Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Music Training can Inspire Students to Learn with more Pleasure

Who said music has been created only for entertainment? Instead, music has a very important role in the world of education. There is in fact so much power in it that students can chalk out easy and efficient ways to learn languages. Where learning a new language is always a challenge, music can transform it to a pleasure and can hence reinforce the spirit in one to study an unknown language with no hassles.


College Preparatory Schools Play Key roles in Music Training

Researchers have even found that where a lot of demands are placed upon students by their parents in becoming able and efficient in life, music can actually work wonders in making students adopt language skills. In fact, scientific journals reviewed by peers and educationists have also showed that music training is indeed a superb strategy that can help a child become:
  • Intellectually powerful 
  • Linguistically knowledgeable 
  • Emotionally capable 
Now, this is a big reason why the college preparatory schools try focusing upon music and arts apart from academics. Well, this doesn’t mean that one needs to remain inclined towards a classical instrument for hours during the day. If only a week can be taken, it will be enough for one to boost one’s language skills and enhance one’s IQ level. The college preparatory schools keep these points in mind and hence aim to equip their students in such a manner that they can score high in terms of mental ability.

What Makes Music Training a High-Scoring option for Students?

Studies have showed that quality training in music can strengthen all networks in the brain that relate to language. Moreover, when it comes to strengthening one’s intellect, music will not only boost one’s mental ability to initiate subtle differences between various sounds but would also help one to properly speak new languages. Besides, renowned researchers from Oxford have also found evidence that the word ‘speech’ is actually a form of communication that has sprung from not only music but also from our original development.

 
One of the biggest advantages of music training is that it results in the development of a foreign language in terms of vocabulary, grammar and also colloquialism. Surprisingly, students aged nine or below have been found to be more potential in learning how to pronounce as well as in learning grammar. In fact, similar initiatives are now being taken by instructors in the college preparatory schools where students can learn with more enthusiasm. Students must be out of stress, depression and mental illness. To ensure it, the college preparatory schools in Maine initiate a lot of activities that keep students engaged for long hours.

Special Education Programmes are always Effective

Reality says that an individual tends to learn the most when he/she is indulged in creative activities. Therefore, a combination of music along with some fun-filled activities can actually work out well in making students stronger and efficient in all aspects. Now, the college prep schools are also bringing special education programmes for students who fail to derive mental peace. Through programmes based on family education and character education, students here gain inspiration and confidence to proceed in life.

So, what’s best about these programmes is that they are designed to not only help students enhance relationships in their families but they gain the potential to analyse their own selves. In actuality, these qualities matter a lot for making students more intelligent and successful in life.


Monday, 3 March 2014

Wise Strategies to Motivate Students towards Securing a Bright Future

What’s the biggest source of strength for a student who therefore gains confidence to move ahead towards the acme of prosperity? Books and teachers are no doubt the most influential factors that help students become knowledgeable. However, when it comes to acquiring confidence towards building a thriving future, there can be nothing valuable in comparison to motivation.

Image Courtesy: bit.ly/NQszhf


Stop Criticising and Rebuking

Just think what students want today; may be some encouraging words, some positive feedbacks or some care and concern towards them. Don’t you think they want us to feel proud about them? Well, it doesn’t take much to shower criticisms, rebukes and discouraging remarks on them. But do these things stand effective in making a student realise his/her potential? The answer is a big NO.

Motivation is a huge source of instilling vitality into one’s learning spirits. No matter how frustrated, how short-tempered or how pessimistic a student is, there must be someone or rather some wise strategies that would help one stay motivated towards his/her career goals. So, here are a few of those strategies that would surely work wonders in keeping students inspired throughout their careers. Have a look:

  • What’s the Subject of Interest – Remember, where there is interest, there will be a desire to learn and know more and where there will be a desire, there will be curiosity, which will actually motivate one to proceed. So, what is important is to understand the aspects that will keep students indulged for a long time. Once students start taking interest in their activities, they would be gradually inspired in the process.
  • What’s the Source of Discouragement – To help students identify their pitfalls, it’s very important to first find out what exactly is obstructing them in meeting their career goals. There must not be anything that would make students discouraged, and if there is something, teachers must take the initiative to find it out.
  • Encourage them and don’t criticise – To err is human and this cannot lead to criticisms. If one takes the effort to bring good scores, appreciation must follow. Instead, if one criticises a students, he/she would never feel the desire to make improvements. So, pointing out mistakes in a pleasant tone will always be a wise initiative.
  • Keep an Eye on their Potentials – If one wins a 100 metre race but scores low in Mathematics, it does not mean that he/she does not have the potential to study. Of course, just like the way you will inspire him/her to do well on the fields, it would be your responsibility to ensure that the individual does the same for his/her subjects.
  • Take Out Quality Time for them – Time is a necessity that you must invest for your students. There might be some of them who have been trying to express some serious issues to someone they can rely upon. Whether those issues relate to their studies or their families, you need to hear them and bring solutions, and then only they would feel motivated to step on the right track.

So, you see why motivation is necessary for each and every student in today’s world. Just keep the determination alive within you that you will give your heart and soul to keep your students motivated. At the end, it’s you who would be rewarded.

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

How Does a College Preparatory Programme Help you Develop?

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Do you have any preference over selecting your college after your high school education? Of course, you have. Actually not just you, but most of the students have some favourite institutions for their higher education life. But, the tragedy is all of you cannot make your way to your favourite colleges, which leaves you with utter disappointments. Well, for students like you Khan Academy has started a college preparatory programme, which aims at grooming newly passed-out high school students for the admission tests conducted by their favourite colleges. And, guess what? This online learning programme is absolutely for free for all.

Khan Academy is widely known for offering free education online that anyone can access from anywhere in the world. Besides being absolutely free, all the courses offered by Khan Academy come with the usual benefits of online learning, where learners can learn at their own pace, enjoying a full-fledged audio-visual learning experience – video tutorials, online discussions, live student-teacher interactions via video conferencing etc.


Concept of Preparatory Programmes

But, whilst this sort of online classes has its enormous accessibility to people, there are numerous limitations as well with the free programmes. Yet, the concept of offering preparatory programmes to higher educational institutions like colleges and universities is really great. Many eminent boarding schools are providing excellent college preparatory programmes not only on academic enhancements, but also on all-round personality developments.

When you target for an eminent college, you should not only be academically strong, but also personality-wise attractive. At the best institutes for college preparatory programmes you will get to improve your character education, athletics, performing arts and community service apart from academic grooming.

Qualities that Develop in Good Programmes

Whilst screening students, prestigious colleges consider many qualities to judge the candidates. They see how rationally curiosity, integrity courage and leadership are mingled and developed in a candidate. And, without an all-round development programme such perfection cannot be achieved.

Curiosity

Through numerous research-oriented studies candidates at these institutes nurture their students to nourish their curious beings. The more curious one is for knowledge, the nearer he/she reaches to the success.

Integrity

To develop sense of integrity, prestigious college preparatory schools make their students undergo extensive theoretical as well as applied sides of a curriculum, thereby extracting the essential integrity of any subject.

Leadership & Courage

Courage and leadership have always been praised as the noble qualities. To grow and further enhance these virtues, a number of project-based learning programmes are initiated to extract real personality of a candidate. Sports and athletics help a lot to develop such faculty among students.

College preparatory programmes are the training to a broader educational life, wherefrom real direction of life is perceived, in true sense of term. Attending a good preparatory programme, one advances himself/herself to the successful life ahead.

Tuesday, 25 February 2014

High Schools must Necessarily Equip Students for College Education

What’s the biggest problem with the majority of schools today is that they focus upon completing their curriculum in such a rush that their intention to prepare students for college completely gets ignored. Rather, experts believe that this should be the primary focus of all high schools today where students must be provided such courses that would let them achieve practical skills and proceed with confidence to colleges.

So, what should the High School Curricula focus upon? 

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For every high school, its key concern should relate to not only the experiential but also the academic angles of education. To be precise, students here must know how to create a budget so that they can keep track of their own expenses and proceed accordingly. In this respect, the Financial Educators Council has researched and found out:

  • 1/3rd of the college students have confessed that they are not well equipped with the process of money management 
  • Students found to be graduating from high schools in states require personal finance education that actually makes them more successful 
  • They possess a higher saving rate than the high school graduates in states where financial education is not compulsory.

So, unless students would be given financial education, they would not be able to create a budget and would therefore end up spending more money than required. Therefore, the high schools should rather stop concentrating too much on art and music classes, especially for students who would be graduating. Rather, classes that would help them to lead better lives in the long-run must be provided in good numbers.

Apart from creating a budget, students while pursuing financial education must know:

  1. How to file taxes 
  2. How to deal with car insurance 
  3. How to deal with interest rates 

Well, this does not mean that the other efforts put by high schools shouldn’t be ignored. Whatever necessary academic skills are required, high schools must ensure to strengthen these to no end. However, financial education would carry equal importance for one’s career to remain stable and balanced.

As per the Washington Times: 
  • 3 out of 4 graduates are not prepared for college 
  • One remedial class is essential for this affected population 
  • ACT preparation will assist students in high schools 

 So, how the test would be conducted?

There will be four sections for the test: 
  1. Reading 
  2. English 
  3. Math 
  4. Science 
  5. A writing section, which is optional

Now, if high schools keep taking these tests on a regular basis, students would be aware of their progress levels. Moreover, schools will be required to ensure that students are having those tools that would let them score high through ACT. Hence, they would be prepared to sit for the basic college courses. Moreover, the high school students would be saving ample time and money and would not be required to take remedial classes at their respective colleges.

Today, the concept of learning online has also been introduced by many schools with the intention to let students obtain education within their means. Even reputed universities have started offering online courses in numerous subjects. Therefore, if courses related to financial education can be introduced through digital learning in high schools, students there would not take too much time to prepare themselves for college education. This would indeed be considered a big initiative.