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

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

Lara
December 2, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Okay, I’m going to take a moment to not be modest at all and say that vocab is one of the parts of my job I do really well. And most of the reason why I do it well is because I make my kids understand those words inside and out, mostly by assessing them in lots of ways. They have to be able to match it to synonyms, match it to antonyms, define it, use it in a sentence, and/or recognize whether it is being used correctly in someone else’s sentence. I had numerous students (and parents of students) who had me last year come thank me because of how much their vocab scores improved on SATs and other standardized tests.

All that to say that I totally agree with you – memorizing a nonsense (to them) definition is useless if they don’t actually know what the word means. Oh those dumb teenagers. How we love them anyway.

Reply

3 Comments.
Edward Carson
November 17, 2009 at 9:00 am

I keep a file of old letters, notes, cards, emails, etc in my desk for those tough days. I pull it out when I am having one to remind me that I love this. For me, its usually not students that make my days tough. You are a great teacher. That is clear.

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1 Comment.
Edward Carson
October 12, 2009 at 9:02 am

I have heard of a number of progressive schools that do this. I assume you still assign a letter, right? Man, I have a hard enough time getting letter grades turned in on time. I do think your method is a more reliable one.

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We skipped the comics altogether last week – both due to the amount of items I posted over the weekend and my own laziness in getting them copied and pasted over. Anyway back to Friday this week, and as always courtesy of Darren at TADO .

- Cartoon of the day

- Be Realistic (and for my sake, he starts naming them again – thanks Darren, much appreciated!)

- That hurts.

- Home is… (unfortunately this one rings a little too true for me)

- Ah Interesting

- If computers could talk…

- Biblical computers

- God Complex

- Super user abuse

Until next week…

Reminder: Spaces of Interaction: Thursday LIVE Sessions & Recordings Posted.

I had high hopes for the PowerPoint is Tyranny talk by Jay Cross but he changed the topic to something like What Constitutes a Good Conference and I found the presentation wanting, alas. How to put together good presentations is of interest to me (and all who have sat through boring presentations). I want to learn how to captivate the audience and not use techniques just because they are available. What aspects of the technology lend themselves to understanding the material? How can I guide the learner and still give enough room for different learning styles and what they bring into the space? I too have been guilty of using transitions and music that likely distracted rather than amplified and clarified.

Comment by davidmbsr — February 21, 2009 @ 6:04 pm | Reply

The DCSF have published a review of the impact of drinking on young people.  These are the risk and protective factors the authors identify which are associated with alcohol misuse by children and young people.

Risk Factors

Protective Factors

Original source : http://www.drugeducationforum.com/blog/?ArticleID=… Filed under: Uncategorized

Youth and the schools population – EMCDDA.

EMCDDA have made the figures from the last school survey about drug use available on their website; from which comes the above table.

Original source : http://www.drugeducationforum.com/blog/?ArticleID=… Filed under: Uncategorized

A Cup of Chocolate.

This video isn’t exactly aimed at children and young people, but it’s an interesting take on talking about addiction from the Cumbria Users Project.
More on how it was developed in Drink and Drugs News.

Original source : http://www.drugeducationforum.com/blog/?ArticleID=… Filed under: Uncategorized

Drug Test Your Kids? (2).

The News of the World follows it’s sister paper the Times in reporting the marketing (presumably largely via mentions in newspapers) of drug testing kits to parents.
 
They do a classic balancing act by getting one person to set out the case for and another to argue against their use.
Setting out the case for drug testing your children is the paper’s agony aunt, Jane Butterworth:
I don’t

Original source : http://www.drugeducationforum.com/blog/?ArticleID=… Filed under: Uncategorized

World Drug Report 2009.

The UNODC have published their World Drug Report for this year and while I can’t claim to have read each of the 300+ pages I have been searching through for things that might be of interest to this audience.

Here’s a slideshow with what I found:

Original source : http://www.drugeducationforum.com/blog/?ArticleID=… Filed under: Uncategorized

During informal conversations with some writer-friends, we have been encouraging each other to write stories for children — the kind that will be used in classrooms. The kind that will contain our culture and the values that we want to instill in our children. This is even before the MLE because we see the dearth in materials for classroom use.

As to retelling of folktales, I don’t recall any occasion discussing it with writer friends, but VF and I had talked about it sometime last year, before the launch of the Cabie-PINILI. We wondered about copyright issues should we start re-telling Ilocano folk lit. He calls it sarsarita di ugma — the kind that we heard from our grandparents. In fact, he tried to write two from memory, and one of them I have posted in Bilingual Pen. We both think his version needs some tweaks to make it more interesting for children.

I also have copies of the books by eugenio (borrowed from the NCCA library) and there really are so many interesting materials in there!

I would be interested to make projects such as this, not only because VF and I had talked about doing something like it, but because I really dream of writing (or rewriting) stories for children because frankly, I don’t want to read stories about weak women and other stereotypical western stories to my would-be children!

My observation among our writers is that they are able to produce good materials when there are contests (this includes me), because contests are good motivators, not because of the awards, but because they set deadlines and guidelines. There’s something about deadlines that fire at the writers’ creative juices. In fact, without contests and deadlines, I don’t think I could have written as much stories as I did last year. All of my stories were written three days before the deadlines some, even less.

If we can come up with programs, contests, activities etc, that could trigger our writers’ creative juices, it would really be good.

(Sorry manong no ti la napnapanan ti kunkunak. Diak suren no nasungbatak ti kunkunam dita ngato, basta nagtypeak lattan. Thanks. I hope I made sense. Hehe).

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QUESTION: Do you think the world governments are putting forth enough effort to stop and prevent human trafficking? If you had the means and power what would be your proposed resolution?

The movie Taken was released January 30, 2009. The action, adventure, and drama filled thriller made over 145 million dollars in the United States box office. The film portrayed a family distraught, because their young teenage daughter had been kidnapped on an international vacation. Her father, known as a “preventer”, saved his daughter from being bought and sold into the sex trafficking business.

The idea of a mainstream film revealing the devastating details of this ever-growing industry says that people worldwide are being affected by this epidemic. Therefore, it is up to world citizens to ask their country’s governments, “What are you doing about this issue?” and “How can you protect my family?” From the shocking stories, primetime specials and film portrayals of this industry, one would conclude that there is danger around ever corner.

Although human trafficking is a worldwide epidemic, many Americans are under the impression that young women and children are only being abducted from foreign countries, but they are sadly mistaken. There have been several incidents reported where children and young women have been abducted from several places which most wouldn’t believe to be perilous. It appears as if there is nothing our governments can do to reduce the occurrence of forced prostitution worldwide. While it may be easier to track criminals who put children and young women on the streets, those whom continue to move to different locations makes finding the missing persons a challenge for police officers and government officials.

Knowing that there may potentially be predators lurking around every corner, riding down your street or even in line behind you at the grocery store; one might ask is any place safe? Is there really anything the police and lawmakers can do to combat this violent epidemic? Though there are non-government agencies that battle for the enslaved children and young women being trafficked, and there have been laws passed making human trafficking a federal crime, there are still over 100,000 women and children being bought and sold in America everyday. As citizens of the world we must demand that the deplorable people that commit these horrible acts be severely punished.

By Karenia S. Ferguson

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

- Thinking Things Through
- How can we monitor human trafficking?
- A dialogue

I apologize for the delay in posting these items, but the conference hotels do not provide free wireless access. The first paper in the K-12 Online Teachers: SIG-Online Teaching and Learning session was:

Who’s at the Keyboard? A Description of K-12 Online Teachers in the United States

Schedule Information:
Scheduled Time: Tue, Apr 14 – 12:25pm – 1:55pm Building/Room: San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina / Newport Beach
In Session: K-12 Online Teachers

Authors:
*Leanna Matchett Archambault (Arizona State University)
Kent J. Crippen (University of Nevada – Las Vegas)

Abstract: Virtual schools continue to grow in popularity as a realistic alternative to traditional education. Because of this, a growing number of teachers throughout the nation are facing the challenge of creating and presenting quality online content and instruction. Little is known about this population of educators and how they compare to traditional teachers. This study presents data gathered as a result of a national survey of 596 online teachers and describes the characteristics of a group of K-12 online teachers from 25 different states. By studying this particular population, teacher educators can better understand the specific needs of online teachers. This, in turn, can inform changes, adaptations, and improvements to teacher preparation programs across the United States.

So, I missed the first few minutes of Leanna’s and Kent’s presentation, as I was trying to find the well-hidden Newport Beach room in the Marriott. This portion of the presentation was based on Leanna’s dissertation.

The study itself was based on a national survey that was solicited via e-mail – using the Keeping Pace report and Google searches to identify the various virtual schools. She was able to contact a variety of different types of online teachers.

She used an interesting model for contacting the teachers, which she called “Tailored Method Design (Dillman, 2007)”, which I think was useful for other researchers. It followed:

Step 1 – pre-notification e-mail
Step 2 – E-mail with survey access link
Step 3 – E-mail with survey access link
Step 4 – Follow-up e-mail
Step 5 – Final e-mail (included an MS Word version)

Leanna specifically mentioned that she received positive feedback from the respondents concerning her use of this model, particularly Step 1. She noted that none of the teachers completed the MS Word version (i.e., they either completed it online or not at all).

In her searching, Leanna identified 2262 potential respondents. Based on the e-mail sent out in Step 1, 413 bounced back as undeliverable – 48 were corrected and re-sent for a total sample of 1897. Of those, it was determined that 102 teachers did not meet the criteria so the survey was sent to 1795 online teachers.

There were 549 respondents and the sample represented all 50 states, although none of the online teachers in Michigan or New Mexico completed the survey. Of those who did complete the survey:

-77% were female

-63% were between 26-45 years of age

-91% were Caucasian

-they had an average of 14 years of overall teaching experience

-they had an average 4 years of online teaching experience

-62% had Master’s degree and 13% had more than Master’s

-54% full time and 36% were part-time

Compared to traditional teachers, there were 21% more online teachers with Master’s degree than brick-and-mortar teachers. Also, there were 6% more online teachers with higher than Master’s degree education than what is found in brick-and-mortar schools.

In looking at some of the differences between part-time online teachers and full-time online teachers. For example, part-time online teachers had on average 4 more years teaching experience and 0.4 years more online teaching experience.

Of the online teachers who responded:

-81% reported teaching asynchronously

-38% reported to teaching in state-based schools, while 31% reported to teaching in an online school managed by a local education authority

-80% of respondents taught all of their classes online with an average of 97 students

Interestingly, when asked who authored the content that the online teacher taught with, they responded:

-38% the teacher themselves

-42% a content provider

-20% a curriculum specialist

-15% a colleague

-7% other (e.g., a team of teachers – and the online teacher may have been one of those, a textbook provider, etc.)

With the qualitative data, the teachers were asked an open-ended question about why they taught online. The responses included:

-ability to work from home (19%0

-new model of education (14%0

-need for employment (10%)

-flexibility (8%)

-retirees (3%)

In response to another open-ended question, K-12 online teachers also reported:

-63% reported a positive response to teaching online

-29% had mixed experience (challenging, but rewarding)

-8% had a negative experience

Finally, participants found online distance education allowed them to work more one-on-one with students and being able to provide them with more individual support, moreso than the brick-and-mortar environment.

Again, sorry I missed the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) stuff that Kent presented at the beginning (which formed the lens through which Leanna looked at this data). If you’re reading this Leanna, please add a few sentences in the comments to describe the part that I missed.

Kizz
January 25, 2007 at 2:30 pm

Equally confused vs. Equally as confused

Have I asked this already? Have you answered already?

Reply

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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Kim
February 1, 2008 at 10:08 pm

Saintseester, you are right on about the kids having to grab on. I deal with that struggle everyday in my classroom, and they’re only 10!

First off, I love teaching. I love my kiddos, and I doubt I will ever do anything outside of education. That being said, I believe our education system as it exists now is irretrievably broken, and we must throw out all of the “this is the way we do it” and “it’s their fault” (whoever they are) garbage.

We need to be courageous enough to think outside the box, stop trying to pander to special interest groups (including the unions) and stumping for votes. It’s not about power, privilege, prestige or pride. It’s about KIDS. Once we get that through our thick heads and ruthlessly seek only what is best for them, no matter the cost – personal or financial – we might have a chance.

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3 Comments.
saintseester
January 23, 2008 at 10:02 am

“Intellectual simulation” – ha, ha!

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4 Comments.
Sooza
January 3, 2008 at 8:44 pm

Wow! Kizz and I must be on the same wavelength. I was going to mention the former classmate as well, but she beat me to it! I’m sure he’d be willing to talk strategy with you.

I have to admit, though, I still don’t see why the hybrid class even makes it on the schedule. I can’t really see a good situation for it, unless you have incredibly motivated students.

On that note — good luck!

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