Many people don’t think that they can find the time to fit in getting a college qualification with their other commitments. Taking a college course online can be the answer to this problem. You don’t have the same fixed schedule to attend classes when you take a college course online. You get to study at your own pace and at a time that suits you. It doesn’t matter if you want to do all of your college work in the evenings or at weekends, with a college course online you can do exactly what you want.
Many of the institutes that offer a college course online do not set any time limits for you to complete the course in. This means that you can take as long as you need. If you find that you are unable to study for a few days, weeks or even months there is no problem when you are studying your college course online. You simply start studying again whenever you are ready.
Another benefit of taking a college course online is that a large number of them do not have a formal exam that you have to sit at the end of it. Many of the courses are awarded based on the marks gained in assignments throughout the course. However, if the particular course that you want to take does require that you take a supervised exam to qualify then you will be offered a time and place to suit you.
There are no age limits for people who want top take a college course online. This is ideal for more mature students who don’t relish the thought of going back to college and being surrounded by students who are half their age. So if you are 18 or 80 you can take a college course online and obtain the qualification that you have always wanted. You are allocated a personal tutor who is available to help you with questions and help you work through your assignments and will mark your college course online or by post if you prefer. Some courses also have facilities for students to chat to others taking the college course online to exchange ideas and offer support.
Tags: Benefits, College, Course, Online, TakingThere are many reasons why parents choose to homeschool their kids. For many it is because they want to add religious content to their children’s learning experience.
Making the decision to home school is usually a very difficult not and it is not one to be taken lightly. It is a personal decision that no one can make for you, but maybe I can help in the thought process by providing you with a comprehensive guide to making the choice to homeschool your kids a successful one.
When making the homeschool decision, you must first consider these things:
1. Time commitment that is involved. Homeschooling has a tendency to take up a lot of time in your day. It involves more than just sitting down with books for a couple of hours. There are experiments and projects that have to be done, lessons to prepare, papers to grade, field trips, park days, music lessons, and the list just keeps on going. You can go online and search for some sample schedules that will help to give you an idea of a typical day.
2. Personal sacrifice. The homeschooling parent has very little personal time or time alone and away from their children. If a lot of care is not taken to set aside time for yourself, it is easy for the parent to feel overwhelmed. Basically, the parent and child are together 24 hours a day and this can get frustrating on both sides.
3. Financial problems can arise. Homeschooling can be accomplished with very little cost to you; however, it usually requires that the teaching parent will not be working out of the home. Some sacrifices will need to be made if the family is used to two incomes. Of course, if you are a single parent, this could pose an even bigger problem.
4. Time for socialization. More attention will need to be given to getting your children together with his/her peers. The best part of homeschooling is being able to have more control of the social contacts your child makes. However, the downside is that you must prepare your child yourself on how to socialize with other kids. Homeschooling has a tendency to make your child feel isolated.
5. Household organization is harder. Housework and laundry and other house work will still have to be done, but it probably won’t get done first thing in the morning. If you are a neat freak, you might be in for a big surprise. Not only does housework need to be let go at times, but homeschooling creates messes and clutter on its own. You will have to get organized so that you can keep your home together.
6. Both parents must agree to it. It is important that both parents agree to homeschooling. It is very difficult for this to work if one of the parents is against it. If your spouse is against it at this time, try doing more research and talking to more people so that you can be absolutely certain it is something that both of you can agree upon. Otherwise, the chances for success are much lower.
7. Your child has to be willing. A willing student is crucial to the success of homeschooling. Ultimately, the decision is the parents to make, but if your child is dead against it, you might have a very difficult time in teaching them. The fact of the matter is that an unwilling child can sabotage his or her own school efforts.
8. Know that it works one year at a time. It isn’t a lifetime commitment and doesn’t have to become one. If you find that homeschooling just isn’t worth it, you can choose to go the regular route.
There is a lot more to homeschooling than deciding to just do it. As a parent, you must know that your child’s education is the most important factor in his or her future. You need to be thoroughly prepared for all of the time and commitment that is involved.
Tags: Home, Schooling, SuccessfulAs a young lad, I took on my first scientific experiment simply because I could. Like most curious youngsters who own walky-talkies, I could only resist for so long the urge to bury one of them (well behind enemy lines) in the bread aisle at the local grocery store, to see what startled shoppers might make of extroverted wheat. This, my first foray into the field of agorology — the very scientific study of shopping, shoppers and shoppingcarts — told me just what I needed to know.
Would they simply scurry off, fearing all that is both sourdough and articulate, or might they try to hunt down the source of the taunting loaves? The jovial, phoney French accent that greeted each customer in the aisle proved harder to maintain — while trying hard not to laugh — than I had anticipated. In the end, fear of the manager (bigcheesophobia) cut short the data-gathering event, but not before we — Tony (my assistant) and I — had learned far too much. We now knew the inside truth about science, kept hidden for many ages: it’s a real kick in the pants.
Much time passed, and the California State University (at Hayward) received, and then quite foolishly approved, my application for admission. There I learned that the representatives of “science” bore the right to decide all matters of cultural importance; that scientists could provide the answers we need; and that science is “self-correcting,” and so marches forward with unrelenting progress. Just look at the microwave ovens, and the GPS gadgets in our cars. Science carries the badge of authority in all matters of knowledge. Or so the story goes.
But then it happened. I took my first history of science class, and began studying the items that interested me, even if they weren’t on the menu. Then came the individual study course in the philosophy of science. By then I had meandered into areas of study best dubbed “plainly unauthorized.” Here, I had realized that the science textbook authors (and most of my science professors) had completely — I believe the scientific term is — “discombobulated” almost everything they had taught me in my science classes.
Oh, they managed the empirical details in the books well enough. Like motorcycle riders who smile too often, the experts had strained out the empirical gnats with an aggressive and precise toothpick. But conceptual camel-swallowing became the order of the day. In other words, their story of what science actually is, how scientists employ its methods, and what science can actually accomplish — the whole story surrounding the details — proved phonier than a well-modulated, French accent in a grocery store.
To help illustrate these well-educated fibs, which I have boiled down to five for the sake of brevity, I have put this section in the shape of a question and answer format. Here sit before the readers eyes THE five questions your science professors hope you never ask.
Question 1. Professor, isn’t it true, that when you call a model or theory “true” merely because it makes accurate predictions that you in fact commit the fallacy called “affirming the consequent?”
Answer: You’d better believe it, Bucko. And nearly all scientists do this on a regular basis. Coincidentally enough, so do the textbooks these guys write. “If a mother, then also a woman” seems obvious enough. In logic, this takes the form, “If P, then Q.” But reasoning in the reverse direction leads to trouble. “If a woman, then a mother [Q, therefore P]” doesn’t ring true at all. Many women do not practice motherhood. Likewise, “If my theory is true, we should find ‘Q’ to be the case [If P, then Q] does not in any way validate the reverse, “We did find ‘Q’ to be the case, therefore my model is true [Q, therefore P].”
This is like the man who argues that “If it is bread, it does not talk. It does not in fact talk, therefore it must be bread.” Imagine that: science professors make a career of reasoning that poorly, and your sandwich never said a word.
Question #2. Professor, isn’t it true that many highly successful theories in the past gained the allegiance of entire scientific communities, only to suffer rejection later as so much molarky by the same group?
Answer: Yes. In fact Dr. Larry Laudan, former chair of the history and philosophy of science department at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote a book (Science and Values) where he catalogued over 30 such theories. He indicated that he could have lengthened his list extensively (and others have done this). These truth-status flip-floppers trounce about like a salmon on deck, where “true yesterday” becomes “false today.” Here, truth comes with an expiration date like raspberry yogurt. And who knows, these theories may yet make a comeback — only to get smoked again (as salmon are want to do).
This tells us that theoretical science shows itself fickle when it comes to truth-telling. In court, they call this “perjury,” but let us avoid the unpleasantries of name-calling. One commentator on this problem recently put it quite sublimely in these words: “If the history of science were a single person, it would present to the world just that sort of person we should least want to see driving heavy machinery or carrying sharp objects.”
Question #3. Professor, isn’t it true that theories considered false today by the scientific majority, as well as in the past, have often turned out to be very useful? And doesn’t this show that no established relationship between true theories and useful theories exists?
Answer: Yes, and yes. And this shows from the empirical facts of history that any theory might be highly useful, and yet utterly false, so that it’s utility offers no real guide to whether or not it’s true. And you guessed it: Dr. Laudan has a long list of these successful-but-false theories too. And he isn’t the only one.
Question #4. Isn’t it true professor that scientists often resolve the contest between rival theories by choosing the one as “more probably true” which appears either simpler or more elegant than the others, and doesn’t this tell against the alleged “objectivity” of what is supposed to be a truth-seeking enterprise, reducing it to the status of a Miss America beauty pageant?
Answer: Yes, but don’t tell my wife or she won’t let me go to work either.
Question #5. Professor, isn’t it true that various scientists working in different fields put to use a wide array of different methods, depending on factors like which field of study they work in, the nature of the claim under question at the moment, and the like? And doesn’t this rather abolish the popular myth that anything like “THE” scientific method has ever actually existed?
Answer: Of course. Philosopher of science, Paul Feyerabend at UC Berkeley wrote a book in the late 90’s entitled “On Method,” which proves just that point. Brain-scanning Neurologists do not do anything like what mechanics do when the latter search to find out how much pollution your car puts out. They use different instruments, and entirely different methods. Some methods involve developing computational models to run different stress-condition scenarios (structural engineers do this), while others amount to sticking a fancy wand up your car’s tail pipe.
Conclusion: The heroic model of science — with scientists in the driver’s seat as the keepers of true knowledge — amounts to a political ploy designed to exalt those with white labcoats as the final arbiters of truth about what kind of what this “really” is. But the kind of reasons scientists (and their textbooks) must invoke to prop up this flimsy mythology make no headway against the empirical facts known to students of the history and philosophy of the sciences. Moreover, if stripped of their technical jargon, and rendered in the common tongue, such half-baked reasons would not earn scientists a passing mark in a second-semester logic course at any decent college.
The way I see it, if you are going to try to fool people, you might as well go all the way, and head for the aisle with the heckling rye.
Tags: Conspiracy, Professors, Questions, Science, The GalileoParalegals make lawyers look prepared. Also known as legal assistants, paralegals may work for a lawyer, but they may also work for a corporation, the government, or any organization that deals with the law. A beginning paralegal will probably spend most of his or her time filing, photocopying, organizing papers and running errands. But paralegals can also do some of the work resembles those exciting crime dramas. Paralegals may help draft legal documents and interview witnesses.
The paralegal profession developed during the 1960s, when people were trained to help lawyers in order to provide legal services to those who could not typically afford them. Paralegals support lawyers and are trained to help law offices run smoothly.
Generally, there are two types of paralegals: litigation and corporate. Litigation paralegals are in charge of documents for trial cases. Most of the routine work that falls to litigation paralegals involves ordering and indexing the huge of amount of paper needed for trials: motions, briefs, depositions, etc. They also interview witnesses, do research, and draft paperwork. Corporate paralegals, on the other hand, spend most of their days organizing the paperwork associated with business dealings. A corporate paralegal, much like a litigation paralegal, makes sure the sets of paperwork are identical, ordering documents, and photocopying them.
The educational background of paralegal will help to determine the type of work he or she will be doing. If, for example, a paralegal took social work classes in college, she may have a better chance of working in a social justice firm or government office firm. Paralegals with some medical knowledge might work for a malpractice lawyer.
Though a paralegal’s work may not always seem exciting, it is an excellent way to enter law, and to see if law might be the right career. College graduates, including recent graduates, in addition to those who have taken classes to become a certified paralegal, all have a good chance at finding a paralegal job. Working as a paralegal may help you get into law school and help you make powerful connections with lawyers, businesspeople, or government officials. Even if becoming a paralegal is not your dream job, it can still make for an excellent entry into the professional world.
Tags: Do, Paralegals, What DoMath, science and foreign language classes were often
limited because of this shortage. Today, distance learning
and elearning have changed the way school districts
determine class schedules, making many more opportunities
available to students.
Public schools have changed dramatically over the past
century and a great number of those changes can be put down
to two factors - state and federal mandates governing the
classes that must be offered and requirements for
graduation, and (of course) the ever-increasing world of
technology.
Computers have made the world a global neighborhood in
which anyone can instantly communicate with those from
another country, even if that country is half way around
the world. Language and time differences are virtually the
only barriers. This means that distance learning and
elearning are a part of the curriculum of many schools.
As schools began to connect to the Internet, the immediate
concern in most cases was how to regulate the use. The next
was how to best use the technology to benefit school
districts and students. Distance learning and elearning
became the way to provide options, especially in those
rural districts that couldn’t meet state mandates.
Consider the situation of many smaller, rural schools. If
the school is required to offer a foreign language but
can’t recruit a teacher, what should happen to that school?
Forced consolidations have been common in some states.
Students lost the benefits of schools in their own towns
and faced long bus rides to new districts.
With distance learning and elearning, more schools can meet
the state and federal mandates to offer specific classes.
Consider yet another situation. A smaller district has four
students who show great promise in their math studies and
it’s quickly apparent that they could go well beyond the
normal math classes offered in high school.
There’s no one on the teaching staff capable of teaching
those advanced concepts and it’s financially impossible to
hire someone for that task alone. Distance learning or e-
earning could provide those classes.
Special needs children are another group to greatly benefit
from distance learning and elearning. While many issues can
only be dealt with between teacher and student, face-to-
face, there are many things that can be taught and learned
online.
Whether the subject of distance learning or elearning is a
foreign language or sign language, and whether the class or
courses are being offered to one student or the entire
student body, distance learning and elearning have become
an important tool for many public schools.
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Why is it important to have good confidence in our ability to learn?
When you don’t have a good confidence in your learning ability, you will approach learning situations and exams in a state of nervousness and anxiety. A lack of confidence in your learning ability will actually interfere with you ability to study effectively, and it will interfere with your ability to remember what you have learned.
Being completely confident and happy about your learning ability will lessen your anxiety. Confidence in yourself will improve your learning perfomance and improve your memory of what you have studied.
How can you tell whether or not you lack confidence in yourself as a learner?
If you lack confidence about your learning ability, you probably already know it because you become very tense and nervous about facing exams.
When you are in a learning situation, pay attention to the sorts of thoughts that frequently go through your mind. What messages are you telling yourself? Spend several days becoming aware of the way you talk to yourself internally. Write down the thoughts that pass through your mind so that you can review them.
Are your statements about yourself mostly positive or mostly negative? Do your thoughts reflect confidence in your own abilities? Or are you constantly yelling at yourself for your mistakes and shortcomings? Are you calling yourself stupid, lazy, or unsuccessful?
If your statements to yourself about your learning ability are mostly negative, you may think that yelling at yourself will make you try harder and improve your performance. Actually, this negative self talk will increase your anxiety and will interfere with your ability to learn effectively.
Take some time to watch very young children learn. During the first few years of life, humans learn a huge amount of information at a much quicker rate than they will ever learn again. When very young children learn, they do so in an attitude of joy and exploration. They don’t criticize themselves for being bad learners.
Even as adults, we do our best learning in an atmosphere of fun and exploration. We learn better when we think learning is fun. We don’t learn as well when we tell ourselves that we are stupid.
If your negative opinion of yourself is holding you back, how do you go about changing it? Two very effective techniques that can help you change your self-image are affirmations and visualization.
Instead of focusing on your current negative self-assessments, focus instead on the kind of person you would like to be. What personal qualities do you want to have?
Write down a description of how you would like to be and how you would like to perceive yourself. Write out some simple phrases that express your desired qualities as something that you have right now.
Spend time creating images of yourself learning easily, and let the feelings of confidence fill you up. Revisit these positive images frequently. See yourself succeeding in your exams, and feel the sensations you would feel as you get a very good mark.
Using visualizations and affirmations correctly can go a long way to improve your confidence in your ability to learn, and when you are more confident about your learning ability, you will actually learn better.
Tags: student, Use Affirmations, VisualizationsNow what many public school systems offer is overcrowded classrooms. Teachers are being grossly underpaid for their skills and overworked. Outdated learning material, metal detectors, violence, cuts in federal spending for education…
Remedial help is sorely needed for some students so they can keep up. If a child can’t receive the education they deserve, how are they expected to prosper in society? Parents, students, and the public school systems already know that this is a huge problem, but who can they turn to for help?
More and more parents are turning to tutoring to supplement their children’s education and to further their children’s abilities to be successful in the future.
Tutoring is a $4 Billion business that is growing steadily. Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, supplemental educational services are funded by school districts with a portion of their allocation from the U.S. Department of Education.
The Federal Government allocates as much as $1800 per eligible student, but so far, less than 10 percent of eligible students are electing to participate, according to providers’ estimates.
One of the toughest challenges is simply convincing parents that the service is free to them. Parents will often hang up when sales reps for tutoring firms call to explain the program.
They think it is a scam because “free” usually means too good to be true. And sometimes parents simply don’t want to acknowledge that their child needs help. Parents have been known to ask “What’s wrong with my child that he needs to be tutored?”
In spite of these challenges, online tutoring, or Interactive Distance Learning (IDL) is expected to grow at an unprecedented rate. IDL is where a student receives live, one-on-one tutoring in a virtual classroom setting or in large group sessions over a video conferencing system.
Students who have access to a computer at home or in school can log in to the system and have a live tutor help them day or night. Subjects like Math, English, Calculus, World History, Latin, French, Chemistry, Physics and many others can be taught to them by certified tutors/teachers.
And there are online tutoring systems that even supply their own courseware library, featuring some of the finest programmed learning courses in computer sciences, management and academic subjects.
Children who receive one-on-one remedial tutoring have been known to have increased self-esteem and self confidence, increased focus and lengthened attention span.
My advice to parents everywhere is to find an online tutoring system that focuses on academic remedial courses for ages K-12, as well as for college students.
Why not give your child the best chance at passing each class with the help he or she needs? There’s federal money allocated for the parents to provide online remedial help for their children. Also, parents are able to schedule tutoring sessions to fit into their time schedule.
In the long run, everyone shares in the child’s accomplishment.
Copyright (c) 2005 by David M. Rolle’
Tags: Excel, Home, How to, Learning, School, StudentsThe backlash against affirmative action comes largely from the group that feels damaged by these programs–white males. As the standard of living for African Americans in the United States has risen, whites claim that the “leg up” provided by set-aside programs constitutes an unfair advantage. Similarly, white males point out that since women now make up the majority of college students, they can hardly claim discrimination. The critics of affirmative action promote a merit-based system, in which admission and scholarships are awarded to the most worthy, with race or gender not considered at all.
The exclusively merit-based system, however, has itself come under attack. Supporters of affirmative action claim that there is no fair way to determine merit. Tests, like the SAT, have always produced a mark disparity in results between blacks and whites. Other factors used to rank college applicants, such as grade point averages and advanced placement classes, vary widely from one school to another. In fact, many minority leaders claim that there is no completely objective way to measure ability. They believe that a person’s background or the obstacles he/she may have overcome are just as important as grades and standardized tests. According to affirmative action supporters, the merit system fails to produce an element vital to higher education–diversity. This, they say, is necessary for a well-rounded college experience, as well as for societal stability.
Despite the rhetoric and passions on both sides, the future of affirmative action is likely to be determined by the courts, not by the activists. Recent state court rulings have upheld policy changes in key states such as Texas, Florida, and California, that now restrict how schools can use race and gender as factors in determining admission. Although the Supreme Court has not yet issued a definitive ruling, two things are now apparent. First, race cannot be the sole factor in determining admission. Second, when race is one of the factors, the school must demonstrate a compelling interest for the government to allow it. Exactly what constitutes a “compelling” interest remains to be seen.
In order to maintain diversity on their campuses, universities have developed innovative ways of achieving the same goals without violating the new restrictions. Often called a “holistic” method, some schools now consider a variety of factors besides grades and test scores. For example, students who had a difficult home life or had to work during their high school years in order to help support their family may get special consideration. Furthermore, corporations and various private foundations have increased their funding for minority scholarships in order to make up for any drop in federal or state-sponsored aid.
It is unlikely that affirmative action will be completely eliminated. Too many schools are committed to maintaining a diverse student body. College administrators will find one way or another to achieve balance in their admissions. However, if the current trends continue, women and minorities will need to seek out new sources of college financial aid, and develop new strategies for gaining entrance to the nation’s top universities.
Tags: Action, Affirmative, Campuses, College, JeopardyOnline education is very different from a traditional degree programme, because you will be essentially studying independently. But how do you know if it’s the right platform for you? There are some questions that you should ask yourself. For example, are you a self-starter or do you need someone to regularly guide you and check on your progress? Do you benefit from classroom discussions or are you happy to work on your own? If you are motivated and prefer to work at your own pace, then earning your marketing degree online might be the best option for you.
There are technological issues to consider, as well. If you plan to pursue your degree online, you need to have access to a reasonably good computer and reliable internet access. Before signing up for online marketing degrees, you will also need to check with the college to find out what sort of programming the course uses. They will be happy to answer your questions and, in some cases, will provide you with software downloads. Likewise, online education is often a great choice for those who live in rural areas, giving those students access to courses not otherwise available in their area.
However, if you are the type of student that works best in groups, than earning your marketing degree online might not be for you. While many online courses often give you individual attention, face-to-face contact with your instructor may not be possible and you won’t have the classroom camaraderie with other students, that you would have in a traditional classroom setting.
Making the decision to earn your marketing degree online is an important step in your career. Taking the time to properly think out your options will help you choose the programme that’s best for you.
Tags: Degree, Marketing, OnlineThe question is how should physical education be conducted? First, take a look at physical education history. Physical education has evolved over the years. Physical education is defined as “instruction in the development and care of the body ranging from simple calisthenics exercises to a course of study providing training in hygiene, gymnastics, and the performance and management of athletic games (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).” This definition is broad because you can learn several topics ranging from the rules of basketball to sex education. It depends on the school policies of your state educational system.
Physical education was officially recognized in the United States in the early 1800’s. Colleges and Universities began to offer physical education programs throughout the 1800’s. Finally, in 1866 California was the first to mandate physical education. Many states followed this mandate within the next 30 years. The importance of training the body as well as the mind became prevalent in the educational system.
The 20th century brought varying levels of physical education to each state. Presidents such as Eisenhower and Kennedy promoted physical education and fitness. Children took the Presidential Fitness test each year to assess their physical fitness level. This arose from the need for U.S. students to be as physical fit as their European counterparts.
Controversial issues have played an integral role in physical education history. For example, in 1972 Title IX banned sexual discrimination in schools regarding sports and academics. This allowed female athletes to actively participate in team sports other than cheerleading with the financial and emotional support of the school system.
Another controversial issue is sexual education. It has been the subject of intense debate for many decades. Each state has specific guidelines about what will be taught and whether students can opt out of the sexual education program. Some states allow students to watch a video of a child being born while other states only discuss abstinence.
The official employment of physical education programs has a 200 year history which has become home to controversial issues, social reform, and overall child well being. Physical education will continue to evolve as the needs of the student population changes, societal attitudes fluctuate, and the flow of educational funds towards physical education is maintained.
Tags: Education, History, Physical, Truth