Since we have developed an Internet-based OPEN EDUCATION for our newest homeschooler, we have altered the way in which we document our grading system. How did you do that?
I am so glad that you asked! I have an idea that I believe you will be very happy to learn about. My niece is being home schooled right now and we are creating a Website Transcript. It is devoted to 1) Showcasing her projects completed and ready to publicly share such as papers, slideshows, art, and other as-yet-undiscovered creative forms of expression. 2) Pre-Post test scores showing PASS/FAIL to demonstrate mastery of the course criteria. 3) Links to connect with ongoing research in the content area. 4) A blog site discussing any topic under study, with sign off approval by teacher (linking school-related blogs to the transcript website). 5) Curriculum planner biography; facilitating instructor biography; experts/consultants who contributed ideas biography; theme of OPEN EDUCATION explained with links to further study.
WE DETERMINE assignment completion and sign-off. Our grade system is not A-B-C-D-E-F system. It is pass or not done yet! The criteria for each assignment is met before moving on. We consider all learning cumulative and misinformation will NOT be carried forward. Homeschooling academic platform sharing is so easily done now online. We have an email communication system, where assignment directions, test scores, and links to blogs and website are all filed.
Create your documentation to suite what you are doing and NOT change what you are doing to match someone else's documentation.
Create your own documents of assessment and put them together in a way that people will look at them and KNOW your students can demonstrate their mastery in many ways, not just filling out a ditto sheet. If you have any questions, feel free to check out our blog, The Family, where we talk about our homeschool in several blogs. By the middle of the summer, her Website Transcript will be available for educational purposes to show others how we are developing it throughout the term. Very exciting possibilities for home schooling as OPEN EDUCATION!
Below is the first blog that our homeschooler wrote. It is Arin's first family narrative about cooking, with our Sabatini Italian sauce recipe attached. It will be in this site that her eventual academic website will be shared with others, as we teach others how we teach. At 13 years old, with her first blog, she has already been viewed over 200 times, and this includes views from overseas, and that is in a week. As an aspiring author, we don't limit her progress to meeting our assignments alone, we also allow her to develop ideas for her own independent writing ideas (with approval and coaching). SHE has to define what she is learning (Questions, hypothesis of what she will find, research, review and consider findings, conclude and justify conclusion with evidence/data, observation, and critical thinking) and ALWAYS producing a presentation of her subject using any number of online tools to do so. She has a wonderful powerpoint presentation about Astronomy that will also be added to her personal homeschool blog and our Family blog. Her homeschooling blog is monitored by the adults, but she is encouraged to share her homeschool experiences with her former classmates who wonder what she is doing now. That's for them, not for us!
http://sabatinifamilystories.blogspot.com/2013/03/family-cooking.html
WE DETERMINE assignment completion and sign-off. Our grade system is not A-B-C-D-E-F system. It is pass or not done yet! The criteria for each assignment is met before moving on. We consider all learning cumulative and misinformation will NOT be carried forward. Homeschooling academic platform sharing is so easily done now online. We have an email communication system, where assignment directions, test scores, and links to blogs and website are all filed.
Create your documentation to suite what you are doing and NOT change what you are doing to match someone else's documentation.
Create your own documents of assessment and put them together in a way that people will look at them and KNOW your students can demonstrate their mastery in many ways, not just filling out a ditto sheet. If you have any questions, feel free to check out our blog, The Family, where we talk about our homeschool in several blogs. By the middle of the summer, her Website Transcript will be available for educational purposes to show others how we are developing it throughout the term. Very exciting possibilities for home schooling as OPEN EDUCATION!
Below is the first blog that our homeschooler wrote. It is Arin's first family narrative about cooking, with our Sabatini Italian sauce recipe attached. It will be in this site that her eventual academic website will be shared with others, as we teach others how we teach. At 13 years old, with her first blog, she has already been viewed over 200 times, and this includes views from overseas, and that is in a week. As an aspiring author, we don't limit her progress to meeting our assignments alone, we also allow her to develop ideas for her own independent writing ideas (with approval and coaching). SHE has to define what she is learning (Questions, hypothesis of what she will find, research, review and consider findings, conclude and justify conclusion with evidence/data, observation, and critical thinking) and ALWAYS producing a presentation of her subject using any number of online tools to do so. She has a wonderful powerpoint presentation about Astronomy that will also be added to her personal homeschool blog and our Family blog. Her homeschooling blog is monitored by the adults, but she is encouraged to share her homeschool experiences with her former classmates who wonder what she is doing now. That's for them, not for us!
http://sabatinifamilystories.blogspot.com/2013/03/family-cooking.html
BTW: With the first round of children that were homeschooled, we made books, graphs, charts, art, gardens, animal habitats and many forms of writing. I have crates of the stuff and they are precious to me. However, the Internet DOES provide a wonderful way to store, review and share lessons learned much better. My children started high school in freshman (son) and senior (daughter) year. Although she ultimately graduated with a 4.0 GPA and PERFECT ATTENDANCE at her school, she was denied the right to be valedictorian at her school because of her association with home schooling. She was given, instead, a decoration of honor. However, they did not accept my written transcript of her previous work, classifiying her as a freshmen from the start of the school year until February, when her teachers indicated that she exceeded classroom curriculum requirements. After Valentine's day she was allowed to jump from freshman to honors senior over night. The website transcript will be superior to a typical transcript because the work is demonstrated and can be viewed without extraneous effort. We live, we learn, we teach, we share.
Nancy, I really like the approach you are taking. Reminds me a but of this approach for an unschool.
EXCHANGE BETWEEN Nancy, SITE
AUTHOR AND M.I.T. Learn Creative Learning Lab
RE: the above school
assignment on using Narratives and Story-telling in Open Education for Home Schooling.
Fred BartelsNancy, I really like the approach you are taking. Reminds me a but of this approach for an unschool.
http://prezi.com/7mcx3dha-ef0/brainstorming-plans-for-the-online-progressive-unschool-opus/
Fred Bartels
Nancy, Just to be clear, the OPuS Prezi is a proposal for an unschool, not a living entity.
My Response
Duly noted. Thank you.
About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855
My Response: WOW! I never even heard of them. I
started checking it out and the structure is quite similar except that our
workspace is Google+ using Gmail, Blogger, and soon to add Webite. Like a
manufacturing line, good ideas start with our email structure of class folders.
Then we present when an assignment is completed and presentation is a step 2 to
get credit for it as a showcase piece. Then, it goes to the media sites to
spread our teachings. We currently use Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and
Yahoo mail, as we determine the interested audiences. We plan to promote this
as an alternative to something maybe less. We have to share our accomplishments
and work with them. We take suggestions from free educational thinkers happily.
Thank you! No surprises for you, I am adding these comments to the blog above
because your contributions are awesome and should be shared.
Fred Bartels
Nancy, Just to be clear, the OPuS Prezi is a proposal for an unschool, not a living entity.
My Response
Duly noted. Thank you.
About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855
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