Academic Enhancement Tools: Power in Family Relationships Builds Student Academic Success

By Keith Bricker

Academic enhancement activities were practiced in high school for ten years and involved over fifteen hundred families. The participation rate was over 90 percent. Students in the twelve- to fifteen-year range participated with their parents. The ten activities focus on identifying natural interests, likes, and preferences the student has demonstrated from age three to the present. These activities are used to identify competencies/skills that lead the student to logical career, family, and community options. Parents provide objective advice and information to assist the student to discover their natural traits. School personnel can manage the process and give suggestions that fit the school curriculum and provide options for the future. It is the student and then the parent(s) that are the prime decision-makers with this process.
The activities rely on objective information from parents, students, schools, businesses, and the communities. The process draws from each to promote student academic enhancement. Remember, schools prepare students for success in each of these areas. It is reasonable that direction should come from outside and within the educational community for student planning and school curriculum changes. Parents are the prime resource because they know the student well and work in these areas of the community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466992634

Keith Bricker

Worked with parents, students, and business for forty years. Provided a unique perspective to enhance academic success from the power ingrained in family relationships. The author’s specialist degree in education/counseling for teaching science, high school social studies, working as a school counselor, and teaching management courses at the college level provided the background to connect the student and parent(s) with business to enhance student success.

Book preview

Empowering Students for Academic

Enhancement

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All working together provides the knowledge and relationships

needed for student life role decision making.

Note: The family is the most influential factor for a student in

making healthy life decisions and staying in school.

Note: The student profile from activity eleven can be used for

making decisions regarding careers, family, political, religious and

volunteerism.

Empowering Students

for Academic Enhancement

Managed by the Family

CEO

Empowering Students for Academic Enhancement is the result of forty-plus years working as a public school and college instructor in science, social studies, and management courses and as a high school guidance counselor with a specialist degree and an LPC license. The ideas come from listening to and interacting with parents, students, and the business community. It is nothing short of amazing what can be learned from each of these groups when the objectives are to enhance the student’s academic performance in school by having realistic goals and with the parent as the main adviser. This approach gives a commitment to student learning. This manual, written for parents, provides tools that can be used to support their students’ academic enhancement.

Going through the information topics, resources, and activities will take time and patience. There is no shortcut to constructive student learning. The competencies/skills identified, with their academic application, can bring short- and long-term success for the student in his career options and other basic life choices.

The goal is to establish a connection between the family, the school, the community, and the business to provide a method for the student to discover the cognitive data needed to establish individual goals and enhance his academic success. Those goals need to be guided by integrity, a strong work ethic, and balance between aggressiveness and showing a humble spirit to achieve the level of confidence needed for success.

Corporate and Educational Policies can

Promote Student Success and Increase

Stakeholders’ Equity

Ideas to consider:

1. Have a base salary, then build in bonus options for:

a. Creative teaching techniques developed by the teacher and then used by others through administrative promotion.

b. Pre-determined percent improvement in student learning measured by pre and post testing.

2. Give teachers an option to accept 25% increase in class size. If student learning is equal to or better than the building average for that subject, the teacher could get a bonus with some of the savings going to the district. If four teachers were successful the district would need one less teacher and thereby save on insurance and other costs.

3. Ongoing communication between individual teachers and local business that work in the teachers’ curriculum area. Social media should work well.

a. This would serve to keep the teacher up to date on the competencies/skills needed and changes occurring in the work environment. Many teachers have never worked in the private sector.

b. Teachers prepare students for work after school life. Business needs to have input into the changing what so teachers are using their expertise to meet future needs not needs of the past or present.

4. Connect students to the work environment competency needs:

a. Student competency identification from past and present interests.

b. Compare student competencies to career area competencies.

c. Teachers stressing competencies taught in their subject.

d. Conduct student-parent-school meetings to identify competencies, link them to current courses and to career options the student needs to consider. The process will expand the students’ career options. This manual provides ten activities to identify competencies, interests, academic trends, community interests and other cognitive data for analysis. There are five additional activities to help students overcome identified barriers that are holding back academic success.

5. Parents have the most ownership in their student and want to provide ideas and techniques that will bring success. The conference process gives them an avenue to help the student to that end. The real power for success lies in the strength in family relationships. Schools need to tap this power.

6. Voters have a vested interest in school and student success. Home values, the ability to attract new business into the area and the extent to which the community can promote itself and bring in new revenue are all influenced by student success.

Performance Objective

for

Academic Enhancement Tools

1. Increase efficiency in student learning as measured by National Standardized Tests.

2. Build stronger parent-student interpersonal relationships using cognitive information.

3. Encourage parents, students, schools and the community to interact for the benefit of student future planning.

4. Identify competencies/skills that fit individual student interests and relate those to specific life role decisions.

5. Use grades, national standardized test, community activities and competencies/skills to determine high school course selections, focus for future planning and to overcome learning barriers.

6. Encourage business to provide input to local schools regarding changing work and individual competency/skill needs.

7. Focus on trust, work ethic and humility/aggressive balance in building a future adult life style of integrity.

8. Equip students with individual criteria so they can research specific careers through shadowing and other resources on the market.

Observations for the Success Model

1. The parent-student relationship provides the long-term motivation for student learning. The school provides the short-term daily motivation by the