TRANSCRIPT:

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 113 - what was subtly holding one student back from certainty and success in her Maths assignment and how we figured out what she’ll do differently next time on not just maths, but in ANY and EVERY assignment - and how you can apply this with YOUR teen on ANY of their tasks and assessments.

Hey VIP’s! How are you? I hope you and your teens are doing fantastically and either enjoying the summer hols or holding on and getting through the back end of Term 3 depending on where you are. Two very different situations happening there! 

I’m doing really well and have had a lot of positive response from the episode I did a couple of weeks ago where I shared a real student situation where they completely skipped writing an introduction for their extended response, still got 8 out of 10 and what that means for your teen and their study.

So I have another little real life snippet for you today with an important lesson to share and one that I think is especially helpful for parents and carers as it’s a way that you can tangibly and specifically support your teen in their study. It’s around critical reflection, but not just on the task and critiquing what they wrote and what got marks and what didn’t. Those things ARE important and super impactful, and I do a LOT of that with students for sure.

But what I’ve found I’m gradually doing more of with students at the moment, and very likely will continue to do going forwards is critically reflecting on ‘situations’ and challenges cropping up in their study. Things that happened. And what they did or didn’t do in response to those situations or challenges. 

And before I get into the example I’m going to share with you today, I want to tell why I’ve been doing more of this. It’s because the more I work with and coach students in depth, which is what I do in Next Level Coaching, the more I experience asking what initially feels like an insignificant, quick question, but the student’s response then leads to another query and needing to dig a bit deeper, and gradually reveals a more significant underlying issue. 

This is the beauty of coaching students. That it’s not just subject content we’re covering. We get to uncover what’s really keeping them stuck in a task or keeping them from reaching their potential, or is keeping them stressed and struggling in their study. Cause’ sometimes it’s something big and obvious, and sometimes it’s something much more subtle.

So, here’s what happened with - I’m going to call her Rebecca.

Now Rebecca submitted for coaching, a Maths assignment that she’d already completed and handed in, but wanted some feedback on as a way to improve things going forwards and - really to see if the things she’d guessed her way to - more on that in a moment - had been correct guesses or not. And I think we both initially thought that the focus of our session would be on things directly related to the assignment, like her rationale, or showing the steps in her working, or her analysis of the data collected. And it did start off with us looking at those things. But before long, I realised there was a bigger issue to deal with.

Now, back to the start of the session - one of the first questions I asked Rebecca was whether they’d been given a scaffold or template or specific structure for the assignment.

They hadn’t. 

So Rebecca had done a pretty good job of guessing her way to a decent structure and the content and sections.

Now - quick tip: What Rebecca didn’t know was that exam boards publish exemplar assessment materials, which are great for using as a template or structure guidance. A classic case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’.
 

No-one is going to ask, hey, where are the exam board sample assessments, if they don’t even know they exist. And that’s not your teen’s fault. They’re not published for students. They’re published for teachers and schools. But I think they can be really helpful for students.  So I went online and shared with her an example and where to find them.

But, the structure and sections of the report was just the first area that it turned out had had some uncertainty around it.

Then we got into the actual nitty gritty of the Maths concepts and calculations.
And I asked about how much working they were supposed to be showing, because there wasn’t, in my opinion, enough.

Now, Rebecca said that they didn’t need to show working for some things that I honestly thought they would need to. So I just asked, how come you say that - did the teacher tell you that, or was it on the task sheet, or somewhere else? Not in any negative way, just to try to understand a bit more about it. And honestly, I’ll always say to a student - hey, if your teacher has explicitly said do or don’t do something, and they’re going to be marking whatever it is, then just do as they say and give them what they want. 

But it turns out - it just wasn’t said that they DID need the working. It wasn’t stated either way. So again, there was some uncertainty. Rebecca had picked up the idea that they didn’t need them from somewhere, and her and some fellow students had talked about this, and they didn’t THINK they needed to show the working from what had been said in class and in relation to the task, but those students were also working from the same information, or lack of it. So maybe they didn’t need to - sometimes there are things that surprise me or that are done in ways that are different to what I’m used to. But this wasn’t a definitive answer. 

And then there was a section of the task where they had to show the data in a variety of formats. And there was a bit of uncertainty there when we discussed as to what had to be shown in what ways.

And that’s where I changed tack and adjusted the focus of our coaching.
Because it’s difficult to give detailed and specific feedback on something when we can’t be sure exactly what the requirements were.

It’s hard to say how to achieve all of the requirements, or judge how well they’ve been met if we can’t really be sure what the requirements were in the first place. So the bigger issue was that there was so much uncertainty about different elements of this task, and a LOT of guessing in terms of what to produce, include and do.

And I can tell you, this issue of uncertainty is way more common than you or your teen might realise. It’s easy to just gloss over any aspects we’re not totally clear on, or to just guess at them, or kinda dismiss them. Sometimes there are blind spots - areas that are being subconsciously avoided or not looked at, or you just didn’t know was a thing. That’s the beauty of having someone ask constructive, specific and strategic questions. Sometimes, it’s only when that happens that these uncertainties come to light. 

So, in terms of taking things forwards and what to take away and learn, we focused on THAT issue and predicament, the issue of identifying and then solving for uncertainty, rather than how to complete a Maths assignment well. 
Because honestly, the assignment critique will come easily if we can figure out how to get more clarity around it. And the bonus is that strategies around solving for uncertainties can be applied to any task, in any subject and at any level.

As we got into this more, it turned out the issue was that Rebecca and many of her classmates honestly didn’t have much connection or trust in their teacher.
Previously when she’d asked the teacher about something on a previous task, they’d actually given her incorrect information.

So, in this case, simply ‘asking the teacher’ wasn’t an option.
Well, it was an option, but it didn’t feel to Rebecca like she could trust the answer she got anyway, so that uncertainty would still be there.

So, we spent a little time strategising about what to do next time there’s anything that she’s uncertain about.

I didn’t tell her what to do. I just guided her with a couple of questions and 
she came up with these by herself. Which is so important for building independence and confidence and not just being reliant on someone else coming up with a solution or action plan.

And these ideas of how to handle something like this next time included: asking a different Maths teacher, which she could do in the after school homework club they ran. Using the exam board exemplars. Asking her mum, who is good with Maths. Asking classmates. And asking friends in other classes or the year group above, who’ve had other teachers and therefore gotten clearer or additional information or direction.

Now, some of those options are better than others - so then I had Rebecca think about and pick out - which is perhaps the best one of these options, and why? But, I’d recommend not going straight to this step of just finding one ‘best’ option. First of all, it’s good to have back ups. How do we know which one is the best option if we don’t have a selection to choose from? And often the ‘best’ option is a combination of more than one. And it might not provide a perfect or complete solution, but it IS a strategic plan and a step in the right direction, and hopefully better than just guessing.

I know it’s SO tempting to just move on from a task when it’s done - especially if it was a bit difficult, or brought up some challenges. But being able to identify issues, big or small - remember, each one of those little uncertainties were small things by themselves - this can be SO valuable for figuring this stuff out for next time. 

Whether it’s figuring out something subject specific - a tricky concept or skill, 
or something task specific - like how to write a detailed yet succinct analysis, or how to write a TED talk, or how to write a high scoring evaluation. Or something more generic, but often therefore the most applicable to a wide range of tasks or situations, like how to identify when uncertainty is creeping in and how to solve it.

Seeing what an issue or struggle was and figuring out a better way to handle it next time is pro-active and will reduce a whole lot of stress and procrastination in future. But it does take discipline, (or just working with an experienced coach) to do it. Please, just don’t skirt over it and ignore it. Because hoping it just doesn’t happen again is not a strategy. It’s just hope. Which is out of our hands and certainly does not instil confidence.

Now, if you’d like your teen to receive this kind of support, then they can, in the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program. As a bonus inclusion, they get to come to 3 group coaching calls any time during their 12 week enrolment, where they can get coaching from me AND our English focused Coach, Gemma and take away HEAPS of tips and tactics they’d maybe never even knew of or thought to ask, by being in on the coaching given to other students too. You can check out the 10WGT and bonus inclusions at www.rocksolidstudy.com/program.
 
OR, if they’ve completed the 10WGT, and you’d like them to get detailed, regular personal coaching in Next Level Coaching, then you can get all the info about it and sign up to the waitlist at www.gradetransformation.com/nextlevel to be notified of when enrolment next opens or a space is available. 
I’ll put both of those links directly in the show notes so you can go check those out. 

Thank you for joining me today, I’ll meet you back here next week, and until then, have a brilliant week. 

Take care, bye!