Ирина Эланс

Автор который поможет с любыми образовательными и учебными заданиями

Home-schooling

Lecture 3. Home-schooling

In many countries of the wolrd homeschooling is a legal option for parents who wish to provide their children with a different learning environment than exists in nearby schools.

Homeschooling(also called home education), home learning or homeschool – is the education of children at home, typically by parents or professional tutors, rather than in a public or private school, homeschooling in the modern sense is an alternative in developed countries to formal education.

According to United States Department of Education report, "Homeschooling in the United States: 2003", there was an increase in homeschooled students in the U.S. from 850,000 students in 1999 (1.7 percent of the total student population) to 1.1 million students in 2003 (2.2 percent of the total student population). According to an unsourced National Home Education Research Institute statement, an estimated 1.9 to 2.4 million children were home educated during 2005-2006.

In some places in the US, an approved curriculum is legally required if children are to be home-schooled. A curriculum-free philosophy of homeschooling may be called unschooling.

Homeschoolees use a wide variety of methods and materials. There are different paradigms, or educational philosophies. It is also not uncommon for the student to experience more than one approach as the family discovers what works best for them.

Unit studies

The unit study approach incorporates several subjects — such as art, history, math, science, geography and theology — around the context of one topical theme – like water, animals, American slavery, or ancient Rome.For example, a unit study of Native Americans could combine age-appropriate lessons in: social studies, how different tribes lived prior to colonization vs. today; art, making Native American clothing; history (of Native Americans in the U.S.); reading from a special reading list; and the science of plants used by Native Americans. The next unit study subject could change to some other broad topic.

Unit studies are particularly helpful for teaching multiple grade levels simultaneously, as the topic can easily be adjusted (i.e. from an 8th grader detailing and labeling a spider’s anatomy to an elementary student drawing a picture of a spider on its web). As it is generally the case that in a given "homeschool", very few students are spread out among the grade levels, the unit study approach is an attractive option.

Unit study advocates assert that children retain 45% more information following this approach

All-in-one curricula

"All-in-one" curricula, sometimes called a "school in a box", are comprehensive packages covering many subjects; usually an entire year's worth. They contain all needed books and materials, including pencils and writing paper. Most such curricula were developed for isolated families who lack access to public schools, libraries and shops.

Typically, these materials recreate the school environment in the home and are based on the same subject-area expectations as publicly run schools, allowing an easy transition into school. They are among the more expensive options, but are easy to use and require minimal preparation. The guides are usually extensive, with step-by-step instructions. These programs may include standardized tests and remote examinations to yield an accredited school diploma.

Online Education

Online schools and educational resources can improve the quality of homeschooling and make it more accessible.Online resources for homeschooling include courses of study, educational games, online tests, online tutoring, and occupational training. Online learning potentially allows students and families access to specialized teachers and materials and greater flexibility in scheduling. Parents can be with their children during online tutoring session. Finally, online tutoring is useful for students who are disabled or otherwise limited in their ability to travel.

Community resources

Homeschoolees often take advantage of educational opportunities at museums, community centers, athletic clubs, after-school programs, churches, science preserves, parks, and other community resources. Secondary school level students may take classes at community colleges, which typically have open admission policies.

Groups of homeschooling families often join together to create Homeschool co-ops. These groups typically meet once a week and provide a classroom environment. These are family-centered support groups whose members seek to pool their talents and resources in a collected effort to broaden the scope of their children's education. They provide a classroom environment where students can do hands-on and group learning such as: performing, science experiments, art projects, spelling bees, discussions, etc. All parents whose children take classes serve in volunteer roles to make the program a success.

Certain states, such as Maine, have laws that permit homeschooled families to take advantage of school resources. In such cases, children can be members of sports teams, be members of the school band, can take art classes, and utilize services such as speech therapy all while maintaining their homeschooled lifestyle.

Unschooling and Natural Learning

Some people use the term "unschooling" to describe all methods of education that do not resemble schools.

“Natural learning” refers to a type of learning-on-demand where children pursue knowledge based on their interests and parents take an active part in facilitating activities and experiences condusive to learning but do not rely heavily on textbooks or spend much time “teaching”, looking instead for “learning moments” throughout their daily activities. Parents see their role as that of affirming through positive feedback and modeling the necessary skills, and the child’s role as being responsible for asking and learning.

Both unschooling and natural learning advocates believe that children learn best by doing; a child may learn reading to further an interest about history or other cultures, or math skills by operating a small business or sharing in family finances. The natural learner participates with parents and others in learning together

However, most parents choose a mixed, eclectic approach. “Homeschooling in the United States Report” found out that parents of homeschoolees used "a public library"; "a homeschooling catalog, publisher, or individual specialist"; "a homeschooling organization", a "church, synagogue or other religious institution" or "their local public school or district” as sources of curricular and books. Because laws vary according to individual government statutes, official curriculum requirements vary

Homeschooling and College Admissions

The lack of "formal" records and transcripts (kept by school districts) can be a problem for home-schooled students that wish to enter college. Most, if not all, states permit homeschool high school parents to issue a high school transcript for their child. The College Board suggests that homeschooled students keep detailed records and portfolios.

In the last several decades, US colleges and universities are becoming increasingly open to accepting students from diverse backgrounds, including home-schooled students.According to one source, homeschoolers have now been admitted to about 900 different colleges and universities, including institutions with highly selective standards of admission such as Harvard University, Stanford University, Cornell University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, and Princeton University.

In most colleges and universities SATs are an admission requirement, which does not make any difference between a high-shool leaver or a home-educated child.

New evidence has been found that home schooled children are learning more and are getting higher scores on the SAT tests. A study at Wheaton College in Illinois showed that the freshmen that were home schooled for high school scored fifty-eight points higher on their SAT scores than those of kids that went to a normal school. On average, home schooled children scores eighty-one points higher than the national average on the SAT scores.

In the UK education provided outside a formal school system is primarily known as Home Education, the term Home Schooling is occasionally used for those following a formal, structured style of education — literally schooling at home.

According to the law parents are responsible for providing their children with education, either by ensuring that they 'attend a public school regularly or by other means.' So it’s up to parents to choose to send children to school, or to educate them 'by other means'. Thousands of parents all over the UK take full responsibility for their children's education themselves.

The survey of 1995 showed that the number of home educators in the United Kingdom was "almost 10,000",and in 1996 the number was 15,000. And one home-education advocate estimated 50,000 children being home-educated in 2005. The reasons for home-education vary:

Can give child better education at home

Religious reason

Poor learning environment at school

Family reasons

To develop character/morality

Object to what school teaches

School does not challenge child

Homeschooling and College Admissions

Although it is difficult to take Standard Grades or Highers as an external candidate, GCSEs and A levels are an option, as well as vocational qualifications.

Some FE colleges may, at the discretion of the Principal, be willing to accept children of school age for full and part-time courses. This approach has the advantage that all the work and entry for qualifications is organised by the college, but it does require at least some attendance at classes which will not appeal to all home educating families. If a student enrols at a FE college, their parents will have to pay all of the course fees themselves unless the education authority is willing to provide funding. Many FE colleges offer distance learning and open learning packages.

Many home educating families prefer not to enrol for attendance at a further education college, and choose instead to work independently towards qualifications. Because of compulsory internal assessment components, there are many subjects and qualifications which are not available to external candidates unless an appropriate arrangement can be made with an approved centre which meets with the examining board's requirements. Some centres and examining boards may be willing to accept coursework which has been marked and authenticated (удостоверять, устанавливать подлинность, свидетельствовать) by a private tutor.

Correspondence courses can be an option for students who prefer to work independently, though they will be required in most cases to follow a structured curriculum and programme of work. Correspondence courses offer a wide range of qualifications at different levels and the organisations offering these courses will advise about arrangements which need to be made for registering with an examination centre and for marking and authenticating coursework. The cost of this option varies depending on the organisation and the qualification chosen, but can prove expensive.

In terms of access to university, most colleges and universities (contracted in the research of T.Whitbread) said that the decision would depend on the candidate (irrespective of previous qualifications), that they would like to meet and discuss with them their achievements before any decision could be made.

A research showed that 74% of home educated adults took college level courses compared to the national average of 46%.

Lecture 4. Educational Objectives. Teaching Principles.

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, often called Bloom's Taxonomy, is a classification of the different objectives and skills that educators set for students (learning objectives). The taxonomy was proposed in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist at the University of Chicago. Bloom's Taxonomy divides educational objectives into three "domains:" Affective, Psychomotor, and Cognitive. Like other taxonomies, Bloom's is hierarchical, meaning that learning at the higher levels is dependent on having attained prerequisite knowledge and skills at lower levels (Orlich, et al. 2004). A goal of Bloom's Taxonomy is to motivate educators to focus on all three domains, creating a more holistic form of education.

Affective

Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel another living thing's pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.

There are five levels in the affective domain moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:

Receiving

The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level no learning can occur.

Responding

The student actively participates in the learning process, not only attends to a stimulus, the student also reacts in some way.

Valuing

The student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information.

Organizing

The student can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within his/her own schema; comparing, relating and elaborating on what has been learned.

Characterizing

The student has held a particular value or belief that now exerts influence on his/her behaviour so that it becomes a characteristic.

Psychomotor

Skills in the psychomotor domain describe the ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. Psychomotor objectives usually focus on change and/or development in behavior and/or skills.

Bloom and his colleagues never created subcategories for skills in the psychomotor domain, but since then other educators have created their own psychomotor taxonomies.

Cognitive

Categories in the cognitive domain of Bloom's Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)

Skills in the cognitive domain revolve around knowledge, comprehension, and "thinking through" a particular topic. Traditional education tends to emphasize the skills in this domain, particularly the lower-order objectives.

There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest:

Knowledge

Exhibit memory of previously-learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers

Knowledge of specifics - terminology, specific facts
Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics - conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology
Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field - principles and generalizations, theories and structures

Questions like: What is...?

Comprehension

Demonstrative understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas

Translation
Interpretation
Extrapolation

Questions like: How would you compare and contrast...?

Application

Using new knowledge. Solve problems to new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules in a different way

Questions like: Can you organize _______ to show...?

Analysis

Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations

Analysis of elements
Analysis of relationships
Analysis of organizational principles

Questions like: How would you classify...?

Synthesis

Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions

Production of a unique communication
Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
Derivation of a set of abstract relations

Questions like: Can you predict an outcome?

Evaluation

Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

Judgments in terms of internal evidence
Judgments in terms of external criteria

Questions like: Do you agree with.....?

Some critiques of Bloom's Taxonomy('s cognitive domain) admit the existence of these six categories, but question the existence of a sequential, hierarchical link (Paul, R. (1993). Also the revised edition of Bloom's taxonomy has moved Synthesis in higher order than Evaluation. Some consider the three lowest levels as hierarchically ordered, but the three higher levels as parallel. Others say that it is sometimes better to move to Application before introducing Concepts. This thinking would seem to relate to the method of Problem Based Learning.

Lecture 5. Education theories / Learning theories

A Learning theory is a system of ideas attempting to explain the process of learning.

Learning is the apparent modification of a persons behaviour through his activities and experiences, so that his knowledge, skills and attitudes, including modes of adjustment, towards his environment are changed, more or less permanently.

Theories of Learning are developed within the framework of educational psychology which is one branch of a number of specialised branches of psychology. In general it is concerned with 'What is the nature of learning?' 'How do we learn?' 'How does motivation affect learning?' 'How do we remember and why do we forget?'

A number of 'schools of learning theory' have emerged. These include:

Behaviourism and neo-behaviourism
Cognitivism
Constuctionism
Gestalt
Humanistic

Behaviourism (E.Thorndike)

Thorndike's theory consists of 3 laws. The primary law (law of effect ) can be summarised as: 'an act which results in an animal's experiencing satisfaction in a given situation will generally become associated with that situation, so that when it recurs the act will also be likely to recur'.

The theory represents the original stimulus-response (S-R) framework of behavioural psychology. The classic example of this is a cat learning to escape from a puzzle box by pressing a lever inside the box. The cat learns to associate pressing the lever (S) with the opening of the door (R). Satisfaction is achieved by escape from the box.

Thorndike's theories stressed that external reward is a more effective factor than punishment in the modification of a learner's behaviour. His theories also suggested the importance of 'doing' and of repetition in the learning process. They also serve to remind teachers of the importance of motivation in the preparation for learning and of the teacher's role in contributing towards a learner's motivation.

These theories underpin (support) basic teaching activity that would include lesson planning, ensuring an orderly classroom, providing clear learning objectives, progress from simple to more complex concepts, the importance of practice and repetition, strengthening learner motivation, ensuring learners are aware of the significance of the subject matter and providing them with an ultimately satisfying outcome.

Cognitivism is about how we gain knowledge and use that knowledge to guide decisions.

Cognitive Load Theory (J. Sweller)

This theory suggests that learning takes place more readily if conditions match human cognitive capabilities. For example, human short term memory is limited in the number of elements that it can carry at any one time and human long term memory consists of 'sophisticated structures that permit us to perceive, think and solve problems'. These structures are known as 'schemas'. Learning results in a change in the schematic structures of long term memory.

From a teaching perspective material presented must first be processed in the working or short-term memory. Teaching and instruction should be designed to reduce the load upon the short term working memory. Cognitive load theory is concerned with reducing the short term memory load in order to facilitate changes in the schematic structures held in long term memory.

These theories apply significantly to the presentation of cognitively complex or technically challenging material. Cognitive load theory suggests that effective learning material must keep the cognitive load of learners at a minimum during the learning process.

Constuctivism

Formalization of the theory of constructivism is generally attributed to Jean Piaget, who articulated mechanisms by which knowledge is internalized by learners. He suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework. This may occur when individuals' experiences are joined with their internal representations of the world. When individuals' experiences contradict their internal representations, they may change their perceptions of the experiences to fit their internal representations. But according to the theory, accommodation is the process of reframing one's mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can be understood as the mechanism by which failure leads to learning: when we act on the expectation that the world operates in one way and it violates our expectations, we often fail, but by accommodating this new experience and reframing our model of the way the world works, we learn from the experience of failure, or others' failure.

It is important to note that constructivism is not a particular pedagogy. In fact, constructivism is a theory describing how learning happens, regardless of whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or following the instructions for building a model airplane. In both cases, the theory of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences. However, Constructivism is often associated with pedagogic approaches that promote active learning, or learning by doing.

Constructivism emphasizes the importance of the learner being actively involved in the learning process, unlike previous educational viewpoints where the responsibility rested with the instructor to teach and where the learner played a passive, receptive role. The instuctors have to adapt to the role of facilitators and not teachers. This theory emphasizes that learners construct their own understanding and that they do not simply mirror and reflect what they read. Learners look for meaning and will try to find regularity and order in the events of the world even in the absence of full or complete information.

Gestalt (Wertheimer)

The German word 'Gestalt' means a configuration, structure or pattern. The essence of Gestaltist psychology is that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts'. It is the total structured form of an individual's mental experience with which a teacher should be concerned.

Wertheimer suggested that a coherent whole possesses properties which are not discoverable from its isolated parts. For example, a piece of music is a lot more than the notes played by the instruments involved.

Wertheimer said that productive thinking, leading to the solution for a problem, involves a process, not a single act. The process begins with a situation and a goal that cannot, at a given moment, be reached. The learner's thinking leads to an urge to bridge this gap and achieve the desired goal. This thinking is informed by the learner's past experience and two individuals may present different reactions to a problem depending on their past experiences.

The concept of 'insight' is at the heart of Gestalt psychology. The term 'insight' is used by Gestaltists in a very specific manner. Insight is said to be 'the result of the unforeseen reorganisation by the learner of their field of experience.' The learner experiences the classic 'flash of inspiration' or 'Eureka moment' as 'the penny drops'. This instantaneous perception of how parts relate to a whole is well known in the history of scientific discovery but it should not be confused with the random lucky guess.

The Gestaltist approach to learning may emphasise the importance of structuring lessons and exercises. These may require the learner to find a path to a solution for a problem and to see that their efforts are directed towards this solution. Learning may be facilitated by providing an 'overview' of the course and how the course topics relate to one another. Presenting scraps of disconnected information in a lesson should be avoided. Also the importance of practice is stressed by the Gestaltists.

It is also very important for the teacher to be aware of the individual needs of learners who will each have unique past experiences and thus each have unique needs.

Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers)

The humanistic psychologists said that education has the task of 'helping each person to become the best that they are able to become'.

Maslow developed a theory of 'self-actualisation' based upon the person as a whole being allowed to grow to their 'optimal stature'.

Rogers' humanistic approach to education places emphasis on feeling, thinking and the recognition of a learner's personal values and interpersonal communication. The task of the teacher is the provision of conditions in which learning can be facilitated, the outstanding quality of the teacher being empathy.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

In studying motivation Maslow defined a hierarchy of needs which basically says that a persons behaviour in the classroom, workplace or elsewhere, will be dominated by those needs which have the greatest potency. This hierarchy is often represented as a pyramid with fundamental physiological needs (food, drink, warmth etc.) are at the base. Next level up we have safety and security needs. At the third level we have belonging needs such as friendship, being part of a group, affection etc. The fourth level is the requirement for self-esteem which relates to competence, adequacy, attention and recognition. At the very top of the pyramid is the need for self-fulfilment or self-actualisation.

This model clearly shows that basic needs must be met before effective learning can take place. It also serves to explain how short term motivational issues may occur when certain key needs of a learner are not being met.

Rogers' Experiential Learning

Carl Rogers shares much thinking on education with Maslow. He opposes conventional education and learning which is primarily cognitive and calls for 'student-centred education' based on active discovery. Rogers believes that all humans have a natural propensity towards learning and the role of the teacher is to facilitate this learning. This would involve:

Providing a positive environment for learning
Clarifying the purposes of the learner(s)
Organising learning resources and making these available to learners
Balancing intellectual and emotional components of learning and
Sharing feelings and thoughts with learners but not dominating.

Significant learning takes place when the subject matter is perceived by the learner as relevant to their own purposes. Much significant learning is achieved in doing practical exercises, investigative work and problem solving. The most socially-useful learning in the modern world is the learning of the process of learning, learning to learn.

The development of understanding how we learn is ongoing with research taking place in many areas that are relevant to teaching work. An example of how theories may be applied practically might be the use of cognitive load theory in regard to the teaching of technically challenging material. An awareness of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is also clearly relevant and the effects of these needs not being adequately met (e.g. not enough sleep) can be immediately apparent in a student's behaviour (ie. they fall asleep).