8 Useful Resources for Writing Scholarship and College Admission Essays

October 19, 2015
Going to college is really costly especially since many colleges and universities have expensive tuition fees. But there are ways for you to get into college through scholarship. Many organizations and institutions offer different kinds of scholarships. You just have to submit the much needed requirements and you will have to undergo the screening process. Most scholarship programs would require students to submit scholarship essays. Through these essays, the screening committee can scrutinize each applicant. In writing a scholarship essay, students get to express their reasons for applying to the said scholarship along with their strengths and abilities. Below are some good resources to help you craft a successful  scholarship essay.

1- 4 Steps to an effective scholarship essay (PDF) from wnc.edu 
This file contains useful tips and guidelines that you can use to come up with a topnotch scholarship essay. By following the 4 steps in the file, you get to have a persuasive essay making your application competitive. The site offers effective tips when it comes to your writing style, the information and details that you should include along with the other essential things to keep in mind when drafting your application essay.

2- Writing Your Scholarship Essay from Phoenix.edu
Phoenix.edu is home to valuable resources for students who are searching not just for scholarship but those who want are in need of professional help when it comes to scholarship essay. When you access the site, you get to see sample admission essays as well as scholarship essays that can make your application competitive. Read the articles and samples to have a feel on the right way of creating your essay or you can also ask for professional advice.

3- Tips for Writing Winning Scholarship Essays (PDF) from University of California Irvine
Are you applying for a scholarship at the University of California, Irvine? This material gives you easy to follow tips for writing winning essays for your scholarship application. With the valuable information that they share to students, you can also use this file when drafting your scholarship essay for other universities or colleges. The writing guide gives you tips that you can easily follow so you can pattern the content and come up with a top winning essay.

4- Resources for Writing Your College Essay and Admission from Vanderbilt University
The college admission process is never an easy procedure with all the requirements that you have to submit from letter of recommendations to admission essays. Venderbilt.eud provides students essential information with the College Essay Archives. Through their site, you get to access frequently asked questions when it comes to writing your college essay and admission. You can also get tips when it comes to the kind of letter of recommendation needed along with the importance of drafting a quality personal essay. The platform is the site of the Vanderbilt University but it gives students a wide perspective when it comes to the college admission process that they can use even if they are applying for other universities.

5- Scholarship Essay from Best Essay Tips
Bestessaytips.com is known for their quality essay writing services. Students in need of college admission or scholarship essay can rely on professional writers to do the job. But on top of the writing services that they offer to their clients, the site is also home to informative articles for students. When you access the blog section, you get to see the useful tips and other related articles that can help you in writing your own admission essay and application.

6- Essay Sample from San Francisco State University
The site offers you essential pieces of information not just about scholarship and admission essay writing but as well as other concerns related to your application. In fact, you can also use the site in searching for available scholarship. This makes it easy for you to go through the different scholarships for students. Aside from the scholarship listings, the site also has other resources that you can use to get to know more about college admission procedure. You can also view essay samples so you know the right way of drafting your scholarship/admission essay.

7- How to Write A Scholarship Essay by Scholarships and Awards College
Scholarshipsandawards.net is a great site where you can easily filter the different scholarships by place, year and type. It also gives you the much needed information when it comes to other means of financing your education like student loans and government grants. And when it comes to writing your application/scholarship essay, it is not enough to read an article that provides you with useful tips. You can look at the different essay samples that you can use as a guide.


8- Write An Essay That Stands Out from Boston University
Boston University is premier university in the United States. In their admission website, students can get valuable information and effective tips to write a quality essay. There are videos that teach you how to make your essay stand out.

Compiled by : Kiara Halligan

Image credit: Ryan Hide

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Student Self-Publishing- An Essential Part of 21st Century Learning

July 20, 2015 

When Tabitha Sanchez, a sophomore at Pace University, was in high school, she started a book blog for her English class. Today, Tabitha’s Book Blog is a nationally-recognized blog that reviews dozens of major fiction works. At only 20 years old, Sanhez has not only received national recognition for her blog, but has also started a career in the New York publishing industry. Her story, among others, illustrates the power of student publishing as part of 21st century learning environments.

More and more schools are approaching learning through digital projects, providing students with daily opportunities to self-publish.  In today’s vernacular, publishing refers to everything from blogging to creating website content to sharing videos on sites like YouTube and Vimeo.  However, others dee the definition of publishing as one that extends beyond online content. Jon Corippo, an Apple Distinguished Educator and director of Academic Innovation for CUE, defines publishing with a broad brush. Corippo has worked with hundreds of film students over the years and considers them published or publishing once they are entering their work into contests, partnering with public or nonprofit entities, and using social media and other platforms to promote their work.  He explained, “Publishing and going public with your work is the beginning of the rest of your life as a citizen and a professional.”

Student Content Creation: Self-Publishing in the Classroom

David Theriault, an english teacher at Huntington Beach Union High School, has been leading his students in blogging for the past two and a half years, and now considers blogging to be the most important work his students are producing. “Blogging allows every student to write to an audience,” said Theriault. “We used to have students write to their teachers or maybe fellow students — now, their audience is truly public.”

His students both appreciate and understand the impact of a public audience y seeing their content’s high number of visitors and page views from over 100 countries. In some cases, Theriault’s students have gained 500+ followers in a matter of months. Theriault’s graduates have kept in touch, and tell him that their blogging experience has given them an advantage in their overall college success. He believes that publishing, though mediums like blogging, is crucial for authentic college and career skill-building.

“Blogging and publishing online are truly connected to college readiness, as well as  lifelong literacy skills in the new economy,” notes Theriault. “[Companies like] Google  want to see what people are thinking, how they reflect, how they plan and how they  create.” He argues that these skills can be demonstrated through students’ blog presence. 

Student Publishing and Student Voice

When it comes to teacher’s role in student publishing, some educators believe that their ultimate role is to promote student voice. Pernille Ripp, a veteran K-8 teacher from Wisconsin, believes that student voice is essential. Through medium’s like blogging, Ripp says that students ultimately connect to the world and discover their own voice.

“We blog so that my students have a platform to help change education around the 

world,” Ripp said. “Once they establish their voice and see the power of publishing, it’s amazing what kind of impact they can have.” Ripp has created the Global Readaloud Project, as well as her own blog called Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension. If our goal in education is to empower students to take charge of their own learning, and for them to perform at high levels, having them publish professionally in a digital  environment is essential. Students like Tabitha Sanchez can find their voice, expand their professional learning network (PLN) and begin their futures while in school. 

When asked about her blogging experience, Sanchez said, “I’ve gained a sense of  confidence that I don’t think I would have had without it. Blogging has also connected  me to the publishing industry in so many ways. It’s really nice to know that there are  people out there who will read and care what you’re writing about.”

Are you a student or teacher who’s interested in self-publishing? Look into free blogging platforms such as Tumblr, and Kidblog. See below for some resources for creating blogs to help propel your students’ voice:

Blog Content Resources

• The Community Blog for Education Blogs
• 5 Best Blogging Tools for K-12 Teachers/Students
• David Theriault’s Blogging Info & Blog Share
• Pernille Ripp & Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension 
• 12 Free Apps for Student Publishing
• 7 Excellent Tools to Publish Student Work

Media Uploading Resources 

• Vimeo
• YouTube
• TeacherTube
• Blip
• Flickr
• Google Drive

Author Bio:
Michael W. Niehoff is a writer for Inside USC Rossier, the blog for the University of
Southern California Rossier School of Education’s online teaching degree. He has been
an educator, writer, and student advocate for 25 years. His areas of professional interest are project-based education and student leadership. Connect with him on twitter @mwniehoff.

Image source: Bill Selak

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Aid Education with Historic Newspapers

June 19, 2015
Britain is commemorating the centenary of the start of World War One. That's 100 years since the
start of the First World War.

Starting in 2014 and lasting until 2018, the First World War Centenary is the birthday of WW1. From
exhibitions and concerts to a movie and football match, a whole gamut of events will take place to celebrate the anniversary.

World War One is remembered, primarily because it was the first war fought on a continent wide
scale, from 1914 to 1918, and resulted in the League of Nations. If you’re looking to teach students about the significance of the First World War, why not do so with educational pack?

To explain further, the UK’s largest private archive of old newspapers, Historic Newspapers, stock
more than seven million genuine original newspapers in their ever-growing collection.
Looking after the world’s biggest private archive of original newspapers means Historic Newspapers
are exceptionally passionate about history. It’s for this reason they decided to select interesting and
important coverage from significant historical dates – all in the name of learning – with a view to
teach others about the past, as it was reported at the time.

Best of all, they’re offering these teaching packs completely free of charge – all of which are
available to schools, universities, libraries and accredited education establishments – to help
students discover the cause and consequence of historical events. 

A newspaper book is a wonderful way to teach children about World War One, as each newspaper is
filled with stories from eyewitnesses who were present at the time, making it a pleasurable way to
aid learning and engage a pupil’s interest and imagination. The World War One newspaper book can
be used to discuss the changing nature of conflict, the cooperation between countries, the shift of
alliances and the lasting impact of the war on national, ethnic, cultural and religious issues.
A newspaper offers teachers the chance to encourage chronological understanding, evoke a sense of
period and provides a framework to discuss today’s events in a historical context.

The World War I Pack contains a book of compiled newspaper coverage, including Battle of Loos,
Gallipoli Withdrawal, London Air Raid and War is Over. The other two education packs available
contain complete newspaper reprints on World War II and Major Events.

By Thomas Walker

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Google Docs + Kaizena = Digital Writer’s Notebook

March 21, 2015

Guest post by: Gerard Dawson

When it comes to teaching writing teachers usually either spend hours responding to individual papers by hand or find common errors and address those through mini-lessons. Both options work, but make sacrifices.  The first former sacrifices time and energy, the latter sacrifices individual attention.

Lately a third option has worked best to improve my students’ writing. I call it “the digital writer’s notebook.”

It’s a two-tool system:

• Students write several drafts of similar writing in a Google Doc 
• The teacher uses Kaizena to give short feedback until students eventually create a final draft

In my freshmen class students meet weekly word count goals in a specific genre (expository, persuasive, descriptive etc.). They write several different drafts in the same genre of writing, or complete parts of one larger piece, step-by-step.

Again, all of the writing for the unit goes in one Google Doc. This way, the student can  easily use past feedback for the upcoming writing.  Doug Fischer and Nancy Frey have referred to this use of formative assessment for future learning as “feed forward.”  Using these process students develop stamina and confidence, and I can provide them feedback, but still leave them in control of their own improvements.

The Fine Print

For full disclosure, here are the issues that may arise using this approach:

1. Students fall behind quickly if they don’t meet their word count goals.  The cumulative effect of receiving and using feedback is lost if students don’t provide anything for the teacher to give feedback on.
2. There is a learning curve with Kaizena, the Google Doc add-on used to provide feedback. It takes a few demonstrations before students get it.
3. Some students ignore certain drafts, knowing that they’ll only choose on to revise.

Start with “easy wins”

In the beginning of the year, the writing requirements were smal: students were asked to write 250 words per week in their Google Doc, and they could include anything that they’d written in their paper writer’s notebooks.  This made meeting the 250 word goal easy.

By starting with “easy wins,” students developed confidence.  As the word count requirements gradually increase, the students rise to the challenge because they’re used to meeting the requirements.

Why Word Counts?

Establishing word count goals has been crucial for scaffolding growth in student writing. Word counts eliminate any “gaming” possible with writing assignments.  No finagling font sizes, no altering margins, and no changing the periods to a larger font size (the last technique is clever, but still dishonest).

Word counts get students elaborating on their ideas even when it’s difficult.  At 450 words but shooting for 500?  Figure out how to fully explain that idea from paragraph three. First drafts are about addition, second drafts are about subtraction.

Following this maxim, students are provided with word counts for the first drafts, but on final drafts I leave with them with the words of Kelly Gallagher’s rhetorical question that he asks students when they ask him, “how long should this essay be?”

It goes something like, 

KG: “How long is a piece of string?”
Student: “As long as you decide to cut it?”
KG: “Exactly.”

So, word counts place a sort of maturity and authenticity to the students writing assignments.

Support along the Way

As students write, I use Kaizena to give focused, actionable feedback.

The resources feature of Kaizena acts as a force multiplier of my time and student learning. I am can share a website or video with students that they check out and apply independently.  When this works well, students gain control of their own learning instead of relying on me to make revisions.

Overall, this practice allows me to:

• Identify trends to address in mini-lessons without relying on it as the only means of instruction
• Hand over the revision process for students to take charge of
• Make revision manageable for students, and make providing feedback manageable for me

The digital writer’s notebook is a paperless way to have students develop writing stamina, receive lots of feedback, and become self-directed learners.

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Teaching Preschool Children to Thrive in the Classroom

January 29, 2015
While each teaching role is important, perhaps none is more important as the role of teachers involved in pre-K, as this is such an important time in a child's life and is quite often when a child determines whether or not he or she enjoys learning and an academic environment. It may be reassuring or it may be unsettling to discover that your role as a pre-K teacher is so important, but here are some interesting tips from Walnut Montessori Pre-school to help you engage your preschool students in a thriving learning environment.

• While you cannot control the circumstances and environment which your students are exposed to outside of school, it should be reassuring to know that a great teacher and a great classroom environment can make all the difference in a child's attitude about school. Sometimes it takes a bit of insight into best practices and child development in order to know how to help a child succeed, and that is where this list of tips for teaching preschool children to thrive in the classroom comes into play:
•  Remember that young children learn through play: Young children learn best through playful interaction with their environment. Children love to role-play and pretend, but these activities are so much more than just play. Children make sense of their environment, of human interactions, and of encounters and experiences they have had through the day by role-playing these scenarios over again. It is important for young children to learn through play, and so your role as teacher is to take advantage of and harness a child's ability to learn while playing. There are many activities you can set up and encourage to help a child learn the best way he or she knows how.
•  Keep in mind that all children are naturally curious: Children love to learn; it is only as a child enters late elementary grades or middle school that their interest in learning wanes for a variety of reasons. As a pre-K teacher, it is your responsibility to keep a child's natural curiosity kindled and burning. Provide a stimulating and creative environment that encourages a child to engage and to learn.
• Set a routine: Young children respond well to routines, and if they are used to procedures and routines, they will better cope with stressful situations or any difficulty they may encounter throughout their day at preschool.
• Transition effectively: Young children have a difficult time transitioning from one activity to the next, particularly if they are enjoying the activity they are involved in. Find effective ways to transition, such as giving warning before a change in activity and perhaps setting up a fun transition procedure, such as singing a song while transitioning or playing upbeat music while the children transition. 

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