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  • How do we take Advantage of Technology in Education?

    Technology has the ability to improve most aspects of our way of life, from the ability to express ourselves and communicate with others, to entertaining ourselves in our free time, and education is not immune to the benefits of over improving technological capabilities.

    Incorporating technology into our lesson plans is necessary because it plays such an important role in our lives now. Students need to be repeatedly and regularly exposed to the technology of today in order to be able to fit into the society of today.

    There are two methods for doing this; we can begin teaching technology classes to students in the same way that we teach computers, or every teacher in every classroom can attempt to become more capable with tech and then incorporate their use in the lesson.

    There are a lot of great ways to teach students about the full capabilities of their technology, and it is important that schools seek to teach them about this. Employing online sources of information for educational requirements; teaching students about how they can this and generally take control of their digitised lives; all of these issues are becoming very important things that the education authorities need to address.

  • Coding is Becoming a Big Part of Early Stage Education

    The economy has made massive shifts since 50 years ago. in 2016, the global economy depends more upon computers and related industries than at any previous point, and therefore you can quite easily say that the amount of opportunities available in the industry has increased in line with that change as well. In fact, this increasing dependence and shift towards working on the internet, in the games industry, or in computers, means that the opportunities are likely to only increase in these areas, and the education apparatus needs to be set to respond.

    The education systems around the world have been accused of being slow to react to the changes in the economic environment, and not adequately preparing their students. In no area is this more true than with education about computers, but this is set to change. Around the world we are seeing more and more schemes coming to fore that promise to start teaching their students, as young as possible, in the world of coding.

    A lot of parents are quite worried about when and where their children are first exposed to coding, as they feel it might be too abstract. This is why teachers everywhere need to ensure that they come up with lesson plans that make coding a very relatable subject, so that the shift from normal lessons to this isn’t too big.

    A big part of teaching young children about computers and coding is training their minds to think in a different way. Part of this can be accomplished by using slimmed down versions of computer code, and then coming up with fun and inventive ways for them to implement their code to achieve something for themselves.

  • The Importance of Student Satisfaction

    Student satisfaction is one of the main markers for judging the quality of education provided by higher education institutions, but generally speaking it isn’t used by parents or school boards as a method to judge the effectiveness of education at lower levels. This seems to go against what a lot of research shows, which is that happiness; satisfaction, has a massive impact on children’s attitude and approach towards education in general.

    Student satisfaction can be an important measurement tool for a variety of environmental factors. It can be used to gauge the opinions of students regarding school resources, teacher effectiveness and the learning environment. It can then be used to check the progress institutions have made in their attempts to combat issues like bullying and the lack of inclusion some students feel.

    To a degree, the lack of use of this important measurement is thanks to how we patronise students. We value their results way above their opinion about the education they receive, particularly in younger age groups. To an extent this is reasonable, but school boards could do well by looking into how they can include the opinions of the student body in their decision making.

  • How to Account for Learning Difficulties in the Classroom

    Taking account of Learning difficulties has been a very much neglected part of the government run education sector since its initiation, but recently, with the massive increase in people with the label, the need and desire to address these and related issues have become apparent.

    As this desire/need to address learning difficulties in the classroom is a relatively recent phenomena, it is understandable why we seem woefully unable to provide these individuals with a quality education without excluding them from general education (through sending them to special needs schools) while at the same time causing as little disruption to other student’s education as possible, which should be everyone’s goal.

    Why is it important that student’s with learning difficulties are taught within the general population? Segmenting the population more than it needs to be will, inevitably, result in individuals being less prepared for work in general population.

    So how do we deal with and adapt to this new and growing need of the education system? Luckily, we’re already doing the solution, which is to experiment with new ideas. Currently, there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of different strategies being employed around the world to provide education in a more inclusive and adaptable way, so that student’s and their individual skills and requirements are appropriately satisfied wherever possible. At some point or another, one strategy will prove to be effective (hopefully cost effective too), and that strategy will be adopted by a wider group, who will then improve it even further, until we’ve got something which can be deployed globally to help people reach their full potential.

  • Frustrations with the Website

    We had an issue with the website over the last couple of days, and lost all of our articles. We’ve managed to get about half of them back by getting them from google’s cache, but the other half is gone for good, unfortunately.

  • The Stresses involved in Applying for a PhD Programme

    A PhD programme, generally considered to be the height of academic success, can involve a lot of stress, particularly when being applied for. This is something which everybody should be made aware of when they first start to consider taking their education that far, as the difficulties involved include a number of things they might not expect.

    One of the least expected things involved with applying for a PhD course is how easily your options can quickly fall through. Applying isn’t simply like getting a job, or applying for a university placement, as often you’ll end up applying to a research position, only to find out that the money funding that research programme has fell through, and that opportunity is no longer available. In most subjects this happens to an extent, but it is particularly prevalent within the social and hard sciences.

    Besides the potential for the funding falling through, applying for a PhD programme can be quite similar to applying for a job; you have an interview, and a CV, and then the one in charge judges how useful you would be to the programme. This in itself can also be quite stressful.

  • The Accomplishments of Religious Schools

    Religious schools are a pretty controversial subject, with fears surrounding most of them that they are forcing their own religious dogma on their students. In some cases this has been shown to be the case, like with Islamic schools in the UK most recently, and in the past a lot of Catholic schools were also very religious. Even though this is the case, the successes of religious schools are without doubt.

    Catholic schools are some of the most successful schools in the USA, outperforming the majority of public schools and a fair number of private ones too. This goes a long way to show how religious schools can be successful.

    So how have they accomplished this? Well some argue that it is because of the high level of structure and discipline that you find in religious schools. You find that the level of discipline in these schools tend to be higher than others. Others suggest that the reason behind their success is because of how motivated they are to succeed, as a religious school doubles as an opportunity for them to get more devotees.

  • Dealing With Stress as a Teacher

    When working as a teacher, it is very important that you find a positive outlet and way of dealing with stress. Any teacher which fails in this area will end up seeing the stress they’re holding onto affecting the students in their classroom, which can definitely be looked at as a negative.

    To deal with stress, we have various stress management strategies which can help you on a day to day, situation to situation basis. For instance, you can use your mind to reframe problems, or shift your perspective to turn a negative into a positive. Focussing on the positive, or lowering the standards you expect from others can all be seen as part of the same strategy.

    Another important thing for teachers to do is to place clear limits on what behaviours you are prepared to accept from students in your classroom. This means that you will have a clear understanding of when exactly you need to say no, so that you hopefully won’t just bottle up all of your stress until you explode.

  • Now Eton is Providing Online Tuition

    Eton, the famous independent boarding school for boys in Berkshire, England, has just recently announced that they will begin to provide online tuition to students from China. This will be done through a partnership with a number of schools in China, with the aim being to teach them a “modern leadership programme”, which will teach the students a number of skills they won’t get through the standard Chinese education programme.

    They have said that the cost will be £700, and the programme will be supplementing their existing education, like after school tutoring – but online and with some of the best educators in the world. The funds raised from this will in turn be used to pay for bursaries for student’s education.

    One of the reasons why Eton has decided to do this was apparently to avoid needing to set up an overseas franchise, which in the view of a director at Eton could end up damaging their brand (and cost a lot of money).

    Their choice to do this is on the back of a number of universities and colleges, some of the best in the world, announcing that they would also be setting up franchises and/or online courses so that people from around the world could benefit. While many other educational institutes have announced similar schemes as Eton, they are the first well-known school to do so, i.e not a university of college.

  • Is Redirecting Focus Towards STEM Subjects a Good Thing?

    As part of an austerity platform which has generally meant shrinking budgets committed for education in many countries, many education systems have had to redirect and re-prioritise their budgets away from arts and other courses which have no clear economic requirement and towards STEM subjects; Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

    If you take the UK as an example, a lot of money and investment has been refocussed upon improving STEM subjects, but as a consequence other subjects such as humanities and arts have lost some of their investment.

    While focussing on STEM subjects is likely to mean that the country will be able to satisfy demand for highly skilled workers, there are potentially negative consequences regarding failure in providing a well rounded education. A well rounded education is often a result of offering a liberal education, and when you compare a liberal education (for instance like what is offered in the USA’s education system) and non-liberal education (like the UK), we see that many students feel greater levels of satisfaction with liberal educations, although they do have to pay more for them.

    It can also be said that it is a good thing for everybody to have a basic understanding of issues and some degree of mastery of a wider range of skills and subjects rather than a high level ability in a singular skill.