Archive for the ‘Virtual Schools’ Category
Part 4
Studies have shown that if you give a child rewards for behaviors they were doing spontaneously, and then withdraw the rewards, the child will stop doing what they had done before they were getting rewards. So, if the child is already capable of getting good grades and now is getting rewarded, what happens when the child stops getting the rewards? And, if they haven’t got the capability to achieve the goals the school has set for them, what will rewards held out of their reach do? Teach by using the learning style of the student produces superior results in a blended learning environment, without confusing the joy of learning with extrinsic rewards.
Children are no different from you or me. If I have poor self-esteem and believe I can’t do something, chances are that I probably won’t even try the task. But if I’m taught the skills in a way I understand, I am much more likely to succeed in accomplishing the task. I will develop confidence in myself to try other tasks that might be a bit harder. My previous success becomes the motivation to do well on the next goal. Individualized learning where the students learning style is taken into account makes all the difference.
Allow children to succeed in their learning by adapting to their learning style. Paying students isn’t going to motivate them to become learners. This is what we as teachers should be doing, hopefully public schools will one day change their one size fits all mentality. The responsibility is not just to motivate our children to learn now, but to instill in them the desire and confidence to become life-long learners.
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As a virtual K-8 school, our goal is to insure each student is successful by developing individual programs that match the students learning style and current level of achievement. So often, they
have feelings of helplessness. They believe that they are incapable of learning. No amounts of extrinsic rewards are going to overcome their perception.
What will motivate them is success. Success breeds success. Slowly their perception of being a loser or dumb falls away; they get excited about learning. We actually have the student chart their progress. Seeing their improvement becomes a further motivation. And, perhaps this is why we have seen as much as 2+ years growth in just one school year! Individualized learning programs make it far easier for each student, parent and teacher.
Paying Students Disregards A Quality Education
posted by admin @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Part2
As a teacher of over 30 years, I have seen all kinds of fads used to modify students behaviors none
that were overly successful. If we were to give children checks, what do we cut so there is money to do that? Should it by Gym, Art, and Music? Those programs have already been hacked just as Languages have. Most after-school sports programs have to be self-supporting as well. That leaves just the basics: Reading and Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. The big push by the federal government to improve STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math), means paring down childrens education elsewhere. When there is a bloated bureaucracy within school administration, less and less is available for teaching.
Such a proposal to pay students assumes that the students have the capability to do the activity in question for the rewards to be influential. Monetary rewards to students do not address the fact that most students do not choose to do poorly in school. I believe that once schools learn to teach to the student, students will learn. For students that attend classes at Mistacres, each child receives an individualized learning plan that takes into account the different ways children learn. A blended learning environment gives students the best of in-class learning along with virtual learning. Parents who want the best education for their kids have turned to our homeschooling programs, and use our virtual classrooms and curriculum to successfully home school their children.
Part 1
Have you heard the latest key to learning that schools are coming up with? Schools across the country have decided to pay students for good grades, high test scores, attendance, and so on. According to a recent poll taken by CBS, 56% called it a bad thing and 37% said it was good.
I stand with the 56% who see this as not a good thing. As a taxpayer, I wonder when the tax revenue allocated to education will ever have the right priorities. I watch taxes and school budgets go up while staffing is cut, class sizes grow and scores drop in the public schools. At Mistacres School, a virtual learning academy for K-8 grades, there are no staff cutbacks or problems with class sizes. And yet, without receiving tax revenues to operate, the school delivers a higher quality education at a fraction of the per student cost of the public schools.
Did you guessed that last week’ quotes were from Winnie-the-Pooh? Many of this quotes contain words of wisdom to the young and old. Yet he was known as “the bear with little brain”. How often are our children looked at as having little brain? Is it them or the way we teach. A Virtual School has the ability to teach children with methods and tools that fit their learning style and support their educational success. In Pooh’s words:
“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.”
You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
“There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. “