How often have you found yourself in a position of writing an email or letter to someone and then realised that you have written the completely wrong word. Everyone does it, yet it is so easy to feel highly embarrassed and slightly stupid at the same time.
If you would like to end this problem once and for all and also teach your children about Similar Sounding Words and what they mean you should definitely take a look at the Similar Sounding Words product from sarvagnan-theknowledge.com.
The product is really aimed at children but many adults absolutely swear by its contents and say that there are many examples of Similar Sounding Words that they simply weren't aware of. This learning aid contains over 90 examples of these type of words and the learning revolves around a series of interactive online video's which are proving to be very popular as well as extremely effective.
The way that this learning works is that a family of animated characters who are known as the Stufun family go through each example in an extremely easy to understand manner which children and adults alike will find extremely amusing which can only be described as a good thing as opposed to the more traditional methods of teaching.
Before putting any of their products together, the experts at sarvagnan-theknowledge.com put in a great deal of research to find the best way of getting their point over and this method of interactive learning has proven to be the most effective method, time and time again.
When someone is learning and it doesn't seem like they are learning, ie, because they are having fun instead, the amount of information that they can take on board and more importantly, remember, increases dramatically and this is what sarvagnan-theknowledge.com have achieved admirably with Similar Sounding Words. by Louise Blake
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Making Of A Good Teacher and Caregiver
My interest in children and teaching began years ago when I was a small girl; there was an old, empty small, wood-framed house behind our home. I decided to turn it into a schoolhouse. Yes, you guessed it, my first students were my three younger brothers and older sister. For years I taught school in that little old house out in the country. That is where my desire for teaching began, and has since been my dream and heartbeat. Teaching children can be very satisfying. Think of children as sponges. They are ready to soak up any and all experiences you can provide them. It's up to us as teachers and caregivers to make sure that the children under our care are being taught developmentally appropriate practices. As caregivers we need to cultivate developmentally appropriate learning environments and experiences for young children. If the room arrangement is designed appropriately, it will give you more time with the children and make your job more enjoyable. Young children attach themselves to those who provide interaction, comfort and reassurance through quality interactions. It is believed that young children come equipped with the ability to form strong relationships. They attach to those who respond to their needs in the most sensitive manner. Experiments suggest that even though a person may feed a young child, it doesn't necessarily mean that the child will become attached to them. One way to make parents feel secure when leaving their young child is to make sure their child is at ease in the environment we create for them. As teachers and caregivers we should be:
*Observers-be aware of social interactions of the child with other children, staff, and parents *Programmers-develop plans that facilitate the positive development of children. *Teachers-facilitate social skills and mental knowledge *Discipliners-guide/builder of responsibility and internal focus of control *Nurturers-foster a child's sense of self, encourage, assist and support social-emotional well-being. I have enjoyed the past twenty-four years that I have worked with children in different centers. I am excited about opening my first center and I look forward to the years to come working with young children; what an exciting and rewarding experience. By Elaine Williams
Is Your Child's Potential Underestimated?
It's important to bring home the fact that as parents, we have to put some time and effort in helping and motivating our children get into the habit of spending regular time, on a daily basis, learning and consolidating what is being learnt at school.
Don't we all remember the time when we were excited about sending our kids to Kindergarten? All the preparation, the emotion, expectations, and tears that makes it such a memorable day? We get excited about everything that the child does, we monitor every step of their initial learning and as soon as they are in year 5 or 6, our enthusiasm dampens. It becomes harder and harder to help them with their homework, as the teaching methodologies have fundamentally changed to the extent that trying to help them with what we know would confuse them even further.
It is a known fact that by the time a kid turns 8 he would have learnt 80% of what he needs to know about life. Logically, this means that for the next 72 years he would gradually be learning the remaining 20%, (sic).
Does it not make sense, in that case, to teach the child as much as possible within the first 8 years, especially math and language skills? It is a proven fact that a child can learn and understand multiple languages if exposed to each for at least 3 months at a time.
A friend of mine came from Israel, married to an Irish guy. They spoke English at home as the husband couldn't speak Hebrew. Their 4 year old child, therefore, grew up without a word of Hebrew-except for the occasional ones from the mother--. They went on holidays to Israel for three months; on their return the kid was speaking fluent Hebrew!
Why then, you might ask, do kids not grasp what is being taught at school and need the extra help with homework? There are many reasons; the most logical ones that come to my mind would be distractions and peer pressure. Kids get easily distracted in class and miss important parts of lessons. They are too embarrassed to ask questions or don't want to be called a nerd if they did.
The speed at which children learn is astounding! With all the resources available today, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. The internet has scores of educational companies that have spent millions in putting together educational sites that are helping countless number of schools and educational institutions round the globe to better the quality of teaching numeracy and literacy. Both teachers and parents are able to have access to fresh and long proven methods of teaching. These teaching aids are the same as are being used by expensive educational institutions. Many of those sites are readily available for free or for a monthly subscription.
So finding help online is not hard. Parents can easily learn concepts and help their children understand math from an early age. Most of the work needs to be done at home, no matter how little time is spent with a child. Everything that is taught on line (not all the sites, unfortunately) are the exact methodologies used today and would teach the child exactly what is being taught at school. Helping a child 15 minutes every other day can be life changing. Firstly, it would help discipline the child into a routine from an earlier age and secondly, reinforce what he learns at school. This practice is bound to pay off in the long run, without any doubt.
More and more schools are using online resources to teach and help students reinforce lessons taught in the classroom. It's not always that a teacher can provide one on one attention; and it's crucial that the opportunity is given to those students in need to get the help on the spot, and what better medium than the internet? Teachers will be monitoring individual progress from time to time, thus using their time more efficiently. There are countless numbers of teachers out there who really see the benefit of online teaching. Many of them are spending extra hours looking for sites that might fit their students' needs, which could help facilitate them in their teaching endeavors, but who, somehow, couldn't find the ideal solution in their quest. The time has come to change the face of learning and give the opportunity to our kids to access a world of knowledge that is out there, and which has been left untapped for far too long! by Richard Pidial
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Character Education Teaching Kids to be Moral and Ethical
Infusing Character education A very effective way of delivering moral and ethical values is through infusing character education messages. Teachers should read stories about people of strong character to students. They should also ask them to write response journals or debate the sides of a controversial science issue, using the virtues to guide their arguments.
Character education programs in schools Programs and observances around one virtue or theme is a great way to reach and unite entire students in an entire building. Teachers should focus on one idea each month. School Leaders and teachers should equally be responsible to highlight this virtue. While teachers make it a point to address the values, leaders can plan for a variety of activities that spans across the school. And that has proved to work in a perfect way for students to get involved, too. Students can visit classrooms of younger children, write essays or create posters to share what they have learned through these activities or programs. Creating teachable moments Conduct class meetings. That has been always counted as one of the powerful ways to address virtues among students in a single classroom. These meetings should be specifically designed to address and discuss rules and regulations, feelings and perspective of others and the problems that occur, using Character education activities and programs as a guide.
Optimistic Interaction between teachers and students should be with respect, dignity and fairness. It is absolutely imperative that relationship between a student and a teacher should be transparent and good.
Ethical Rules and Regulations The rules, regulations, policies, privileges and consequences, should be consistent with the character education curriculum. Teachers should always check to see that the discipline code honors the same ethics and virtues that are being taught to their students. If it is not, some effort is necessary to bring the two in line with each other.
Show Respect The school administration should take care of their staff's well being. They should make sure that all staff members are treated respectfully and fairly. If teachers or other staff in a school feel frustrated and unappreciated, these feelings are likely to drip and trickle down to the students, even if they are intended to or not.
Therefore, if we are going to implement the above mentioned points, Character education programs can be a really powerful way to enhance a student's ethical and moral values.
Academic instruction isn't the only responsibility teachers have in today's classrooms. More and more, teachers are being called on to teach students about values ... things like making good decisions, the showing of respect, taking responsibility, choosing friends, and having a positive attitude. It's a responsibility that could be overwhelming, considering the limited hours available in a school day, the number of kids in the classroom, and the diversity of backgrounds and personalities each child represents.
Character Education by Just Do The Right Thing" is a practical and powerful tool that equips educators to tackle values training with confidence.
By: Francis David
Alternative Systems Of Education
"While Montessori education could open up creative channels in my daughter, it will not prepare her for the stress and competitions in the corporate world" ~ Hemalatha Iyer
Hemalatha, a member of our New Constructs community, posted her honest assessment of the Montessori method and why she would not chose it for her daughter. While her own mother-in-law was a Montessori teacher and completely convinced about the merits of the system, Hema's concerns are threefold:
1) The Montessori Method is by and large available only till Grade 5. The transition after that to a regular system could be quite difficult.
2) As a middle-class parent, one of the most important things she can offer her child is a good education. The Montessori system is unproven and too much of a gamble.
3) While she would like her daughter to avoid the stress she went through in her own education, the corporate world still values only degrees and grades. To have a bright future, her daughter needs to graduate from the best colleges with good grades.
Many of you have posted feedback to my posts on education. This is clearly an area of interest to all of us as parents or future parents. All of you agree that the current system of education is broken. The alternative methods are still in an experimental stage and have not yet become main stream. The question, then, is what should we as parents do? Commit ourselves - and our children - to admirable but unproven alternatives? Or commit ourselves - and our children - to the traditional but flawed education system?
My wife Girija, far more of a pragmatist than I am, shares Hema's perspectives. As a technology person, I can see Geoffrey Moore's Technology Adoption Cycle as a possible paradigm.
In his book 'Crossing the Chasm', Moore noted that any new technology is first adopted by a handful of Innovators who are eager and willing to try new approaches. Once the technology is relatively proven, the Early Adopters, who are visionaries, get on to the bandwagon. Most new technologies move to this stage relatively easily. However, there lies a big chasm between the Early Adopters and the next big group - the Early Majority, a.k.a. Pragmatists. Most technologies don't make it across this chasm and go down the ditch.
The Montessori system and other alternate systems like the J K Foundation and the Aurobindo system are still on this side of the chasm with the Innovators and Early Adopters. Nowhere in the world has any form of innovative alternative education breached the chasm to become embraced by the Early Majority or Pragmatists who could make it mainstream. The push to get it across the chasm must come from a combination of three forces - employers, parents and policymakers.
As a business leader, I hear enough laments about the quality of people entering the workforce today - their inability to communicate, take initiative or innovate, and the low percentage of graduates who are actually employable.
Among policy makers, education is a high priority, with enormous budgets on programs like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. However, most of the money is going towards hardware - the infrastructure - rather than teaching methods and training. A few states have introduced the Activity Based Learning system, but implementation has been inconsistent because of inadequate training.
Among parents, more and more of us are recognizing the undue pressure on our kids. Look at the increasing rate of student suicides. We all have an uneasy feeling that traditional education is harmful to our kids, and we wish there was a good alternative. These are all indications of a target group that is ripe for transformation.
The idea behind New Constructs is to mobilize an engaged community that can dialog on causes like education. We need to know how to equip our children to pursue their true calling in the Connected Age. Do come forward and share your thoughts on how we can create a groundswell of support for alternative methods of education. by Sudhakar Ram
How to Use Technology to Increase Student Participation ?
One of the biggest challenges for schoolteachers is getting their students to participate in class. Whether it's due to shyness, a disinterest in the topic being discussed, or simply an inability to grasp the material, a lack of participation in class ultimately affects how a student performs on essays, exams, and the class as a whole. However, there are a number of innovative tools teachers can use to encourage more classroom participation.
Technology, in particular, has played a prominent role in classroom teaching over recent years, with teachers utilising all sorts of technological resources for lessons, exam revision, and more. However, technology has also impacted student participation significantly, encouraging students not only to speak up in class, but also to take a greater interest in the material being presented to them. So it's no wonder an increasing number of teachers are relying on technology-based tools to help their students engage in classroom lessons.
One of the most common types of resources includes computer or technology-based games. Technology and computer games are already a big part of youngsters' lives today; so utilising such games in the classroom is a way of applying an already-established student interest to a given lesson. Because students can often relate to such games, it's a great tool for grabbing their attention and encouraging participation.
Another popular resource that teachers have been using to encourage participation is the interactive whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards engage students - often with multimedia features - making lessons more fun and interesting for them. Studies have even shown that classrooms fitted with interactive whiteboards show more student participation than classrooms that aren't - meaning the interactive whiteboard is a proven valuable tool in today's educational world.
Finally, countless teachers have been relying on student response systems to aid class participation. Such systems - often resembling a remote control - allow students to respond to a teacher's question with a click of a button. The information is then transferred to the teacher's computer, which can be projected onto a screen in the form of bar graphs or pie charts, or simply kept by the teacher for assessment purposes.
The idea behind student response systems is that they encourage all students to participate in class - even if there are varying levels of class motivation or lesson comprehension. It's also a great tool for helping shy students participate, as they can contribute without having to speak up or feel uncomfortable in class. Student response systems enable students to answer questions in a game-like format, making participation more intriguing and fun.
With a number of technology-based tools and resources available to schools and teachers, it's now easier than ever to encourage students to participate and ultimately help them get more out of classroom lessons.
by Adam Singleton
What does Imagination have to do with Education?
"Imagination should be utilized in such a way as to bring it under the control, direction and self-discipline of the child.
"In mathematics, even in that pallid thing called arithmetic, it is necessary to observe and realize the existence of a problem, the factors of a problem and to combine these to predict an answer. In the entire field of life, it is imagination which delivers answers.
"If one cannot imagine, he cannot predict. The factors of life are more complex than the factors of arithmetic, but they do not differ so far as mental functioning is concerned; there are simply many more of them. One can teach a child by rote that two plus two equals four, but many an instructor and many a parent with the fondest hopes for the future of a child has, after the education was complete, discovered that the child either cannot or will not utilize the data to resolve problems of his own existence. In such a child the ability to imagine the answer by recombining existing factors has not been developed nor disciplined.
"...As apparently as precise a thing as mathematics yet requires in the good mathematician an enormous amount of imagination.
"...Thus when we are trying to teach a child, whether to be proficient in geometry or in handling his body, we must teach him as well to predict a future state of beingness1; if he cannot predict a future state of beingness, he cannot resolve problems. The prediction of a future state of beingness as a statement almost encompasses the function of the human mind. Prediction of beingness is somewhat different from simple prediction. It is necessary to have the potentiality of imagining what is going to happen to accurately assess a situation.
"Thus it may be seen that the inhibition to the imagination of a child directly results in the inhibition of the child's ability to resolve problems relating to his own environment and his own life." -L. Ron Hubbard excerpted from The Educators Course, pg 127
1 Beingness: Condition or state of being; existence.
Ensure that your child's educational program is designed to develop a healthy imagination, as LRH mentions above that this is the key to a successful future for your child.
If you do not have control over your child's educational program, one thing you can do is play games with your child that have him imagine different things. You can start really young.
I do want to note here that if you don't have any control over your child's educational program; you may want to look into changing things so that you do. As their parent, you are, ultimately, responsible for their education.
Yours for a better future,. by Cheri Hall
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