Studying for exams? Here’s how to make your memory work for you

Have you ever thought about how your brain works while learning? If you know this, you may be able to save and retrieve information.

There are three main memory structures: sensory, working and long-term memory. With these tips you can activate all three to improve your learning.

1. Try to learn the same content in different ways

Activation of your sensory memory is the first step. The sensory memory is based on the senses, of which you know for certain that they are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.

So think about it - to activate your sensory memory, you should activate as many senses as possible. We mainly use visual and auditory (audio) aids in learning, but many disciplines use more than these two senses. Fine art, for example, would require touch.

Instead of just reading your textbook, try using podcasts and visual aids like posters, presentations, and online blogs.

Try to activate different senses while learning. By listening to a podcast. from shutterstock.com

When we activate our sensory memory, we participate in the processes of attention and perception.

Man has to pay attention to learning and the more cognitive resources we provide for a task at a given time, the faster we learn. For this reason, it makes sense to learn in an environment conducive to learning, eg. In a quiet room at your home or in the library.

Sensory and working memory are limited so that learners have to allocate their resources as selectively as possible and with minimal distraction to important information.

How we interpret information is based on what we already know and our previous experiences. One way to use this is to share knowledge with others before starting a new or unknown task. So try to check what you have learned with a friend or parent before you learn something new.

If you do not understand something in the first instance, it may be because you have not paid enough attention or have not correctly recognized the question or problem. Try to clear your mind (take a break) and think carefully about how much attention you pay to the question.

If this still does not work, ask for advice or get help to make sure you're on the right track.

Reforbes, in touch with tomorrow

2. First learn simpler parts and then build on them

As soon as a learner perceives and takes note of learning material, the information is transferred into the working memory. Here your conscious processing takes place.

When you take an exam, your working memory decides what your answer will be and how you will structure your response.

What many learners do not notice is that after a long period of learning, they feel that they are not learning as much as they originally did. This is due to the so-called cognitive overload.

Your memory can contain only a limited number of information bits. The exact size of these bits depends on your level of knowledge. For example, a child learning the alphabet has little prior knowledge, so each letter is stored individually with, for example, 26 bits. As they become more familiar, the letters merge into one piece.

Consider the type of information you learn to make your working memory more efficient. Is it low or high in the "bits" section? Are you trying to learn something that you need to master before you can move on to challenging sections? If the answer is yes, you are consuming a lot of "bits" of memory.

First, try to master the smaller bits so you can get that information faster without using unnecessary cognitive resources. Then go on to the harder parts.

This type of mastery is called automation.

If you learn something that turns it into an automatic thought or process, you can give the learner more cognitive resources for tasks that consume more "memory bits". Because of this, we at school are encouraged to memorize our multiplication tables so that we can release cognitive resources to solve the more difficult mathematical problems.

Automation is when we know how to do something without having to think about it (like driving a car). from shutterstock.com

Memory is limited, which is why you want to transfer the information to your long-term memory with unlimited storage capacity.

For information to be permanently stored there, you must participate in the coding process. Many things that you can do by teachers, such as: Previous work and the writing of an essay plan are coding strategies.

Another coding strategy is the Pomodoro technique. Here you use a timer to divide the learning into intervals, usually 25 minutes, separated by brief pauses. When used effectively, Pomodoro can reduce anxiety, improve focus, and increase motivation.

What you do at the time of encoding affects the transfer of information from your long-term memory to your working memory, which then gives you answers to questions. You can better remember when the retrieval conditions match those of the encoding.

For this reason, we often want to recreate a quiet learning environment when learning, as this is similar to the exam environment.

Education Building A Better Tomorrow.

3. Link new information to things you already know

Try to explain to someone without knowing the content what you have learned instead of reading the exam notes. Being able to teach someone effectively means that you have a solid understanding of yourself.

Their long-term memory generally has an infinite capacity, but it is only a memory structure. Just because you have something stored there does not mean that you can retrieve it effectively and efficiently.

Most of us had the experience of studying, but could not retrieve the information we learned. Or we misread the information, which means that we received the wrong answer.

This may be because we learned the material on a flat level, as opposed to a deeper level of processing. Learning material learned the night before means that we have not linked the information with the established knowledge structure.

You can help yourself by linking new information to old information that you already have in your long-term memory, such as: For example, by drawing an analogy between the new and something you already know.

If you know all about memory, you can understand why some learning methods are more or less effective than others. When learning for exams or not, it is important that we think about how our brains work and how we best learn as individuals.

We need an education system that inspires children

The nation needs an education system that inspires and motivates children and gives them the learning they need and deserve to reach their potential. This means providing a curriculum for practical and professional learning in addition to theoretical study.

This need for change has never been so urgent. It is not the fault of an individual, a school or even a political party, but the simple fact that the world has changed - and our education system has not changed fast enough. In fact, it is largely based on a system that was developed over a century ago. a factory manufacturing model where children are placed on a learning conveyor, sorted, packaged and tagged according to their so-called intelligence.

However, there is no excuse today for such a comprehensive, unified education system that does not enable all children to thrive in their own way. We must realize that young people are individuals with different talents and dreams. Therefore, not all children learn the same way. We need to move towards a system of mass adjustment based on a strong common core of essential skills and knowledge, enabling young people to develop their own special talents and aspirations.

We need to help young people find out what they enjoy and what they are good at - and who they want to be in life. And we have to encourage and support teachers and schools to respond to these different needs. Young people will learn if they see learning as important, meaningful and worthwhile.

A crucial topic for the recession

Revolution in education is a particularly important issue in the context of the current economic climate. Young people leaving full-time education next summer will be in the toughest recruitment market in years. The current obsolete education system is not optimally exploiting this country's most valuable natural resource - its next generation.

Britain requires people with passion, know-how, initiative, creativity, resilience and self-knowledge. People who can get on with others and know when to listen and when to lead. These skills and abilities can not be acquired in class alone. They come from "practical learning" - learning by doing things for the practice, working with experts and connecting theory with practice.

Since Edge published its first "Call to Action" in April, inviting everyone from education professionals, MPs and opinion leaders to parents and youth to help us create change for a mass movement, the response from all areas has been extremely positive. Practical and professional learning is no longer a secondary issue, no longer an option for the children of others.

Reforbes, in touch with tomorrow

Six steps to change

Edge's Six-step Manifesto demonstrates how governments across the UK can reform the education system to better serve the needs of all young people and employers.

The six steps to be changed are:

1. A broad curriculum up to the age of 14 with opportunities to develop life skills and experience a range of future options. Life skills such as teamwork, problem-solving, and entrepreneurship should be explicitly communicated and evaluated through hands-on activities related to academic disciplines and professional fields. There should be a new focus on direct experience with future options, including visits to workplaces, colleges and universities, and direct listening to people who have already made career and learning decisions.

2. SATS replaces by an individual profile of the achievements, abilities and abilities used by students, parents and teachers to select a path to 14. To make decisions, parents and students need to understand a student's strengths and aspirations. The school-grown profile would help students, parents, and teachers to discuss the next steps.

3. At the age of 14, not only should all students maintain a broad curriculum, including English, math and science, but also choose a nature trail adapted to their interests and abilities, with a different balance between theoretical and practical learning. For some, the path will be largely academic and theoretical; For many, it will be a mixture of theory and practice that combines new knowledge and ability with the world. and for some, practical learning takes center stage. The emphasis will be on the breadth and openness of options for young people while at the same time pursuing their interest in depth.

4. Traineeship and vocational students are taught in colleges or specialized institutions and by appropriately experienced staff. This motivates the students and gives them excellent vocational training. There will be many more specialized institutions whose nature is determined locally. VET teachers should be adequately trained and educated, and receive the same pay and conditions as teachers in academic disciplines.

5. At the age of 16, students have the choice of specializing in their path, changing course, or taking up employment. For example, engineering students could specialize in electrical engineering. Some students may leave full-time education and start an apprenticeship.

6. From the age of 18, students have the opportunity to study at a study-level competence center recognized by employers. This would improve the status of vocational learning, provide clear paths of development and at the same time improve the employability of students.

All practical and professional courses should reflect the demands of the modern workplace, be officially endorsed by employers and be developed under their guidance - as well as supported by current experts. Students of such courses should spend at least 10% of their studies in the workplace - d. H. Eight weeks over two years. During this time they would have a study program and would be guided and supported by a trained mentor in the workplace.

The "Six Steps to Change Manifesto" aims to eradicate the current academic bias and the caustic gap between academic and professional learning. It sets out a way to ensure higher quality options that combine theory and practice, and that are viewed by all as credible alternatives to a first-rate academic path.

Amendments

Will these changes happen? I think they will. Our current system has reached a point where yields are slowing down, when we have tried most of the mechanisms. from more money over goals with corresponding incentives and public disgrace to new types of qualifications and a thousand and one new "initiative". It is hard to imagine that we will suddenly change education unless we return to the basic principle that people learn when they enjoy it and recognize its relevance.

We need a new approach, a new paradigm. This becomes very clear when we compare ourselves with other countries. Great Britain has some great strengths that we must not lose, especially in terms of first-class academic learning. Our greatest weakness, however, is our ability to transform diversity into hierarchy. Our system is largely based on the misguided belief that one form of intelligence is in some ways more important (or better) than another.

Fortunately, I think that the necessary changes are already beginning.

The signs of spring are all over us:

• Skills Commission's bipartisan Inspiration and Aspiration report recognizes the need for a whole new set of careers information, advice and guidance - for example, to ensure that people have access to sites where they have access to different websites Inform training routes and use forums Discuss careers with people who have experienced them.

• An important campaign for new, well-known employers to help young people find more meaningful, relevant and inspiring work experiences is in the planning stage.

• The growing interest in "employability skills", the piloting of explicit lessons in positive psychology and the emergence of schools and colleges that build learning on core competencies and skills and involve companies in the broadest sense in all aspects of learning. The examples range from the Open Minds and HTI Go for It RSA schools to corporate academies and colleges such as Sheffield City College.

• The departure from rigorous SAT testing and related goals and the interest in achieving a more balanced scorecard for achievement.

• The development of an important new way of learning in the form of diplomas, the success of young apprentices, and the rapid growth of practical and professional qualifications in schools.

• Entirely new types of institutions with a commitment to more hands-on learning, offered by appropriately experienced teachers such as the Madeley Academy (a Thomas Telford School) and the Studio Schools in the right facilities.

• The growing interest in a new and more practice-oriented education and the challenge of the existing dividing lines between school, FE and university teacher training - a new study of the competence commission on this topic begins.

• The revival of apprenticeship.

• Founding Accounts (where they have been developed with employers), new initiatives between universities and employers, including the validation of Vocational Higher Education.

The seeds of change sprout - but they do not grow automatically. For them to thrive, they must be recognized and promoted. They need the support of the nation; from parents to teens to MPs and the business community.

The power of positive communication

Setting a goal of positive contact with each student's family helped a middle school teacher deepen her relationships and strengthen her own morality.

The demands of teaching can sometimes be overwhelming, and it may be easy to lose sight of the main reason we teach: the students. Every student is special and deserves recognition for his unique qualities. By developing a system that sends positive notes home on a regular basis, I've found that I'm watching my students' achievements, and that difficult days for students, their families, and me are quickly put into perspective.

Most teachers have to go home when a student in the classroom performs poorly - academic, behavioral, or both. My own teaching has grown positively because I have deliberately contacted families when the students have performed well.

TRACK COMMUNICATIONS

At the beginning of each school year, in addition to creating a new Gradebook, I also created a table listing all students alphabetically by last name. In the columns, I list the dates I contact families, the method (e-mail, carpool, face-to-face meeting or call) and the reason for contacting them. Throughout the year, when I have to contact a family, I am sure to add them to the table with the aim of contacting each family at least once with a positive note.

At the beginning of the year, I turn to families who are new to school in the first two weeks. In my experience, these families are worried that their child is in a new environment, and they feel relieved to hear that the year is going well from the perspective of an adult. It also helps them to have a contact person at the school for future questions.

During the year I set new goals. Last year my goal was to contact half of my students' families with a positive message from Thanksgiving. This year, my goal is to bring everyone home with a positive message before the end of January.

Reforbes, in touch with tomorrow

POSITIVE MOMENTS

My positive practices began my sophomore year when sending alarming news clouded my own optimism. I realized that if I sent a positive e-mail every time I sent a worrying e-mail, I could focus my energy on recognizing the students who made the day a pleasure.

Now, years after this realization, I try to send positive emails before concerns arise, so every family has a positive story to tell about their child's school experience.

Some of the most obvious contacts are the simplest ones. If a student does a particularly good job on a difficult exam such as an essay or a pop quiz, I'll contact his family. However, reviews are not the only way to send praise home. Contacts can be a student who excels in skills: Communicating disagreement in group work, working with a lone student during class, or empathizing with a classmate who has a difficult day. Their behavior does not have to be extraordinary; I've sent notes that students usually come to the classroom and follow the procedures, do the homework reliably, and tackle difficult tasks with a positive attitude.

To make sure that no student is in contact for negative reasons only, I color the fonts in the table. Later, when I open the chart, I can quickly search for colors and see if I have a positive grade for a follow-up, usually two or three weeks after the original contact for poor performance. I take the time to observe the students and write down all the positive moments that I can to get back into touch with a positive growth note.

SEE ALL STUDENTS

By setting myself the goal of e-mailing a positive personal anecdote, I make sure that no student is invisible in my classroom. When I scroll through my list every week, I can see which student's family members have not yet been contacted, and I can get involved in those relationships and develop them further. Too often, students are the ones who get the most attention when they look for a relationship and behave negatively, for For example, if they engage in ratings or perform poorly. The rest of the families may not hear from the school all year round, despite the great attitude and morale of their students. Through targeted tracking, I also recognize students for the habits they bring with them.

While I deliberately noticed and praised the attitudes and behaviors of my students, I was able to build a positive community between school and home. Not only do parents enjoy an insight into the daily lives of their teenagers (especially when the conversation at home is short), but also that their child is seen and recognized by an adult. Knowing that someone at school looks beyond standards, makes assessments, and creates checklists to see each child as an individual contributes significantly to strengthening the relationship and credibility between the two main parties in education: at home and at home at school.

Teleology and evolutionary education

Evolution:

Education and Outreach invites to original contributions exploring all aspects of teleological thinking and the teleological language relevant to the teaching and learning of evolution. The scope of the papers in this special edition ranges from theoretical reflections on the role of teleology in evolutionary education to empirical studies on teleology-related aspects of teaching and learning in evolution. 

For example, the submitted papers may include: evaluating students' teleological reasoning and teleological misconceptions about evolution; Teaching strategies and learning environments focusing on teleology; or teleology-related teaching practices and professional development of teachers. The literature on teleology is diverse; We welcome a number of positions from a variety of disciplines (eg cognitive psychology, learning sciences, biology education, philosophy of science).

,

If you have questions about contributions, please contact Prof. Marcus Hammann, guest editor of the special edition, or editor-in-chief Ross Nehm. Submissions are now open, with an expected release date of December 2019.

Evolution: Education and Outreach is now celebrating its 10th anniversary and has recently received SCOPUS indexing.

Submitted contributions will be reviewed promptly and published immediately after acceptance (ie without having to wait for the completion of all other submissions). Thanks to the Evolution: Education and Outreach Open Access Policy, the articles published in this series will reach a broad, global audience.

The Reforbes That Likes To Say Yes.

Filing instructions

Before submitting your manuscript, make sure that you have carefully read the Evolution: Education and Outreach submission guidelines. The full manuscript should be submitted through the Journal Submission System. To make sure you're submitting the right topics, select the appropriate section from the drop-down menu when submitting. Also, indicate in your cover letter that your manuscript should be considered part of the thematic series of the series title. All papers undergo rigorous peer review and accepted articles are published as a collection in the journal.

Submissions also benefit from the usual benefits of open access publishing:

Quick Publication: Online filing, electronic review and production make the process of publishing your article easy and efficient

High Visibility and International Readership in Your Field: Open access publishing ensures high visibility and maximum visibility of your work - anyone with online access can read your article

No space restrictions: Online publishing means unlimited space for images, extensive data and video footage.

The authors retain the copyright and license the article under a Creative Commons license: Articles may be freely redistributed and reused as long as the article is correctly assigned.

Teach the students to give peer feedback

Giving the classmates feedback on writing is a complex skill that students need to master. However, it can be taught using scaffolding models

When I share with my ninth graders for the first time that peer review will be part of our writing process, the response is almost entirely negative. Unfortunately, many of my authors have not had the best experience with this activity.

My stronger writers state that they almost never receive feedback that goes beyond basic conventions, while my aspiring writers feel they lack the confidence to give feedback beyond basic conventions. This frustration should come as no surprise: as educators, we recognize that effective teaching is a complex skill that needs to be consciously exercised. Similarly, asking students to give each other feedback is more complex than just exchanging papers and pinpointing mistakes.

To make peer feedback more targeted and meaningful, I found it helpful to define quality feedback, provide structured routines, and provide feedback, as with any other core competency.

High Life With Education.

DEFINE EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK

In my experience, few high school newcomers have mastered the conventions of writing well enough to be reliable editors. That's why I encourage my students to think about the other's work - not to correct it.

My students focus on developing ideas, clarity and arrangement to understand the text of the author. Of course, a scrambled grammar can interfere with a reader's experience, but instead of trying to correct the confusing syntax of a colleague with editing characters, I encourage students to write complete sentences together:

• This is confusing because I can not follow your topic.

• I am confused about who "they" are in this sentence.

• Explain a bit more about why you chose this example from the text.

• I think it's good, as you concluded in your conclusion, the keywords from your hook here.

The Reforbes That Likes To Say Yes.

I also offer children a special acronym to remember what quality feedback is all about: SPARK. For Feedback to be useful to an author, it should meet as many of the following criteria as possible:

• Specific: Comments are linked to a specific word, sentence or sentence.

• Prescription: Like a medical prescription designed to remedy a disease, prescription feedback provides a solution or strategy for improving work, including possible revisions or links to helpful resources or examples.

• Workable: When the feedback is read, the peer knows what steps to take to improve it.

• Referenced: The feedback directly refers to the task criteria, requirements or target competences.

• Type: It is mandatory that all comments are framed in a friendly, supportive manner.

Some groups that I have taught have quickly contacted SPARK while others needed more practice. For these groups, I create student-friendly versions of an advisory protocol or voting protocol to ensure focused discourse and room for all voices.

I have also set a guideline for a minimum number of quality comments, but I tell students that less is often more.

Modeling spark feedback

Like any other skill I teach, I start modeling SPARK feedback on writing to sample students. I interact with students and explain my thinking process by finding out what is effective or ineffective on a text and how to make high-quality SPARK-based comments. From there, as a class, we examine other sample feedback statements before evaluating their potential benefits to a writer.

In order to give the students the opportunity to give independent feedback, I distribute the same example paragraph. We use group and class discussions to share the variety of feedback offered.

When it's time for a live assessment, I rate the performance by giving students feedback on their feedback. After that, students share particularly useful examples. Before the students leave the classroom, they share on the exit cards what they believe to be the best feedback they have offered and the best feedback they have received.

In the end, a good peer review should provide the author with meaningful information for improvement while improving the auditor's ability to analyze the effectiveness of a text.

Crunch Time for Universities

As Pakistan's economy moves south, some college graduates panic. Reductions in scientific equipment, cuts in travel grants for overseas conferences, fewer state scholarships for stays abroad, and the cancellation of research fellowships for new PhD students are underway. The construction of some new university campuses has been discontinued. Although the Higher Education Commission (HEC) says it can handle the budget cuts, several projects are being dropped.

When the money runs dry, some bad things will certainly happen: tuition fees will rise, scholarships will decline, and rural universities will have a disproportionate share of the burden. But the crisis could still be a blessing. This is a wake-up call that points to the terrible bleeding of scarce national resources from the higher education system.

Why continue to collect enormously expensive, but hardly used scientific equipment? Or reward rubbish publications masquerading as research? Why should university faculties and overseas administrators have junkets to Europe and elsewhere? Instead of spoiling ignorant professors with fantastic salaries, the worst should be dismissed. And instead of sending mediocre students to mediocre foreign universities, only exceptionally capable students should be paid the very best to study.

Higher education in Pakistan is in a terrible state, but the money can not fix it. The crisis is threefold: the crisis of freedom at universities, the crisis of spiritual impoverishment and the crisis of ethics and morality among students and teachers.

The broken university system of Pakistan requires fundamental attitude changes. Money can not fix it.

Our universities have fallen into the brick wall of religious orthodoxy and negated the very purpose of higher education. Basically, a university seeks to create an agency, that is, power of thought and action that goes beyond the wisdom received. Real universities around the world, unlike the ones we have, do not follow modesty; They take the lead by creating people who can create, invent, and imagine. Without the protection of personal and intellectual freedoms, this is impossible.

Tragically, the individual expression on our campus is brutally curtailed. Dr. Khalid Hameed, a professor of English at Bahawalpur University, was stabbed to death by a fanatical student for organizing a gender-conscious farewell party followed by a traditional jhoomar dance. The young murderer is proud of his remorse. Only a murmur of protest followed on BU.

Or take Mashal Khan, who was lynched by fellow students at Abdul Wali Khan University for a false blasphemy and whose body was dragged across the campus as hundreds cheered and recorded the event on video. Junaid Hafeez, once a brilliant young teacher at Bahauddin Zakariya University, spent six of his 29 years in solitary confinement in Multan Prison while waiting for the trial.

The university administrators strictly regulate the students.

 Some universities - the University of Engineering & Technology (Lahore) and Bahria University (Islamabad) - have officially prescribed the headscarf for female students. But most institutions do not have to adapt themselves out of fear of students themselves. Behavioral changes at Quaid-i-Azam University are serious compared to 1973, my first year there. The veiled ones in my physics class are quiet notes makers who seldom have the courage to ask a question.

Nothing Works Better Than a Reforbes

The second crisis: mental impoverishment and lack of expertise. Partially excluded from this criticism are art, architecture, management, most social sciences, and even areas such as agriculture and biotechnology. However, the level of incompetence is hard to believe in terms of the "hard sciences" such as mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering or theoretical chemistry.

Within each of these disciplines, only a handful of Pakistani professors earn their doctoral degrees. The rest would pass undergraduate examinations at places like Stanford, MIT or Cambridge, and most would not pass the demanding entrance exams for India's IITs.

Incompetence runs through the faculty of the university, the vice chancellors and the HEC itself. A HEC chairman suggested in a Dawn article that the HAARP experiment in Alaska - which was finally scrapped in 2015 - triggered earthquakes and floods in Pakistan. Another former HEC chairman publicly suggested that terrorist cells should be shut down at universities if parents "turn off television and the Internet early in the evening and send the students to bed." A senior and influential VC was co-supervising a doctoral thesis in physics, claiming that viewing different colors could cure cancer.

The third crisis concerns institutional morality. Choosing a teaching job may have little to do with your expertise. Instead, a combination of your ethnicity, personal relationships, religious beliefs, and social attitudes determines the outcome. Fraud and plagiarism of teachers or students are generally in order and can only be punished if other factors speak against a specific person.

Absent is a collegial culture that values ​​scientific achievements and the virtues of honesty, accuracy, correctness, originality, and collaboration. But these very qualities make a university good or bad, not their buildings or playgrounds! Many departments are haunted by bitter turf wars. Often many are not even in conversation with their colleagues because of small and personal problems.

It is unlikely that this bleak scenario will change soon, and it will never change unless you take the stinging nettle and somehow force yourself through larger attitude changes. Those who refer to international university rankings that rate certain Pakistani universities are wrong. These for-profit foreign organizations remotely make nonsensical valuations by simply entering numbers. You have no way to assess local situations or to distinguish wrong data from real ones. (QAU does not have a technical department, but is just below Cornell University, according to the Shanghai 2018 list!)

Let's ask instead how scarce public money should best be spent today. The smartest way is to invest in the creation and maintenance of universities that are a long way from Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. Rural "universities" - even if they are not real universities - should not be set to false standards. Even though they are academically poor, they serve an important social purpose.

For rural youth - whose numbers are exploding - such universities offer opportunities for advancement and the opportunity to get in touch with the modern world. This is especially important for young women who would otherwise never live outside their home. Encounters with students and teachers in various rural settings - most recently last week at Sargodha University - make me optimistic. In such places, a reasonable, upright vice-chancellor can make a big difference. Some of these individuals exist but unfortunately are far too few.

Co-working meets co-learning

Workspace helps to promote personal and professional opportunities for parents while supporting their children.

At first glance, Workspace looks like any other work environment. Nestled in a business park in Bethel, Connecticut, the entrance to the red, barn-like building opens up to a bright lobby with offices, cabins, lounges, studios, and a kitchen. It does not take long for visitors to realize that the workspace is used here as a verb and not as a noun, and that this area is much more than a shared office. Work is something that families do to tailor work and education in their own way while in fellowship with others. Workspace Education combines collaboration and learning together with a prevailing entrepreneurial spirit and is one of the most innovative K-12 learning models.

Workspace fills a gap for its founder Cath Fraise. When she founded the center in 2016, Fraise envisioned a dynamic space where parents can work, children can learn, companies can grow, and the community can thrive - all in a collaborative, multi-generational environment. "At first I wanted to build a school, but I wanted everyone to be able to afford it," she says.

I also wanted to start social entrepreneurs and have a space where everyone works and starts small businesses.

A trained Montessori educator teaching at public schools in Australia, Fraise spent the last decade providing project-based home tuition with her two children, who are now 20 and 16 years old, while providing support to their parents who support their own pursue their own career goals and entrepreneurial aspirations.

A concierge model

Workspace is working on a concierge model for learning and working. In addition to a one-time upfront fee of $ 1,500 for 10 hours of parenting and onboarding, parents pay $ 3,500 per year and child (with sibling discount). With this combined fee, they get access to shared office space, Wi-Fi, and business support six days a week as they work with Workspace employees and education specialists to create a learning plan for their child that comes to Workspace every day.

Affordable costs provide parents and their children with full support and access to all Workspace amenities and offerings, including the art studios, music room, research labs, gym, woodshop and maker-space. "Families say Workspace is as good for their parents as it is for the kids," says Fraise.

However, some of Workspace's 80 families benefit from additional services such as tutoring and weekly classes offered by external educators.

For example, some families use a popular workspace math tutor, a former Morgan Stanley employee who charges $ 50 per child for seven weeks of weekly one-hour math lessons. Another popular lab class taught by Yale-trained PhD students. Scholars, families will cost $ 1,200 a year for two hours of lab work and lessons a week. There is also an Acton Academy on-site ($ 6,800 / year for full-time enrollment) if parents want an option for early school leaving. 

According to Fraise, most parents do not pay for additional donation programs, relying instead on the robust resources and supportive environment that Workspace provides to each of its members. "Families say Workspace is as good for their parents as it is for the kids," says Fraise. "We are an interdependent community that unites to give the children in the building the best possible education."

Working and learning together

The supportive learning and working community has drawn Melanie Ryan to Workspace. Her eleven-year-old son Justin spent his early elementary years in a private Montessori school and then went to public school where he had problems. "The teacher was incredible," says Ryan, "but he has some special needs, such as attention deficits, and he is a very physically active, athletic boy, so he sat seven hours a day and did not have many options." does not suit him. "

His mother says that Justin, who had previously been a happy, agreeable child, had a serious school-related trauma and loathed herself. He says, "I'm stupid." Ryan, a psychotherapist who's been in private practice for over 15 years, knew she needed to do something to address her child's emotional burden. She removed Justin from the public school in December 2018 and registered him as a homeschooler in her native New York.

 It was a big jump. "My husband and I own the largest holistic health center in the Hudson Valley, where I see clients during the week and teach classes on the weekends," says Ryan, who was not sure how she would manage to work full-time while she supervised the health of her son education. "I had a lot on my plate," she adds.

Reforbes, in touch with tomorrow

Then Ryan heard from a friend of Workspace and decided to take the 45-minute drive to Connecticut to visit him. "I knew immediately, that was it," she says. "As soon as we arrived, Justin was greeted by a boy he would shadow for the day, and then he was gone for hours. I could not bring him to leave! "Now Ryan spends three days a week at Workspace, making Therapy calls via Skype to clients around the world, directing her team of practitioners and taking care of marketing and advertising their business, while Justin attends classes in math, reading and learning creative writing, studio art and cartoon, woodworking, science, law and government. While Ryan sees clients on site one day a week, her husband goes to Workspace, where he runs a football club for Justin and his colleagues between his own meetings and customer work. On Thursdays Justin meets his mother and father in her clinic.

Workspace helps to promote personal and professional opportunities for parents while supporting their children. Ryan has started seeing a few clients during the week in Workspace's private offices, offering classes for members and the larger community. She also participates in a digital photography course on Workspace, helping her rejoin a long ignored passion. "It's really a village," she says about Workspace.

As a working parent and entrepreneur, I can really rely on my co-parents who I work with here. When I need time to leave Workspace for a meeting, I can easily ask another parent to keep an eye on Justin, and I do the same for them.

This is a feature that has encouraged single parents to join Workspace.

Incubation of young entrepreneurs

Parents are not the only ones doing business at Workspace. Brady Knuff and Forrest Anderson both left their respective high schools after their junior year to devote their time to building a business. The duo, who are virtually enrolled in the North Atlantic Regional High School, a private program for non-traditional students in Maine, receives an accredited high school diploma and spends the last year on entrepreneurial endeavors.

"My experiences with Workspace are a bit different from those of others, because I do not take classes here," says Knuff. "I use it as an incubator for my business." These young entrepreneurs are using Workspace's technology and business support resources such as video editing equipment and access to ongoing support to expand their emerging real estate marketing company Blukite.