Info Education - The Seed of Truth

Education - The Seed of Truth

Everyone, no matter their lot in life, will act a part in the play called life. when viewed against the vastness of space and time, our lives are but grains of sand on an infinite stage. some lives in this performance are seemingly insignificant while others seem to play leading roles. the factors that determine our lot in life are guided by our views of truth and dictated by our larger view of the production for which we are cast.

Contained within every soul and locked within every human experience, truth abounds yet hides itself, patiently waiting to be found in its correct form and on its own terms. truth, after all, is the ultimate end pursuit of all conscious efforts and the motivation for our movement forward in time. housed in this tiny piece of real estate, we search, eking out our existence, patiently waiting for tiny moments of discovery that can fill our void and expand our view of the universe.

The unsatisfied thirst to understand and know truth is what plagues our existence. yet, our finite existence contains potential for an infinitely marvelous array of possibilities when shadows of truth are humbly understood and applied to our efforts and struggles. sadly, our truths are but the mere edges of ultimate universal truths that are waiting to be discovered.

Found within our souls and within our intellect, we hold the capacity to know and understand. we lack only the proper insights and connections for truth to be realized fully in our lives. as we seek to discover new understanding, truth observes our progress and waits. eons of time have passed since truth began its work, anticipating moments in time to reveal its purpose and expand our dimly lit view.
 

Nations struggle and wars rage, all in the name of truth. contradictions to truth abound, yet truth remains constant, shining amid our turmoil and strife. we rage and fight to proclaim our knowledge of truth, yet truth patiently waits to reveal its purpose. we arrogantly boast that we possess truth, yet truth patiently waits for us to humble our souls.

Truth cannot be contained by a mere fleshly vessel. knowing this is our first step to know more of what the immutable laws of truth offer. truth cannot allow itself to be used for false purposes. knowing this is our second step to understanding our reality and allowing truth to fill our need. truth will not be used to manipulate or alter what is true. knowing this allows us to humbly accept what truth sets out to accomplish. truth patiently waits.

Our ways are not yet the ways of truth. our thoughts are not yet the thoughts of truth. our sense of justice is but a glimpse of what truth demands. the edges of truth are barely visible when seen through our dimly lit reality. we can be assured in our pursuit of truth if we will only humble our thoughts and patiently seek the glories of what truth will bring to our souls.

Truth moves about, quietly whispering in the ears of those who will listen. it speaks throughout the ages of what is right and good and pure. it gives a voice to the humble philosopher and shines a light for the seekers of knowledge. passed along from generation to generation, its illuminations multiply. called by many names, it quietly proclaims its wisdom, allowing us to grow in our understanding and control.

Truth asks only one thing of us : to humbly set our minds in the midst of knowledge and toward the pursuit of bettering others and ourselves. truth patiently waits for us to seek and discover the rewards it has waiting for a generation that will plum the depths of its boundless and abundant seeds of potential.

 

Rethinking Financial Aid's Role in Student Retention

The administration of federal student aid is a highly complex and bureaucratic job thanks to a great deal of program complexity and regulation. Financial aid offices are often overwhelmed with the tasks involved in that administrative process, with staff finding that little time for anything else remains at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, simply following the rules and norms associated with financial aid administration is demonstrably insufficient when it comes to meeting the needs of today's students.  With a far greater number of students entering higher education without the support of college-educated parents, and facing more significant financial constraints (and higher college costs), an effective financial aid office must do more than distribute financial aid and apply rules and regulations.  To ensure that the aid dollars are spent in a cost-effective manner, aid offices must also be part of a cross-campus effort focused on student retention.

Everyone who works on the campuses of colleges and universities today has a shared responsibility for supporting undergraduate retention. This responsibility is essential if they want to help higher education become an engine of equality and social mobility, rather than the engine of inequality that it currently is.  Many of the nation's financial aid officers are committed to this goal and eager to achieve it. 

In today's context, a traditional aid office focused on regulation and personal responsibility is contributing to a crisis.  Across the country, students who have overcome enormous challenges to college access find their way onto campus but struggle to retain their financial aid due to rules surrounding the 'satisfactory academic progress' (SAP) standards.   SAP usually means that students must maintain a C average or risk losing their aid. When students fail to do this, there are significant institutional consequences (a loss of Pell dollars, lower graduation rates) and thus the school has failed as well.

Given the stakes, it is reasonable to ask: what role should financial aid offices play in ensuring students make SAP and keep their aid so that they have the financial support necessary to stay in school and reach graduation?

Recent conversations with aid officers suggest that the typical answer goes something like this:
"We want all students to succeed. We tell them that they must make SAP and what will happen if they don't. When they get in trouble, we let them know, and tell them to get help.  We have lots of students to support, and some do their job, and others don't."

I'm sympathetic to that answer, but research suggests it is woefully inadequate.  Here are three critical facts about first-generation college students to illustrate the problem:

1.  They do not know what actions to take to increase their grades.   Research across the educational spectrum shows that holding students responsible for outcomes they do not know how to achieve is ineffective and counterproductive.  Example #1: a student tries to improve her GPA decides to take fewer classes, which results in her becoming part-time, and losing her grants that require full-time enrollment.  Example #2: a student tries to improve her GPA by taking more courses, because she does not know how GPA is computed and she thinks more is better.

2. They are ill-equipped to sort out good advice from bad advice.   When they follow instructions and go seek advice from advisers, they do not know how to handle conflicting advice or determine when that advice is under-informed.  I have encountered academic advisers who do not know that student #1 above will lose some financial aid, or do not tell student #2 that taking more classes could put her at risk.

3. They have little external support, experience more family crises, work longer hours, and are often more averse to taking on loans.  While they might want to seek out help from others, that help is often offered only during daytime hours when their schedules are packed.  In addition, when told they they should take on loans, they feel alienated and misunderstood. 

The growing presence of such students in higher education and the consequences of failing to support them to make SAP as they work their way through college requires financial aid offices to rethink their role in student retention. The financial aid officer is often the first to know the student is in trouble.  This should trigger an early warning system.  In 2013, the implementation of an early warning system ought to be required at every Title IV institution.  The result of an early warning trigger should be proactive efforts (coordinated by multiple offices as needed) to reach the student for comprehensive advising that integrates academic, financial, and family support.  Proactive efforts must reach the student where they are-- email is notoriously ineffective for this purpose. Until the office is connected to the student and progress is occurring, contact should be by phone or in person.

Effective advising is be supportive, non-judgmental, and aligned with the realities of students' lives.  First generation students are more than willing to take responsibility for their academic performance and they are, at the same time, right to expect their colleges and universities to be responsible in return for serving them.    In this day and age, responsibility in financial aid office goes beyond using the same old practices for every student, irrespective of need. We will never increase equity in graduation rates or do our jobs in a cost-effective manner without this fundamental transformation.

The nation's colleges and universities are littered with dropouts who began college with support from financial aid, only to lose it because of an insufficiently supportive environment.  That is a tragedy we cannot afford.   It's time to act.

Real-World Learning

I just read this article in Forbes by Emily Canal entitled "Zombies Infiltrate Classrooms to Bring STEM Back to Life" about how The National Academy of Science and Texas Instruments  have created a new program that provides STEM lessons through the lens of zombies, superheroes, space and forensics called STEM Behind Hollywood. Wow - I wish I were back in the classroom cause I would be all over this!  What a great way to get students really excited about learning. Kids are into movies, particularly with those focused on zombies, scifi and superheroes, and here's a way to connect that interest to learning about math, science and technology....win, win, win! 

Similar to my post last week about real-world curriculum and technology connections, the message here is real-world learning is important and needed in classrooms. It's not that hard to find amazing resources out there that help make learning topics such as math and science engaging, exciting, relevant and WAY better than a boring old worksheet. Obviously, math tech nerd that I am, I tend to focus on amazing real-world math resources such as Mathalicious and YummyMath, to name just a couple.  These sites provide content that is of interest to students because it involves the world around them and therefore the learning takes place in context, making it more memorable, relevant and motivating to learn.

My point - if we can learn the same concepts in a more engaging way that helps students remember it and, more importantly, WANT to learn it - i.e. REAL-WORLD connections, why are so many not doing so? If your excuse is it's too much work to find real-world connections - guess what - it's really NOT!  Look around - there is a plethora of real-world resources out there that can help you spark interest.  Maybe it's as close as the TV or the movies.

(Speaking of TV, for those math teachers out there, if you have not watched the series Numb3rs, that's a great resource. The series is over now, but you can watch the whole 8 seasons on Netflix.  I admit...I am addicted.  I am on Season 4 and still not tired of the math and science involved. And I have actually made a real-world connection of my own as a result of the math on the series.  Reading a research paper yesterday on online professional development, they talked about using social networking theory to analyze teachers online status, and I actually knew exactly what that was because of an episode from Numb3rs!  Hence my obsession lately with real-world learning. I just checked and the activities and math/science alignments are still available for this series for those of you interested - found this nice blog post from Tom DeRosa called "We STILL Use Math Everyday" that provides how to find the lessons and the alignment.)

When kid fail in school: understanding learned helplessness 2

Learned helpless students, perceive school failure as something that they will never overcome, and academic events, positive or negative, as something out of their control. This expectation of failure and perceived lack of control is central in the development of a learned helpless style. The way in which children perceive and interpret their experiences in the classroom helps us understand why some children develop an optimistic explanatory style, and believe that they are capable of achieving in school and others develop a pessimistic explanatory style, believing that they are not capable of succeeding in school (Seligman, Reivich, Jaycox, and Gilham, 1995).

Children with an optimistic explanatory style attribute school failure to momentary and specific circumstances; for example, “I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Children with a pessimistic explanatory style explain negative events as something stable (the cause of the negative event will always be present), global (the cause of the negative event affects all areas of their lives), and internal (they conclude that they are responsible for the outcome or consequence of the negative event). A typical pessimistic explanatory style is, “I always fail no matter what I do.” On the contrary, when the outcome of the event is positive, a pessimistic child attributes the outcome to unstable (the cause of the event is transitory), specific (the cause of the event is situation specific), and external (other people or circumstances are responsible for the outcome) causes.

Learned Helpless Students Need Learning Strategies

Due to this perceived lack of control of the negative event, a learned helpless child is reluctant to seek assistance or help when he is having difficulty performing an academic task. These children are ineffective in using learning strategies, and they do not know how to engage in strategic task behavior to solve academic problems. For example, learned helpless children are unaware that if they create a plan, use a checklist, and/or make drawings, it will be easier for them to solve a multistep math word problem. With learned helpless children, success alone (e.g. solving accurately the multistep problem), is not going to ease the helpless perception or boost their self-confidence; remember that these children attribute their specific successes to luck or chance. According to Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele (1998), trying to persuade a learned helpless child that she can succeed, and asking her just to try hard, will be ineffective if we do not teach the child specific learning and compensatory strategies that she can apply to improve her performance when facing a difficult task. The authors state that the key in helping a learned helpless child overcome this dysfunctional explanatory pattern is to provide strategy retraining (teaching her strategies to use, and teaching explicitly when she can use those strategies), so that we give the child specific ways to remedy achievement problems; coupled with attribution retraining, or creating and maintaining a success expectation. When we teach a learned helpless child to use learning strategies, we are giving her the tools she needs to develop and maintain the perception that she has the resources to reverse failure. Ames (1990) recommends that, in combination with the learning strategies, we help the learned helpless child develop individualized short-term goals, e.g., “I will make drawings to accurately solve a two-steps math word problem.” When the child knows and implements learning strategies, she will be able to experience progress toward her individualized goals.

Learned Helpless Students Need to Believe that Effort Increases Skills

To accomplish this, we need to help learned helpless children recognize and take credit for the skills and abilities that they already have. In addition, we need to develop in children the belief that ability is incremental, not fixed; that is, effort increases ability and skills. Tollefson (2000) recommends that we help children see success as improvement; that is, we are successful when we acquire or refine knowledge and skills we did not have before. We need to avoid communicating children that, to succeed in school, they need to perform at a particular level, or they need to perform at the same level than other students. When we help children see success as improvement, states Tollefson, we are encouraging them to expend effort to remediate their academic difficulties. In addition, we are training them to focus on strategies and the process of learning, rather than outcomes and achievement.

Concluding Comments

To minimize the negative impact of learned helplessness in children, we need to train them to focus on strategies and processes to reach their academic goals, reinforcing the belief that, through effort, they are in control of their own behavior, and that they are in charge of developing their own academic skills. For example, to help a child focus on the learning process, after failure, we can tell the child, “Maybe you can think of another way of doing this.” This way, our feedback stays focused on the child’s effort and the learning strategies he or she is using -within both the child’s control and modifiable. When children themselves learn to focus on effort and strategies, they can start feeling responsible for positive outcomes, and responsible for their own successes in school and in life.

How to Prevent Creaming in Higher Education Performance Regimes?

One of the most prominent concerns raised about President Obama's proposed performance-based funding plan for higher education is that it could reduce access by encouraging creaming.  In other words, what's to stop colleges and universities from simply raising the bars for entry, tightening their admissions policies, in order to improve graduation rates and lower default rates?

Good question.

I'd like to make a few points and then open this up for discussion.  It's one of the big areas that needs bright minds thinking hard in search of solutions, and I hope you'll jump in with good ideas.  We're going to have to look far and wide for solutions, as we can expect that folks in education probably don't have all the answers. 

1. The problem already exists.  The number of colleges raising their admissions requirements over time tells this story.  So let's not pretend like we're creating a new problem. The question is whether we're making it worse.

2. NCLB approached this challenge through the use of value-added modeling.  It didn't work there and it's probably not going to work here either, especially since it's hard to believe that we can possible account for all inputs that are external to college, in order to focus on gains made by the college itself.  Now, I know many people will disagree with me on this, including my former student Robert Kelchen, so be sure to read up on their work on the topic.

3. A weaker version of value-added modeling is risk-adjusted metrics, a regression based approach to accounting for intial student differences when looking at outcomes. I'm not sure this is going to fly either, and the Left doesn't like it since it seems to perpetuate the idea that we should "expect" students from disadvantaged families to do worse in college.  No one actually wants that, and so we try things NCLB-style,  demanding growth in graduation rates for subgroups of students. But that too doesn't prevent colleges from admitting fewer students from a given subgroup.

4. Prohibition of creaming via more metrics.  Let's say we stipulate terms regarding enrollment and admissions, in addition to outcomes.These may have to be differentiated according to college type.  For example, in order to receive Title IV aid, a college must :

·                     Enroll at least 100 students who are Pell-eligible (all colleges) and

·                     Maintain a % Pell that meets or exceeds the state average among high school graduates (all public colleges and universities) 

·                     Admit at least 50% of Pell applicants (all private colleges and universities)

·                     OR: Use a lottery process for admission into at least 50% of the entering class

Yes, this means that very small colleges would have to be very diverse in order to participate in Title IV. It also means that all colleges and universities may have to adjust their admissions standards somewhat and change their recruiting practices. Is that a bad thing?  If they don't like it, they simply need to prove their mettle by using a lottery for admission.  Then we can really get a handle on their value-added!

Let's talk this one through further.

5. Prohibition and regulation.  Schools could be selected for an audit based on troubling trends in their admissions data.  If they were found guilty of creaming, they could be put on probation and monitored for a period of time.  If they failed that, they'd be kicked out of Title IV.

We must also ask, how much creaming might be tolerable? If the use of performance standards forced more colleges to help low-income students graduate, while reducing access for some other students, at what point would this become intolerable? 

10 Things That Egest Kids Troubled Roughly School

We all expect that our children will be crazy and a young bit troubled nearly the archetypal day of cultivate. The primary tread to reassuring fears is identifying them. Here are ten things that sort kids troubled around civilise:

New situations

Whether your mortal is coat the rank day in a new rating or the original day in a new period, it's sane to sense unquiet in a new place. Sing about what the gear day of refine gift be equal. "When children cognise what to expect, they experience little anxiousness some a condition," explains Civilise Psychologist Erin L. Enyart, Ed. S.. Remind your shaver that everyone feels a less uneasy, and calculate example for him to adapt. Outlet out that pretty shortly, the bonk superfluous term with your progeny, especially right after civilise, for the original few life.

Nonstarter

Kids worry that their schoolwork instrument be too strong, they won't be healthy to donjon up, or they won't jazz the turn response when titled on in categorize. Remind your fry that everyone makes mistakes, then approval her superfine efforts.

Experiment anxiety

Many kids are afraid of testing situations. They trouble aweigh of dimension, and are unable to accomplish on the day of the run. One way to assist is to bid to helpfulness your tike mull so he feels wellspring preconditioned. Inform him that he knows the information, and that you are reassured he present do advantageously.

Interpersonal anxiousness

Kids perturb nearly furnishings in, making friends, what others cogitate of them, beingness teased, and beingness sect out. Encourage your mortal to approach, rather than refrain, ethnic situations, and expose around construction to egest friends. According to the Soul Connection of Train Psychologists (NASP), commandment children friendly skills, difficulty finding, and engagement closure supports advantageous psychic eudaemonia.

Grades

Some kids headache active whether or not they'll be healthy to garner all A's in math, work the virtue churn, or affirm a definite value measure come. Remind your nestling that you do not judge flawlessness.

Pronounce

Whatsoever kids metamorphose troubled or troubled out when they regain that their edifice environs is nonunion, or that room expectations are untenable. The NASP suggests that parents can help kids inform to dealing constructively with provocative situations by offering to work get up with a bleach unitedly when your issue tells you around a problem.

Making the squad

Whether your minor wants to egest the cheerleading squad, get a piece in the civilise spiel, or only not be the antepenultimate one picked for kickball at water, it is big to remind him that not everyone succeeds every second. There are e'er different opportunities to be interested or be a construct of a team. Grooming together: trifle the pompons, perform the lines, or roil the masque to supply your somebody fighter the skills of his quality. 

Somebody somaesthesia

Kids righteous necessary to fit in, and they may disquiet around what their classmates wait from them. Encourage your tiddler to tell near his concerns. Putting his fears into language may be utile. Listen, but in most situations, the NASP says, "elude the desire to switch in and fix a problem for your child-instead, judge it through and come up with practical solutions together. Problem-solve with kids, kinda than for them. By winning an alive enactment, kids take how to attach a job independently."

State cowed

Kids mind roughly others tormenting them in some way, and this can be extremely upsetting. Bear their vexation seriously. Explicate that bullies think puissant when they form other students, and blab around shipway to chill trailing without sharing the wheedle the reaction he wants. Person your issue effectuation ignoring ribbing remarks, close departed, and effort an human.

Habitation state

According to Kidshealth.org, sometimes the sanity a soul doesn't need to go to polish "actually has cipher to do with the building. They may touch they're needful at lodging because a parent is stressed or concave, or because of something else poignant the menage. If that's the mortal, the solvent involves addressing the phratry yield."

Enyart says if the fears run into the down period, inform your offspring's educator. At most schools, a direction advisor, mixer miss, or refine linguist are free to utter with children and supply them master these fears. There are also counseling groups led by these schoolhouse body members which destination children's needs.

Indonesian Education's History

History of education in Indonesia. In Indonesian society before entering the Hindu culture , education was given by the parents or parents - the parents of the local community regarding the moral and spiritual life means life to fulfill their economies . The entry and expansion of foreign cultures brought to Indonesia has been absorbed by the Indonesian people through community education . Institutions that have submitted a written culture and many other cultural elements .

History of education in Indonesia started in the days of the development of religion in Indonesia. Hindu kingdoms in Java , Bali and Sumatra, which began in the 4th century AD that's the first place that there is no education in these areas . It can be said , that the educational institutions engendered by religious institutions and the oldest subjects is the study of religion . The signs of the existence of the oldest Hindu culture and civilization discovered in the 5th century in the Kutai region ( Kalimantan ) . However, an overview of the education and science in Indonesia come from Chinese sources approximately a century later .

There are 2 kinds of educational system and the teaching of Islam in Indonesia :

Education in Breached

In every village on the island of Java, there are places of worship where Muslims can perform acts of worship according to the dictates of his religion. The place is managed by an officer called amyl , muezzin or Lebai ( in Sumatra ) . The officer doubles , while providing no prayer ceremony at a family or village , can also function as a religious teacher .

Education at Pesantren

Where the students are learning diasramakan called lodges are financed by the teacher or the joint cost of the followers of Islam . The students studying in separate booths but most of the time is used to exit the room either for cleaning and planting .

Education In Twentieth Century Age and Occupation Dutch East Indies Government . Among the Dutch arising streams to provide the original occupation of part of the profits of European ( Dutch ) for their control of Indonesia . This flow has the opinion that the people should be introduced Bumiputera western culture and knowledge that has made Holland great nation . Flow or understand this is known as the Ethical Policy ( Etische Politiek ) . The idea was originally conceived as if Van Deventer in 1899 with the motto " Debt of Honor " ( de Eereschuld ) . Ethical policy is geared to the interests of the Bumiputera population advancing the way the natives as soon as possible through education in the West .

In the two decades since the 1900 Dutch government established many Western-oriented schools . In contrast to Snouck that support the delivery of education to the aristocratic class of Bumiputera , the Van Deventer encourages the application of Western education to the lower classes . This figure does not expressly state that the people of a group of ordinary people who have to take precedence , but suggested that the common people are not neglected . Therefore established many village schools who speak the local language of instruction , in addition to schools and oriented introduction to speaking the Dutch language . Which became the foundation of the steps in education in the Dutch East Indies , the government bases its discretion on the main ideas as follows :

1. Western education and knowledge is applied as much as possible for Bumiputera population group for the Dutch language is expected to be the language of instruction in schools

2. Low educational provision for Bumiputera groups tailored to their needs

On that basis the patterns and systems of education and schooling in the Dutch East Indies in the 20th century can be reached via two routes. On the one hand through the first line is expected to unmet need for the elements of the upper layer and a high -quality student workers for industrial use and the economy and on the other unmet needs for medium and low educated .

The purpose of education during the colonial period is never explicitly stated . The purpose of education , among others, is to meet the labor needs for the interests of the Dutch capital . Thus local people are trained to be low-level workers ( unskilled laborers ) . There are also some who are trained and educated to become administrative personnel , technical personnel , agricultural workers and others who are appointed as class workers two or three . In brief, the purpose of education is to obtain the energy - cheap labor . A fact according to the Education Commission of the Dutch Indonesian which was formed in 1928 - 1929 showed that 2 % of the Indonesian people who received western education stand alone and more than 83 % to be paid and the remaining workers are unemployed . Among the 83 % that 45 % were civil servants . In general, salaries of civil servants and workers is much lower compared to Western salaries on the same job .