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An Online Doctorate Degree in Education

admin — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:31:06 +0000

What is An Online Doctorate Degree in Education?

An Online doctorate degree in education is a discipline-based doctorate earned online, that prepares the graduate for academic, clinical, administrative or research positions in the education field. Being a terminal degree, it is fully recognized by the National Science Foundation as equal to a PhD.

Learn more about Online Doctorate Degree in Education.

How do you earn an Online Doctorate Degree in Education?

Before you pursue your educational studies up to the doctorate level, you will need a master’s degree in a field related to education. If you want to be a policy maker, an educational theorist, or have a career in adult education or special education, the doctorate degree is ideal for you. A doctorate degree in education involves a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum that addresses topics such as education policy, human growth and development, statistics, experimental research methods, curriculum theory, and quantitative research methods. Because an educational program at the doctorate level will allow you to specialize in a particular field of interest, you can focus on such issues like history, reading, elementary school, science, math, secondary school etc. At the end of your course, you’ll be expected to write a doctoral dissertation.

What can you do with an Online Doctorate Degree in Education?

* By getting an online doctorate degree in education, you will without a doubt become a trustworthy source of knowledge to your peers, elevating you to a recognized leader in your field of specialization
* With an online doctorate degree in education, you’ll be able to implement pertinent instructional developments and make better the quality of education and life for your peers and students
* You will take pleasure in the prestige of being considered a leader and expert in your specific field, together with the satisfaction of fulfilling your educational dreams.

Salary and Career Potential as an Online Doctorate Degree in Education Graduate

Depending on the position you hold, years of experience, and your employer, a qualified doctorate degree in education holder should expect to earn an annual salary of approximately $50,000-$100,000. Career wise, this degree is very marketable as the society is always in need of more and more qualified individuals to hold high leadership positions.

Need of Statistics in Education

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:22:01 +0000

Statistics is a science dealing with numerical facts, collected systematically with a definite aim or purpose of interpretation and study. It is a branch of mathematics which evaluates numeric data. Talking in numbers always carries conviction. Telling the child’s mental age (MA) or calculating his IQ is a modern device and with the help of this figure we measure and denote the child’s mental ability. Talking in numbers or numerical terms gives a plain man a clear notion of things. The main business of statistics is to provide us with the greatest possible information about everyday facts in the briefest possible manner. Standardized tests would not have been possible without the tool of mathematics for finding out relationship between scores in the test with some other previously known scores or judgments. Standardization of the test material and its results would not have been possible without the help of mathematics. Validity and reliability of test could be fixed only with the help of different mathematical or statistical formulae. The mathematical method of factor-analysis of intelligence is a very well known device.

The chief concern of the teacher is with the general ability of the class, and the special abilities of the individuals, as well as the inter-relationship of these abilities. The teacher is sometimes interested in comparing one group of facts with another. Thus a teacher is called upon to deal with the masses of quantitative data collected from the scores in standardized tests and ordinary examinations and from other school records. All these data need organization, condensation and analysis; otherwise, they would yield nothing specific. It is thus clear that mental test is of little significance to the teacher unless it employs mathematical devices. Statistical methods are “especially adapted to the elucidation of quantitative data affected by a multiplicity of causes”. Statistics gives us a technique to obtain, condense, analyze and relate numerical data. Statistical methods are of a supreme value in education and psychology.

A Guide to Home Education

admin — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:59:49 +0000

When parents become interested in home educating their children, the idea can seem scary as well as exciting. Often parents are keen to find out more about other families’ experiences, how they found home teaching when they started out, tips, pros, cons, and practical advice. Sometimes there are local home education groups, and these provide the perfect opportunity to find out more about home schooling, as well as providing crucial opportunities for your home schooled kids to meet other families in the same situation.

But if you don’t know any local home schooled families, the Internet is a great place to turn to. And blogs – which are like online diaries – are the perfect way to help you to discover more about home education, from what the day to day reality of educating children at home is really like, to how other parents juggle work, housework, and schooling, to how it’s possible to teach various children of different ages all at the same time – blogs can put you into the “mindset” of another family who are going through the same predicament as you, even if they might be across the other side of the world.

Here’s a guide to some of the best home education blogs on the net.

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patchofpuddles – Merry writes in detail and regularly about life home educating her four daughters. There’s masses of details, from ideas and activities for young children, Merry’s own daily concerns, joys and difficulties, book lists, project pages and diaries.

home-educateme – home schooling family have four kids, from 6 to 12. Blog about a wide range of issues, from food and teaching to coping with kids of different ages and anxieties about home schooling.

homebakededucation blogspot – Hannah regularly updates her blog about home teaching her eight-year-old son. This site emphasises cooking, exploring outside and has lots of photos to demonstrate the teaching techniques.

musingsfromthemadhouse blogspot – Lisa is a home educator of two teenagers, but this blog is about more than just her home teaching techniques, it includes various “random musings” as well as info on her kids’ studies for qualifications and university applications.

sometimesitspeaceful blogspot – there are masses of entries, photos and information on this site by Gill, an “autonomous home educator” who writes in touching detail about her experiences teaching and learning alongside her kids.

blogger profile 03536057826596510429 – this is quite a hi-tech blog with YouTube video links as well as photos! Lou is a home educator based in Manchester who says, “I am with my kids practically 24/7 and learn so much from them. Life is good!”

byothermeans – Lucy details and discusses her three years (so far) home educating her teenage son and daughter; the family is based in Scotland and this blog focuses on creative cookery, imaginative learning options, friends, visits and holidays, plus integrates photos into the mix.

tworedboots – Sarah describes her life home educating three children, integrating them into school then home education again. She says: “The blog started as a place to record our family’s home education, and quickly morphed into far more than that – a diary but also a way to communicate with family and friends and also “a habit that I can’t seem to drop.”

TOEFL little guide

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:36:18 +0000

A little guide (FAQ) for every new TOEFL taker. I know people have frequent questions but I concluded in some answers:

- What is the TOEFL? Its an standarized test that evaluates the proficiency of an individual to use and understand Standard American English. With Standarized test I mean everyone who is taking the test with you will get the same questions and requiriments (at least if it is taken at the same place and the same date).

- Which section(s) of the TOEFL are difficult? All the sections are difficult and all are very important at the same time. The worst enemy in the test is the time. I finished every section in the exact given time, no chance to review my answers.

- Any advice for TOEFL now that you had take it? Practice, practice and practice. If your mother tongue is different than English, then practice would help. I feel the writting section was piece of cake because blogging was helpful. Also practicing speaking and watching English shows/movies without subtitles might help.

- What TOEFL aid did I use? I used the demo test ETS gives after registration. I also used the following books: Kaplan Toefl IBT and Cracking the Toefl. The books gave me an idea of what to expect in the real test and there were good tips. The real test wasnt too different.

Alternatives in Language Education

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:46:37 +0000

Recent events in world history have shown the interconnectedness of peoples around the world and their aspirations for peace and economic comfort as well. While these events inspired heated discussions in the social sciences, language teachers can not overlook the fact that social concerns are an integral part of the life systems of language learners too. Issues and problems that beset the human race are concerns that should not be attended only within institutional structures but also within and without the confines of the language class. There is an urgent need to provide student experiences with an international dimension, experiences that should empower them and equip them with the proper knowledge and skills in dealing with social issues that should help equalize the negative feelings of selfishness, regionalism, discrimination, hatred and hopelessness.The task of providing appropriate information and stimuli to language learners is daunting indeed. Both students and teachers may find universal topics like human rights, poverty, hunger, war, minority issues and related concepts too overwhelming and cumbersome. Nevertheless, a confluent approach to teaching social responsibility in the language class helps to neutralize this seeming difficulty in dealing with social issues. Alfred Adler (as cited in Stein and Edwards, 1999) explained that:If people have developed social interest at the affective level, they are likely to feel a deep belonging to the human race and, as a result, are able to empathize with their fellow humans. They can then feel very much at home on the earth, accepting both the comforts as well as the discomforts of life. At the cognitive level, they can acknowledge the necessary interdependence with others, recognizing that the welfare of any one individual ultimately depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings can then be translated into actions aimed at self development as well as cooperative and helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, at its heart, the concept of feeling of community encompasses individuals’ full development of their capacities, a process that is both personally fulfilling and results in people who have something worthwhile to contribute to one another. At the same time, the concept denotes a recognition and acceptance of the interconnectedness of all people. The confluent approach to teaching social responsibility in the language class embraces the four dimensions of teaching social studies: the provision of factual information; the development of skills; drawing on one’s concern for positive change; and the practical application of knowledge and skills in actual situations. Further, the instructional model adopts Nonita Marte’s (2003) four phases of value learning: learning trigger phase; values clarification phase; directive / inculcation phase; and action phase. The uniquely personal and subjective nature of learning allows the learner to undergo experiences within these four phases alone or by collaborating with others. At the end, recognizing the learners as the nucleus of the learning process and allowing them to facilitate productive transformations in their cognitive and affective attributes heighten the purposes of language learning. This discussion is therefore guided by the perceptions that this confluence is a process of holistic learning, involving body, mind, emotion and spirit. Students learn multi-dimensionally about themselves and others at the same time learning the traditional structures of the language.Language learning is a social activity as much as it is an academic exercise. Students should be provided with venues for collaborative learning. Collaborative activities heighten student participation and can easily translate to students getting a chance to come across the perspectives of others besides themselves and the teachers, thus enriching the acquisition of knowledge and social skills that are necessary in developing students’ ability to respect diversity, understand conflict, and practice negotiation and cooperative problem solving.Language learning goes beyond factual learning to problem finding and anticipation. Classroom activities should encourage students to hone their thinking skills they need to understand controversial contemporary issues and the ability to take responsibility for what is learned. Activities should therefore motivate students to go deep into the issues and analyze them from different perspectives, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the language.Understanding one’s role in society helps create or develop the explorer in the student. This promotes positive self-direction and independence as well as develop one’s sense of community, a personal responsibility for the well-being of a greater populace.

The Confluent Approach

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:42:37 +0000

The confluent approach has its foundations from the humanist theories of education where the integration of the cognitive, affective, social, and psychomotor domains is emphasized in the learning process. This concept underscores the premise that education cultivates and encourages intellectual growth and the emotional, social, and physical well being of learners.Frederick Edwords delineates the fundamental ideas commonly espoused by religious and secular humanists. Among others, he explained that:Humanism is a philosophy of imagination. Humanists recognize that intuitive feelings, hunches, speculation, flashes of inspiration, emotion, altered states of consciousness, and even religious experience, while not valid means to acquire knowledge, remain useful sources of ideas that can lead us to new ways of looking at the world. These ideas, after they have been assessed rationally for their usefulness, can then be put to work, often as alternate approaches for solving problems.Humanism is a realistic philosophy. Humanists recognize the existence of moral dilemmas and the need for careful consideration of immediate and future consequences in moral decision making.Humanism is in tune with today’s enlightened social thought. Humanists are committed to civil liberties, human rights, church-state separation, the extension of participatory democracy not only in government but in the workplace and education, an expansion of global consciousness and exchange of products and ideas internationally, and an open-ended approach to solving social problems, an approach that allows for the testing of new alternatives.Humanism is in tune with new technological developments. Humanists are willing to take part in emerging scientific and technological discoveries in order to exercise their moral influence on these revolutions as they come about, especially in the interest of protecting the environment.The many interpretations on the ideals of humanist theorists heralded great debates that confronted its essential beliefs. Whether these beliefs are what the arguments claim they are or not, the convergence of thoughts that are instrumental to the development of this approach for the language class is far more germane to the rationale behind this pursuit. The world is changing at a pace in which too many people have trouble catching up with. The universal values central to an abiding respect for life and the environment have been shaken and the least that can be done is for people to see these changes and take some responsibility to the afflictions these changes may have caused. Bringing the language learners closer to the understanding of their relationship with the world and society is our attempt as language teachers to face up to these challenges to human existence, not only as distant learning materials but also as an essential part of the wholeness of the language learner. The language learner therefore goes beyond the mastery of new vocabularies and sentence structures by consciously developing skills necessary in responding to social challenges head on.

Reading and Childhood Experiences

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:41:44 +0000

Over the years, there has been a gradual and steady decline in the ability of students to comprehend the reading page as evidently shown by their written and oral output. Educators would attribute this to the lack of interest among students in learning a language or the reluctance of the learners to read, others cite psychological and social factors, while still others trace it from the student’s reading experience. The level and degree of reading abilities are acquired from appropriate experiences. As espoused by the proponents of the Significant Human Experience (SHE) Approach, learning is equated with experience where experiencing is tied up with human development. Learning affects and is affected by the learner’s experiences, personality, values, roles and other related factors. To learn is to experience, that is to interact with one’s environment; to feel, to do, to sense, to see – the opportunities that present themselves to the learner. The amount of experiences that college students have in reading therefore presents both a potentially rich resource for learning as well as an impediment to learning. It is a resource since the learner’s ability and desire to read renders him opportunities to gather, analyze and synthesize as much information needed to achieve academic and life skills and goals. It is an impediment when the reading experiences are too limited to provide greater opportunities for comprehension, a necessary element for academic success.

In his paper, Pretorius (2000) asserts that: “research findings in applied linguistics and reading research consistently show a strong correlation between reading proficiency and academic success at all ages, from the primary school right through to university level: students who read a lot and who understand what they read usually attain good grades. In fact, the relationship between reading and learning begins even earlier in the pre-primary school years – children who are exposed to storybook reading before they go to school tend to have larger vocabularies, greater general knowledge and better conceptual development than their peers, and in addition, they learn to read and write more easily and quickly” (Heath 1983; Ninio 1983; Snow 1983; Wells 1986; Elley 1991; Feitelson et al. 1993).

“The correlation between reading proficiency and academic performance obtains for both those who study through their first language (L1 students) and for those who do not (L2 students). In fact, several teachers and researchers argue that reading is probably the most important skill for L2 students in academic or learning contexts” (Saville-Troike 1984; Carrell 1989; Hafiz and Tudor 1989; Mbise 1993; Fasheh 1995).

Further, research reveals that reluctant readers trace their inability to read and comprehend what they read from early childhood experiences (Wothy, 1996). Positive early literacy experiences are impressed into the minds and attitudes of the learners and hence carried through other stages of their human development. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experiences, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies and their understanding of textual features, e.g. sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics. When children scribble letters and stories and read their compositions to others; make up spelling or create letter like forms, they show awareness of this educational belief: “What I can think I can say; what I can say I can write, what I can write, I can read.” (Hermosa, 1996, p.27)

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Reading and Learning

admin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:39:28 +0000

Eighty years ago, since French psychologist Alfred Binet, together with his colleagues developed the Intelligence Quotient test, a Harvard psychologist, Howard Gardner [Tenedero, 1998] challenged the objectivity of the IQ test and proposed in his Frames of Mind that human potential is beyond the confines of the IQ scores by identifying at least seven other intelligences. These intelligences are linguistic, logical-mathematical, space relations, musical, physical-kinesthetic, intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence. Gardner suggests [Concepcion, 1998 and Torres, 1994] that intelligences are galvanized by participation in some kind of culturally valued activity and that the individual’s growth in such an activity follows a developmental pattern. Each intelligence-based activity has its own developmental trajectory i.e. each activity has its own time arising in early childhood, its own time of peaking during one’s lifetime, and its own pattern of either rapidly or gradually declining as one gets older.

On the other hand, research has identified and described many variables that can contribute to the learner’s success or failure which are directly or indirectly linked to the learner’s ability or inability to read. Rubin (1987) classifies these as: behavioral and mental – those behavior and thought processes that the learner uses in the process of learning; psychological characteristics – such as risk-taking, tolerance for ambiguity, field dependence, and empathy among others; affective variables – such as liking or disliking the teacher, the culture, one’s classmates or one’s state of mind at the time of the learning activity; and social style – such as degree of sociability and outgoingness or social competence.

Wong-Filmore (1976) in her study of Chicano students found out that there is a strong evidence of the link between strategies which contribute indirectly to learning – social strategies and communication strategies, and learning strategies – inferencing through what is known as storage through associations and context.

These ideas support research findings in applied linguistics and reading research that consistently show a strong correlation between reading proficiency and academic success at all ages, from the primary school right through to university level: students who read a lot and who understand what they read usually attain good grades. In fact, the relationship between reading and learning begins even earlier in the pre-primary school years – children who are exposed to storybook reading before they go to school tend to have larger vocabularies, greater general knowledge and better conceptual development than their peers, and in addition, they learn to read and write more easily and quickly [Heath 1983; Ninio 1983; Snow 1983; Wells 1986; Elley 1991; Feitelson et al. 1993].