Teacher education

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

Drink and Drugs News highlight a series of criticisms Conservatives # 8217, Social Justice Group # 8217, with reliance on paper Includes what we said:budget, after assessment, should be primarily directed to detoxification as part of rehabilitation, with the unique advantage of the prison setting and length of sentence. (Section 3.3.3), a therapeutic community and 12-step programs in every prison wing. We propose an extension of the existing 16 such special programs (which are currently mainly of RAPT and Phoenix Futures) for each prison in the yard. (Section 3.3.3) Our immediate recommendations within the current framework is to:

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.

The guys over at Slashdot – the techie news service, have posted an entry a few days ago that ooks ahead to the coming year and makes some Technology Predictions for 2006? While I usually just skip over this blog in my Bloglines, as it is usually more technical than what I can manageor have an interest in, but this one stuck out at me for some reason.

It may be because around the same time that I saw this entry, I was also preparing a list of trends about virtual schooling – trends about the practice of virtual schooling and I felt that the activities of assessing the current trends of virtual schooling was much like trying to predict what the future year may hold for us in technological advances. For those in the know, both activities involve some level of uncertainty and both items could easily be debated, but in both instances you just have to use what you know about the topic and lay it out there.

In this end, I came up with five trends about the current practice of virtual schooling. They were:
The number of states with virtual schools and the number of students taking virtual school courses is growing.
Virtual schooling is moving from primarily targetting the secondary grades to being available for middle school and elementary school students.
Virtual schools are moving away from their initial focus on advanced level mathematics, science, and other specialty courses to cover a wider variety of the mandated curriculum.
Virtual schooling is becoming more and more popular with students and parents looking for alternatives to the public school system.
Recent research continues to focus upon student performance and the nature of students served by virtual schools.Now, I thought that since I have this blog and, if you believe the information presented in Statistics for December , a fairly steady readerhip, I wanted to see how on or off base I was with these trends. So…If you agree with any of these five, which ones do you agree with?If you disagree with any of these five, which ones do you disagree with and why?If you feel that I missed one or more, what are they are why should they be included?I look forward to your response…Tags: virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Session notes from our guest blogger, Abby.

Providing Virtual Success for At-Risk Students Julie McIntosh University of Findlay www.findlay.k12.oh.us/fda

Group Questions:

-What experience do you have with at-risk students?

-Have you worked with digital high schools or online teaching?

-What programs have been successful for you?

-What barriers have been in place at your district?Findlay Digital Academy

-2100 students, 30% defined as at-risk

-Defined at risk as meeting one or more criteria:
-failing one or more classes

-low SES

-behind in credits

-social issues/problems

-emotional problems

-health issues

-teenage pregnancy

-OR Traditional Model was not working for student – Gifted & Talented or learn in large blocks of time.Coaches were a huge intervention mechanism. Licensed teacher available as instructional coach for help. Students not showing up. Pressured them. Started coming and increased performance scores.Several Models utilized for remediation

-Continuous improvement model – more teacher driven, not immediate feedback

-Plato – test-mastery, liked instant feedback

-Apex – provide AP course opportunities, work with APEX teacher

-Family Education Partnership Program- parent can earn diploma at the same time.Findlay statistics:

-If student has not logged on in 21 days they are removed

-2006 had 35 students ended with 124

-2007 had 70 students

-GPA prior to FDA .73, during FDA 3.46, GPA after returning to traditional classroom 1.2Session really didn’t go into much detail about how instructional coaches or other methods were specifically used to help at-risk students. Several of her slides went over starting a virtual school as opposed to addressing the issue of at-risk student support, in my opinion.Tags: VSS2007 , NACOL , virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Virtual Teachers For The Future.

This is a thread that came from a listserve that I am on which I thought may be of interest to my readers (and may be something you’d like to comment on).

— I deal with preservice teachers, most of whom have never taught before (a few are on alternative certification). I’ve noticed that when training inservice teachers to become online instructors, much of the professional development is online so they’re getting online experience that way. However, my students get no such online experience in our traditional stand-alone technology class. My idea is that we’d be doing them a favor if, somewhere in their teacher preparation program, we gave them the opportunity to be online students. In fact, I’m thinking that if the online P-12 virtual schools trend continues, some amount of training in being a virtual teacher needs to be covered in our teacher ed program.

Do any of you work at institutions that take into account teaching new teachers the skills needed for becoming online instructors?

Shelley McCoyPhD CandidateInstructional TechnologyCollege of Education, Health, and Human SciencesUniversity of Tennesee-Knoxville

We at the University of Michigan-Flint have an entire certificate program for middle and high school teachers who want to learn to teach online. It is comprised of noncredit modules that carry State Board Continuing Education Units (SB-CEUs). Our academic students can take these courses for credit by enrolling in a special projects course and selecting modules that add up to 15 SB-CEUs for each academic credit (maximum three credits).Deborah White, Director, Office of Extended LearningUniversity of Michigan-Flint

Dr. Niki Davis, of Iowa State, ( nedavis@iastate.edu ) leads a federally funded project on preparing teachers to teach in online environments. You may wish to contact her.Tom AndreThomas AndreAssociate Dean for Research and Graduate EducationDirector, Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics EducationCollege of Human SciencesE262 Lagomarcino HallAmes, IA, 50011-3191voice 515-294-7804fax 515-294-7802

Let me add that the project that Dr. Niki Davis is working on is called Teacher Education Goes Into Virtual Schooling (TEGIVS) project, which I mentioned in an entry back on May 9, 2007 (see Virtual Teaching Internships ). So, what do you think?Tags: virtual school , cyber school , high school , education

Starting with the Yahoo! News Alerts virtual school.

Cool at School: Virtual High School KLAS Las Vegas Wed, 15 Nov 2006 5:18 AM PST

Technology has certainly changed the world we live in – at work, at home, and at school. In fact, some students here in the valley can now attend high school without ever leaving home. It’s called Virtual

Virtual School takes step toward reality Baldwin City Signal Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:10 PM PST

Thanks to School Board member Scott Lauridsen, the Baldwin School District is one step closer to reaching a partnership with Insight Schools.

Virtual charter school denied by Board Henry Herald Thu, 16 Nov 2006 5:37 PM PST

Officials with a nationally certified charter may seek to become Henry County’s first-ever charter school, and one that exists only in the virtual world.

New school ethos of virtual learning Beverley Today Fri, 17 Nov 2006 2:32 AM PST

THE success of Driffield School’s specialist status bid will see a rapid transformation away from the days of chalk dust and leaky fountain pens to high-tech computer assisted learning. (17/11/2006 10:18:04)

Virtual classrooms offer jump-start Bluefield Daily Telegraph Fri, 17 Nov 2006 1:16 PM PST

PRINCETON — Some PikeView High School students are adding all their options and getting a jump start in their college careers through special correspondence courses.

Moving to the Yahoo! News Alerts cyber school.

Western Beaver, Midland school districts locked in lawsuit over tuition rates The Beaver County Times Sat, 18 Nov 2006 0:18 AM PST

BEAVER – The Western Beaver School District has sued the Midland School District, claiming Midland owes $263,661 in tuition for students who attended Western Beaver during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.

Moving on to the Google News Alert for cyber school.

Down in flames, but on his own terms Philadelphia Inquirer – Philadelphia,PA,USA

… decision to spend most of his time in Virginia while a Pittsburgh-area school district picked up the bill for his children’s cyber-school education weakened … [ See all stories on this topic ]

The Cyber School Option WNEP-TV – Scranton,PA,USA

… Heather’s mother feels the virtual school, or cyber school as it’s also called, has also improved the parent-teacher relationship. …

Finally, from the Google News Alert for virtual school.

Study: Virtual-school enrollment explodes eSchool News – Bethesda,MD,USA

… student achievement, was the focus in Plano, Texas, as more than 500 educators from across the nation gathered for the annual Virtual School Symposium Nov. …

Education notes: History education council elects Swihart The Tennessean – Nashville,TN,USA

… The second publication, Cost Guidelines for State Virtual Schools, deals more concretely with the requirements associated with launching a virtual school. …

Virtual trade school proposed Kahnawake Eastern Door – Kahnawake,Quebec,Canada

… Nations of Quebec and Labrador in Quebec City, members of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake proposed the establishment of a First Nations Virtual Training Centre …

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

Kizz
January 25, 2007 at 2:30 pm

Equally confused vs. Equally as confused

Have I asked this already? Have you answered already?

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3 Comments.
wayfarerbrian
January 20, 2007 at 3:00 am

You present a viable, workable and appropriate solution to the problem. It keeps your policy consistent, but also allows you the flexibility to help students you feel deserve the support without jeopardizing the evenhandedness of your policy. Whether Joe accepts it or not, I think you did right here.

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8 Comments.
Organic Mama
January 18, 2007 at 2:46 pm

I wish I could say that I didn’t have pet peeves when it comes to language and its consistent misuse, but for some reason when people write Insure when they mean Ensure, it sends me barking. Minutiae, no doubt, but it’s one of those things that makes me nuts.

I live with a wonderful man, brilliant doctor, Ph.D, blah blah, who is indifferent to say the least about grammar and spelling conventions. While I suspect he leaves some real pearls in his work to test me when I am asked to “take a look” before he sends it, his haphazard use of apostrophes etc. makes me realize that despite my best efforts in the classroom, and despite the intelligence of some of the students, some kids will never care enough to get the rules down.

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3 Comments.
angelfeet
January 10, 2007 at 5:58 pm

OK, I’m newish to your blog, Mrs Chilli, but I thought it only polite to delurk and say hi!

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organic mama
October 22, 2006 at 5:14 pm

What is also so galling is that this is a viable conversation topic AT ALL. Will they train the students on effective blocking and/or throwing techniques? What about the counseling for those students who worry about A. whether it will ever happen and B. what if they don’t do it right. Doesn’t this sound like satire? Why not body armor? How about we stop the GUNS in this flipping country!! Apologies for soapboxing, but this is INSANE!!

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More Musings About Current Events.
Jump to Comments
The superintendent of our school district called my cell phone Monday morning and left a message inviting me to watch the school board meeting on public access cable on Monday night. The first thing I have to say is DAMN! School board meetings are BORING!

As promised, the superintendent spoke about school security, and rather early in the meeting (thank heaven!). While he talked a lot about locked doors and security cameras, crisis preparedness and how closely the school district works with the city’s police and fire departments, he didn’t mention anything about EDUCATION.

I really think many of our current school violence problems can be alleviated through education. We need to TEACH kids how to deal with their stress just like we teach them language, mathematics and how to avoid drug use. We need to show children that it’s not okay to cope with your problems with violence. As responsible adults in schools and other child-rich environments, we need to be aware of which of our students come from homes and family situations that may be prone to pass, shall we say, less-than-ideal social skills to the students. We need to know which students share their homes with guns.

Let me say that again: We need to know which children share their homes with guns.

Why do I want to invade the general privacy of some families by knowing whether the household owns a gun? The same superintendent who spoke about door locks and security cameras wrote to me last week in response to my email. He told me that, when he was principal of my daughters’ school about ten years ago, a fifth grader brought a .375 to school, and that the weapon had been discharged in a classroom by accident. Locks on school doors and security cameras would have done nothing to prevent this.

When I was strolling up and down our city’s main street during the annual autumn festival this past weekend, I saw that our police station had a tent set up along side the merchants and service companies. An officer stood in full uniform behind a bin of trigger locks. A bin of FREE trigger locks. A bin of free trigger locks standing behind a sign that essentially said “please take one – no questions asked.” While no one was hurt in the .357 incident, a trigger lock could have prevented the punchline of the whole story (though it could be argued that a nine year old having access to a gun in the first place should be a felony offense on the part of the parents).

It’s all about education. We need to teach parents to be responsible with the care and keeping of whatever weapons they feel they need to possess. We need to teach children to deal with their feelings in socially acceptable ways. We need to teach everyone to see themselves in others and to do no harm.

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Kizz
November 18, 2006 at 12:39 pm

Please remind your husband that some people, usually people not in the sciences, do actually pay for their doctoral degrees. What you’re being quoted from the online is about what I paid for my undergrad degree, an amount that many would say was out of the question for that, too. I have no idea how one finds funding for grad degrees. Let me know if you find out.

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7 Comments.
Sassie Cassie Blaine
November 17, 2006 at 3:07 pm

More grammar?!

-Further and farther. Is there a difference?

-Then and than. How and when are these used?

-”That”. Ex: I know that I should know the difference.
Is this sentence still proper without “that”? Why do we use it if we don’t need it?

-Who and whom….I can never have this explained enough.

-Agreement of amounts. Ex: If someONE is getting bullied THEY should tell the teacher.
(I had to listen to a 25 minute presentation in class today that included grammar mistakes like this one.)(that one?)

I think if you only do one a week, those examples take us well into December!! There’s just so much to know.

Thanks for being the awesome teacher you are! (There’s something wrong with that sentence isn’t there?)

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6 Comments.
feather
November 16, 2006 at 3:49 pm

Ooh! Oooh! Lay/lie? I’ve had this explained to me several times by a fabulous teacher, but I am unable to make it stick in my mind. I blame Bob Dylan. I think I’ve got it, but then I start humming “Lay Lady Lay” and I begin to second doubt myself.

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Dingo
September 8, 2008 at 10:33 pm

Sounds as if you are off to a great start. I completely understand your frustration and amazement about their lack of knowledge of basic U.S. history. I once asked my class about McCarthyism. Blank stares. What are they teaching these kids in high school?

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4 Comments.
Mrs. Chili
August 22, 2008 at 7:19 pm

Parking on THIS college campus is especially so. We joke (in a not so joking way) that our parking permits are really just hunting licenses – there’s no guarantee whatsoever that you’ll actually be able to kill yourself a spot on any given day. This is why I keep my car packed with quarters during the school year; sometimes the only places to park are at city meters, and believe me, they check those bad boys on a REALLY regular basis….

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7 Comments.
Julia
July 23, 2008 at 1:24 pm

LOL! Maybe they only like 20% of EACH lab. “We like the head and shoulders, but the rest of the dog has to go!”

If I had a lab I’d be a little afraid to take her there since they have sharp objects. They might decide to remove the parts they don’t like!

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2 Comments.
Chatty
July 21, 2008 at 6:49 am

Yes, it is definitely time for vacation. Our last unit of the year is on Dafur and genocide in general. Luckily it’s how we end the year so we can decompress and start all over.

Does your cottage have a dock?

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