Transcript:
 

You’re listening to The Parents of Hardworking Teens Podcast, episode 92: How to find and then Solve for the issue, missing piece or weakness that when fixed will create the biggest improvement for your teen and their study, results and confidence.

Hey VIP’s! How are you? I am good. I’ve been planning what I’m going to do for the 100th podcast episode. Because we’re on 92 right now, and I’ve had about 37 ideas of cool things that we could do, and I’m almost set on what it’s going to look like and how I would love you to be involved. 

I really want it to be something that is ultra helpful to you and your teen, not just a celebration thing about the podcast or me or Rock Solid Study. I want it to be something super-valuable, not just fun and cake and candles. Though now I’m wondering how I could involve cake. Haha. So, more to come on that soon. As always, make sure you’re subscribed to my email list to get the insider info and be the first to know about anything that I do. You can do that by requesting the free parent guide: 3 Huge Mistakes Even Smart Students Make in Exams and Assignments on the Rock Solid Study website.

Now, into today’s episode… and thinking about how to decide what to do if your teen wants to improve their study or performance academically. They might want better results, to be studying less if they’re over-working, to be less stressed, feel more confident and in control.

Well, when we want to improve something there may well be lots of ways to go about doing it. 
 
An athlete who wants to get better at their 100m sprint could work on their start out of the blocks, their arm/leg coordination or posture whilst sprinting, they could do leg strength training to build muscle, they might change their nutrition. 
This is likely different for different athletes. There’s not a one size fits all improvement, which is why top athletes have coaches.

The more focused question is, not just - how can I get better -  but - what should I work on first?

And the answer, at least in my book, is - work on the thing that will give the greatest return. 

What’s something foundational that HAS to be changed in order for any other changes to have an impact?  Or, out of all the factors at play, what’s the weakest link?

What’s the thing that - if we just improve or put in place that one thing - it will make a massive difference across the board?

That doesn’t mean its the ONLY thing. 
In fact, once we solve for or fix the weakest link, there will be a new weakest link, right?!

But what it does mean is that we won’t be wasting time and effort on improving and making changes to something with little result or impact. 

I recently had a consult with one of my new Next Level students, and her mum told me that before doing the 10WGT, she’d previously done tutoring with Kip McGrath, but it wasn’t making much of a difference. She said that they mainly focused on spelling and literacy to help her improve her English results, but that her spelling was actually at her age level, so they realised that that wasn’t what was needed. 

I like to use the analogy of the car without wheels. 

If the car’s not moving, and we tried to improve its performance by putting more fuel in it, and it’s still not moving, it’s not that the car is no good. It’s not that the fuel is no good. It’s just that that wasn’t the thing holding it back. 

If this student’s weakest link in English was indeed her spelling and vocabulary, then chances are, that would’ve made a significant difference - and probably not just in English! That wasn’t what was limiting her though. 

Just as the thing stopping the car from performing at its potential is the fact that it has no wheels.

And here’s the thing… we wouldn’t even have to put super-amazing wheels on the car to see a big difference in performance! We could put my Toyota Camry wheels on a tesla or a porsche and it would still make a massive difference. 
(No idea if you can even do that - probably not - but you get the point!)

You can make a big difference when you identify and then solve for the weakest link in whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. This is how students make big jumps even with just one or two concepts or skills.

Because let’s think about this for a moment. When we consider your teen’s study, they have LOADS of different things to work on, produce, and tackle in their study. 
Exams, essays, presentations or speeches, everyday classwork and homework questions, note-taking, research, group work, assessment they can take in notes for, assessment they have to pretty much memorise everything for, assessment where they know what the question will be and the success criteria, exams where they don’t know what the questions will be or what the mark scheme might say. So it can be tricky to figure out what’s holding them back.

So I hope that I can simplify it all a little bit.

The key is to work out - or even discover - because sometimes it can be something you didn’t even realise was missing or required was a ‘thing’  - the weakest link.  The skill or tactic or technique or strategy or piece of knowledge or understanding that will yes fix that issue, but also, ideally elevate everything else as well.

In my experience the most common and most significant weakest link for students in high school is the skill of applying their subject knowledge to the task or question:
- being able to dissect the wording of the question to know exactly what it’s asking 
- knowing how to respond to exactly what the question demands 
AND 
- do it in a way that meets the requirements of the mark scheme. 

I discovered this in my first ever external examiner training and marking operation, and then continued to see it year after year, for over 17 years now in coursework moderation, assessment consulting for schools, daily teaching in the classroom and every external examination I’ve scrutinised, been on the writing panel for, or externally marked ever since.

Lacking the skill of Application of Knowledge - so that’s things like exam technique, essay strategy, getting savvy with mark schemes - and that good old phrase of studying smarter not harder - is what I see catching out and letting down SO many students.

It’s the huge gap that I set out to fill with the 10 Week Grade Transformation Program.

And one simple way to see if APPLICATION is the missing piece for your teen is to simply ask them this:

“What would you rate your subject knowledge as on a scale of 1 - 10?”

Because the study success formula is simply Knowledge PLUS Application of that knowledge equals success.
Definitely go back to the very first episode of this podcast for more on that. Knowledge Plus the skills of Application to put it across is what equals study success.

But If we asked them, hey, how would you rate your skills of knowledge APPLICATION? They would probably look at us a bit blankly. Even if we asked how is your exam technique? How well do your essays actually answer the question? Or do you know exactly what a question is asking you to do if it says DISCUSS? They might have some thoughts, but it likely wouldn’t be as clear-cut.  Feel free to use those as secondary questions though if you’d like!

Given that most students (and schools and teachers too) are a lot more focused on and aware of the subject knowledge part, then this is the thing that your teen will most likely be able to answer most accurately and easily.

And here’s how to consider their score. And yes, they might have different scores for different subjects, and that’s totally fine. You could do this exercise subject by subject, or then come up with an average overall. 

If they give a 7 or above out of 10, then it’s likely that their subject knowledge isn’t the weakest link in their study and grades. In which case subject tutoring or doing more research or notes or reading for the subject or topic won’t make much difference. 

If it’s a 6 or below, then I would suggest working on their subject knowledge. Whether that’s with support from the teacher, an outside tutor or company or good old Youtube. 

And, if you and they think that their skills of application and their subject knowledge are both on the low side, then consider tackling both of these. Because one without the other just doesn’t work.

We can’t rely on great exam technique for example if we don’t actually know the subject content. And we can’t rely on great subject knowledge to be great at acing exams if we don’t know how to dissect the wording of the questions and can’t predict what the mark scheme will award credit for exactly.

Rather than trying to take action from what potential fixes might be available or are familiar, and thinking, hey’ let’s try this and see if it helps, see if you can switch things and consider it the other way. Hey - what’s the weakest link here? - Is it subject knowledge and understanding the topic? Or is it not being confident and sure on how to apply that information to any question or task and in a way that meets the mark scheme criteria?

Now, if you do that rating and figure that having the skills of application or even BOTH application and having better ways to learn, understand and retain subject knowledge would be a massive help, then PLEASE check out the 10 Week grade Transformation Program. 

I’ll put a link to it in the show notes and you can also go to the Rock Solid Study website and then click ‘Program’ OR simply type in www.gradetransformation.com/join

Any questions, just email support@rocksolidstudy.com. If you’re finding the podcast helpful in any way, and you have any friends or family who might also find it helpful, then take a screenshot and forward it to them and both I and hopefully they will be extremely grateful. 

Have a great rest of your week and here’s to finding and fixing your teen’s weakest link.