Invest In Online Education

Investing in online education is one of the wisest decisions that a non-graduate will ever make. It is also becoming popular for those who are currently working to earn a degree or another one on their own pace. There are many online programs and online schools on the internet that you can choose from. To help you better understand the greatness of online education, we will now look at its advantages. Here they are:

1. Ease of Access - with online education system, you are able to attend online classes from virtually anywhere as long as internet connectivity is available. This is great if your work requires you to constantly travel from one place to another.

2. Flexibility in Schedule - it is also great to study through online class because you can freely choose the schedule of classes that fits your busy schedule. You can study anytime you want, whether night, morning, or wee-hours but most of the time you are not tied to a class schedule.

3. Cost - online education is also more cost-efficient than studying in a real school. This is because you do not have to relocate to a new place to study, because you can just study right at the comfort of your home or wherever you might be. Also, online education also charge less than most traditional schools.

4. Pace of Learning - most of the online education programs allows a student to work or learn at his or her own pace.

5. No Sitting in Classroom - because this type of education is online, this only means that there is no need for you to sit and listen to lecture in a classroom setting. If you are a working person, then this will greatly save you time. Plus, it will also make your scheduling much easier. Students are also relieved of the burden of looking for a parking space, you do not have to leave work early so as not to miss school, or miss special family events.

6. Assignment Completion Flexibility - strict schedules do not also apply when taking up classes online. Students will have the ability to complete their assignments when they are ready, as long as they complete it before the end of semester. Exams are also announced ahead of time. Students still has the power to choose the schedule when they will take the exam.

7. Documentations - all documentations are available. All training materials and data information are available to be downloaded from the online school's website for future use. This means that you do not have to travel and get the documents yourself but simply download them online. This is also faster than having to look over a pile of documents.

Those are some of the advantages that online education will give its students. With online classes, you are able to learn while living your life in its normal pace. Online education is the best education system for working people, nursing mothers, and people who do not have the time to go to school.

Plans To Strengthen The Education System Worldwide

The country's future, a large part determined by its future adults, can be shaped by those who, with education degrees in hand, enter the field of teaching. Teachers help young children develop mentally and socially, instilling in them the skills that can help them to become capable adults. When education leaders from throughout the world gather in New York in March, they plan on trying to come up with ways to strengthen the profession of teaching.

Individuals who are born with a great talent for teaching might be among those who set out to obtain education degrees. But talent isn't everything, US Department of Education's Secretary suggested in a news release from the agency. She noted that the entire education system - from recruiting teachers to maintaining and supporting them during their careers - is important as far as establishing teachers who, collectively, have a positive effect on their students.

The training that students receive as part of education degree programs in the United States might depend largely upon the type of teacher they want to become. In the book, The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom, authors James W. Stigler and James Hiebert contend that the focus in improving education should be on teaching, rather than teachers, and establishing a system that is able to learn from its own experience. Continued learning for teachers, according to Stigler and Heibert, is also important in terms of teaching.

These authors look towards 8th grade math, and point to Japan when it comes to having the most skillful and purposeful teaching system - one where teachers, through past lessons, memorization and lectures help students build "scaffolds," or establish ways for resolving problems that can at times be challenging. Teachers in high achieving countries follow different methods of instruction, Stigler and Heibert found. Teaching at its Best author Linda Burzotta Nilson recommends in part that teachers understand their students and how they learn.

Nilson's book focuses on college and university instruction and also addresses the millennial generation and distance learning, or online courses and online degree programs. Education degree programs also are available online, and students who participate in these programs might, once they enter teaching careers, find themselves relying more frequently on technology. That's in part because distance education is becoming more prevalent at the K-12 levels as well.

Students in education degree programs might learn about the federal government's "Race to the Top" competition, whereby states can obtain grant money for education reform efforts. In Florida, which was selected as a winner, the State Board of Education and Florida Department of Education this year held a "What's Working in Effective Teaching and Leadership" series.

In one session, the Vice President of Policy for the New Teacher Project, spoke about teachers being the most powerful factor in the academic success or failure of their students. He spoke of the "widget" effect, where teachers are treated in evaluation systems in different states as if one was as good as the other. There are some teachers who push students forward and others who drag them backward, he noted. By the time students obtain education degrees and enter the field, they might be evaluated differently as well.

Could You Benefit From This Education System?

The Benefits of Other Education Systems

Is the North American system of education a world model? Can they possibly learn and borrow from other countries and cultures to further improve their way of doing things?

While doing some unrelated research this past week, I came across some very interesting information that piqued my interest in the current state of affairs in North American education. The author of the report, Bill Costello, is a US educational researcher who believes that cultures should borrow the best practices from each other. He wanted to find out if the Taiwanese education system uses practices from which schools in the US could benefit.

I would add here that US schools could easily be expanded to cover most schools in North America. Having gone through the US education system myself and seeing my step-daughters now in the Canadian education system, for the purpose of this article I've concluded that the US/Canadian methods are very closely related, if not entirely similar.

Mr. Costello notes that the Taiwanese education system produces students with some of the highest test scores in the world in science and math. He goes on to support his case by citing the various international assessments used to obtain performance rankings in different disciplines of study, such as math, science and reading. The actual assessment results show that the Taiwanese education system produces overall performances significantly higher than the international average.

A Few Simple Changes to Greatly Benefit Our Education System

The most interesting part of Mr. Costello's report is that he admits there are too many factors involved to correctly pinpoint the reason(s) why the Taiwanese appear to lead the world in educational performance. However, he did make these observations and wonders - as I now do, and hope you will too - if the following six excellent practices just might have something to do with their superior rankings among global education systems. Here is a brief summary of what Mr. Costello observed:

• Nutrition: The Taiwanese serve veggies, rice, soup and meat as opposed to the high fat and sugar content processed food of their North American counterparts. Studies prove that good nutrition improves scholastic achievement.
• Activity Levels Increased: The Taiwanese incorporate more weekly physical education and daily recesses than do North Americans. In fact, the growing trend in North America is to cut required physical activity out altogether, making it an elective. Once again, independent studies show that an increase in regular exercise improves school performance results.
• Uniforms: With peer pressure being a large cause of negative influence in school, uniforms are proven to lower incidents of violence and theft. Children who feel safe and relaxed do far better than those who are constantly stressed and fearful. Uniforms are the norm in Taiwan, while only 15% of North American schools require them.
• Utilization of a more hands-on approach: While the majority of North American schools tend to limit learning from books and other multi-media, the Taiwanese lean more towards hands-on learning, preferring to use compasses and rulers rather than computers and calculators as one example. Hands-on learning leads to more direct application of learned skills, making the lessons that much more real and valuable to students.
• Multi-task learning: The Taiwanese try to show how things are related by teaching two or three disciplines at a time. For example, art meets science as students draw or construct models based on what they learn. Again, this allows students additional ways to apply what they know across multiple disciplines, making each area that much stronger.
• Instill personal responsibility: Taiwanese school systems do not employ janitors. Rather, cleanup is part of the daily regimen taken up by all students where they are assigned to clean the building, take care of trash and keep the school grounds clean and tidy. Academic performance improves as students become more responsible.

Not Perfect, But a Better Education System

While the Taiwanese education system is excellent, it's not perfect. For example, critics say it favors rote memorization over critical and creative thought, puts too much pressure on students to pass entrance exams and relies too much on buxibans - or cram schools - for educating students.

Nonetheless, North American education systems could improve by adopting some of the excellent practices used in Taiwanese schools.

While I like all of the observations, I absolutely love #6 as I see personal responsibility sorely lacking in our youth today. In North America we strive so hard to 'give our kids the life we wish we had' when we were growing up, we literally rob them of opportunities to grow, especially in the area of personal responsibility.

In my own home, it seems to be a never-ending task for Maggie and I to make sure the girls pick up after themselves. I'm all for having the students pick up after themselves in school. I see only benefits coming from this practice.

In any case, it's an interesting debate - can simple changes like adopting the best practices of other cultures' education systems actually improve our own childrens' learning capacity?

The Education System in Australia

Australia is a vibrant economy and a rich cultural melting pot. One of the cornerstones of the development of the once penal colony is the system of education in Australia. There are many rules regarding schooling in Australia and it is these rules that help keep the country moving forward towards greatness and further prosperity.

School attendance in Australia is compulsory to children from five years of age. It is mandated that all citizens and residents are to receive eleven years of compulsory education. With these particular rules, the adult literacy rate in the country is at a high 99%. After the basic education of eleven years, the country has many government funded universities and educational institutions. This has allowed many individuals to enjoy higher education and degrees that can help not only themselves but also their families.

Aside from university education, there is another set of options for education in the country. There are many schools in Australia called TAFE Institutes. These institutions are college level educational systems that provide apprenticeship programs for individuals to train them towards an economic skill needed in the workplace. As of 2009, more than half of Australians between the ages of 25 and 64 have earned vocational qualifications. With both university training and vocational training available in schools in Australia, this has made the country a favored destination for students and other immigrants from all over the world.

After learning about the kinds of schools in Australia, the educational system in the country is primarily governed by individual states and territories in the Australian confederation. The model followed by the country is a three-tier model, with eleven years of primary and secondary education soon followed by tertiary education. The normal school year in Australia runs from January to December for primary, secondary and TAFE education. As for tertiary level schools in Australia, the schedule opens in February and closes in November.

As for the aspects of reporting and assessment, this has been standardized in primary and secondary levels throughout the continent. The grading system has been simplified as follows:

a) A (Excellent) - 85 and above;
b) B (Good) - 70 to 84;
c) C (Average) - 50 to 69;
d) D (Fail) - 25 to 49;
e) E (Failure) - 0 to 24.

The High School Certificate has mandated minimum requirements and depends largely on the legislation per state. Each state has a different set of requirements and is administered by the state's education authorities. In order to obtain the coveted certificate, each subject taken in schools in Australia would be counted to determine the Tertiary Entrance Rank of the individual student. Equivalencies are important to ensure that the individual complies with the minimum requirements set by the state.

As for the tertiary level schools in Australia, the system is built upon the percentage of maximum raw marks obtained by the individual student. This is the system adhered to by many universities to comply with legislated policies. The highest distinction grades are obtained only by at most 5% while fifty percent would receive a basic passing grade. As for those who fail, their grades are not scaled since grade point averages are not always used at the tertiary level.

Schools in Australia are one of the most advanced and modern educational systems in the world. As determined by Australia Forum, "thus it is clearly a move forward once you are able to obtain a degree or certification from a school in Australia. Not only is it of high caliber, but your education can also be your means to enter into a vibrant and burgeoning economy that is located down under in Australia."