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How to Visit A College Campus – Part I

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You have finished your AP exams, sent off your college applications, asked your teachers for recommendations, and now you are started to receive letters back from colleges that will determine your fate for the next four years. One of the best ways to choose between colleges is to take a college campus visit. Here are some tips for a successful college campus visit.

First, make a list of all the colleges you’d like to visit. If you have applied only to colleges nearby, you should still plan on taking a formal campus visit to get to know the students, teachers, classroom sizes, and the atmosphere of the campus. If your top colleges are across the country, discuss with your parents about which colleges you can visit. Call or email the campus admissions office to set up a campus visit. Ask for a tour, a night in the dorm, a cafeteria pass, and a classroom visit or two. Also ask if you can schedule a time to meet with a professor or dean of the school that you are most interested in.

Second, prepare for your campus visit by creating a list of questions for each of the people you’ll meet. If you are staying with a student in the dorms, ask them what dorm life is like. What do they like about it, and what don’t they like about it? What’s it like living with a roommate? What is the cafeteria food like? What are classes like? How do they usually study, and where do they study? What fun things are there to do on campus, or in town? A student in the dorms is a valuable source of information.

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A Globalized Curriculum: The International Baccalaureate Program

March 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Based in Switzerland and the UK, the International Baccalaureate is an educational curriculum for children ages 3-19 that provides rigorous learning programs with an international focus. The curriculum is divided into three parts: the Primary Program for children ages 3-12, the Middle Years Program for children ages 11-16, and the Diploma Program for students ages 17-19. The IB programs encourage students to consider multiple perspectives, use critical thinking skills, and approach learning from global perspectives. The International Baccalaureate programs are taught in several countries around the world, giving higher learning for primary and secondary students a more international focus that is important in this era of globalization.

Schools can incorporate all three programs, or just one or two. A high school that wants to provide its students with the opportunity for advanced studies in certain subject areas can incorporate the Diploma Program for its junior and senior high school students. Teachers can use the IB curriculum and testing measures, as well as attend IB teacher trainings. The IB Diploma program has the advantage of being widely recognized as a rigorous learning program by universities around the world, and coursework can also be transferred to another school with the IB Diploma program. IB Diploma candidates are required to take foreign language classes, to undergo intense research projects, and to take a cumulative test at the end of their studies.

Students pay a fee to take the IB tests, and schools pay fees to be recognized as an IB World School and to use the IB curriculum. But the payoff is well worth it. IB programs have reached nearly a million students worldwide, and the program seems to only increase in popularity.

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The Teaching Ambassador Fellowship

January 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In recent years, there has been a strong emphasis on and implementation of the idea that in order to improve our educational system we need to recognize, support, and award our creative and effective teachers.  Who is better qualified,  then our 3 million plus teachers, to identify, recommend, and execute policy designed to improve education in America?  Even though our teachers are vital to the schools and the classroom, they are rarely given the opportunity to contribute to the development of educational policies that directly effect their job and how they perform it. 
The Teaching Ambassador Fellowship was designed by the U.S. Department of Education to give exceptional teachers the opportunity to share their unique classroom experiences and expand their knowledge of education, then bring this knowledge back to their respective communities.  The goal of the Teaching Ambassadors is to take their knowledge and assist in the learning of educators and other community members.  The mission of the Fellowship is to improve student’s educational experience by actively involving educators in the improvement and execution of national educational policy.  The Fellowship is designed to build a community of educational leaders who can share their knowledge and work with those in the federal government who are responsible for making the policies regarding educational issues.  The ambassadors will work with teachers and involve them in making policies that will affect the classroom learning experience.  They will also strive to give educators a voice in structuring policy at the local, state, and national level.
The focus of the 2011- 2012 Fellowship will be on key policy priorities of the Department of Education.  These priorities include the assurance that every child has an effective teacher, that he is supported throughout his education and into the workforce, and that he will graduate prepared for a career.

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Furthering Careers: Online Programs

December 31, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It is the job of your dreams, the desire you’ve been chasing. All roads have led to this moment and you are certain fate is finally beginning to favor you — the position is one you want, settled within a company you admire. The wages are impressive but the work is even better. You would be doing what you love, rather than sitting in a cubicle and counting the seconds of the day (those walls are stifling). All you need now is to present your resume and wait for the adoration.

It doesn’t come.

Weeks pass and fade then into months. You become obsessive with your glances to email and the answering machine. There are no messages, however. There are no replies. You later learn that the position has been filled — claimed by someone with less experience but a far more impressive education.

The unfairness of this is enough to make you cry… or return to school.

Online programs are available to help you earn your degree and make yourself more appealing to future employers. You already have the abilities; you simply need to surround them with classes. And obtaining a Bachelor’s, Master’s or Doctorate degree will define you as capable.

Too often, however, is this considered impossible. Individuals think themselves unable to continue with college, to gain the credits they need. Online courses, though, can be sought at any time — allowing each student to access their assignments through computers, rather than having to be in a traditional setting. It saves both time and patience.

And the consequence is a fast degree and a faster acceptance by employers.

The job of your dreams may not have been achieved on the first try. This does not mean it is beyond your grasp, however. You simply must distinguish yourself with a collegiate experience and prove you are as well learned as you are efficient.

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Does No Child Left Behind Work?

December 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) was passed one of the first questions that was posed was; will this actually work. For decades, education standards across the country had been slipping to undesirable levels and no one, on either the Democratic or Republican side of the aisle seemed to really know what needed to be done in order to fix the problem. President George W. Bush pushed for the NCLB as his own baby, though the final law had fingerprints from quite a few different congressmen and Senators. When it finally passed only the question of whether or not the government had given teachers and school administrators enough tools to repair damage done still remained.

On the surface it does appear that at least in some regards, the NCLB has actually helped flagging schools repair their educational systems. National testing showed that among other factors, reading retention and comprehension had progressed faster and more effectively over the first five years of implementation than the government had seen over nearly three previous decades. In addition, advocates for the law point out that as of 2005, 43 different states as well as Washington, DC improved or held steady in every major educational category. However there are critics who say statistics like these are misleading.

The problem with finding out exactly what the consequences of No Child Left Behind is that you have to take into account that some people are counting data that pre-dates the law. According to one source, most of the positive statistics for NCLB include data from 2000, a year before the law was passed and three full years before the law went into affect. While 2001-2003 could be explained away as schools preparing for the new standards, how does one explain data from a year when it didn’t exist?

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Testing Requirements Can Be Impossible To Reach

December 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One of the first laws that president George W. Bush got passed that had a resounding effect on the nation as a whole was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Most parents, teachers and students know it simply as No Child Left Behind” and it has become somewhat a cartoonish villain for those who work in the education system. The NCLB was set up to make sure that students were receiving the same sort of education as their peers across the country and perhaps foolishly it set out a system of funding education in order to meet its goals.

Of course what any federal education act doesn’t take into consideration is the very real and very different circumstances that face a child going to school in urban Chicago compared to a child who is attending classes in rural Iowa. The circumstances are simply not the same and no matter who says they should be that will not be changing any time soon. Where NCLB truly fails is that there is really no mechanism for determining the different circumstances or metering out when a school may not have met its standards but has still met or surpassed what would be the realistic standards of that school, student and classroom.

The NCLB instituted a nation-wide system of testing that was designed to determine whether or not a school, a teacher and a school district was meeting the requirements that were set forth by the federal government. If these schools were able to meet the requirements of the testing, then they continued to receive federal aid at a level they had grown accustomed to. Should they fail what had become extremely subjective testing criteria, they would have their funding reduced and cut off all together. What this boiled down to was that schools which were struggling continued to struggle while schools that were successful continued to have success.

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Fatalism in the Federal Education System

December 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are few people who would ever argue that education in the United States is exactly as good as it should be. There are fewer still who would say that there is no way to improve the quality of the schools, the classrooms and even the teachers in most areas of the country. Still, the problem lays when you start digging deeper and actually trying to find out where you can improve and how you can go about doing it.

National school testing is one way that has been used for quite some time to at least give our elected officials a way to judge how one area of the country or state is doing compared to all others but when we use that as an end all and a be all we miss valuable data. Having testing requirements and understanding what they mean for each school is not always a cut and dry area of the educational field. It becomes even less cut and dry when you start talking about the numerous different outside influences that can affect everyone who is involved in the educational process. If teachers know there are tests out there which make it virtually impossible to score high on these national tests they will either work even harder to meet the standards or simply surrender and pronounce it a futile effort.

When the teachers begin to accept a sense of fatalism, it isn’t long before everyone else involved from the school administrations on down to the school boards and the parents and students themselves decide it is a lost cause. When the educational habitat becomes one that is toxic for all involved no learning and certainly no improving at even the most basic levels is accomplished. Instead you have a system that begins to fold in on itself.

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Rebuilding the Education Habitat

December 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When talking about an educational habitat, it can be important to really take a good long look at that term. When dealing with a habitat we aren’t talking simply about what someone calls their home or their living area. We are talking about a section of the world where people, in this case the students, teachers, school administrators and on down the line feel most comfortable.

Comfort in an educational habitat means learning and learning in a way that includes everyone involved in the educational process to feel as though they have helped in some small way. One way this education habitat can feel like a safe zone for struggling students is for the teachers to take an active role in the success or failure of the child. While some might say that is already being done, there have been studies which show that now more than ever teachers feel as though they are doing too much, not too little when it comes to educating children. The fact that education standards continue to fall shows that there may a disconnect here of epic proportions. Teachers need to realize that when a child is struggling in a subject it does not necessarily mean that the student has no interest in learning. It can mean that in a world that is telling most kids they should already know everything they need; this particular student is out of place.

Staying after school and offering up some of a teacher’s free time can mean the difference between reaching these students and showing them that I don’t know is acceptable to say as long as the following statement is but I want to. Teachers who offer up their free time are more likely to have students come to them looking for help and guidance than those who stop teaching when the day’s final bell rings.

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Modern Education In A Successful Habitat

December 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A teacher writing on a blackboard.
Image via Wikipedia

A new term that has come up in the education circles these days is what is called an education habitat. This means more than just where you go to school or the area of town where your school is located. Rather an education habitat is a place where everyone involved in the educational process feels at home and feels comfortable. Even this does not mean that a successful education habitat is someplace where the student feels they can walk into and put their feet on the desk or talk back to a teacher. And education habitat means that as far as learning standards are concerned, teachers, students, school administrators and parents are all feeling comfortable with the way the school day and year is going.

An effective educational habitat is one where a teacher understands that there are going to be different needs from each one of her students and instead of looking at that as a sign of weakness he or she sees it as their duty to meet those needs. A teacher who may even be able to come up with additional time in their day to stay after school and help a student who is struggling can be one of the most effective forms of keeping their habitat safe.

Teachers who understand that sometimes there needs to be a different study plan laid out for a student are the same ones who have some of the best class test scores in the country. Not everyone learns information the same way. A teacher who approaches their day as if the failure to succeed by some students is nothing more than stubbornness are the ones who will not last all that long in an effective educational habitat. Teachers who can adapt to their surroundings not only survive and flourish but contribute greatly to the construction of their habitats.

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School Vouchers and the American Education System

December 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Among the many solutions people have floated as a way to fix the American school system one solution that seems to be gaining the most ground, especially in urban areas is school vouchers. These school vouchers are a way for students from families who would not normally be able to go to private school to finally be able to attend them. The vouchers are basically free scholarships based on financial situations rather than actual academic achievements.

Of course one main drawback with these school vouchers is that poor students are then at the mercy of what is usually a religious private school that is free from the government restrictions of indoctrinating their students in any way, shape or form. School vouchers can also come across as unfair because for the most part they are now offering this private schooling to someone for a limited period of time. While some voucher programs might take place over the entire career of a high school student, other voucher funds run out before the student has matriculated meaning that they may have to finish their education in a lesser well funded public school.

Finally there is something to be said for directing the money that usually goes to the private school vouchers towards rebuilding and improving the existing public schools as that money will almost assuredly reach a larger population in the long run. Education testing has long shown that the surroundings that a student learns in has a major effect on their performance. Public schools that are well funded have a much better chance of turning out well educated students as compared to those who are allowing their schools to rot and the teachers and staff to continue to be underpaid and underappreciated. School voucher programs may seem like a quick fix but in the long run they actually hamper public schools improvement.

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