LearnDoEarn Now Equipped with New Options!

Schools now have an effective way to deliver information to parents that they, in turn, can use to push their children toward higher academic achievement. In response to feedback from educators, LearnDoEarn is producing short videos that can be used as part of your parent outreach programs. LearnDoEarn gives students blunt and honest messages from the business community about what they need to do in grades 6 - 12 to prepare for, and succeed in, college, work and life.

These videos can be used at back-to-school nights, high school orientation events, during sporting or concert events, or are ideal for airing repeatedly on local school district cable access channels.
Our first video segment is now available in low resolution and you can get a sneak peek by using the link below:

http://www.learndoearn.org/Videos/Parent_Outreach1.wmv

And, great news, the LearnDoEarn parent outreach videos are now included on a convenient flash drive with every LearnDoEarn Standard Materials Kit for schools or afterschool programs. All LearnDoEarn Standard Materials Kits include 25 electronic student presentations from the business community, plus the parent videos. In addition, the school version includes colorful posters for the classroom while the afterschool version includes colorful and informative family posters/flyers that you can send to your students’ homes as helpful reminders for posting on refrigerators, bulletin boards or other areas.

You can see some sample classroom posters by clicking here. Click here to see sample family outreach posters.

If you’d like to obtain these materials for your school, please contact Sue Herring at 609-989-8315.

 

How About a “Stimulus Package” for Students?

Many schools are moving toward personalized learning plans, student advisory periods, and mentoring programs as part of their high school redesign initiatives. The LearnDoEarn Student Achievement System (www.LearnDoEarn.org) can be the perfect complement to these and other counseling programs. This motivational system focuses on academic achievement, personal responsibility, career education, character, employability and financial literacy and can be used to support the initiatives of secondary schools. More than 25 engaging presentations in PowerPoint format give students an actionable roadmap, outlining clear directives that will create more opportunities for success in college and work. The presentations are supplemented by colorful classroom posters that reinforce the messaging students hear and that teachers tell them every day.

Targeting students in grades 6 – 12, each LearnDoEarn presentation is introduced by a ‘virtual’ business person, and is jam-packed with compelling data that relate every aspect of student behavior in middle and high school to success in college, work and life. Presentations have been designed to be very flexible and content is appropriate for use in language arts or math classes, student advisories, mentoring or counseling sessions, business, economics, life skills or health classes.

LearnDoEarn provides the foundation around which students can structure their personalized learning plans. And with the increasingly tight budgets schools are facing, LearnDoEarn is extremely economical – as low as $150 per school.

If you are looking to motivate your students - to learn more now and do more now, so that they can earn more later – LearnDoEarn is the tool for you. To purchase LearnDoEarn classroom materials click here. And LearnDoEarn purchases have always been fundable through Perkins and Title 1 monies.

 

On the Road with LearnDoEarn

If you’re a frequent flyer of this newsletter, you’ll know that since its introduction, LearnDoEarn (www.LearnDoEarn.org) traffic has been picking up across the country. Five states have joined New Jersey in the fast lane delivering critical messages to adolescents about their future. One such example is in Rochester, Minnesota, where LearnDoEarn is being powered by funding from the prestigious Mayo Clinic. And, the initiative has opened to great reviews since its January deployment.

“The LearnDoEarn program is a great opportunity to help kids understand the importance of challenging themselves to do well in school at an early age,” says Steve Myrho, 6th grade teacher at Willow Creek Middle School. “If students want the income and job satisfaction that can make them happy and comfortable, they need to start planning for that now. LearnDoEarn provides a powerful message empowering young people to start planning for their future.”

Students at Willow Creek Middle School and Mayo High School are currently being exposed to the LearnDoEarn program. Continued deployment of the program throughout all middle and high schools in Rochester Public Schools will extend through the 2009-2010 school year. Further deployment in private and area middle and high schools is scheduled for 2010-2011.

“I am the future; I have the power in me,” says Jonathon Miron, a 6th grader at Willow Creek Middle School who recently went through one of the LearnDoEarn modules. “The LearnDoEarn program helped me by giving me a foundation to start on. I know I can face the challenges ahead.”

 

Text Messaging Motivation

LearnDoEarn is inspiring students around the country with an innovative communications program designed to reach students where they seem to be spending most of their time today – on their cell phones. So, it could be that the next time you see a student fetching a text message in your LearnDoEarn school or district, it may be a motivational tip about their future that they are retrieving.

LearnDoEarn’s ’Text Message Your Future’ initiative provides a fun and contemporary way to reinforce the key concepts in LearnDoEarn through short text messages to students. The program is voluntary for students who ‘opt-in’ to the program and register by submitting their cell phone numbers. To protect student confidentiality, cell phone numbers of participating students are collected separately from names.

Within a space of about two weeks, and only in the afterschool timeframe, of course, students receive a series of ten short, motivational text messages from LearnDoEarn, such as:

• Algebra I = only 8% chance of earning a college degree. (Take Geometry, Algebra II & Trigonometry to increase your chance for success!)
• $2.1 million = lifetime earnings with a bachelor’s degree
• Students who take EASY courses are TWICE as likely to FAIL the course!

In February, students in two New Jersey schools participated in the ’Text Message Your Future Contest,’ sponsored by the AT&T Foundation. In their final message, students were invited to go to the LearnDoEarn website to take a ‘quiz’ in which the questions referred to information sent to them in the text messages. Students who answered all the questions correctly were entered into a raffle. The first place winner at each school won an iPod Touch, the second place winners each received a pair of movie tickets.

“I was really surprised to learn that if you take easy courses you’re twice as likely to fail.”
~ 9th grade student

“This is really an innovative concept that is a resource we never thought to tap and we’re thankful someone did. When I presented it to the students they were all excited about it because, I would say, 70 – 80% of students walk around with cell phones. …the students were excited about the fact that they can communicate with someone else in reference to their education, in the school setting.”
~ Wallace DeFilippo, MS 4 Principal

To learn more about the LearnDoEarn text-messaging program, please call Sue Herring at 609-989-8315.

 

LearnDoEarn Excites Science and Mathematics Teachers

"Why do I hafta learn that?" Anecdotal evidence tells us that it’s the science and math teachers who hear that question the most - and they’ve found the perfect ally in World Class Students, the LearnDoEarn program that focuses on academic achievement. The World Class Students engaging classroom lessons and colorful, eye-opening posters show students unequivocally why it’s so important for them to learn more now, and do more now, so they can earn more later. The posters can be displayed in the classroom or hallway.

Can’t convince students to take Physics? Have them learn why Physics is considered the great gatekeeper with "Why Physics?," a poster that tells why Physics is so important and mentions some of the hundreds of available jobs that demand a high school level understanding of the subject.

And, for those students who might rather go to the dentist than do their math homework, show them the research on "The Math Path" which reports the startling correlation between taking higher level math in high school and college graduation rates.

These, and many more engaging posters that focus on academic achievement, career education, character education, financial literacy and employability skills are available through LearnDoEarn and can be viewed by clicking here.

 

All the LearnDoEarn Power You Need…Now Under the Hood

LearnDoEarn is not only a great learning tool, but it’s flexible too. Different schools may want or need to deliver different combinations of LearnDoEarn messages to their young people, depending upon the preparation their students may need. With LearnDoEarn, all or any combinations of its components are included for you so you can drive critical messages home to students in the way that best meets your instructional goals.

As everyone’s attention is fixed on the economy these days, consider Work the Money for financial education, which offers critical advice about the importance of saving, staying out of debt, and making smart choices in their youth that will pay off when students are working adults. School Counts can help increase student attendance and punctuality with content related to building a professional level work ethic, creating resumes, interviewing, and employability skills. The Technology Challenge was one of the first online programs that allowed students and adults to assess their skills on Microsoft Office tools that are almost always required by employers today.

So whether the need is to drive better academic choices among students, strengthen their work ethic, ratchet up their math, financial or technology skills, LearnDoEarn has just the right message. Customize your ride to meet the needs of your students and their future employers.