With Final exams around the corner at Peninsula High School and Palos Verdes High School, students in the AVID program have been taking advantage of Study Hut counselors and mentors with one-on-one meetings to go over their Finals Survival Guide. This is a new tweak on the comprehensive program that Study Hut has provided to the AVID for almost a decade, and the results and feedback have been overwhelming.
Before the holiday break, instructors came into each 9th and 10th grade classroom for a full-period tutorial on how to fill out the Study Hut Finals Survival Guide. Students went through the Aries portal and took a deeper look at each of their individual grades, identifying any missing assignments and low test and quiz scores. They then listed content from these assignments and tests that would be likely be coming back up on the Final exam, and they highlighted classes in which their semester grades could potentially go up or down depending on their performance on the Final exam.
The first week after the holiday break, Study Hut instructors came back into each of these same classrooms to help students construct an individualized day-by-day task list. The content on these tasks lists was derived directly from the Finals Survival Guide. Students broke down study tasks by class; for history and foreign language classes, students created manual flashcards, and then plotted 15-minute flashcard run-throughs each day leading up to the Final exam. For science and math classes, students identified units and chapters that they struggled with the first time around, and then they plotted chapter reviews and study guides each day leading up to the Final exam. The results for each student was a comprehensive task list that lined up the exact tasks that each student needs to complete in order to meet their goals on Final exams. They then met individually with Study Hut counselors for 15-minute meetings to review the task lists and make sure that their efforts aligned with their goals.
The Finals Survival Guide is a template and service that we also provide to our one-on-one students at Study Hut. It is a built in service for our clients that can help students maximize their efforts and streamline their studies. If you would like to set up a free meeting with a manager or owner at Study Hut, please email info@studyhut.com.
Study Hut has been collaborating with the AVID program providing AVID SAT Prep for 6 years. AVID takes place every week with six tutors from our Redondo Beach Location that are hand picked to facilitate the AVID tutorials. AVID SAT prep and test prep training is conducted by the owners of Study Hut Tutoring, and helps students improve upon their test prep skills. The AVID sophomores begin with pre AVID SAT prep and AVID juniors dive deeper with full AVID SAT prep.
During the AVID classes, each student comes prepared with their tutorial form filled out with their question or information that they want to review or understand better. Each student has a chance to get up and present their question to their small groups and then the tutor will help answer any questions needed while the other students take notes and participate in the discussion. Each student gets about 5-6 minutes for their individual question which makes the hour go by quickly once each student has presented.
We are able to track students progress and the students get points for their achievements, being engaging and participating in the group lessons. Another awesome collaboration we have going on with Peninsula is that a Study Hut manager along side a teacher lead ACT/SAT training as well.
There are about 25 students that are taught by one manager and one teacher that receive instruction and receive homework assignments to complete and to help track their growth. The sophomores receive test prep once per month and the juniors receive test prep help once per week. We use an online system that we use in office that helps track progress and makes for a smooth class and easy way to generate the information needed. The manager will help with the Math portion of the test prep and the teacher will help with the English portion of the test prep. We are very excited for the school year and to see many familiar faces around campus!
Peninsula SAT prep at it’s finest! Like the ACT better? Peninsula ACT Prep has never been better.
Welcome back to school We are so pumped that Peninsula AVID is back up and running in full swing. Study Hut has been collaborating with the AVID program and delivering tutorials to the AVID students for many years now. AVID takes place every Thursday from 10am-12noon with six tutors from our Redondo Beach Location that are hand picked to attend the AVID and test prep training and help students improve upon their test prep skills. We have all four grade levels that participate and each grade level has two class periods for AVID since Peninsula has a block schedule.
During the AVID classes, each student comes prepared with their tutorial form filled out with their question or information that they want to review or understand better. Each student has a chance to get up and present their question to their small groups and then the tutor will help answer any questions needed while the other students take notes and participate in the discussion. Each student gets about 5-6 minutes for their individual question which makes the hour go by quickly once each student has presented.
We are able to track students progress and the students get points for their achievements, being engaging and participating in the group lessons. Another awesome collaboration we have going on with Peninsula is that a Study Hut manager along side a teacher lead Peninsula SAT prep as well as Peninsula ACT prep.
There are about 25 students that are taught by one manager and one teacher that receive instruction and receive homework assignments to complete and to help track their growth. The sophomores receive test Peninsula SAT prep once per month and the juniors receive Peninsula ACT prep help once per week. We use an online system that we use in office that helps track progress and makes for a smooth class and easy way to generate the information needed. The manager will help with the Math portion of the test prep and the teacher will help with the English portion of the test prep. We are very excited for the school year and to see many familiar faces around campus!
In the beginning of spring 2014 semester, Laura, Justin, and I had one-on-one advisement sessions with Mr. Mullen’s AVID (http://www.avid.org) class at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School (PVPHS). We split the class up into four groups & had each freshman student bring up their grades, as well as a write-up of their future goals for spring semester. The main objective of these one-on-one meetings was to assess & acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses in each individual’s academic performance, analyze certain areas in which the students needed improvement, discuss their past history of success & setbacks, visualize how they should go about working towards those improvements, and how they could tackle their educational struggles so that they may be able to achieve their end goals.
During these mini break-out sessions, I noticed a pattern with a couple of my Biology students. Nicco, Sarah,Tessa, and Annie, talked about how hard it was to retain all the information their teachers expected them to digest & how they continued to struggle with this particular subject. I informed the students that they should be delegating at least 45 minutes per day to Biology because the subject requires a lot more memorization than most of their other subjects. In addition, I advised them to take advantage of all the resources available to them, whether it’s their textbook, materials given out in class, valid online resources, or even videos from places like www.khanacademy.org.
I felt that these individual conference meetings were very beneficial to the students because each student goes through their own distinctive battle. As an AVID tutor, my goal is not only to teach the appropriate set of skills, but also to ascertain students’ attitudes towards school and their self-perception as learners. Furthermore, by uncovering the root of their concerns about school & listening attentively, I develop relationships with my students based on mutual respect, thereby opening their minds to learning and applying skills.
From iLead to AVID, Study Hut covers ground in the South Bay!
Study Hut has had the privilege to extend our tutoring services to local high schools in the South Bay, including South High, Palos Verdes High School and Palos Verdes Peninsula High School. We are able to do this by orchestrating in-class programs like AVID (http://www.avid.org/) in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District and ILEAD through the Torrance Unified School District. In a typical AVID or ILEAD class, Study Hut will send a number of tutors (typically ranging from four to eight) who each specialize in variety of academic subjects. Our tutors then have the unique opportunity to break the class into smaller groups of students based on subject each student feels that he or she need the most help with.
Last Tuesday was an awesome day at both South High and Peninsula! We arrived at South High for ILEAD at 8am to offer additional tutoring on late start mornings. We then separated the students into a “Math and Science” classroom, and an “English, History and Foreign Language” classroom. Tori and I were put in charge of English, History and Languages room. After an hour of answering questions about everything from World War I and the differences between Preterite and Imperfect in Spanish, our manager Justin was nice enough to take us out to a quick breakfast to refuel before we headed up to PVPHS to tutor in AVID for their third and fourth periods.In AVID we like to take a more hands on approach by encouraging the students to break into groups and take turns writing their questions on the board. Their peers then use their notes and textbooks to help them solve their problem. In my English groups in AVID, we had some remarkable discussions about Animal Farm (my favorite) and determining Direct Objects vs. Predicate Nominatives.
It happens all too often: we pour ourselves a cup of coffee, sit down in front of our computers and books, ready to study, but find ourselves staring blankly at the blinking cursor. When it comes to studying, a lot of us don’t even know where to begin. This is not an issue of motivation; it is simply that we have never learned how to study. Sure, teachers give us all the information we need in class and we take copious notes, scribbling dates and facts down in our notebooks furiously. But what do we do when it comes time to remember all those little bullet points at the end of the semester? At the Study Hut, we specialize in the science of how to study. It may seem trivial, but we have found that most students really have no idea where to begin when it comes to preparing for exams. Unfortunately, this is something that can damage your grades irrevocably. Often final exams are worth fifteen or even twenty percent of your final grade. So what should you do, you might ask. Here are a few pointers to help you stay on track:
1) Flashcards are your friend. Sure, they’re annoying and seem to take forever, but just think: most of the time, once you’ve finished actually writing them out, you already remember them!
2) Define your terms. The best way to instantly forget something is to not understand it to begin with. When you are learning about a new concept or reviewing an old one, have a dictionary close at hand. That way, when you read over a word that doesn’t even look like English, you can figure out what it means and make it stick.
3) C.M.T.W.F.Y.: Create Mnemonics That Work For You. When you are desperately trying to remember something and it’s just not happening, try some mnemonics. Often times, if you create a silly song or jingle, the information will permanently imbed itself in your brain. Don’t believe me? This writer learned the quadratic formula over a decade ago and I still remember it perfectly. Why? I learned it to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” It may sound stupid, but it really works!
Of course, nothing can replace one-on-one tutoring for educational roadblocks, but with these simple tips, you should be on your way to A’s. Final exams can be scary and intimidating, but there is no reason why you can’t seize the opportunity to boost your grades! So go pick up your pencils and crack open those books! Good luck and happy studying!
Palos Verdes High School AVID Family! It’s time for our 5th Annual Car Wash. In this blog, I will try to address some questions you may have about the Car Wash. Here we go….
DO WE NEED EVERYONE’S HELP?
Yes. We need everyone’s help.
HOW CAN I / MY FAMILY HELP?
Your family can help in some of the following ways:
1) Attend the Car Wash and wash cars. Bring the whole family. It’s a fun day!
2) Bake some delicious treats for the bake sale end of the car wash. If you’re able, package them for sale, but if you’re not able to package them don’t worry. You can bring them game day or you can deliver them the day before to your AVID teacher’s classroom.
3). Bring liquid refreshments to the car wash. A case of water or a gatorade type beverage is fantastic. A 6-pack of water or beverage is fabulous. Bring what you like to drink and bring a couple of extra for someone else and then we’ll have plenty. Bring your drinks on game day or bring over the next couple of days to your AVID teacher’s classroom.
4) Bring food for you and a few others. Families in the past have brought: breakfast burritos, bagels, subway, pizza, Taco Bell, and more. Again, bring what you like and if you feed 2-10 other people then we’ll be able to keep all our troops fueled up for the morning and post car wash clean up.
5) Bring a cooler for the drinks. If you bring it game day, ice would be clutch. If you bring it to your AVID teacher’s classroom by Friday we will get the ice (if available down in the athletic trainer’s office).
6) Do you or someone you know play in a band? We need more performers for the concert end of our Car Wash and Concert.
7) Bring some towels home to wash and dry. If everyone takes one load home, that will “spread the wealth” on this fun job. Wash and dry at your leisure and return to your AVID teacher.
8) Wear a costume on the day of the wash!AVID CAR WASH FUN (and some not so fun) FACTS
The Car Wash started 5 years ago and almost nobody (except the AVID teachers) thought it would be successful. The highest anyone at PV High had made on a car wash was between $1,000 to $2,000. When you factor in the $50 most AVID families spend on their 5 car wash tickets and all the students at PVHS buying car wash tickets for extra credit, we have made $10,000 or more many years on the car wash.
Where does the money go? The money is deposited into our ASB account. Our biggest expense is tutoring. Our tutors do not make a ton per hour, but over the course of 10 months, it adds up. Also, we pay the teacher tutors for their good work in January and June when they man our after school finals tutorials. Other money is used to defer the cost of buses when there is an AVID trip, or to pay for the substitute teachers when an AVID teacher is chaperoning an AVID trip, to pay for the AVID t-shirt (coming soon) you receive the first semester each year, to pay for some classroom supplies, and some Fun Friday costs and more! The money cannot come out of our AVID ASB account without a receipt. So everything is documented and on the up and up.
THANK YOU for helping make the AVID Car Wash and Concert (and Bake Sale) one of the best days of the year. See you Saturday. Teachers will be at school from 6:45 am to the end of wash (hopefully around 1:30 if we have a large clean up committee 🙂
I recently received an email that gives a good perspective on teachers and their stance on district fund allocation. This thread is admittedly slanted, and only reflects one person’s point of view. Nonetheless, I find it thought-provoking. Please feel free to email info@studyhut.com if you would like to propose a rebuttal. I will post the best response:
Today we spoke about students needing to keep track of their own grades in the last 7-9 weeks of school here since teachers are not posting now as a way to get attention to the 180 days of school issue and to try to convince the school board that teachers who haven’t gotten a raise in some years deserve one. You may know that when money was ultra tight, we teachers agreed to cut our own (and more importantly the students’) work schedule as a way to furlough our salaries and keep the district solvent. [And we know you all chipped in more than your share as well to PEF and I do the same for my kids in MBUSD]. Anyway, it’s an allocation of district revenue issue that everyone should be weighing in on, and teachers are financially stressed and as inflation raises everyone’s cost of living, it is getting more and more difficult to live on a reduced work schedule. Not to mention, should we as a society, be reducing our educational calendar as the rest of the globe certainly is not decreasing theirs? If you disagree with me, I certainly would respect your differing viewpoint, and welcome you to share it with me. But, for better or worse right now, we need to be extra vigilante of our own school performance and stay on top of our homework and prepare for exams. There are only 7 weeks to Memorial Day (including this week) and then final exams are the week after a severely truncated Memorial week (with Monday off and 2 senior project minimum days for students).
Today in AVID 10 at Palos Verdes High School, Rob and SP introduced our first lesson for the Critical Reading section of the SAT. Training for the SAT can be very difficult, and for many students, the vocabulary component of the Critical Reading section can be extremely daunting.
In an effort to keep things simple, but at the same time teach students a new and complex concept, Rob decided to start the SAT tutoring with the “plus-minus-neutral” approach, a strategy that can help students eliminate incorrect answer choices by assigning a value or feeling of worth to the blank space, as well as each of the answer choices.
Students then practiced eliminating wrong answer choices and making educated guesses about which vocabulary words would and would not work in each sentence. The process was rigorous and slightly painful, but I think we all walked away from the experience with a new tool in our quiver of SAT strategies.
Here is an example of a question students will see on the Critical Reading section of the SAT. You will probably understand why training is the only way to attack a test that contains hundreds of problems like this:
1. Today Wegener’s theory is ____ ; however, he died an outsider treated with ____ by the scientific establishment.
A. unsupported – approval
B. dismissed – contempt
C. accepted – approbation
D. unchallenged – disdain
E. unrivaled – reverence
Please let Study Hut know if you need any tutoring or training for the SAT, specifically the Critical Reading section. We have excellent SAT tutors who earned great scores, went to top universities, and follow our streamlined approach to no-nonsense SAT training.
Finals week is a stressful time for every student, I help them prepare and ease the stress of a final exam. As they approach the end of every semester in high school and college students will need to summarize and review all the information that they have learned in the previous months. The AVID program at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School hires tutors from The Study Hut to come into classes and help students advance in their schoolwork. In addition to our weekly visits to AVID classes in Palos Verdes, I and several other tutors from The Study Hut are also having a four hour study session this Saturday before their finals next week. It is often difficult for inexperienced students to completely understand the impact a final exam can be on their semester grades. I specialize in math, physics and history tutoring; these and most other subjects have a cumulative final exam that requires substantial stud time. I help students find an effective way of studying and reviewing that works for their individual test. Once students are completely prepared for their test, finals week becomes much less stressful. Once the testing is over students are often rewarded by raising their class score an entire letter grade and that makes all their hard work worth it.
