Get SEATed

I was watching a baseball game a little while on TV.  The announcers started talking about batting average and how this player or that player is off to a good start because he has 2 hits in 7 at bats.  The guy is hitting the ball in play 29% of time. 

Through the course of 162 games, roughly the same amount of days a class meets in a year, a batter is considered to be amazing if he has a 40% batting average.  Let’s say a student comes into the classroom each day and does his/her assignment on 40% of those days.  Is that student considered amazing?  Far from it. 

Not only do these ball players gain all-star status for a 40% perfomance, but they get paid millions of dollars to do so.  If a student gets 40% in a class for the year, he/she has to repeat the class the following year.

Yes, I understand that baseball games and classrooms are two entirely different things and that this post is a bit on the exaggerated and dramatic side, but it gives a good example of perspective.  From the perspective of a coach or ball player, 40% is awesome.  From the perspective of a teacher, it’s not so hot. 

I am an online tutor.  I’ve been doing this for about four and a half years now.  In that time, I’ve helped literally thousands of students to complete questions ranging from drawing an atomic model to geologic time scales and everything in between. 

Today’s students are natural multitaskers.  They have grown up in the computer age and are so used to using chat programs and surfing the web that they don’t have to give it a second thought.  It all comes very easy to them.  Why not take advantage of their interest in the online environment to provide a method of completing homework? 

For me, there are so many advantages to this type of work.  I can work from home, any day of the week.  I don’t have to use gas to get to a student’s house (neither do their parents).  I get to help students who really want to learn and are interested in trying.  The extra income is wonderful (and sometimes vital in these economic times).  So many times, I get into a session with a student who doesn’t understand a topic, but through questioning, we reach a “light bulb” moment when you can tell things start to click.  That is an excellent feeling.

Of course, there are some disadvantages, although they are far outweighed by the advantages.  It’s hard to get tone across a written chat, so you have to pick your wording carefully at times.  Also, you aren’t able to carry out hands on experiments as you would in a classroom, but most of the time, that is not really a problem since the students have the data already and just need to answer questions about it.

I plan on doing this for the foreseeable future.  Even after a long day at work, I enjoy coming home and helping out students online.  In an odd way, it actually helps me to relax because I know I’m helping out students from around the country to get their work done. 

Anybody else out there do online tutoring?  Share your thoughts and experiences please.

Talk about a departure from my usual topics.  Perhaps this will generate some discussion though. 

Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise

I’ve always enjoyed scifi and my favorite out of this bunch would have to be The Next Generation.  I grew up with this series (and the movies).  Of course, I greatly enjoy the other series as well, but TNG is my fave.  Who out there hasn’t at one time or another wished they could have a transporter to beam back and forth between work and home?  I probably could use the stun setting on a phaser on a daily basis in my classroom, so there’s definite application to learning in that area. 

I’ve even heard of teachers who have discussions specifically on the science of Star Trek, so if it’s something that the students would be interested in, I’d give it a try.  I might even use that as an end of the year “mini-project.”  Hmm, I think I like that idea.

The state superintendent of education recently suggested that school board members have limits to the number of times that they can serve.  He also wants to get rid of their monthly salary.  I’m in favor of both proposals. 

Around here, the politics run thick and some board members have been in place for many years.  How can we have change when it’s the same ol’ thing time after time?  Sure, the people keep voting them in, but it’s because they’re so firmly entrenched, anyone running against them doesn’t stand much of a chance. 

I don’t know exactly what the salary for board members is, but anything is too much.  All of these people have their “day jobs” so why not give up that paycheck for the time spent working to “better” the schools?

Another thing that I’ve never understood is why it isn’t a requirement that school board members have some experience in the field of education.  On our local school board, there are two or three (out of nine) who have been in the classroom.  The rest have no idea what it’s like.  How can they properly run a school system if they have no experience with what goes on within the system? 

Is this the same situation around the country?  What are your thoughts or experiences with your local school board?

State testing is over for my groups of students.  No more worries and it’s all downhill from here, right?

Nope.  The challenge now becomes what to do with the last few weeks of school.  The last few weeks have consisted of reviews and prep work to take the tests.  The kids are tired, so I have to make sure that the material we cover prepares them for next year and is engaging enough to keep their attention. 

The attention part is hard enough as it is, but with each passing day, the students are focusing more and more on “The Countdown.”  How many out there have already started marking off days on the calendar?  I imagine quite a few calendars have fallen prey to the big red numbers that dwindle down to 0. 

In my physical science class, we’ll be doing some group projects, various experiments, etc.  I might even get them to work on one more big project to summarize what they learned throughout the year.  We’ll even have our egg drop contest to see which group can build the best container.  We did that last year and the students enjoyed that quite a bit. 

What will you be doing to battle the end of the year blues?

I’m tired.  It’s been a long week.  We started with state standardized testing on Wednesday and I concluded testing my group today.  I’m always glad when the testing is done. 

I don’t mind giving the test.  It’s just all of the rules and regulations that must be adhered to throughout the week.  Test security is such a major issue.  It is certainly important, but exhausting.  Everything went great for our school and there were no problems with the whole process, so at least there was no stress from any trouble. 

As a reward for the hard work of the students, we were able to reward them with some time outside during the last hour of the day.  They played volleyball, football, baseball.  Some sat around and relaxed in the shade.  Clear, blue skies…70 degrees…slight breeze blowing…it was a great way to release the stresses of the week. 

Now we have to wait several weeks to find out the results and that will be a whole new stress of its own, but the students did seem to work hard overall.  Of course, that doesn’t guarantee high scores, but it’s much better than having them make no effort at all.