Education Anywhere: Distance and K-12 Education
This two-part series looks at what the education pendulum is and how educators might begin to counteract it and mitigate its effects.
Professional educators commonly recognize and lament the cyclical nature of education. It seems that ideas are often recycled without any modification save changing the name by which the technique or idea is identified. More importantly, these ideas often vacillate from one extreme to the other. This is what is commonly called the education pendulum.
In this model, administrators being pressured by political and social forces to raise test scores attempt to find solutions and improvements that…
With a goal of assisting educators across the nation, this series will examine not only the issues around the Common Core Standards but also the daily issues of their implementation. Where appropriate, issues unique to distance education will be called out as well as those affecting traditional face-to-face education.
As the Common Core State Standards (2012) move forward in implementation, a significant concern surrounding that process is curricular re-alignment. Just when district and schools thought they had managed to align to standards, the standards change and a re-alignment is necessitated.
An implementation plan will likely require performing a side-by-side comparison of the existing standards with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to identify any CCSS items that are not addressed or are…
With a goal of assisting educators across the nation, this series will examine not only the issues around the Common Core Standards but also the daily issues of their implementation. Where appropriate, issues unique to distance education will be called out as well as those affecting traditional face-to-face education.
It is clear that the Common Core State Standards are soon going to be adopted and implementation of the standards required in most, if not every, state in America. The Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSSI) notes that 45 states, the District of Columbia, and four territories have already adopted the standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2012, In the States). The choice of whether or not to implement the standards is almost fully out of the hands of classroom educators. So, it…
With a goal of assisting educators across the nation, this series will examine not only the issues around the Common Core Standards but also the daily issues of their implementation. Where appropriate, issues unique to distance education will be called out as well as those affecting traditional face-to-face education.
A concept identified as a "myth" on the website of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012, Myths vs. Facts) is the idea that the Standards will prescribe what teachers must teach in the classroom. Unfortunately, the response provided by the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) attempts to veil the response and redirect the reader by confusing the ideas of what and how teachers provide instruction. CCSSI (2012) notes that teachers will be given plenty of freedom regarding how…
With a goal of assisting educators across the nation, this series will examine not only the issues around the Common Core Standards but also the daily issues of their implementation. Where appropriate, issues unique to distance education will be called out as well as those affecting traditional face-to-face education.
One of the indictments of the Common Core State Standards is that they are potentially far too low pandering to the lowest common denominator. That is to say that they use the lowest of the standards recorded to create reachable standards to serve as the national common core. However, the Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSSI) purports to incorporate the best ideas from around the globe into one set of national standards for language arts and one set for mathematics (Common Core State…
With a goal of assisting educators across the nation, this series will examine not only the issues around the Common Core Standards but also the daily issues of their implementation. Where appropriate, issues unique to distance education will be called out as well as those affecting traditional face-to-face education.
In education, ideas are routinely recycled. For example, phonics and whole language approaches have been recycled on multiple occasions. Outcomes-based education was recycled to the modern rendition of standards-based education. Now, with distance learning becoming more commonplace and the trend toward a centralized national curriculum, standards-based education is being recycled into the Common Core State Standards.
So what are the Common Core State Standards? Collaborating with teachers,…
Centralized curriculum can lead to an algorithmic and mechanistic approach to curriculum development. However, humanity and the art of teaching need not be replaced by algorithmic and mechanistic processes in online education.
For many institutions of distance education, offering the volume of courses and course sections required necessitates a centralized curriculum. Indeed, many administrators of distance learning tend to prefer the centralized curriculum model for its ability to unify the educational experiences of students. A pleasant byproduct of the centralized curriculum is the additional control afforded to the administration by the model.
However, the risk in a centralized curriculum is the tendency toward…
Technology plays a large role in modern education. This series examines the technology skills learners need in order to be successful.
The online education magazine eSchool News recently asked its readers what were the most important technology skills for students to know in the modern era (Stansbury, 2012). This series will look more closely at the skills that were identified and their relationship to online education.
The final skills identified by the survey, adaptability and courage, are interrelated just as are online literacy and critical thinking. These skills, however, stretch the imagination of the user and the…
Technology plays a large role in modern education. This series examines the technology skills learners need in order to be successful.
The online education magazine eSchool News recently asked its readers what were the most important technology skills for students to know in the modern era (Stansbury, 2012). This series will look more closely at the skills that were identified and their relationship to online education.
After online literacy and critical thinking, the next skill identified was the need to know the science behind the technology (Stansbury, 2012). Those surveyed believed that as a foundation for truly becoming…
Technology plays a large role in modern education. This series examines the technology skills learners need in order to be successful.
The online education magazine eSchool News recently asked its readers what were the most important technology skills for students to know in the modern era (Stansbury, 2012). This series will look more closely at the skills that were identified and their relationship to online education.
The first two skills identified were online literacy and critical thinking (Stansbury, 2012). While separated for the purposes of the article, these ideas actually are inseparable. To be truly literate in the…
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This channel explores current issues in the sphere of distance education/ technology-assisted learning, accentuates student successes, and promotes conversation by suggesting educational applications of current technologies; addressing controversial topics; or taking a satirical view of scholars, scholarship, and scholarly issues.
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