academic skills all that efficiently or effectively if you aren’t studying in very specific, scientifically proven ways. Rule #2 is all about an incredibly powerful concept called deliberate practice, which research suggests is the key determinate of whether someone can become an expert at something or achieve high levels of performance. It requires intense practice for reasonable (not that long) periods of time, with high levels of focus and lots of mistakes with immediate feedback. If you are practicing deliberately, you are focusing on the building blocks of the skills you are trying to build, pushing yourself beyond your limits, and ultimately creating new mental pathways in your brain that build skill over time. This rule also requires that you are employing a strategy, and that you’ve determined what skills you need to build in the first place (see rule #4). In other words, when it comes to practicing or studying, both the quantity and quality matter. The more deliberate your study or practice habits, the higher the quality. To learn more, read these books â€" Rule #3 Fuel your body and mind Athletes pay close attention to their bodies, but the rest of us, and even those involved in highly academic or intellectual tasks that require lots of brain function, tend not to. Rule #3 is about recognizing and adopting some powerful but very simple rules about nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress. Studies repeatedly show positive correlations between eating right, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep and academic performance. It’s easy to roll your eyes a bit at this, as it seems obvious. But, the problem is that many of us don’t actually come very close to eating right, exercising regularly, or getting enough sleep! We just don’t. Here’s what it would mean to follow this rule: Eat right â€" 5-6 smaller meals a day, balanced mix of carbs, lean protein, and fats with every meal, basically no refined sugar, and very little to no saturated fat Exercise regularly - 30 minutes of some sort of physical activity every day (brisk walking), with at least 2-3 days of moderate physical activity that includes some amount of resistance training Get enough sleep â€" ~ 8 hours for kids, and at least 6 hours for adults And, there’s one other element of rule #3 that we need to address: having a healthy mind. Just because you have no major or minor diagnosed mental health disorder, doesn’t mean you have a completely healthy mind. If school, sports, or social situations tend to make you nervous and highly stressed, your performance suffers. You’ve probably heard that the right amount of stress is a good thing, but too little or too much stress is a bad thing. The idea is that if you are too care free, you may let important tasks fall through the cracks, and end up dropping the ball on that big school project. At the same time, if you are extremely nervous about performing poorly and get really worked up before a big test, you might find yourself having a lot of trouble concentrating or thinking clearly. Too little stress or too much stress is bad, but the right amount of “stress” can lead to clear thinking, appropriate focus, and an extremely helpful sense of calm and confidence that allows you to execute on test day or deliver a great presentation in school or at work. How do you go about improving the health of your mind? One painfully obvious way to do this is to prepare in advance. So many students are stressed out before big tests, but a large proportion of those students also didn’t practice or prepare as much as they could have. On test day, not only do you know less of the material because you haven’t practiced, but your confidence level is lower, and your stress level is higher. It’s a vicious cycle. So, practicing and preparation not only build knowledge and skills, but they naturally increase confidence and reduce stress. But, the more interesting, and less well known, approach to reducing stress is to practice something called mindfulness. What’s mindfulness? Practicing mindfulness is new to most people. The following is borrowed from Joshua David O’Brien, founder of the Mindfulness Community of Central Pennsylvania. “Mindfulness Meditation is a practice of being fully and attentively present in the moment…in formal practice we use the breath as an object of awareness. We follow the physical sensations of the breath as it flows in and out of the body…one of the first things we learn when we try to do this practice is how easily distracted the mind can be. All sorts of thoughts, ideas, feelings, and sensations call for our attention and we find we’ve forgotten all about the breath. When we realize we’ve been distracted, the appropriate response is to simply return to awareness of the breath with kindness, gentleness, patience, and a little dose of curiosity about ourselves…as with any new skill, this becomes a little easier each time and develops best if we set aside any self-conscious judgments or expectations about how our meditation is developing. The practice is to simply relax and wake up to the awareness of what is happening in the present.” One particular University of London study showed that chronic stress negatively impacts your memory, problem solving abilities, ability to concentrate, and in general, your ability to learn new things. Luckily, over 250 studies have shown that mindfulness effectively reduces stress and anxiety. In some cases, it’s as effective as prescription medications. For an easy to read, practical guide to being more mindful to reduce stress, read â€" Rule #4: Develop and employ specific strategies To truly achieve high levels of performance in general, you should actively apply all or most of the above rules. However, rule #4 is critical to achieve specific results in any given area. It may seem obvious, but if you don’t set specific goals, understand exactly what is required to reach them, and develop clear plans for what you will and will not do to achieve the goal, you’ll be much less successful than people that do these things. Setting goals, researching what is required to reach those goals, and developing specific plans that lay out what you will or will not do, is the essenece of developing a strategy. As we’ve learned before, research shows that successful people aren’t smarter, or harder workers. They tend to focus on the ability to improve (growth mindset), which makes them grittier, and when they practice, the do so deliberately. However, what they also tend to do is think more strategically about what they’re doing in school, business, and life. They set goals, focus on the process of improving, and think positively, but realistically, about being successful, so that they can uncover and address roadblocks. What do all of these statements mean for a student? A student functioning strategically would, for example, start thinking about college early in high school. He would make choices about classes and activities that result in the type of resume required for admission into his desired colleges. In any specific class, he’d carefully read the syllabus, understand how the final grade was to be determined, and take advantage of extra credit, participation, or office hours to maximize his point total and grade. These steps aren’t rocket science, but they do require planning and foresight. To learn more about being strategic to be more successful, read â€" Quick Summary As you may have already guessed, many of these rules are linked, and complementary. To use a business term, there are synergies to following all of the rules at once. In other words, I suspect you’ll get more out of each of the rules by following them all, i.e., 1+1+1+1 = 5 or 6, not 4, when it comes to these rules. But, let’s assume not all of this resonates with you. You just don’t believe each of the four rules really matters. Of course, I'd encourage you to do some research, because there really is a lot of evidence to support everything written above. And, I'd encourage you to pick and choose what does resonate with you, and try to build a system for improving performance that works for you. After all, the fixed mindset student with poor eating, exercise, and sleep habits who rarely studies will be more successful if he follows specific strategies!

Talking to Your Childs New Teacher About ADHD

Talking to Your Child’s New Teacher About ADHD Open ongoing communication between parents and teachers is essential for kids with ADHD. In fact, the most effective non-medication interventions for kids with ADHD involve regular communication between parents and teachers as a key treatment component. At the start of a new school year parents have the opportunity to set the stage for productive ongoing collaboration with their childs teacher. Follow these guidelines to get things started off on the right foot: Initiate the first meeting. Teachers have 25-30 new students in their classroom at the start of the school year, and will probably not have an opportunity to reach out to each parent individually. So, take the first step by emailing or calling the teacher to schedule an initial 15-20-minute meeting at the beginning of the school year. It may seem like you will need more than 15 minutes to discuss your childs ADHD, but longer meetings will be more difficult to schedule, and may provide more information than your childs teacher can digest during this jam-packed time of year. Remember that this is just an initial meeting. There will be opportunities for ongoing communication throughout the school year. Approach the meeting with an open mind. Every parent walks into teacher meetings with mixed emotions at the start of the school year. If you have struggled to get your childs needs met in the past, or had a challenging relationship with last years teacher, then it will be tempting to carry these negative experiences forward with you into the current school year. Even if you and your child have had positive experiences previously, you may worry that this years teacher will not live up to the high bar set by the wonderful teachers your child has had in the past. Regardless of your past experiences, try to view the new teacher and school year as an opportunity for a fresh start. Approach your childs new teacher as a collaborator and partner. You are both invested in ensuring that your child has a great school year, and you both have important roles to play in making this happen. Make most of your brief meeting time. Make the most of the time that you have scheduled by thinking through the key points that you want to discuss in advance. Make notes about these points, and bring the notes with you to the meeting. Throughout the meeting, communicate in a manner that is brief and specific. Too much detail and too many tangential stories will make it difficult for the teacher to focus on the important information that you are sharing. When considering which topics to cover, aim to focus on these 4 important meeting goals: Share essential information about your childs ADHD. How does ADHD affect your child academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally? What was your childs greatest struggle last year? What is your childs biggest strength? What are some interventions or accommodations, including those in IEPs and 504 plans, that have previously helped your child manage his or her ADHD? Learn about your childs teachers prior experience with ADHD. How many students with ADHD have they had over the course of their career? What are some strategies that they have used to help students with ADHD? What are their preferences when it comes to partnering with parents to help students with ADHD succeed? Learn about the teachers impressions of your child so far. What have they noticed about your child during the first few days of school? Having observed your child, and having heard the information that youve shared earlier in this meeting, what do they anticipate some of the greatest challenges may be for your child during this school year? Discuss next steps. What is at least one action that you can take at home and the teacher can take in the classroom this week to help your child? How will you and the teacher have regular communication going forward? When should a follow-up meeting be held? Initiating collaborative communication with your childs teacher at the start of the school year will lay the foundation for a positive partnership that will help your child get the support that he or she needs throughout the year at school and at home. ABOUT DR. MARY ROONEY Mary Rooney, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. Dr Rooney is a researcher and clinician specializing in the evaluation and treatment of ADHD and co-occurring behavioral, anxiety, and mood disorders. A strong advocate for those with attention and behavior problems, Dr. Rooney is committed to developing and providing comprehensive, cutting edge treatments tailored to meet the unique needs of each child and adolescent. Dr. Rooney's clinical interventions and research avenues emphasize working closely with parents and teachers to create supportive, structured home and school environments that enable children and adolescents to reach their full potential. In addition, Dr. Rooney serves as a consultant and ADHD expert to Huntington Learning Centers. ABOUT HUNTINGTON Huntington Learning Center is the tutoring and test prep leader. Its certified tutors provide individualized instruction in reading, phonics, writing, study skills, elementary and middle school math, Algebra through Calculus, Chemistry, and other sciences. It preps for the SAT and ACT, as well as state and standardized exams. Huntington programs develop the skills, confidence, and motivation to help students of all levels succeed and meet the needs of Common Core State Standards. Founded in 1977, Huntington's mission is to give every student the best education possible. Call us today at 1.800.CAN LEARN to discuss how Huntington can help your child. For franchise opportunities please visit www.huntingtonfranchise.com. This website does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The material on this site is provided for educational purposes only.

VIPKID

VIPKID VIPKID Who We Are VIPKid connects children in China with the worlds best teachers for real-time one-to-one online English immersion learning. Simply said, we allow teachers to change kids lives without uprooting their own. A global education company, our mission is to inspire and empower every child for the future. Founded in 2013 and formally launched in 2014 afer a year of pilotng and curriculum development, we have become Chinas market-leading educaton startup, with offices in both China and the US. What Inspires Us Our founders worked as both educators and administrators for decades prior to founding VIPKid. Weve taken those experiences as well as our passion for motvating and engaging young learners - with us to our work at VIPKid. We aim to provide a truly global educaton and with teachers and students all over the world, were able to deliver exactly that. Our technology enables personalized learning and a connection between teachers and students across the world. Our Philosophy (and Philanthropy) One of our core beliefs is that every teacher, student and employee who works with VIPKid has a need to learn (and keep learning). And since theres no one-size-fits-all for education, were constantly exploring ways to spark curiosity and create more opportunites to grow. As such we base our curriculum on a progressive pedagogy but we also put our ideals into action. In additon to our 300,000 paying students we support 300 low-income rural schools in China through our Rural Education Prooect. This program provides free English classes to students, helping improve even more lives.

Fisher-Price at It Again

Fisher-Price at It Again Photo Via: http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com Looking for the perfect toy this holiday season for your niece, nephew, brother or sister? Or maybe you have kids of your own that you’re looking to purchase new and exciting toys for? Or maybe you’ve got a Secret Santa that you just have no idea what to get and you’re 15 minutes away from buying a Visa gift card and calling it a day. Well look no further, because there’s a new toy in town and you aren’t going to want to miss this one. Seriously, remain seated. Fisher-Price, that extremely popular toy company that you remember from your childhood, faced a bit of backlash when a known meme maker, Adam Padilla, created a meme featuring a not-real, though extremely funny, toy that he linked to the company. They have since gotten many complains via Twitter (because people have no idea how to take a joke and must complain somewhere), to which they’ve had to respond that they have not, in fact, created said toy. So what’s the toy that’s creating controversy? Well, when Emma Stone hosted “Saturday Night Live,” the company was the butt of the joke when they created a fake ad for a toy for “sensitive boys.” The toy was a wishing well, a place where “sensitive boys” could go and cry or talk to themselves. Following this fake ad, Padilla created his own meme of a Fisher-Price toy that he called the “Happy Hour Playset.” The toy features three toddlers standing at a pretend bar (think toy kitchen, but rather a bar) and holding plastic beer bottles. One of the toddlers appears to be posing as the bartender. As college students, we can all appreciate how hilarious this sounds, and I’m sure many of us truly wish that it was a real toy. However, while obviously funny and meant to be satirical, the more serious parents aren’t too thrilled that the popular company name is being displayed in such negative lights. The company made a statement and claimed that they had nothing to do with this “product,” going on to state that it wasn’t ever “endorsed, produced or approved by Fisher-Price.” The picture was posted to one of our favorite social media sites, Instagram, and while we can appreciate it (and probably wish that it was a real thing for multiple reasons), not everyone can. Fisher-Price appears to be on the same side however, in saying that it appreciates “the suggestions as obvious love of the brand.” So why is this relevant to you? Well, in my family, every year we must come up with Christmas lists of things that we want, but my family never really gets us anything on those lists. So this year, we’re filling our lists with ridiculous items that we would love to have. This is going to be one of those items. Can you imagine sitting in your dorm room at your toy-kitchen-esque bar enjoying a mixed drink with your roommates while watching Spongebob re-runs and avoiding homework? I can, and I think it’s going to be the perfect gift for any college student. All jokes aside, brand issues like this come up all too often, though the way that Fisher-Price is handling the issue is commendable. There’s no obvious harm being done to the company (as there shouldn’t be, since they’ve done nothing wrong), so they’ve been good sports in claiming that these fake ads and products are simply meant as flattery to a company that’s so well-known and loved. There are plenty of toy companies out there, but their brand name is one that people recognize, and perhaps that is why they are at the forefront of these fake ads, especially in light of the holidays, which typically leads to an increase in ads for all companies anyway. For all you advertising majors, bad publicity is a very real thing, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case here. At least, not yet. If customers of the company continue complaining about such pictures and fake ads, there may be another story here soon. Especially since the company has actually had to come out and say they do not endorse and have not made this toy, even though it should be fairly obvious to anyone with any sort of brain that this would be the case. But for the time being, no publicity is bad publicity and Fisher-Price is still the toy company we all turn to for our ridiculous, fake kitchen and cleaning items, needs. So until you can find the children’s toy bar at a Toys R Us nearest you, maybe it’s best to stick to Nordstrom’s $85 rock for your pointless Christmas gifts this year. Next year, check back in with Fisher-Price and see how they’re coming along.

Learn Armenian Online with a Great Tutor

Learn Armenian Online with a Great Tutor Meet our new Tutor Mrs. Luiza. She specializes in Armenian, English as 2nd Language, Romanian, Russian. Luiza is an experienced language trainer. She has a Bachelor degree in Philology, Russian major and English minor. Luiza can also teach Armenian, Eastern dialect and Romanian. At the moment Luiza is available only via Skype. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Luiza or other tutors at TutorZ. Luiza is almost always available short notice, and will always respond promptly. Feel free to contact her with any additional questions. Learn Armenian Online with a Great Tutor Meet our new Tutor Mrs. Luiza. She specializes in Armenian, English as 2nd Language, Romanian, Russian. Luiza is an experienced language trainer. She has a Bachelor degree in Philology, Russian major and English minor. Luiza can also teach Armenian, Eastern dialect and Romanian. At the moment Luiza is available only via Skype. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with Luiza or other tutors at TutorZ. Luiza is almost always available short notice, and will always respond promptly. Feel free to contact her with any additional questions.