Teacher education

I’ve recently became aware of the new Turning Point blog and thought I’d bring to your attention as well.

There are posts about the strategy for alcohol harm reduction and a number of charity campaigns involving in.

This past week I have been trying to find other blogs, or at least entries from other blogs on the virtual school movement. A few that I came across were Althouses post on Virtual High School , Snooze Button Dreams entry entitled Virtual School , Kimberly’s Number 2 Pencil’s post titled Surf the web, earn an A , and Joanne Jacobs entry on Online classes for all . The essence of these entries look at who virtual schools are for and how they will affect the quality of education.

I’ll leave the second issue for another day, but I wanted to look at the first issue in this entry. Many of you who have been reading my blog to date know of my own bias towards students in rural schools who are disadvantaged because their schools aren’t able to attract teachers qualified to teach specialized courses or they simply don’t have the enrolment figures to justify allocating a teacher to so few students.

But let me through out the issue in another way. The legislature here in Georgia, has decided that not only will the publically-funded, state-wide virtual high school cater to students in the public system, but will also be available to students in private schools and homeschooled students. While I am no expert on the homeschooling movement, I do know that I had a homeschooled student in one of my online Advanced Placement courses a few years back.

This girl was an exception student who was in my course for two reasons: the content was at a level where she felt that she was unable to do it on her own and her family were unable to support it, and she was interested in trying out an online course because it was something that was becoming quite popular at the university that she was interested in attending. It was at about the same time that the Pennsylvania Homeschoolers Association was beginning to offer their online courses (see http://www.pahomeschoolers.com/courses/index.html ).

While the feelings towards the online opportunities offered to homeschooled students by virtual schools was mixed in the four blogs above, I can’t see how these opportunities could be a bad thing?!? Like any instructional product, there are online courses that are well designed and online courses that aren’t so well designed. Like any traditional classroom, there are some online teachers who are quite good and some online teachers that aren’t so good. However, I would argue that in many of the specialized areas (such as the AP courses offered by the Pennsylvania Homeschoolers Association) are beyond the ability of many parents of homeschooled students to support in a way that maintains the academic rigour of these courses.

But like I said, I’m no expert in homeschooling So let’s hear from those out there who know a little bit more about the homeschool movement than I. What do y’all think?

Tags: virtual school , cyber school , homeschool , high school , education

Here are some of the key quotes from the Conservative Party s Social Justice Policy Group s paper on addictions .particularly in step with \ journal ‘is not negotiable’ approaches to education to children in greatest need. It also seems to be in step with the concerns of scientific experts on cannabis.
With the understanding of the real dangers of drug abuse and addiction.

Systematic carefully designed research to test the impact of different approaches [to what they call addictation education] – scientific, informational, experiential and personal, and peer led interactive – to be tested and compared across different school settings is required. Impact measures need to look at comprehension and retention in addition to longer term behaviour change. This requires a ‘capture and recapture’ method or other form of longitudinal, cohort study.

Filed under: Conservatives

Stick that on your power cord!

This blog is taking a break until early September. drug and alcohol services.

David Chater, head of policy at youth charity Rainer, says the tax is a brave proposal.  The treatment tax is a brave step and is really positive, it would double the budget for drug and alcohol services. It takes a brave politician to say they  increase tax, especially on something like alcohol.

But Chater is less impressed with the report&s emphasis on abstaining from drugs and alcohol.  Measures like reclassifying cannabis as a class B drug, risk dragging a lot more young people into the criminal justice system. The best bits are outside the addiction section, with ideas for family support that will do more to tackle substance misuse than abstinence programmers.

Filed under: Conservatives

I was checking the website for the new Georgia Virtual High School (see http://www.GAVirtualSchool.org/ ) A few weeks ago and in their virtual library that had a link to this article: Telling the story of Online Learning: What people do not understand, Dont support (see http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/onlinestory/onlinestoryindex.asp ).on average 92 percent! I’m calling his parents to tell them soon, we finally found the key to the future of their children math. - Henry Chandler, a teacher, Virginia what does teaching online look like?

More directly, what does teaching in a virtual high school look like? What does the teacher do in a synchronous teaching environment in a virtual high school? What does the teacher do in an asynchronous teaching environment in a virtual high school? Looking forward to your thoughts

Tags: virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Note: I started my comprehensive examinations this past Monday (04 July 2005) and will be engaged in that for most of the next six weeks. While I already have entries pre-written for this period of time to keep a regular flow of content coming, the frequency may decrease slightly (depending on how tired I am at the end of the day and how much I can actually think about something other than my comps questions. I will be posting information about my comprehensive exams at my other blogs, Breaking into the Academy , so you can visit there to see the nature of my questions and any public discussion I attempt as I try to talk out my ideas.

As you note, my new Geoloc maps stopped working. Because e-mail that I received, and a web Geoloc, the French Im not sure why, but I’m working on trying to fix it.may get bogged down in a flurry of other students or any person extending the teacher tossed in. It’s good in some ways, not so good in others. In its view, this is the best way to class that you have, but really arent interested in but shes not born to it. She struggles. Its taking her considerably longer to get through this unit she has to wait for feedback from teachers and tutors. She has to wait til a white board tutor time is set and then she has to wait some more. Shes getting a mid B in the class, right now, at the midway point and its getting harder. A face to face experience would probably have been better for her and were in search of a tutor who can give her some extra real time attention to help her improve her skills.

Comment by Denise March 30, 2005 @ 11:15 am | Reply

You might find this pilot site of interest.

It’s a gateway to two SEAL sites, one for primary schools the other for secondaries .

SEAL I’m sure you’ll remember stands for social and emotional aspects of learning.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Young People&s User Involvement and Participation in Their Drug and Alcohol Service .

The Children’s Society have been commissioned by the NTA to develop a policy briefing on young people&s user involvement and participation in their drug and alcohol service.

If you have examples of good practice where this happens, please send them to susie.ramsay@childrenssociety.org.uk , tel: 0207 841 4573.

Filed under: treatment , users voice , Children’s Society , NTA

Those of you who work directly with young people might want to take a look at this competition : to making sure that the review benefits from an open process and takes serious account of the views of all its stakeholders.  QCA has already begun this process.  Over the coming months they will be running a series of regional conferences and seminars to seek views and develop proposals.

Looking at the questions the ones that seem most relevant to us are the two around Personal Development:

-What are the personal, social and emotional capabilities that children need to develop through their schooling?

-What is the most appropriate framework for achieving greater integration of these capabilities throughout the curriculum?

Just to remind people this is different to the Primary Review that&s being underaken here .

Further reading:

- What’s happened to PSHE in Primary School? – evidence on the reduced amount of time spent on PSHE teaching in primary schools

- Brown’s ‘radical’ drugs review & The Prime Minister says he wants drug education in primary schools.

Filed under: PSHE , Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum

Today Sean toured the RESPOND shelter in Somerville, MA. RESPOND is a domestic violence agency that reaches out to women who are in desperate need of a helping hand. These women have been through some of the most difficult situations imaginable. This is something that Sean feels strongly about and will continue to support and stand up for in the future. He believes that these are the programs that cannot be cut from the budget, they provide a vital service that gives unparalleled support.

For more information on RESPOND, Inc. please visit www.respondinc.org .

Zoos Budget may be Restored.

Amidst a great amount of commotion, lawmakers and government officials have been pushing to repeal the budget cuts for Franklin Park and the Stone Zoos. Much debate will most likely continue because of cuts being made to other services across the commonwealth.

Thanks everyone for their calls, emails, and letters on this issue. As always, constituents should feel free to email, call, or respond to me on my blog. I can be reached at the office or on my cell phone 781-859-7781. My email address is Sean.Garballey@state.ma.us .

Summer’s Finally Here!.

It looks like we are FINALLY going to get some bright and sunny weather this weekend. Considering it’s been so long we thought we would give some tips for enjoying the weather safely. Here are a few tips to “stay cool” now that the weather has changed;

-Stay hydrated to avoid heat stroke

-Stay away from prolonged sun exposure

-Always wear sunscreen, even in the water where light is reflected and intensified The higher the SPF the more protection you get

-Arlingtonians should look into visiting the Reservoir beach (on Lowell Street and Westmoreland Ave)

Have a great weekend everyone!

mrschili
April 10, 2008 at 5:24 am

These are GREAT, Everyone! See how these little tricks stick in our heads?

Lanie, I like yours – Sweet Stuff (which is what we call dessert around Chez Chili) and Sand. That seems easier to remember than my trick of wanting two desserts. I may steal this – thanks, Mrs. Maybee!

Tense, I learned how to spell together as three words – to get her. I don’t remember who taught me that – I think it was a friend’s father – but I never misspelled that word ever again.

Jules, got any other fun tricks?

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1 Comment.
CaliforniaTeacherGuy
April 9, 2008 at 9:45 am

I’m holding…breathlessly!

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4 Comments.
Darci
March 17, 2008 at 11:05 am

I love this idea for a final. Is it possible that you can email me the format? I would use it for the Narrative final that I am giving at the end of the semester. My students missed this section due to me not taking over the class until mid-November so I will not be using the state periodic assesment. I love the idea of the paragraph edit option. I also include grammar as the warm-up so your opening is helpful. I would of course give credit in the footer.

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10 Comments.
Seth
April 5, 2008 at 9:09 am

So I’m a few weeks late on replying…. .but that’s the way things have been for me lately.

It’s amazing to me how we all forget to look at the basic natures of life. At the primary levels, we all want the same things, need the same things, desire the same things… but somewhere along the lines, we’ve gotten confused and caught up in everything else. We’ve made choices to lead us away from these basic elements and we’ve “put on glasses” that keep us from recognizing each other and all of those qualities that make us so similar.

Beautiful post.

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