Any chance that our high schools could take advantage of this program for AP courses -- our education dollars seem to be diverted to other causes -- could we share?
All branches of the military are implementing some form of Internet training, but the Army has gone further by enabling soldiers to enroll in degree programs and take college courses via the Web. Its two-year-old "EArmyU" (www.earmyu.com) enrolls 34,924 soldiers, including some who have continued attending virtual classes while in the Persian Gulf.
What do you need to know in order to be successful in college? Tough question, isn't it? But it is an essential one to ask because most high school students have no clue what college is like and most college freshmen are shocked and surprised by the knowledge and skills that university professors expect of them. So, back in 1998 the Association of American Universities [with the assistance of the Pew Charitable Trusts] decided to identify what students need to know and be able to do in order to succeed in entry- level university courses at America's research universities. Five years later, the results have been published in a free, 82 page booklet and accompanying CD-ROM titled "Understanding University Success." Included in the booklet is something called "Knowledge and Skills for University Success" [KSUS],
a comprehensive listing of what university faculty expect from
students in entry-level courses. KSUS is divided into six
academic disciplines: English, mathematics, natural sciences,
social sciences, second languages and the arts ...
... To ensure that the material is widely available, the project
is mailing the ... booklet and accompanying CD-ROM to each of
the nearly 20,000 public high schools in the nation, as well as
to state education departments and university leaders.
In addition,
The College Board has licensed Knowledge and Skills for
University Success to be used as a foundational element in the
development of College Board examinations, including the SAT,
PSAT and Advanced Placement exams.
So, how can you get *YOUR* hands on a copy? Easy! Just point your Web browser to
Understanding University Success
You can download the entire booklet for free in Adobe Acrobat PDF
format or order the booklet (US$15.00), CD-ROM (US$5.00), or both
(US$18.00). If you do decide to download the booklet, I have two
small warnings:
1. The booklet is 4.2 Mb so it will take about 10 minutes to
download over a 56K modem and 20 minutes over a 28.8 modem.
2. The downloading process is a little convoluted -- it requires
two pop-up windows and then you can't really right-click and
save as. Your best bet is to either get the zipped version or,
after the PDF file has loaded, click on the floppy icon in
Acrobat (under your browser's address bar) to save the PDF
file to your hard drive.
No matter what way you use to get the booklet, note that each subject
area has two subsections:
1. Foundations -- a macro-level look at the skills and attributes
of successful students in this subject area.
2. Standards -- specific subject area knowledge and skill sets
The standards lists for each of the six subject areas are probably the
most important educational documents to be produced in a long while.
These lists show the skills and knowledge that America's research
universities expect from entering freshmen. Not to put too fine a
point on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if, over the next couple of
years, most states begin to align their K-12 curriculum to align with
the standards in this booklet.
By the way, one thing that the CD offers that the booklet doesn't is
a library of more than 250 work samples and syllabi that
illustrate the quality of work that AAU-university professors
expect of freshmen in entry-level courses.
According to David Conley, Director of the Standards for Success
project,
We have collected real-life examples of student work from
freshman classes along with course syllabi, assignments, lab
exercises and tests ... Teachers can use the course syllabi,
assignments, and student work samples as reference points as
they devise their own curricula.
Just choose the subject area on the left side of the page. You'll still have to navigate the two pop-up windows, though. And if you thought the booklet was big, wait until you try to download the work samples. [The English work sample book has 480 pages and weighs in at a staggering 6.9 Mb.]
Cutting Back on TV By John Rosemond Why you might want to consider hitting the OFF button.
Creating and sustaining thoughtful improvement is a high priority for school leaders. But it can be an elusive goal, especially as schools struggle to strike a balance between longstanding practices and experimentation to fix problems. And resorting to a familiar top-down form of leadership doesn't always yield the desired results. Peter Senge is one of the world’s leading experts on how organizations can develop new ways to communicate and grow. He knows too well the damage that can be done when an organization gets caught up in the "fad cycle" -- where a new idea holds leaders’ imaginations for just a year or two, instead of the five or even 10 years that might be necessary for true reform. Senge believes that, to educate children well, school superintendents and cafeteria workers alike need to scrutinize how they think about their jobs. They must become aware of deeply ingrained assumptions they may not even know they have -- but that can inhibit their performance or blind them to new possibilities. According to Senge, "Only by changing how we think can we
change deeply embedded policies and practices. Only by changing how we
interact can shared visions, shared understandings and new capacities for
coordinated action be established."http://www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2003_05/SengeQ&A.htm
The biggest security breach in recent memory in this small central New Jersey school district happened when a parent forgot to sign in at the office before delivering cupcakes to a child’s classroom. So it was somewhat of a surprise when the Plumsted district’s three schools became the test site for a cutting-edge eye-recognition security system designed to keep out strangers...
http://msnbc.com/news/904218.asp?0cv=TB10
"Join EDUCATION WEEK on the WEB on Tuesday, April 29, at 11:00 a.m. EST, for our first live, online chat marking the 20th anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," the National Commission on Excellence in Education's influential rallying cry for
raising expectations and improving performance in American schools. The chat
will feature the distinguished guests Michelle Fine, Milton Goldberg, and Theodore Sizer, who will be discussing the report, and answering your
questions.
To submit questions in advance, go here:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a17
Don't forget to join us, Tuesday, April 29, 11:00 a.m. EST, for this exclusive
discussion:
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a20
Twenty years ago this week, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a rallying cry for raising expectations and improving performance in American schools--and part of its message was addressed directly to students. For the 20th Anniversary of "A Nation at Risk," EDUCATION WEEK looks more closely at teenagers' views on what's wrong--and what's right--with the nation's public schools.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a7
Includes:
Quantity of Coursework Rises Since 1983
Two decades after the publication of "A Nation at Risk," students are taking
more academic courses than before. But research shows it's the level and
quality of courses that count, and by that standard, significant gaps remain.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a10
20 Years Later: Two Views
Perspectives on the impact and failings of "A Nation at Risk" by educator-
authors John I. Goodlad and Theodore R. Sizer.
http://www.you-click.net/GoNow/a15864a75002a146059818a8
Princeton University has unveiled what it calls "the world's first fully interactive, Web-accessible digital archive of policy-relevant data on culture and the arts." Visitors to the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA), a project of the Princeton University Library and the university's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, can access both current and past research findings, such as public opinion, city-specific data, and statistics dealing with the arts. Resources available are currently broken down into four categories: artists, audiences, organizations, and support for the arts. Information Today, 14 April 2003 - http://www.cpanda.org.
"A university will spend hundreds of $millions on dormitories, i.e., places for students to drink beer and sleep together. Why is there is no budget for cubicle farms where students in the same major could do their homework together, asking for help from the person at the next desk and, if necessary, raising their hands for help from roving teaching assistants?" Read More...
"A promising strategy that may truly alter how teachers teach and children learn is called "lesson study," an idea that has recently migrated to the U.S. from Japan.1 Teachers work collaboratively as they develop lessons. Then they teach the lessons while observing one another to see how well their lessons work. This feedback enables teachers to make a series of refinements. Lesson study is a continuous cycle of classroom problem solving -- a Plan, Do, Check, Act process -- that is carried out by teachers themselves. The approach is routinely used in Japan to make improvements in teaching, and it is growing in popularity in the United States." Read more...
Should we be looking at this now? The barriers to widespread adoption of voice over IP on enterprise networks have fallen one by one. After years of development, the technical and economic roadblocks are down; VOIP is now practical and offers excellent performance at low cost. Read More...
...slashing spending for after-school -- inconsistent with the concept of "No Child Left Behind," according to ...read more
And This... Early childhood advocacy groups have joined forces with child care providers, school districts, state board of education officials, business leaders, and even police organizations to map out an early childhood education system and build the public will to make it happen....
"All companies have a culture, some companies have discipline, but few companies have a culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don't need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don't need bureaucracy. When you have disciplined action, you don' need excessive controls. When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance." (p. 13) From Good to Great by Jim Collins
Heard this on NPR this morning as part of National Poetry Month -- An Interview with National Endowment for the Arts Chief, Poet Dana Gioia -- Listen to Morning Edition audio "We don't need art, but it is what we yearn for, and without it we starve." Also hear and check out his book of essays on poetry.
Emergent Democracy a very thoughtful new paper by Joi Ito called Emergent Democracy that gets into the practical and theortetical issues of making web-enabled democracy happen. Good concepts and good examples.
A map of Iraq showing where all journalists are located -- click on a location and the list of journalists will come up -- click on the journalist and read the stories. http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=27071