CRUSH SCHOOL

5644 1st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN, 55419

I blog on Brain-Based Learning, Metacognition, EdTech, and Social-Emotional Learning. I am the author of the Crush School Series of Books, which help students understand how their brains process information and learn. I also wrote The Power of Three: How to Simplify Your Life to Amplify Your Personal and Professional Success, but be warned that it's meant for adults who want to thrive and are comfortable with four letter words.

Filtering by Category: Teaching

Quick Tutorial on Delivering Killer Presentations

August 08, 2018  /  Oskar Cymerman

The ability to deliver engaging, effective, and energizing presentations is a highly desired skill employers look for. These days, it is hard to find a job that does not depend on communication. In fact, as businesses use more technology, digital tools aided with effective presentation skills will be even more in-demand. Thus, it is important to teach effective presentation and communication skills in schools.

However, many teens leave high school unaware of how to deliver engaging and effective speeches, slide show presentations, or other multimedia demonstrations. This is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that many adults, myself included, can look at the graphic below and find a few things in it that will help them communicate better and deliver killer presentations.  

Delivering Killer Presentations Tutorial

I use the infographic above in my new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier to help teach teens how to deliver presentations. It follows creating and practicing for killer presentations. The lessons also contain an outline template students can fill out to create their presentations. 

I believe the skill of presenting should be learned and practiced many times before teens become adults. This will allow them to not only master the skill but to feel confident and be more effective while delivering presentations as professionals.

The book that can help them with this and many other skills is now available on Amazon for $29.95. Click here, look inside, and see if it is for you.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Oskar

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Hi! I'm Oskar.          

I teach, write, speak, rant to make learning better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

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categories / Teaching
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, brain, sharpness, clarity, brain rules, neuroscience, presentation, communication

How to Practice for a Killer Presentation

August 06, 2018  /  Oskar Cymerman

One of the best ways to learn something is to do it before you learn. We often try to become experts at something, or at least proficient at it, before we venture out and do it because we don’t feel comfortable doing it.

The problem with that is that we actually learn things better when we try them out as we are learning them. 

However, feeling uncomfortable doing something we don’t feel competent in is normal. New things, though often exciting are sources of anxiety - we fear the unknown. This is how we evolved after all.

But if you want to learn faster, realizing that you have to practice before you are confident in your knowledge goes a long way. If you think about sports, you’ll realize this is exactly how we learn sports. A skill is introduced and then practiced over and over despite the fact the athlete feels uncertain and awkward. And that’s where the coach comes in...

My new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier is meant to be a coach for teens, a mentor that allows students to practice what they are being taught immediately. This is why it’s not really a book. Most books do not do that.

Most books are descriptive. The good ones tell you how to do something and give you examples, but they don’t show you specifically how to practice, or provide the reader with the opportunity to stop and practice. They just keep going onto the next topic.

A coach is different. Consider what Obi-Wan did for Luke Skywalker. Before that, Yoda coached Obi-Wan on the ways of The Force. In each case, Luke used the light saber or the Force - he didn't just read or hear about them. A coach, like a Jedi master, gives you the way, shows you the way, and helps you practice the way.

This was the aim of the Crush School Student Guide. I didn't want to "just write" a book, because we forget most of the stuff we read from books.  

I endeavored to create something that lasts and something that leaves lasting memories.

There are great books on learning and mastery on Amazon filled with insightful, science-backed, and useful information.

But if you're like most people who you read a 200-page nonfiction book a month ago, you can probably recall three to five facts from it, and unless you've read it several times, describing these facts with detail and examples might prove strenuous.

This is because long-term memories don't form this way. Rather, they're created when you use the information right away and in several ways. Otherwise, you might remember only the things that evoked the most powerful emotions and little else.

Knowing this, I wanted to create something (a book that's perhaps not a book?) that allows an individual to put what he or she is learning into practice as she's learning it.

To accomplish this, I filled each lesson in the book with spaces for reflection, planning, and application of the skills. Akin to a coach helping her pupils practice, the Crush School Student Guide helps teenagers use and improve the skills they're learning in real time. It doesn't say: "You should do this when you find some time," because "this" never gets done this way.

Below is an infographic I use to give my high school students the information that helps them practice for a formal presentation. The previous 2 lessons in the Crush School Student Guide walk them through creating an effective presentation and provide them with a template to complete to plan the presentation. 

The lesson that comes after this one covers the delivery, because what you say often gets lost when you don't know how to say it well.

But right now, let's remind ourselves that Practice Makes Progress.

Practicing Killer Presentations to Decrease Anxiety and Increase Success

Just imagine how a teen might feel knowing that no matter how difficult something is he or she will eventually always learn it or complete it. Skills create confidence. Confidence in own abilities breeds motivation. Success follows. 

I wrote many of the lessons in Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier to increase my high school students' confidence. Now, I put these lessons in a book because I want all teens to have a resource they can go to any time they need to memorize 30 terms for a quiz, study for a big exam, complete a project, or create, practice, and deliver a killer presentation.

The book is now available on Amazon. I promise you that if your teens apply it, their learning and school experience will drastically change. 

It begins here. 

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Oskar

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Hi! I'm Oskar.          

I teach, write, speak, rant to make learning better for teens.

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categories / Teaching
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, brain, sharpness, clarity, brain rules, neuroscience, presentation, communication

Mastering Difficult Concepts the Easy Way

July 24, 2018  /  Oskar Cymerman

Mastering Difficult Concepts the Easy Way

In my previous article How to Make Learning and Life Easier for Your Kids I shared this FREE sample lesson on Mastering Difficult Concepts. Today, I want to explain how parents and teachers can use it to help kids approach learning challenging topics and avoid becoming overwhelmed and frustrated while at it.

The lesson, just as each of the 65 contained in my newest book Crush School Student Guide begins with the Big Idea. All learning should begin with a goal - a sense of purpose and the understanding what one wants to know more about when the learning session is finished.

I chose to use a video to deliver the information on The Feynman Technique, which is a 4-step approach to understanding difficult topics. But while the link will take the student to the video she does not merely watch it - I used a program called EdPuzzle to embed reflection questions so the student can process the information as she is receiving it.

After the 3-minute video concludes, the student is asked to name the 4 steps and represent them graphically. By recalling what the steps are she can remember them better and if she forgot any she can return to the video to find them. By stretching her mind to represent her understanding of the steps graphically she develops a better understanding of them and forms more connections in her brain, which aids both understanding and memory. As a bonus, creating graphics with descriptions allows the student to practice creativity, communication, and critical thinking.

Finally, the lesson walks her through the process of mastering a difficult concept she's currently learning in one of her classes. By applying what she learned immediately after the learning session the student's brain begins forming long-term memories. While weak at first, these memories can be made stronger with repeated use of the learning strategy.

The student isn't just told: "Use The Feynman Technique." She is guided through the process step-by-step, which deepens her understanding and turns the learning into a skill. The only thing left is to improve the skill by continually using it when learning. Because the student has the book and the completed lesson at her disposal she can refer to it and use it as a reminder whenever needed.

When she masters the technique and internalizes and uses it consistently she will begin to notice that learning difficult concepts is becoming easier. This is because she will have at her disposal an effective learning strategy that gives her brain a way to process the information it is learning multiple times and in a multitude of ways. As the brain uses more brain cells to store the information and forms new connections between these neurons, learning new, more difficult information becomes progressively easier. This is due to experience and increased brain mass.

This is what the process of "getting smarter" looks like.

Please feel free to use the Mastering Difficult Concepts Lesson any way you want. It is my gift to you. It will help anyone understand challenging concepts more effectively. 

I structured each lesson of the Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier in the same way to maximize understanding, application, and retention - or what I call "true" learning.

The book comes out on Amazon this Friday.

Here are the FREE Bonuses it comes with:

BONUS 1: PDF copy of my book Crush School 2: 10 Study Secrets Every High Schooler Should Know ((also available here)

BONUS 2: Project Completion Template PDF (with directions)

BONUS 3: Create a Killer Presentation Template (with directions)

BONUS 4: Cush Tests Checklist (also available here)

The Crush School Student Guide might or might not be for you but it can help pre-teens, teens, and young adults learn faster and smarter and improve their memory. You can get it here. 

And don't worry, if you're not sure if you can use the book, you don't have to buy it now. I will be sharing more lessons and resources it contains in my next few posts with no strings attached. 

Thanks for taking a look!

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

NOTE: The final 20 seconds of The Feynman Technique video on YouTube contains inappropriate content which I cut out for the book to include only the technique.

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Hi! I'm Oskar.          

I teach, write, speak, rant to make learning better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

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categories / Teaching
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, deeper learning, independence, lifelong learning, simplicity, skills, success skills, learning, making life easier, kids

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