How to Teach Self-Monitoring
Self-monitoring refers to our ability to track what we are doing and how or why we are doing it. We self-monitor (or at least we should) in every setting and activity. From how we read and write, to how we engage with friends and family, self-monitoring will greatly improve our academic performance, social interactions, and […]
Strategies for Remote Learning
It is more important than ever to create structure for learning at home. With so many kids in hybrid or remote classrooms, families must establish routines for the school day and homework. However, as so many of us have found, working and schooling from home is easier said than done! Whether kids lose track of […]
Boosting Memory With Mnemonics
Remembering is hard! That is especially true of remembering the types of complex (and sometimes uninteresting) information kids have to learn in school. Memorization through repetition is rarely effective. That’s why it is so important to teach kids the power of mnemonics. Then they can learn to be more strategic and creative when it comes […]
How to Organize Information
Students who have trouble with organization don’t just struggle with where to put their things. They also have trouble organizing information, including their own thoughts. As a result, these students struggle in school despite being really smart. They may lose points for not clearly showing their work in math, or struggle to summarize a story […]
Learning Versus Memorization
Our primary goal at Braintrust is to help students become learners. We want them to learn how to read and do math, to learn about the history of our world and the science behind it, and to learn about themselves. To do this, we empower them with a robust set of tools and strategies that […]
Online Learning Resources
We all know that in this time of remote learning, there have been hundreds of companies and individuals who have released free materials for students to enhance their learning. But it can be paralyzing to try to wade through all of it to differentiate the truly useful from the “fluff.” To save you from further […]
Credible News Resources for Kids
In the age of the internet, when just about anyone can write just about anything online, the ability to judge which information is trustworthy (and which is not) is an important skill. Below are a list of sites that are trusted by most readers. The New York Times is one of the the most widely-respected […]
Managing Schedules and Creating Structure for Kids
For many of us, it is hard to appreciate the complexity of creating an effective schedule. We have an approximate idea of how long tasks should take given our life experience, we can intuit the best order in which to tackle the tasks on our to do list, and we know how to use scheduling […]
Setting Goals
Where would we be in a society without goals? Imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. hadn’t set the goal of civil and economic rights for African Americans in America? Or if John F. Kennedy hadn’t set the goal of putting a man on the moon? Presidents, athletes, artists, activists, students – all of us need a roadmap […]
How to Cultivate a Growth Mindset
The way we think about ourselves as learners directly impacts our performance. If we think we’re capable, we become capable. If we think we can’t do something, we probably won’t even try. This applies especially to students, who often hear messages that reinforce a “fixed mindset”– a concept of self defined by the idea that […]
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