School Smarts: The Four Cs of Academic Success

This is a book about success. A book about what effective learners do to succeed in school and how you can help all of your students achieve similar results. It's based upon a five-year study in which Jim Burke investigated the essential skills and abilities effective learners use to succeed in academic classes. His results are so groundbreaking, so powerful that they will forever change the way you view learning.

Academic success involves much more than the obvious knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Effective students recognize what matters in school, what's worth paying attention to, how much effort is appropriate. They share four essential qualities, what Jim describes as the Four Cs of Academic Success:

• commitment - the extent to which students care about the work and maintain consistency in their attempt to succeed
• content-the information or processes students must know to complete a task or succeed on an academic assignment in class or in school in general
• competencies - those skills students need to complete the assignment or succeed at some task
• capacities - the quantifiable aspects of performance; students can have great skills but lack the capacity to full employ them.

School Smarts describes each one of these qualities in detail, offering an array of examples and practical suggestions to help you develop these habits of mind in your own students. These strategies will work across all subject areas with all kinds of students - whether they're attempting to go from Fs to Cs or Cs to A/Bs. But Jim doesn't stop there. In the final chapter, he takes the Four Cs one step further, demonstrating how they can assist you in addressing the academic literacy needs of your students.