首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
States Experiment with Out-of-Classroom Learning At the end of August, most of Ohio’s teenagers will shake off their summert
States Experiment with Out-of-Classroom Learning At the end of August, most of Ohio’s teenagers will shake off their summert
admin
2013-08-12
140
问题
States Experiment with Out-of-Classroom Learning
At the end of August, most of Ohio’s teenagers will shake off their summertime blues, dust off their book bags, and head back to school. But others might be heading to an internship at a local newspaper or hitting the books for independent study. Some might even stay planted in front of the computer screen.
That’s thanks to the state’s new credit flexibility program, which Ohio is launching for the upcoming academic year. The plan puts Ohio on the front lines of a transition away from a century-old pattern of equating classroom time with learning. But while there’s a broad consensus that that measure, the Carnegie Unit, is due for replacement, no such unanimity(全体一致)exists about the design and prospects for plans like Ohio’s. While most stakeholders agree that it’s theoretically preferable to give students the chance to personalize their education, it remains unclear how effective the alternatives are, how best to assess them, and whether today’s teachers are equipped to administer them.
"Certainly the Carnegie Unit needs undermining," says Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based education think tank that also runs charter schools in Ohio. "It’s far better to have a competency-based system in which some kind of an objective measure of whether you know anything or have learned anything is better. But by what standard will Ohio know that’s been met?"
The Ohio’s program will be among the most sweeping, but nearly half of the states now offer similar alternatives—although in many cases that’s nothing more than allowing students to test out of classes by demonstrating proficiency. A smaller but growing number of states, from Florida to New Jersey to Kentucky, have begun allowing students to earn credit through internships, independent studies, and the like. It’s a logical extension of the realization that simply being in a seat from bell to bell doesn’t guarantee intellectual development. Students—and their parents—are at least theoretically attracted to the idea of studying what they want, at the pace they want.
Teachers are on board, too. "It really will allow more meaningful experiences for students," says Sue Taylor, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, a teachers’ union that participated in designing the program. "Any time a student is able to take the lead or take some charge of some aspect, that student is going to be more motivated and learn something at a deeper level." The motivation will extend to educators, she says: many teachers complain that the controversial No Child Left Behind law forced them to "teach to tests," preparing students to pass inflexible multiple-choice assessments, but the new rules should make room for more creativity.
Of course, creativity can’t preclude quality. "The concern is that the advocates of personalization don’t necessarily advocate between good personalization and bad personalization," says Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "A lot of these internships end up being time wasters, being silly, being trivial." While individual schools have found success with flexible systems, it’s unclear how they will work when scaled up to apply to entire districts or states. Many states with provisions for internships and independent-study programs are "local control" states, meaning that while the state’s Department of Education may allow high schools to give students options, the decision about what qualifies as a valid educational experience is left to local authorities. The bar could be set differently from city to city, school to school, or even teacher to teacher. Ohio, for example, hasn’t offered solid guidelines to districts, although a spokesman says the state will collect data each year on how many students participated and what program they chose in order to "inform Credit Flex statewide going forward." It won’t conduct a formal audit(审计), though.
Starting alternatives won’t be easy in a difficult fiscal(财政的)environment. With states across the country desperately broke, even basic public services like schools and police have been put on the chopping block. Hawaii, for instance, cut some school weeks to four days, giving students 17 Fridays off, in the last school year; the plan was massively unpopular. Even though Congress held a special session this week to pass a bill giving states $10 billion to keep teachers on the job, school districts are looking at lean times for years to come. The solution for superintendents and school boards will be to find ways to cut costs without slashing school days.
Florida’s Credit Acceleration Program—which expands previous options for accelerated graduation—was passed this year with the primary goal of allowing students who are ready to move to tougher courses to do so. But it’s also a handy way to save money, says Mary Jane Tappen, the state’s deputy chancellor of curriculum, instruction, and student services. Fewer students in desks means cost savings. Virtual learning—which an ever-larger number of states allow as an alternative to learning in bricks-and-mortar schools—provides even greater economies of scale. The Florida Virtual School, an industry leader, has seen continuously increasing enrollment for both in-state and out-of-state students. Its Global School—the division that offers virtual classes to students outside of Florida on a fee model—does almost all. of its business with districts and states rather than on an individual student basis, says Andy Ross, the school’s chief sales and marketing officer. It’s helped to subsidize the taxpayer-supported in-state division of the Virtual School as well, covering its own costs and contributing some $2.5 million per year for research and development of software and teaching methods.
While educators say blends of traditional and virtual learning are ideal, all-virtual classes could create an opening for strapped states to save money by slashing the ranks of teachers they employ in traditional classrooms. "If the same virtual lesson recorded in Seattle can educate 8,000 kids in Ohio, how many teachers might not be needed that Ohio has historically employed?" Finn asks.
Taylor, of the teachers’ union, is concerned about budget cuts with the coming changes in Ohio. "There may be a few districts that are financially strapped in this climate who may see credit flexibility as a chance to see budget slashing, but if they do, obviously it’s going to be done at the cost of effective student learning," she warns. On the contrary, she thinks districts should hire more teachers, with some taking on more supervisory and advisory roles in overseeing credit-flexibility experiences. "If a teacher has 125 students in a day, it’s not going to be feasible for him to help to design and work with each and every student," she says.
Of course, this may be irrelevant. In launching its plan, the Ohio Department of Education said a major reason for allowing districts to develop flexibility plans was that while many states provide flexibility, not many districts take advantage of it. Data collection nationwide is hit or miss, so it’s tough to tell how many students use existing programs. Meanwhile, although anecdotal(轶事的)evidence suggests parent and student interest in the new alternatives, no one is offering predictions about how many Ohio students might sign up for Credit Flex. If the nationwide example holds, the vast majority of students will decide that bricks-and-mortar schools are still the best way to get their mortarboards.
According to Taylor, in order to keep effective student learning, more teachers should be hired to play a role in ______.
选项
答案
overseeing credit-flexibility experiences
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/gV97777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
TheancientChinesebelievedthattheearth______.TheChinesethoughtthatthesunspentthenight______.
DivorceForevery1,000marriedcouplesintheUK,13endupdivorcedaccordingtostatistics.Divorceisoftenacomplicate
Thereporterboaststhat__________(娱乐圈里发生的任何事都逃不过他的眼睛).
SmugglerstrytobringillegalitemsintotheUnitedStateseveryday.Peoplewhotraveltoforeigncountriessometimestrytoa
A、Healthinsurance,paidvacation,andacompanyvehicle.B、Paidvacation,opportunitiesforadvancement,andmedicare.C、Opport
Whatmadetheschoolproudwas______(90%多的学生考上了重点大学).
Advertisingisacollectivetermforpublicannouncementsdesignedto【B1】______thesaleofspecificcommoditiesorservices.Ad
______,itisoftenconsideredimpolitetointerjectaremarkwhenpeoplearetalking.(无论在什么文化背景下).
A、Inordertoattracttheattentionofthepublic.B、Inordertosellmorerecords.C、Inordertokeephisproperty.D、Inorder
A、Onethird.B、Almosttwothirds.C、Morethantwothirds.D、Almosthalf.B文中提到,根据调查,63%的美国成年人没有8个小时的睡眠时间,这8个小时是健康身体、安全优良工作表现所需要的
随机试题
以下图片中,表示功率表的是()。
Thegardenerwascalledintotelltheway______thepoordoghaddied.
某工业项目,与一级声环境评价范围相比,二级、三级可根据下列哪些情况适当缩小评价范围?()
以下不属于非电离辐射的是()。
在会计工作交接中,接替会计人员在交接时因疏忽没有发现所接收的会计资料在真实性,完整性方面存在问题,如果事后在这一方面发现的问题,那么则应由接替会计人员承担相应的法律责任。()
试述蒙台梭利教育思想、教育内容及其教育方法。
小明今年5岁半,当老师问小明“为什么把积木扔进水里,积木会浮起来"时,小明回答“因为积木是由木头做的,而木头沉不下去"。由此可以推断出小明的()开始萌芽。
一项研究报告说,通过在瘫痪者脑部的皮层运动区植入微小的感应器件,可以收集大脑发出与躯体运动有关的神经信号,由于感应器件与电脑相连,信号可快速传递给机器臂,从而让它随瘫痪病人的意念作出相应的动作。这项研究进一步佐证()。
在成本控制过程中,对项目方案进行技术经济分析,只有采用综合评价而优选的项目方案才能算是最佳方案。对最佳方案的要求是技术上最佳、经济上_________。
一个栈的初始状态为空。现将元素1、2、3、4、5、A、B、C、D、E依次入栈,然后再依次出栈,则元素出栈的顺序是()。
最新回复
(
0
)