What Does American Education Need? :: Teaching Teachers Learning School Essays

What Does American Education Need? For over four decades, the public education establishment has delivered one educational disaster after another. "Solution" after "solution" they have offered have fallen far short of promises. The education establishment's perennial answer to our education problems is increased education expenditures. Educational expenditures have skyrocketed (more than doubling every 20 years since 1960) and yet Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores plummet. National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test results partially demonstrate our dismal education picture. Of 17-year olds taking the test: 47 percent could not express 9/100 as a percent; only 5 percent could calculate the cost per kilowatt on an electric bill that charged $9.09 for 606 kilowatts; 26 percent did not know the U.S. Congress was part of the legislative branch of government; 43 percent of high school juniors could not place World War I within the period 1900 to 1950; 75 percent could not place Abraham Lincoln's presidency in the era 1840-1880. (1) The education establishment's latest "solution", supported by President Clinton, is massive federal expenditures to hire 100,000 additional teachers. This they claim will reduce class sizes and thus improve academic performance. United States already has smaller classes than countries where student academic performance is much greater than ours. For example, Japan averages 41 students per class compared to 26 in the United States. In mathematics, where their students run circles around ours, their average math class size is 43 compared to our 20. (2) Breaking the education monopoly will solve most of the nation's education problems. A way to achieve this is through education vouchers or tuition tax credits. The basic feature of proposals for education vouchers is for state and local governments to make direct payments to parents, in the form of vouchers, that are used to pay tuition charged by public or non-public schools. The basic feature of tuition tax credits is to give parents a credit against their income taxes for tuition expenses. For example if a parent spent $3,000 in tuition to send their kid to a non-public school, all or a percentage of the tuition would be subtracted from the parent's tax liability. Tuition tax credits are far preferable to vouchers because we would not run the risk of government intervention in the form of state Departments of Vouchers. Opponents interested in maintaining the monopoly of education have advanced arguments against greater competition in the education of America's children. These arguments seem to be plausible; however, upon just a little bit of reflection they are simply baseless.

Learning is a process Essay

Learning is a process, which requires mental capability for it to happen. There are various means by which learning takes place for example there is observational learning, intuition, or through experience. Learning is a continuous process, which happens throughout the life of a person. In education, learning takes place from the time one starts attending a classroom. This paper reflects on the experience that I have had on teaching student to learn. At the first instance, this is not an easy process because it involves making a student open up his or her mind so that grasping of the instruction can take place well in the mind. Most students find it difficult to learn out of many reasons. One of the reason I have realized make students fail to learn how to read fast is fear. Most of them have fear to make a mistake as they start reading. This fear hinders them from attaining degree of learning that they are supposed. Another factor that affects the rate of how children learn to read is the rate of mental development (Arends & Kilcher, 2009). This is because children have different rates of mental development. Those children who learn to read faster than the others are the ones who have faster rate of mental development. I have learned that it is difficult to teach children in the same classroom due to the different rates by which the children learn. Therefore, what I do is to attend to individual students. This allows those children with low rate of learning to feel embarrassed by other who are able to learn first. This also helps the students who are quick learners not to feel dragged by their counterparts who are slow learners. Another thing that I have noticed about students as they learn to read is that they do not like so much supervision. When the students are given freedom to learn more by themselves they tend to learn faster than when as a teacher I try to push them and giving them direction on how to learn. Freedom helps them to be more open to the learning process as they feel they are not intimidated. They also find time to challenge each other as they try to memorize the words they have learned to read. I have found that the best way to enhance learning to students is to allow them do much of the learning by themselves. The work of the teacher would be to give directions, guide them, and then allow them to take charge. The students also learn faster when they are allowed to learn in groups. This allows the students to assist each other to learn some of the difficult things when they are free. Children always feel embarrassed when you show them, for example, to read some words but the following day they have forgotten. I have realized that this can make a student even take longer time to learn because of this embarrassment. So I realized that the best thing a teacher can do to prevent this is to start with the most simple concepts of learning, then move slowly to the more difficult ones. By this, the student mind develops, as the concepts become more difficult (Burns & Sandra, 2004). Slowly by slowly the student is able to grasp even difficult concepts without much difficulty. A student also needs a lot of encouragement and praise even if he or she fails to understand what is being taught. This acts as a motivating factor to a student to work harder. References Arends, R. & Kilcher, A. (2009) Teaching for Student Learning, Taylor and Francis. Burns, T. & Sandra, S. (2004). Teaching, learning and study skills: a guide for tutors, New York, SAGE, 2004

Investigatory

Crazy Crystal Creations: How to Grow the Best and the Largest Crystals Materials and Equipment * Lab notebook * Large bowl * Ice, enough to fill large bowl at least three times * Water * Thermometer * String * Scissors * Pencils (3) * Identical jars or large drinking glasses (3) * Pot with a lid * Borax (also called 20-Mule Team household cleaner); * Tablespoon * Plastic wrap, wax paper, or aluminum foil * Gloves, latex or similar style exam glove (optional). Can be used if there is concern over handling borax Experimental Procedure 1.In this science fair project, you'll be recrystallizing borax under three different temperature conditions: in a refrigerator, at room temperature, and in an ice bath. Before you begin, make a hypothesis, based on your background reading, about how the crystals grown under each of these conditions will look. Write your hypothesis in your lab notebook. 2. Prepare an ice bath by filling the large bowl half full of ice and then adding water until the bowl is three-quarters full. a. Place the ice bath on a counter top or on a table, where it can be left undisturbed for at least 5 hours while the crystals grow. . As soon as the ice bath is prepared, use the thermometer to take the temperature of the ice bath, of the refrigerator, and of the room (do this by putting the thermometer on the countertop or table), and record the temperatures in your lab notebook. 4. Cut three pieces of string and tie one around each pencil. The string pieces should be of equal length and should be long enough that when the pencil is laid across the top of the jar, the end of the string hangs down to just above the bottom of the jar. 5.Bring enough water to fill each jar three-fourths full to a boil in a pot, with adult supervision. 6. Add 1 tablespoon (Tbsp. ) of borax to the water, and stir until it dissolves. Repeat, 1 Tbsp. at a time, until no more borax will dissolve. This is your saturated solution. 7. With an adult's help, pour equal amounts of the sa turated solution into the three jars. The jars should be about three-fourths full. 8. Lay a pencil across the top of each jar so the strings hang down into the saturated solution. 9. Cover the jars with plastic wrap, wax paper, or aluminum foil. 10.Place one jar in the refrigerator, leave one undisturbed on a countertop or table at room temperature, and put one in the ice bath you prepared. 11. Leave the jars alone for a minimum of 5 hours, or until crystals form (whichever is longer), and be sure not to disturb them. Check the ice bath regularly to make sure that the ice has not melted. Add ice, as necessary. b. If crystals form under one condition before they do in the others, note that in your lab notebook and let all three conditions continue for another hour to see if any crystals form in the other conditions. . Record in your lab notebook the total amount of time (from step 9 to step 11) that you let the crystals form. 12. Carefully remove the pencils, one at a time, and note the size, shape, and number of crystals obtained from each solution. Are there any differences? Why do you think this is so? Record your observations in a data table, like the one below. Cooling Condition| Trial 1| | Temperature| Time of Crystal Formation (in hours)| Number| Size| Other Observations| Ice bath| Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  |Refrigerator| Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  | Room temperature| Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  | Â  | 13. If you are presenting your project in a science fair, save the strings and display them at the fair. Be sure to keep track of which string belongs with which solution. 14. Repeat steps 1–13 at least two more times to make sure that your results are accurate and repeatable. How do your results compare to your hypothesis? What Makes Ice Melt Fastest? Materials and Equipment To do this experiment you will need the following materials and equipment: Ice cubes * Identical plates or saucers * Timer * Electronic kitchen balance (accurate to 0. 1 g) * Mea suring cup * Suggested materials to test for ice-melting ability * Table salt * Sugar * Sand * Pepper Experimental Procedure 1. Do your background research so that you are knowledgeable about the terms, concepts, and questions, above. 2. You'll need a clean plate and several ice cubes for each of the substances to be tested. 3. Use the balance to measure the initial mass of the ice cube.Note the starting time, then carefully sprinkle one teaspoon of the substance to be tested over the ice cube. 4. After a fixed amount of time (say, 10 minutes), pour off the melted water into a measuring cup, and use the balance to measure the mass. Subtract the mass of the empty cup, and you'll have the mass of the melted water. Wait the same amount of time for each test. 5. Measure the remaining mass of the ice cube. 6. Repeat three times for each substance to be tested. 7. Use the same procedure to measure the melting rate for ice cubes with nothing added. 8.For each test, calculate the percentage of the ice cube that melted: [mass of melt water]/[initial mass of ice cube] ? 100 9. For each test, calculate the percentage of the ice cube remaining: [remaining mass of ice cube]/[initial mass of ice cube] ? 100 10. For each substance you tested, calculate the average amount of melted water produced (as a percentage of initial mass), and the average remaining ice cube mass (as a percentage of initial mass). 11. Did any substances speed up melting of the ice (compared to melting rate of plain ice cubes with nothing added)?