Guide for Parents: Preparing Your Child Early for College

Early College Preparation Tips

Ideally, preparing for college should begin before your child is in high school. Planning early may help eliminate some of the stress you and your child may feel as the end of high school nears.

Saving for College

You may want to begin a college fund as soon as possible, because college is expensive and becoming more so each year. The type of college plan you decide on may depend on your income level and expenses. By preparing early, you may be able to save your child from relying on loans, which can put him or her at an economic disadvantage after graduation.

Showing the Importance of Education

Another way you can help your child prepare for college doesn't need to involve money at all. Demonstrating the value of education, learning and curiosity is the necessary first step to helping your child succeed, both in higher education and in life. You might try reading books together, going to the bookstore, playing educational games or surfing through educational websites together. By demonstrating your own enthusiasm for education, you can ignite a lifelong love of learning in your son or daughter.

Cultivating Confidence and Responsibility

A sense of confidence and responsibility not only helps ease the transition from high school to college, but it's also vital for success in later life. Self-confidence can help your teenager approach professors with questions or problems and will make socializing with other students much easier. Helping your child to set difficult goals and encouraging him or her to follow through on them is one method of developing confidence and a sense of responsibility. In general, it's important to set boundaries and show that you expect your son or daughter to make mature decisions -- while also learning from the occasional mistake.

The Nuts and Bolts

Helping your son or daughter study for the SAT or ACT exam is a great way to show your support during the college preparation process. Practice tests for both exams are available, as are extensive preparation guides. Filling out college applications correctly and sending them out on time is also essential for the college preparation process, while visiting different campuses may help your student get a better idea of which college best fits his or her needs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

The Transformational Potential of Flipped Classrooms

If 2012 was the year of MOOCs (massive open online courses) in higher education, then the flipped classroom was the innovation of the year for K–12 schools (see “The Flipped Classroom,” what next, Winter 2012).

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post spilled ink over the phenomenon. Several authors resorted to old-fashioned books to discuss flipping, including the two teachers who allegedly originated the technique (see Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams). None of that tells us anything about the number of teachers who actually flipped their classrooms. No one has offered any firm measure of the practice or, more importantly, assessed its impact on student learning.

In case you missed all the hype, the flipped classroom is a form of blended learning in which students learn online at least part of the time while attending a brick-and-mortar school. Either at home or during a homework period at school, students view lessons and lectures online. Time in the classroom, previously reserved for teacher instruction, is spent on what we used to call homework, with teacher assistance as needed.

How can this improve student learning? Homework and lecture time have merely been switched. Students still learn through a lecture. And many online lectures are primitive videos.

There is some truth in this characterization, but it misses the key insight behind the flipped classroom. If some students don’t understand what is presented in a real-time classroom lecture, it’s too bad for them. The teacher must barrel on to pace the lesson for the class as a whole, which often means going too slow for some and too fast for others.

Moving the delivery of basic content instruction online gives students the opportunity to hit rewind and view again a section they don’t understand or fast-forward through material they have already mastered. Students decide what to watch and when, which, theoretically at least, gives them greater ownership over their learning.

Viewing lectures online may not seem to differ much from the traditional homework reading assignment, but there is at least one critical difference: Classroom time is no longer spent taking in raw content, a largely passive process. Instead, while at school, students do practice problems, discuss issues, or work on specific projects. The classroom becomes an interactive environment that engages students more directly in their education.

In the flipped classroom, the teacher is available to guide students as they apply what they have learned online. One of the drawbacks of traditional homework is that students don’t receive meaningful feedback on their work while they are doing it; they may have no opportunity to relearn concepts they struggled to master. With a teacher present to answer questions and watch over how students are doing, the feedback cycle has greater potential to bolster student learning.

The flipped classroom does not address all the limitations of the brick-and-mortar school. Although in the best flipped-classroom implementations, each student can move at her own pace and view lessons at home that meet her individual needs rather than those of the entire class, most flipped classrooms do not operate this way. As Salman Khan, the media’s personification of the flipped-classroom, observes in The One World Schoolhouse, “Although it makes class time more interactive and lectures more independent, the ‘flipped classroom’ still has students moving together in age-based cohorts at roughly the same pace, with snapshot exams that are used more to label students than address their weaknesses” (see “To YouTube and Beyond,” book reviews, Summer 2013).

This arrangement also doesn’t tackle the root causes of the lack of motivation that persists among many low-achieving students.

Some in the media have suggested that the flipped-classroom approach may only work in upper-income, suburban schools. If low-income students lack access to computers at home or to reliable Internet access, flipping may be a nonstarter in some schools. If students can’t benefit from online instruction at home, then they need to receive instruction in the classroom or risk falling behind. Some fear that in relying on parents to provide technology and support, the flipped-classroom model may exacerbate existing resource inequalities. Schools can make computer labs available during afterschool hours, however, and parental assistance is less critical when watching an online video than when solving homework problems.

What is perhaps most telling is that the “no-excuses” charter schools that serve large numbers of low-income students well—KIPP, Rocketship, Alliance, and Summit among them—are not flipping their classrooms. Even as these schools adopt blended-learning models, the flipped classroom isn’t among them. The models these schools are employing give students more support as they need it and actively guide students to more ownership over their learning. These models also do not rely on students having access to high-speed Internet-connected computers at home; online learning occurs during the school day.

Even if the flipped classroom does prove of some benefit to some low-income students, this change in structure alone is unlikely to produce the vast improvement in student learning our country needs. But that doesn’t mean the innovation is insignificant. The flipped classroom might still have an important indirect impact on the American education system, as one brand of digital learning. The optimal use of digital learning will vary in different contexts and communities. Some people will attend full-time virtual schools, with even the “classroom” experience occurring online; most will attend brick-and-mortar schools that employ some version of digital learning.

Unlike school vouchers for low-income students, charter schools in disadvantaged communities, or bonus pay for teachers in inner-city schools, digital learning is not designed for just one slice of the population. It’s not a policy that parents might support in theory but, because it has no practical impact on them, won’t spend political energy promoting or defending. Rather, if it works as well as its proponents hope, digital learning will gather political support from a wide swath of the American public.

And it may well turn out that the flipped classroom is most effective in private schools or upper-income suburban schools. If that’s how those students make the best use of digital learning, that’s OK. As Khan says, “Blue jeans didn’t become cool until Hollywood started wearing them.” In the world of digital learning, the flipped classroom may just be one good brand.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

Effective Co-Teaching Strategies

Does your staff need Co-Teaching training? The K-12 Teachers Alliance can help you plan your in-service professional development at no additional cost.

With inclusion on the rise, teachers are sharing classrooms more than ever and becoming an effective co-teaching partner is a teaching essential. With the onset of a new school year right around the corner, meanwhile, it's imperative to begin devising and building positive co-teaching strategies.

A co-teaching team typically includes a general and a special educator who teach the general education curriculum to all students as well as implement Individual Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities. Both educators on the co-teaching team are responsible for differentiating the instructional planning and delivery, assessment of student achievement, and classroom management.

Several collaborative teaching approaches have proven to be successful to guide educators who work together in co-teaching partnerships to differentiate instruction. The approaches include:

Supportive Co-teaching - where the one member of the team takes the lead role and the other member rotates among students to provide support

Parallel Co-teaching - where support personnel and the classroom teacher instruct different heterogeneous groups of students

Complementary Co-teaching - where a member of the co-teaching team does something to supplement or complement the instruction provided by the other member of the team (e.g., models note taking on a transparency, paraphrases the other co-teacher’s statements)

Team Teaching - where the members of the team co-teach along side one another and share responsibility for planning, teaching, and assessing the progress of all students in the class.

Some co-teaching approaches (e.g., complementary and team teaching) require greater commitment to, comfort with, and skill in collaborative planning and role release (i.e., transferring one’s specialized instructional responsibilities over to someone else). It is recommended that collaborative teams select among the co-teaching approaches, as needed, based up the curriculum demands of a unit or lesson and student learning characteristics, needs, and interests.

When deciding which approach to use in a given lesson, the goal always is to improve the educational outcomes of students through the selected co-teaching strategies. Many beginning co-teachers start with supportive teaching and parallel teaching because these approaches involve less structured coordination among the co-teaching team members. As co-teaching skills and relationships strengthen, co-teachers then venture into the complementary teaching and team teaching approaches that require more time, coordination, and knowledge of and trust in one another’s skills.

Co-Teaching Strategies Chart

How are the Co-Teaching Strategies similar?
Two or more co-teachers in the classroom. Capitalizes on specific strengths & expertise of co-teachers. Provides greater teacher/student ratio and brings additional 1-1 support for students in the classroom. All approaches have benefits and cautions associated with their use. Students are heterogeneously grouped by mixed abilities and interests. Shared responsibilities. Requires trust, communication, planning time, and coordination of effort. (Note: The need for all of these elements increases as you move from supportive to parallel, parallel to complementary, and complementary to team teaching co-teaching.)
How are the Co-Teaching Strategies different?
Supportive Co-Teaching	Parallel Co-Teaching	Complementary Co-Teaching	Team Teaching
One co- teacher is in the lead role; others provide support. Who is in lead and who provides support may change during the lesson.	Co-teachers work with different groups of students in the same room.(There are numerous different options for arranging the groups.)	The co-teachers share responsibility for teaching the whole class. One takes a lead content role and the other facilitates access to the curriculum. One co- teacher teaches content; the other clarifies, paraphrases, simplifies, or records content.   One co-teacher may pre-teach specific study or social skills and monitors students’ use of them; the other co- teacher teaches the academic content.	Both co- teachers are equally responsible for planning, instruction of content, assessment, and grade assignment.   Requires the greatest amount of planning time, trust, communication, and coordination of effort.
What are potential problems with co-teaching?
Supportive Co-Teaching Cautions	Parallel Co-Teaching Cautions	Complementary Co-Teaching Cautions	Team Teaching Cautions
Beware of the “Velcro effect,” where a supportive co-teacher hovering over one or selected students, stigmatizing both students and the co-teacher.   Beware of making the supportive co-teacher the “discipline police,” materials copier, or in-class paper grader rather than an instructor.   Beware of ineffective use of expertise of supportive co-teacher (e.g., special educator)   Beware of resentment if the skills of the supportive co-teacher (e.g., special educator) are not being used or the lead (e.g., content teacher) co-teacher feels an unequal burden of responsibility.   Beware of staying in the supportive role, due to lack of planning time.	Beware of creating a special class within the class and lowering student achievement by homogeneously grouping lower performing students together (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollack, 2001, p. 84).   Beware that noise level can become uncomfortably high when numerous activities are occurring in the same room.   Beware failing to adequately prepare other co-teachers to ensure they deliver instruction as intended, since you cannot monitor each other while you all are simultaneously co-teaching.	Beware of not monitoring the students who need it.   Beware of too much teacher talk, repetition, and lack of student-student interaction.    Beware of “typecasting” the co-teacher delivering content as the “expert” or “real” teacher.   Beware of failing to plan for “role release,” so all co-teachers get to teach the content	Beware of not monitoring the students who need it.   Beware of too much teacher talk, repetition, and lack of student-student interaction.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

How Much Money Students Can Save By Renting Textbooks Online

Renting textbooks online is a popular trend among university and college students. They are using textbook rental services offered by some of the most reputable online book rental stores to save money. New students on university campus often have less idea about the textbook rental facilities. They are either ignorant to this affordable option of getting college textbooks or have no idea about how much money they can save by renting textbooks online. This article will provide some important insight to online book rental services and the money saving potential being offered by online textbook rental stores.

Original Textbook Cost vs. Textbook Rental Fee

Online textbook rental services help students in cutting their expenses over semester textbooks. On an average, student can reduce their textbook expenses by 50% to 60% by utilizing textbook rental services. There are many online book stores offering wide range of college textbooks on rent. Their textbook rental fees for the whole semester comes around 35% to 40% of original retail price of books.

For example, the popular book "UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE" which is priced $ 149.95 can be rented for $ 74.98; that simply means saving of $ 74.97 (approx 50% of the original cost). The book rental fee usually includes shipping charges (both delivery to recipient and dispatch to book rental store at the end of semester).

Usually an Australian college student has to spend an average of $1000 to $1500 on buying all college textbooks for a semester. At the end of semester, the books become useless to them. They have the option to either sell it or give it to their juniors. However, in many cases the syllabus or the books are changed depending upon the curriculum revision or professor's preferences of teaching. In that case, the books cannot be used by juniors.

Think about a student who prefers renting books rather than buying it. He will spend approx $ 500 to $ 750 for all the textbooks for one semester. At the end of semester, he will return all the books to the online book rental store and order books for next semester. He doesn't need to worry about selling used books or giving it to juniors. His expenses over book rental is approximately 50% that means for the total purchasing cost of books in one semester, he can rent same books for two semesters.

In summary, utilizing book rental services for getting college textbooks is a wise decision for college students in Australia. They can reduce their costs of getting books and spend the remaining money to fulfill their other needs.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

Benefits of Educational Technology

Today, everything that we come across has some technological connotation to it. Be it at home, school or workplace, technology has found a comfortable niche and has become an integral part of life. With the use of technology, several arenas are seeing changes and education is also one of them. The birth of educational technology has proved to be a boon to students the world over. Not only in the regular setting, but also in educating students with special needs have known to be benefited with the introduction of this modern invention. Let us now discuss the uses and benefits of educational technology in this modern-day setting.

What is Educational Technology?

The term 'educational technology' has a broad perspective and is also referred to as instructional technology or learning technology. This method plays a vital role in enhancing the learning process of students and also assists teachers in communicating with the students in an easy way. Educational technology can be a classroom affair, or can be even taken out of the classroom. This technology has successfully transformed the stereotypical image of classrooms into a modern and more interesting one. Thanks to this modern development, classrooms are no longer a boring place and learning is actually a fun experience. With the use of computers and software programs, which provide learning materials, technology has changed education to a great extent.

Educational Technology Benefits

There are a number of benefits of introducing technology in the field of education. There has been a positive impact of technology on education. Virtual classrooms have made learning easier for the student community. With the potential use of technology, the learning speed and style have undergone a sea change and communication has become easier. Here are some of the benefits of educational technology.

    * One of the benefits of educational technology for students is that it helps them improve their learning capabilities. Since it is one field which is constantly changing, new updates can be easily introduced to the students and class plans can be prepared with the help of the software.

    * In the earlier days, education was considered to be mostly for the elite class and people under other strata were quite ignorant of it. With the introduction of educational technology, there is no discrimination and everyone is equally accessible to get educated.

    * The information can be portrayed in various ways with the help of study materials. Knowledge has become easily accessible to students in every part of the world with the implementation of technology in the field of education. Online classrooms help students to interact with other students belonging to the same stream, but located somewhere else in the world.

    * Since the Internet is the main medium and other things like handheld tablet PCs and smart boards have entered the arena, students do not have to carry heavy backpacks loaded with books. They can walk in comfortably to the classroom where these equipment are already placed.

    * With the birth of virtual classrooms, the instructor from any part of the world can teach the learner (or learners) who may be living at the other end. The reach of this technology is quite far and students living in the remote parts can also avail it with ease.

    * In special education, the educational technology has brought about a sea change where the needs of students are catered to in a different manner. With the introduction of the software which teaches students with special needs, the appropriate study materials are designed so that learning is comfortable.

With the inclusion of technology, the concept of education is undergoing a modification, for the betterment of the students as well as the teachers. Hence, the introduction of technology is important in education. Thanks to educational technology, now learning and teaching have become an enjoyable experience.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

Educational Games for Students

Educational games have always been important additions to the classroom. From games that aid in spelling and vocabulary, such as Hangman and Scrabble to games that help students learn how to think critically, like Brain Teasers to some games that help improve memory like those in which you flip cards over and try to remember where the matching card was placed, games have been an integral part of every child's educational experience. As a teacher, it is important to play games with your students to spark their interest for learning and allow your students to have a little fun in the midst of classroom work. Some might say this is not a beneficial practice to engage in with your students, but if the games you play are educational and fun, everyone benefits. These games can also be used as rewards and positive reinforcement for good behavior and good work in class.

Apples to Apples

Apples to Apples is an awesome card game produced by Mattel. This game is deceptively simple and really fun to play with groups of people, whether in class or at a party. With this game, there are two sets of cards: red apple cards and green apple cards. The red apple cards have nouns (person, place, thing, or idea) on them. These nouns are often famous people (like "Mel Gibson"), concepts (like "Feminism"), or extraordinary events (like "My High School Prom"). The green apple cards have adjectives (words that describe a noun) on them. The goal of the game is to match your red apple cards with the green apple card that is drawn. In each round, each player gets five red apple cards and a judge is appointed. That judge draws a green apple card and announces the word. Each player (the judge does not play) puts a red apple card down-face down so the judge cannot see - that pairs well with the word on the green apple card. The judge then decides who put the best word in, and that person gets the green apple card. Whoever has the most green apple cards at the end, wins. This game can get students thinking about word choice in literature and in their own writing, as well as what makes certain pairings sad or funny. Students will also learn new words by being exposed to things they are not necessarily familiar with.

Hink Pink

Hink Pink is a great brainteaser game made by Discovery Bay Games. In this game, there are cards that have riddles on them, and students need to think about the answer to the riddles in order to receive points. The answers to the riddles are always two words, and they always rhyme. They also always fall into one of three categories: Hink Pinks are two one-syllable words that rhyme, Hinky Pinkys are two two-syllable words that rhyme, and Hinkity Pinkitys are two three-syllable words that rhyme. If the teacher is calling out the riddles, he or she will tell the students if it is a Hink Pink, Hinky Pinky, or Hinkity Pinkity, then read the riddle. For example, the teacher might say: "Hink Pink: A chocolate connoisseur." Then, the students would answer "Fudge Judge." There are many worksheets and educational activities online that a quick internet search will give you. However, if you buy the game, there is also a timer that can be used with smaller groups. Using the cards alone, though, is a great way to get students involved when you have a few extra minutes at the end of class. By Buzzle Staff and Agencies

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17mcRLwF-GXKFxfuUIsjMAMZsRts0heSz/view?usp=sharing

How Can Technology Help in the Classroom ?

Teachers who strive to improve their classroom setting often wonder about the addition of technology and how it might help their students. While the debate about whether technology helps or harms students continues, parents and teachers must understand the potential benefits of using technology in the classroom.

                                

Improving Technical Skills:

In this modern world that constantly produces new and improved technological advances, the skills that come with technology are vital to future success. Children need to learn skills like typing, research and communication via technological devices early. By learning the basic skills in school while they are young, students are able to improve their ability to keep up in this ever-changing world.

Increasing Motivation:

New technological devices are ideal when it comes to motivating students. Books, paper and pen are often boring and make it challenging to motivate the students. Bringing in a new gadget that has e-books or interesting learning tools helps draw in students and motivate them to try completing tasks because they are able to also try out the new device. By motivating the students to learn the technology, teachers are also helping them learn vital skills like reading, arithmetic and sciences.

                                   

Helping Special Needs:

Technology used in the classroom can also help students who have special needs keep up with their peers. For example, a student who has problems hearing can use a tablet with a record to written feature that allows him or her to record the lecture as the teacher speaks and then see the written form of the lecture. This helps him or her keep up with the activities in class. Technology is useful in a wide range of applications that helps students who have special needs of any type. Depending on the particular disability, students can apply advances in different measures.

Working Together:

Students who are striving to learn the use of a new technological device often end up working together and improving their communication skills through tutoring, discussion and simple inquisitiveness. As students discuss and try new ideas while learning the new technology or software, they are improving their ability to work out problems without the help of adults and become better at communicating. This ability to work together to solve problems carries forward into adulthood, when students will need the skills to succeed in future careers.

Technology is a useful tool that teachers can add to the classroom setting. It has a wide range of potential benefits that can improve student learning, motivate and help for better life skills. As teachers incorporate more devices and technological items to the classroom, the students will benefit from the improvements to the learning environment and ultimately will see improved success that increases self-confidence.

                                   

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