Last Updated on April 25, 2017

How do schools define their success?

“Our debate team won the state’s school competition”

“Our students scored an average 1000 points on their SATs”

“93% of our students were accepted in their first college choice”

Look at any school website, pick-up your mobile & call any school admissions office, talk to any member within a school’s community, if you were to ask them: “What does your school stand out for?”, all responses focus on the achievements of their students. It is what they are most proud of, it is what makes them feel successful.

The question then is: how do schools help students succeed in obtaining their goals, how do schools enable students to strive for excellence, in a healthy, vibrant & collaborative environment?

Assessing teacher quality

Research has shown that the quality of teaching is directly linked to student achievement. Schools pride themselves on recruiting a team of intelligent, compassionate, creative, dedicated and above all inspirational teachers to transmit each subject in an effective and unique manner. It’s not just about filling up empty rooms with an adult at the front of the classroom deriving equations & solving projectile motion problems on the blackboard. Schools look for professionals that are passionate about their field of expertise transmitting lessons in a manner which makes the art of learning fun, creating a joyful classroom environment.

In short, there is no good school without good teachers. This does not deny the role of students in shaping the individual moments within the classroom, but rather suggests that teachers are the ones creating the tone in which classroom interactions & relationships will play out.  

Comparing quality teachers vs. expensive programs

We live in amazing times of discovery, innovation, creativity, and knowledge, all of which characterize the spirit of the 21st century and its generation, a generation which has seamlessly embraced the world of technology.

Educators are faced with the challenge of creating a learning approach to educate this generation. To do this they need the right tools.

The debate, however, should not be about pouring money into programs & technology rather than a quality faculty body, but rather carving out a budget to invest in programs & technology to help quality teachers improve their pedagogical approaches.

“People who adopt programs are more interested in the success of the program. People who are effective teachers are more interested in the success of the students.”

In other words, forget about wasting money on programs & technology if you do not have effective teachers.

Ensuring student academic excellence & personal development

Monitoring student learning & progress is an essential component of high-quality education. This is also what differentiates effective schools and teachers from ineffective ones, namely being able to identify not only areas in which schools are struggling in but also to locate and promote their talents, in order to allow educators to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching and as a result make more informed pedagogical decisions.

Recent technological advances and our modern sophistication have fuelled our disruptive and innovative practices, giving us the tools to effectively monitor student progress and enhance pedagogical practices with the ultimate aim of preparing students for the world of the future.

The biggest challenge is to identify a tool that is able to monitor student progress without eliminating student-centered learning practices. This is something, we at 100mentors, pride ourselves on having managed to achieve successfully.

We focus on providing a tool for quality teachers and quality teaching, giving educators the ability to fully monitor student activity in order to have a better chance to identify their students’ interests & passions, while at the same time giving students the freedom to shape their own learning.

The next stage aims to focus on data visualization of mentoring patterns, both at the class & individual level. Stay tuned for our upcoming posts which will chime a dialogue with educators worldwide in order to make schools more successful.

Strike the perfect balance with 100mentors

100mentors is the platform and network empowering students to connect with mentors on-demand to guide them in their most important academic and career decisions. With 100mentors, schools enable students to open up their circles of influence to include mentors from 300+ universities and 500+ companies across the world, while companies and universities are able to tap into a quality pool of potential program and job candidates.