6 Tips to Improve Student Performance and Achievement

As a school owner or administrator, among your checklist of objectives should be meeting student outcomes. Remember that the reputation of your private school depends primarily on its capability to equip its students for the future. As a matter of fact, educating students in the best possible ways is every educational establishment’s ultimate goal. So, if you’re thinking of ways to meet your school’s student outcomes, well, you should start by improving student performance and achievement. For that matter, we’ll show you six strategic tips.

6 Tips to Improve Student Performance and Achievement

Establish a Collaborative Culture

Some schools have already ditched traditional classroom armchairs and switched to rounded tables. Why? Well, that’s because they want their students to learn and work together. Traditional classroom armchairs can accommodate one student only, whereas round tables can accommodate multiple students depending on their size. Students sitting in front of a single circular table, and facing each other can promote collaborative learning. According to countless studies, collaboration with their peers can help students learn better. It can also develop their social skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills.

The switch to rounded tables from armchairs is just one of many steps to establish a collaborative culture in your school. There are plenty of other strategies that are also excellent choices. Just do your research and discover which of them works best for your school’s classes. And, keep in mind that collaboration shouldn’t only be limited to students. Faculty staff must also partake in your school’s collaborative culture. They should be a significant part of every student’s social circle on campus.

Provide Academic Support Outside the Classroom

Every school has a plethora of students who are struggling in their studies. As a school owner, there’s no shame in admitting that your school has students with academic problems and difficulties. In fact, it’s something that you should address openly to help such students in improving their academic performance.

For us, one of the best approaches to help struggling students is by providing academic support before or after class hours. A student’s education shouldn’t stop within the four walls of a classroom. For this matter, you can let your faculty staff conduct remedial classes for struggling students. Or, you can implement peer-to-peer tutoring sessions of which you’ll ask excellent students to facilitate them. Other than that, you can simply order your faculty staff to coordinate with parents. Parents and guardians aren’t just there to pay for tuition fees or school quotation fees. They can also become the students’ secondary educators at home.

You have to immerse students with academic issues in their education to ensure their improvement. All they need might be constant support and guidance from their teachers, peers, and parents. Admittedly, helping struggling students to pull their grades up can be a long process. But, it’s a process that every school owner and educator must be more than willing to carry out.

Let Faculty Adopt Personalized Learning Methods

Each student has distinct learning capabilities. Some of them are fast learners, and some are slow; some are great at Math, and some are better in English. Your school might have a set of programs to help its students learn at the same pace. But despite that, they don’t have the same skill and talent level even though they’re of the same age. That said, your programs might not work well enough for some students enrolled in your school. For that reason, you have to let your teachers adopt personalized learning methods.

Personalized learning methods are tailor-made for a student’s distinct abilities. There aren’t any exact guidelines on how to structure a personalized learning approach. It’s entirely up to a teacher’s teaching instincts on how he or she is going to do it. Adopting a personalized method of learning doesn’t require funding, an extravagant budget, or an elaborate business plan. All you need to do is grant your faculty the green light to execute it.

However, letting teachers adopt personalized learning approaches doesn’t mean that you need to eradicate your school’s standard programs. Keep them intact; you can use them as indicators of a student’s strengths and weaknesses.

Encourage Students to Step Out From Their Comfort Zones

Some students excel at a particular subject but struggle at another. Well, that may be a case of some students staying in the confines of their comfort zone. It’s good that they know their comfort zone because that means they’re aware of their strengths. But, if they stay in their comfort zone for too long, it can hinder their growth. Thus, their overall performance will be low, and they’ll have little to no achievements.

So, as much as possible, make sure to encourage students to enhance their skills in other subjects. Their learning should be all around and not just centered on one area.

Introduce Gamification

When the majority think about game-changers in the education industry, what comes in their mind are online classes and crash courses. Well, they’re not wrong. But, there’s another that has been proven by studies to have positive impacts on learning, and that’s gamification.

Gamification refers to the transformation of a classroom environment into a gaming atmosphere. Mainly, gamification relates mostly to the use of gaming apps for classroom activities. According to an analysis by the American Psychological Association, 60% of teachers are utilizing digital gaming apps weekly for teaching, while 18% do so daily. The results are mostly positive. Teachers realize that students find learning more engaging and fun with games. According to a statement by KQED.org, 53% of teachers found out that video games can bring out collaboration among students, which is a good thing. As mentioned earlier, collaboration can help students learn better.

So, if you see gamification as a way to improve student performance and achievement, by all means, do it. In starting a school innovation such as gamification, there are many things you need to do. You may also have to create a business proposal for it. But the one that’s required is a budget. Yes, it’ll be quite costly, but it’ll be worth it once you see the positive results.

Evaluate Faculty Performance Regularly

Despite adopting multiple solutions, if there are still no significant improvements in your students’ performance, that’s the right time to conduct an assessment of your faculty’s performance. It might be that the culprit is the suboptimal effort of some of your teachers. You need competent and committed educators for your school to have excellent students. If you have underperforming teachers, don’t hesitate to terminate their work contract.

Cutting ties from less competent faculty members is a necessary step for the sake of the students’ education. So, make sure to evaluate faculty performance regularly. The next time you hire new teachers, let them know that part of the agreement is terminating their employment if they underperform consistently.

Having excellent students can boost the promotion of your school’s name and branding. Why? Well, that’s because it’s a direct implication that your school is capable of providing quality education. So, starting tomorrow or now, begin making plans to improve your school’s student performance and achievement using the six tips you’ve learned here.

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