For over a decade, GAMECHANGER Tutoring Connection has been dedicated to connecting your kids to confidence. Studies illustrate that confident students face challenges enthusiastically, are more resilient, and become lifelong learners. Confident students maintain the inherent belief that they can achieve their goals, recognizing that they have control over their lives and can acquire any skills they need. Ultimately, confidence is a significant predictor of academic, social-emotional, and professional success. This year, we want to encourage every student to start off the school year confidently.
Academic confidence requires an ability to organize, execute, and regulate performance to problem-solve and to accomplish tasks. Here are five tips for building academic confidence.
- Get Organized. Strong organizational skills are essential to academic success. Confident students have organized personal spaces, assignment due dates, test dates, and notes. Organized students have better time management skills, increased productivity, ability to be more creative, better problem-solving skills, ability to manage stress, and greater self-esteem. Plus, when students are more organized, they can focus their energy and attention on studying, which gives them a greater opportunity to maximize their success. Long-term benefits of staying organized include higher level money management skills and better social skills. All of this means that organized students become confident students.
- Read, Read, Read. Strong reading skills build an ability to comprehend, to see different perspectives, and to become more empathetic, tolerant, and respectful people. Students who invest time in reading – whether it be a newspaper article or a fiction novel – tend to have a broader understanding of the world around them. Reading takes students to places they’ve never visited, time periods before they were born. This helps students to become more globally focused rather than self-focused. Additionally, reading helps students understand that challenges they face are not uncommon, that their fears, their dreams, their lives are not lived in isolation. Readers are better decision-makers, more effective planners, and are better able to set priorities. Reading empowers students to be their best selves, to be confident.
- Be Persistent. Everything worth achieving requires hard work and a willingness to keep trying. If students work towards a goal, embracing a growth mindset, they set themselves up for success. Persistent students know that they can improve themselves with continuous efforts. By being persistent, students readily identify challenges and dedicate themselves to overcoming these challenges. The most successful students, the most confident students, develop a growth mindset at an early age, with the help of supportive parents and trusted teachers.
- Set Realistic Expectations. Students must understand what is within their control, like studying, staying on task, staying organized, and completing assignments. Additionally, students should recognize that they do not always have control – some assignments are more challenging than anticipated, and some classes are graded subjectively rather than objectively. To build confidence, students must strive to do their best work, realize that they cannot do anything other than their best work to influence the outcomes or to get a certain grade, and confidently acknowledge that they did everything possible within their control to achieve their desired results.
- Embrace and Encourage Constructive Feedback. Constructive feedback is a crucial tool that helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses. Students who embrace constructive feedback can grow, self-improve, develop practical skills, and gain a fresh perspective on their performance. The ability to listen to others, to take their suggestions and implement changes, helps students become more confident learners and helps them develop on a social-emotional level. Constructive feedback provides students with insights and targeted guidance through which they can address any weaknesses and make improvements. When students embrace constructive feedback, they can become more motivated to enact change and to work more effectively to achieve their goals. By embracing constructive feedback, students become confident, more productive, and ultimately more successful.
Wishing your students a successful, confident, and energetic 2024.
And remember, GAMECHANGER Tutoring Connection is always here to connect your kids to confidence.
