Category Archives: Education

Krashen’s Natural Order Hypothesis – Order of Acquisition

As noted above, the order of acquisition for second language is not
the same as the order of acquisition for first language, but there are
some similarities. Table 2.1, from Krashen (1977), presents an average

TABLE 2.1. “Average” order of acquisition of grammatical morphemes for English
as a second language (children and adults)

Table 2.1

Notes:

1. This order is derived from an analysis of empirical studies of second language acquisition
(Krashen, 1977). Most studies show significant correlatons with the average order.

2. No claims are made about ordering relations for morphemes in the same box.

3. Many of the relationships posited here also hold for child first language acquisition, but some do
not: In general, the bound morphemes have the same relative order for first and second language
acquisition (ING, PLURAL, IR. PAST, REG. PAST, III SINGULAR, and POSSESSIVE) while
AUXILIARY and COPULA tend to be acquired relatively later in first language acquisition than
in second language acquisition.

via sdkrashen.com

Full of holes, but interesting.

For-profit colleges are issued new rules by Education Department – OR government is privileging traditional universities

The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday issued long-awaited regulations to increase federal oversight of for-profit colleges, despite an intense, year-long lobbying effort by the colleges to fight the new rules and opposition from Republicans and some Democrats on Capitol Hill.

The regulations aim to rein in for-profit education programs that saddle students with more loan debt than they can reasonably repay. They also try to reform “some of the career college programs [that] do not succeed” and “bad actors” that have misled students, Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters on a conference call late Wednesday.

via politico.com

When it comes to the entertainment industry, I am critical of the government stepping in to support their failing models through legislation that will harm the Internet and innovation. I think I would be a hypocrite if I supported the government doing the same for traditional universities.

I’m no fan of for-profit universities in general. I find many of their classes to be low-quality, low-interaction, lowest common denominator. However, that’s not really the point. The point is, this is a marketplace. If their customers find that they are fill a need, then they should be able to compete, with the same benefits that non-profit universities get. Non-profit universities should change to address the needs of “non-traditional” students (though they are far from non-traditional these days).

I know the complains about recruitment into these schools. The recruitment is downright criminal, but no more so than credit cards or even military recruiters in some instances. I once know someone who did that type of recruiting. It was essentially a call center job with great bonuses for getting someone signed up. He made a ton of money, until he couldn’t stand doing it any longer. He felt like a predator, and he was. But all of this still doesn’t justify these controls on for-profit universities.

And, really, cutting funding for programs that don’t pay well after graduation? Try doing that for traditional universities. There are plenty of programs that don’t pay well. Liberal Arts is an umbrella term for those programs.

Universities want protections from the government to protect their failing models, which is completely unacceptable. I hoped that this sort of competition would prod them to change their own programs, but instead, they are trying to hobble the competition.

What does this mean? This means that universities will probably still feel the pressure to change, but they will have much more time to do so. Is that a bad thing? No. Certain not. But it is a bad precedent to set. What it means for for-profit universities is that they will likely be cutting many of the programs that don’t lead directly to jobs that pay well. Maybe this is a good also, but what about the people who really want to study in those areas. The for-profit universities are likely the only places that offer those programs in a manner that is accessible (online, flexible scheduling). It’s sad that some of the diversity will fade based on these policies.

Give children feedback to improve standards in school, says new guide | Education | The Guardian

Give children feedback to improve standards in school, says new guide

Reducing class sizes or setting homework contribute little to raise standards, research finds

Jeevan Vasagar, education editor

School students in classroom

New guidance also advocates teaching approaches that encourage pupils to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Forget school uniforms and streaming by ability: schools will raise standards if they focus on giving children effective feedback.

via guardian.co.uk

So, methods win out. Who woulda guessed? 🙂

I had a professor at Indiana who swore up and down that class size was the only thing that has made a difference. I repeated that time after time, until I was cornered and asked, “Where is the evidence?” Then I found that there isn’t much. In fact, there is a lot that says there is no difference.

Now I know what should have been clear before. If anything makes a difference, methods do. It’s not how many students are in the class, but rather what you do with them in the class.

Now, these are differences based on test scores and we all know that test scores don’t mean much, right? You do know that, right? The fact is that the test scores they use are reliable, not necessarily valid.

Are Flashcards an Effective Learning Tool? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Media_httpvoxycomblog_sledi
via voxy.com

Take it with TWO grains of salt, coming from a company that does flashcards, but it is certainly a reasonable look at the benefits.

Flat World Knowledge – looking for some good freemium content? Great potential here.

We are the world’s largest publisher of
free and open college textbooks. With our
ever-expanding catalog of top quality books
by expert authors, now is your chance to be
a hero and help your students save thousands
of dollars. Get started today and join the
textbook affordability movement.

via flatworldknowledge.com

The choices are limited at this time, but the idea here is grand. This is not necessarily free publication, it’s freemium. A somewhat restricted online version is free, while all other versions cost. I think this model has wings.

Even with ubiquitous internet, people want a copy that can be edited, annotated, and so forth.

Moodle 2.0 for teachers:- An Illustrated Guide

This is a good idea. An easier user manual is needed for this version. Those using 1-.9 or below will find 2.0 VERY confusing.

The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries – how can I disagree with this?

When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.

Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates.

via nytimes.com

I really can’t disagree. I think they are right on. Of course, this is not a plan, it’s a dream. For dreams to come true, one needs a plan and some luck.

I’ve always cringed at hearing that teachers don’t make enough. They do make more than many other college graduates and in some areas they do quite well when considering benefits. The real problem is not that teachers don’t make enough across the board, it’s that they don’t make enough in certain areas. This is a funding issue that is largely cause by the ways that schools are funded across the country. Schools in wealthy areas pay quite well, maybe not enough for the teachers to live in the town, but still quite well.

I am excited about the idea of making teaching more competitive. The recent teacher crunch has done this to the small degree. There are more teachers than there are jobs, which is good for recruiting (not so good for recent graduates). Next step is to increase pay at least 50% and, at the same time, devise assessments that are difficult enough to filter (yes, many good teachers may be filtered out this way, but it is still far better than hoping the best show up). Set conditions in which becoming a teacher is competitive.

I do find it kind of interesting that the author starts out with a call not to blame teachers and then essentially states that we need better teachers. Huh?

Open CALL Resources for the 4 Skill Areas – Prezi

I’m giving a talk today at Hanyang Cyber Univerity in Seoul to TESL students.  I decided to give a broad overview of Web services/sites that could be useful for learning/instruction for listening, reading, writing, and speaking.  It’s a 90 minute talk and I’m sure we will use all of it as you can see from the scope of the presentation.

Of course, after I finished with this first iteration, I realized that I completely ignored Opensource software and Open Educational Resources (OER).  I figured that I’d hold off on that for now considering this group might not be ready for that discussion.  There are so many fun applications in those categories.  I guess that will be a part 2 that will have to wait until later.

The handout is here: http://tinyurl.com/opencall4skill

And the Prezi presentation is embedded below.

<a href="http://prezi.com/lwllwrdjvm-o/open-call-resources-for-the-4-skill-areas/" title="This presentation accompanies a handout at http://tinyurl.com/opencall4skill on free Web resources for language learning”>Open CALL Resources for the 4 Skill Areas on Prezi

 

Let me know what you think.

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