I thought that the school's schedule couldn't get more confusing, but it did. The core courses rotate on a six-day schedule and the "specials" run on a Mon. - Fri. schedule. His seventh grade core courses are: Language Arts, Reading, Math, Social Studies, Spanish, and Science. Are these typical core courses? By the way, I don't know what "Reading" is yet. Our school's philosophy is that if you read enough (anything), then all will be solved. It's the osmosis concept of learning.
The core courses are one hour long and they get 4 of each subject in 6 days. (Spanish only gets 3 classes in 6 days.) Is this typical? Is there a trend towards reducing time in the core courses?
The other problem I have is that the school is very bad at letting parents know what's going on. This new schedule is a complete surprise, they placed kids into math tracks without any prior warning to parents, and the kids (and parents) are wondering why they got placed in different types of specials. My son has a special called "Problem Solving" that other kids didn't get. I think it's scheduling and differentiation issues, and I'll bet that class size determined the math track cutoffs.
Reading is only a core class here for those 7th and 8th graders that failed the state ELA exam and/or were recommended. It's every other day for one period. Same material as in elementary school, only higher vocab and more complex sentences. Many don't understand inference and all need grade level vocab.
ReplyDeleteThe others are all cores here - 40 minute periods, 1X day. Some teams rotate the core periods..Core 1 class held during Core Per 1 on Day 1 will be held during Core Per 2 on Day 2, Core Per 3 on Day 3 and then rotate back to the original on Day 6.
The Jay Matthews 'Class Struggle' book is applicable to my district and it's method of tracking. The way to get around it is to either go to private school, home school, attend a different public school, or spend the parent's money and utilize on-line accredited courses and score high on the state tests and SAT in Grade 8, which will get the student an appropriate placement in the high school once the parents are done wrangling with the counselor and superintendent.
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ReplyDeleteSteve, it wouldn't be Common Core as in the organization Diane Ravitch is involved it, would it? That just might be a very good thing. You might want to take a look over at commoncore.org and see if any of it is applying to the changes at your son's school.
ReplyDeleteIn my school district, the core classes 6-8 include Language Arts, math, science, social studies, and reading (40 minutes each), and there are 3? other periods, one of which is a foreign language. Everyone gets the same classes except for music which is opt in/out. Your schedule sounds like a real headache.
ReplyDeleteI had a meeting with the principal this afternoon to resolve a scheduling conflict for my son, but I found out some other things. Everyone takes reading and LA. They are extensions of each other. I'm not sure what they do with that time, however.
ReplyDeleteA variety of specials are considered to be enrichment. In the Problem Solving course my son is taking, they will be playing the "Stock Market Game". It sounds much better than many things they could do. Does anyone have experience with this?
I don't know if it's a Common Core curriculum. They have a curriculum map(?) that they hand out to parents, but it's next to worthless.
"40 minute periods, 1X day"
OK, tht's 200 minutes a week. With our six day schedule with 4 hours, this works out to the same thing.
My son has a conflict since he is one year ahead in math (taking algebra in seventh grade). This screws up his schedule. One solution is to take algebra with an online course with Virtual High School (www.govhs.org). Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm not impressed with the brief description on their site.
We had the 40 min. classes 1X a day. Same courses. Spanish is only for the top LA students.
ReplyDeleteOur little specials are called encore classes.
I don't know how big your school is, but it seems like they ought to be able to work out an accelerated schedule. If you have a gifted coordinator there they should help.
The assistant principal is the schedule person at my school. We had quite a few snags this year as my 8th grader is going to the high school for math and honors bio. But they can do it, and they should. Still, I had to get in there and get it straightened out.
SusanS
Could your son take Algebra through K12? K12 virtual schools use the Dolciani Algebra book for the first algebra course, and you can buy K12 by the course.
ReplyDelete"encore classes"
ReplyDeleteThat's cute.
We have a small school system (400 students in K-9). There is only so much they can (will) do. Our kids go to the high school in the next town over, quite a ways away.
"K12 virtual schools use the Dolciani Algebra book for the first algebra course, and you can buy K12 by the course."
Much better than VHS! However, I looked on K12.com and found their MTH 124 Honors Algebra 1 and all they say is: "Materials: Algebra I: Reference Guide and Problem Sets". Do they list the textbooks somewhere?
i like......
ReplyDeleteI went to small rural schools. The sol'n for me was to take math independently, working through the text and consulting the instructor as necessary. My jr/sr high school had a period set aside for independent math, with the math chair in charge.
ReplyDeleteAnother option is distance learning. Univ. of Missouri-Columbia had a good reputation for high school courses when I was a kid; JHU's CTY also has a good rep. among the folks I know now. My kids' high school no longer offers on-line or distance.
"JHU's CTY also has a good rep...."
ReplyDeleteI forgot about that. My son qualified for the JHU courses in 5th grade, but we've never used their courses. I still get their email promotions. I went out to their site and they don't use a book for Honors Algebra, just lecture notes on their website. The overview looks good and the the sample video was fine.
However, while I was listening to the video, I found that the teacher moved right along. You have to pay attention. I knew the material, but I still had to concentrate to follow the explanation. You have to have to be motivated to learn this way. I think the best bet is to use our Glencoe book so that I can help more easily.
Also, Stanford's EPGY. Homeschoolers around here use it for their math kids.
ReplyDeleteSusanS
Steve, my 7th grade son is also taking Algebra I outside of school this year. We registered for Honors Algebra I (online) through Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development (the Midwest's GT option, analogous to JHU). This class gives high school credit (always a plus) and is taught by "guided independent study" using a textbook: Algebra 1: An Integrated Approach, J. Benson, S. Dodge, et. al. (1995) McDougal Littell. I bet if you son is qualified you could enroll him in their program. It's kind of pricey, though.
ReplyDeleteI have also heard the EPGY Algebra is good and I believe it is textbook based. Downside: it's very expensive.
Also there's ALEKS--Paul B posted on it a while ago and really likes it. Plus it's cheap.
I posted on the Stock Market game (and Skipbo) a couple of years ago. That, plus incessant Scholastic Math magazines, was pretty much the sum total of what my son did in his 5th grade math class at the private school we used to be at.
ReplyDeleteIn the stock market game they form teams, pick stocks, and compete to see who can make the most money. I'm not sure how much they learn, but they had fun.
"I'm not sure how much they learn [playing the stock market game], but they had fun."
ReplyDeleteMy dark fear is that they learned something that mostly isn't true ... that picking individual stocks is the correct way to approach investing in the stock market.
-Mark Roulo
That's my dark fear, too, which I almost posted in my last comment. I *think* at least the game is based on long-term historical data (I was very worried they would be picking stocks they hoped would go up from one week to the next!!). But you're right, the whole idea of trying to succeed with individual stock picks is not what I want my kid to learn.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I was worried about was a 10 year old thinking he could make money without "working" for it...at that age I'd rather he see monetary rewards coming from good hard work like mowing lawns or walking dogs.
"..that picking individual stocks is the correct way to approach investing in the stock market."
ReplyDeleteIt's now moot because the school forgot that there was another class he had to have.
I would hope that the course would talk about different types of investments (including mutual funds), compound interest, and the difference between short and long-term investing. Then there is the little idea of taxes. If the game is based on short-term data, they will be missing the very important effects of long-term compound interest of modest return rates.
From www.smgww.org/overview:
"Teachers have discovered that The Stock Market Game™ program actually boosts attendance and reduces dropout rates. Students who participate in the program gain confidence and build self-esteem. They have fun — and learn more effectively as they see how their classroom lessons apply to the real world."
Ugh! My son's attendance and self-esteem are just fine. Can we set the bar a little (a lot) higher?
Some homeschoolers like Teaching Textbooks for Algebra. We're still working on basic addition, so I don't really know, but they have sample lectures, pages, and solutions.
ReplyDeleteTheir sample pages looked very easy to follow...you might not even have to help much!
Boosts attendance and reduces drop out rates? LOL! How on earth can anyone seriously attribute these results to the Stock Market Game!! "Research shows...."
ReplyDeleteAnd does the game go anywhere near different types of investments, compound interest, and the difference between short and long-term investing?
Well, not in our experience...
From the fine website:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.smgww.org/overview.html
"In building a portfolio, students research and evaluate stocks, and make decisions based on what they've learned. Teams trade common stocks and mutual funds from the NYSE, Nasdaq and AMEX exchanges; earn interest on cash balances; pay interest if buying on margin and pay a commission on all trades. To determine why certain stocks perform the way they do, or why the broader market has moved up or down, they need to understand how the economy works, and to calculate their returns they need to do the math."
and
"It is the only stock market simulation supported by the New York Stock Exchange."
Sigh.
I'm *highly* in favor of introducing investments to kids at an early age. My son has some of his money in two mutual funds and we'll be watching it go up and down over the next ten years or so.
But the best way to "win" is to simply by a broadly diversified, low cost, low turnover fund and then spend your time doing something useful rather than tracking every blip of a stock or mutual fund. This game won't encourage that. Instead
"students strive to create the best-performing portfolio using a live trading simulation. They work together in teams, practicing leadership, organization, negotiation, and cooperation as they compete for the top spot."
And the problem here is that the winning strategy for real over a few decades is to just buy the correct few fund or funds and forget about them. But you WON'T HAVE THE BEST RETURN FROM A RANDOM LIST OF 30 OR SO OTHER FUNDS. You will probably be in the top five or so, but you will most likely not win.
The NYSE (a company that benefits from lots of stock trades, let us remember) and securities firms want people to think in terms of "winning", not in terms of maximizing the expected outcome. It really looks to me like this game teaches the wrong lessons :-(
-Mark Roulo
Google can't find the word "efficient" at the smgww.org website. Nor can it find the common acronym EMH.
ReplyDeleteWe could do the same thing to/for/with horse racing that this game does for stocks ... and the kids would get a lot of practice with fractions ... but I bet it wouldn't be quite so popular. I wonder why ... ?
-Mark Roulo
"...a broadly diversified, low cost, low turnover fund and then spend your time doing something useful"
ReplyDeleteThat's what I tell people. Dollar cost averaging and something like the Vanguard S&P Index fund. Then don't read the business section of the paper and go do something fun.
By the way, they should be explaining about company benefits like 401K plans and the idea of company matching (free) money. A top salary is just one consideration when you look for a job. Money goes into a 401K plan before taxes and it's matched. Start when you get out of school and put in at least the matching amount.
My daughter spent much of her 4th grade pull-out gifted program playing the stock market game. Both she and I hated it. The way to win the game is to become a day-trader...exactly the opposite of what most investors should do. No mutual funds allowed in the game. I really question using the game at all at the elementary or middle school level. The lessons these grades need about money and economics run to the far more mundane. How do savings and checking accounts work? How does a credit card work? What are the real costs of buying on credit? How do auto and home loans work? Financial literacy in this country is in a dreadful state...witness all the foreclosures due to loans borrowers didn't understand. Why focus on the stock market? A very small minority of Americans purchase individual stocks.
ReplyDeleteAs to Teaching Textbooks, Algebra: My son used it the first year he homeschooled. It was a good choice for him that year since it starts really low - with pre-algebra - and builds up. (My son had had pre-algebra, algebra, and most of geometry in school without having learned much of it). On the other hand, we found Teaching Textbook way of teaching to be very formulaic. There was nothing that required the student to really think about what they were learning, or to extend the concept.
ReplyDeleteThe following year we started using Math-U-See and both my son and I like that much better. I require mastery from my son - he's not allowed to go on to the next lesson until he scores at least 90% correct on the test for the current lesson.
Does it work? Well his ACT national percentile ranking for his math composite score was 90. So at least for him, Math-U-See is working.