There is no “magic” about the number five. In identifying five “basic” strategies, I am trying to highlight what you might call “foundational” things to try doing differently to get better grades or test scores. What follows are five strategies high school and college students (and their parents) should consider when trying to improve academic performance.
We regularly engage with students who try hard, do their homework, study for tests, etc., but still don’t perform very well in certain subjects. When you dig a little deeper, you learn they just think they aren’t wired for a certain class or school in general. They might use language like “I’m just not good at math” or “I’ve never liked reading” or “I’ve never done well in school” and it negatively impacts their motivation, focus, and ability to build new skills and learn new concepts. Putting aside actual medical issues like poor vision or hearing, ADHD (trouble concentrating) or dyslexia (trouble reading) that could lead to these types of statements, often the core issue is a mistaken view that intelligence and academic prowess are traits that you are either born with or not.
But people are not, in fact, born as “good at math” or not. There is mounting scientific evidence that intelligence as most people would define it, and even under some very strict definitions, grows just like a muscle. The more you push yourself and practice, the “smarter” you become. Then, the easier certain subjects or classes will be for you. The student who seems like “a natural” often practices a lot behind the scenes or had parents who worked with him or her from an early age.
It should be intuitive that if you think of being “smart” as reading or writing well, or knowing how to do math, that the more you practice these academic skills, the more skilled you’ll become. But there is even evidence that as you push yourself intellectually to learn new things, your physical brain changes, more connections between neurons are built, and that over time, even your raw IQ score can change.
Another way to summarize this first strategy is to say you want to have a “growth mindset” which means you want to believe and act as if intelligence is something you build, not something you are given. A psychologist named Carol Dweck coined the term, and has shown how some people have growth mindsets and others have “fixed,” (meaning you do believe in fixed traits and in being genetically wired to be good or bad at various activities). She has shown that academic, athletic, and musical success is linked to having a growth mindset. In other words, you aren’t born with talents, you build them.
To summarize strategy number one, approach school with a growth mindset. That’s it. Over time, your grades and test scores, will likely improve.
Another scientist (a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania) who operates in similar circles to Carol Dweck is Angela Duckworth. She developed and researches the concept of “grit,” which she has defined as “a distinct combination of passion, resilience, determination, and focus that allows a person to maintain the discipline and optimism to persevere in their goals even in the face of discomfort, rejection, and a lack of visible progress for years, or even decades.
Duckworth’s scientific, statistically significant research shows that “grit” is a better indicator of academic success than IQ. You can measure your own grit here. So, to bring together strategies 1 and 2, the worst thought to have would be that you can’t succeed in a math class because you just aren’t a “math person.” It would be better to adopt a growth mindset and realize that it is certainly possible to build your math skills and develop math talents with practice. And, it would be even better to realize that the key to building those talents and achieve your goals is to have grit. Find ways to be interested in a topic, set goals, and be determined and resilient as you pursue them. This will drive your success in that math class, not some innate math talent you do or do not have.
In sum, improve your performance in school by recognizing the importance of and building grit.
This strategy is a bit different than the first two, and perhaps a little more obvious once written or spoken. But that doesn’t mean the average parent or student is following it. Taking care of your physical and mental health can have a very real positive impact on mental health. There is scientific evidence that:
In sum, though it might seem basic, if you want to, or you want your child to, perform better in school, making sure you are taking care of your body is an important strategy.
We’ve used the word strategy several times in this article already, but let’s stop and define the term. Strategy is about setting goals and making conscious choices about what you will or won’t do in pursuit of those goals. All too often businesses and individuals are influenced by their environment and starting point and somewhat aimlessly “go with the flow” instead of stepping back and behaving strategically to achieve their objectives.
What would it mean for a student to “approach school a little more strategically with a focus on goal setting and better high-level planning and prioritization? It would involve:
In sum, as you work your way though school, ensure you have established goals and objectives, are intentional about how you spend your time, and prioritize constantly.
Although getting help from your teacher for free may reduce the need for support from a tutoring company, we would be remiss if we did not remind our students that their teachers are a powerful resource.
Many students find teachers hard to understand, unrelatable, awkward, or unreasonable in their expectations around homework, quizzes, projects, and tests. But in fact, leveraging your teacher to get better grades is an extremely under-utilized strategy for doing well in school. There are three major elements to this. First, in many classes, teachers are grading papers somewhat subjectively. If you attend all the classes, participate, and go in for extra help when you need it, they will notice your positive attitude and interest in succeeding, and will want to reward you. Second, if you are struggling with a concept, going in for extra help will, obviously, help you better understand it. And finally, many teachers, within reason, will review early drafts of projects or papers for you and give feedback. If they have provided you with feedback that you have implemented, your chances of getting a good grade improve drastically (i.e., you are literally implementing the advice provided by the same person who will be doing the grading. It’s hard to go wrong here).
So, use your teacher as a resource to succeed, not a barrier to overcome.
A basic five-pronged approach can lead to better grades and test scores: