--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400027 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 04:06pm \/To: DAVE MAINWARING (Read 4 times) Subj: Single Sex Classes Hi Dave, -> There must be a rather large forum of discussion regarding single sex -> classes. Is there? I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "forum"? Do you mean that this is a big current topic in educational circles (I think that's what you mean and will answer on that assumption)? I think that in the last 5 or so years this topic has received increased attention. I've seen a few articles on it in the L.A. Times over the last few years, and I don't even take the daily paper. I've heard more about it and seen more about it in electronic discussion forums and in printed periodicals for educators. -> Or is this another reform based on a single issue or anecdotal -> observation? I've not researched the topic, but I understand it to be based on research. Mind you, annecdotal observation isn't wholly bad. That's got to be the place where most persons even come up with the idea to try some particular research topic. However, basing disctrict wide reform on annecdotal observation doesn't seem too wise. I know there have been studies done on achievement for girls in math and science in single sex classrooms, showing that the girls increased their performance. There have also been studies done on young (elementary or primary aged), black, male students where having them in a single sex classroom particularly with a male instructor improved their performance. I read about these in passing in some printed periodical or other (the latter one above I believe I read about in the L.A. Times a few years back). I can't quote authors and dates, however. -> IMHO (based on the one or two TV programs I've seen on the subject) -> the advntages of single sex education can improve the education -> process. I haven't formed a conclusive opinion on the matter, but from what I've read it does sound promising and is certainly worth further attention. It may well bring improvements in performance certain students. -> Part of the claim to success seems to be eliminating distractions. -> seems to me that this can be done for mixed classes without hAving to -> segregate the sexes. Hmm. Well, there probably are individuals for whom their performance would not change, whether in a single-sex of co-ed classroom. But there are students for whom this is a big distractor. Adolesence is not only a time of hormonal imbalance, but also a time when young people are learning social conventions and learning about themselves, their own self-concept and how they relate to others. You can't expect kids in a classroom to just automatically stop thinking about things things in a classroom and focus on the course subject matter without giving another thought to the other persons in the room. And if the opposite sex is on a kid's mind, I can see where removing persons of that sex from the room might very well take some of the distractions away and enable them to devote more of their attention to the subject matter at hand. I can clearly remember in 10th and 11th grades (ages 15-16) spending considerable amount of class time in certain classes thinking about boys. Granted, these weren't the most exciting classes. I know there are certain instructional techniques that teachers can use to engage students more actively in learning, and this might help the students to ignore some of these gender-distractor issues. But shouldn't we use all the weapons in our arsenal to get the best instruction possible and best performance for our students? Certainly teachers should try to use the most engaging instructional methods they can, but also if we can gain an even bigger advantage by employing single sex classes in some situations, then why not do it? -> In light of the recent court rulings the all same sex colleges are -> having a real problem with funding and are concerned in part because -> their existance is threatened. I don't see the same threat to K-12 -> schools. Yeah, I don't understand the legal issues that well. It doesn't interest me as much to pursue that part of the picture, but it does seem to me that we could make a valid argument for allow, say, a girls-only algebra class in the high schools in such a way that the courts would allow it. -> girls and boys must learn to work together in preparation for a coed -> world. -> Damned if you do damned if you don't. :-) Some schools are offering single subject sections for certain courses only (such as girls-only math or science). Also, I believe the co-ed course is still available in those schools for those girls who choose to take it. (Now that I think about it, though, those co-ed classes would tend to have an awful lot of boys as compared to girls by virtue of the fact that some of the girls are in the single-sex classes.) -> hormones," writes the magazine. NEWSWEEK: "Impressing the -> opposite sex is a 14-year-old's reason for being. Take away that -> pressure, and miracles happen." -> At what age does it stop being the the reason? I would think that by the time one matures to adulthood (and we all know that some of us never make it mentally/psychologically!), and has a better handle on their own identity and how they relate to others, that this would play a less prominent role. Sheila --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400028 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 04:27pm \/To: TOM COTTON (Read 4 times) Subj: Standards for Excellence? In a message to Chuck Beams you wrote: -> Their point was that minority students were unjustly being excluded -> from Honors and Advanced Placement curriculum choices by having -> prerequisite curricular and grade point requirements in place. I know that in some of the local public California high schools, prerequisites for the Honors and AP courses are either very lax or non-existent. It goes back to the same thing that Tom is bringing up: evidence that students from minority races were being disproportionately represented in such courses lead to charges of discrimination. Whether there were any actual court cases in California or not, I'm not certain. It could be that the Arkansa case is simply affecting us here? So now, pretty much anyone who wants to is allowed to sign up for these courses, at least in some of the public high schools nearby. -> I think Shiela pointed out one possible downfall would be that lesser -> districts would not want to adopt such standards. That's not exactly what I said. I think you've changed my point a bit. I said that districts not using such standards would probably be unlikely to educate parents as to what the standards are. To do so would likely only encourage discontent with the school. That doesn't mean that such a school would not strive to improve and reach for those standards, however. As a matter of fact, I would think that well known, publicized and widely accepted standards would put pressure on schools. Not only would they community (were they aware of the situation) likely put pressure on the schools to improve, but applicants for (especially) administrative positions such as principal would almost of necessity be forced to discuss the standards in their hiring interviews and their plans for bringing the school up to the level of the standards. I do not see National standards (again, note: I do not use the words "curriculum" nor "federal") would in any way cause poor schools to worsen. I can only see good things coming from such a set of standards. Sheila --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400029 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 04:29pm \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: School funds for legal issues -> What is really asinine is the simple fact that the funds spent on -> legal battles are taken away from the funds that could be used to -> educate children. Yes. If we could find a way to protect student funding from this drain, we would really accomplish something! Sheila --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400030 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 05:32pm \/To: TOM COTTON (Read 4 times) Subj: Technology In Classroom -> SK>Well, I possibly fall into that category. It's true that it's easy -> to >spend a lot of time on the Web. But if these people are doing it -> in >their free time, time that would normally be spent on other -> hobbies and >amusements, then what's the harm in it? How can you say -> it is "too much" >time? -> When the kids cloths are not getting washed :) BTW, taught anyone -> else how to do the laundry yet ? Ha, ha. No, I haven't recently instructed the children in laundry per se. But we are working on teaching a number of household chores. Most recently: scrubbing the bathtub, washing the car, organizing the closet, for example. -> I think his point might have been that perhaps some teachers are -> using school time to roam the net. Perhaps they do not have access -> outside of school. If that IS his point (and I'm not certain that it is), I'd have to say it is really irrelevant. Even if the teachers didn't have Internet access on campus, those who want to frivel away time will do so in many other ways. We have teachers who come in and play games like solitaire on the computers in our teachers lounge (not incessantly, but...), or some read the newspaper, or take naps or...whatever. Whose to say that these same teachers don't go home and do a few hours of work at home for the courses they teach? Dedicated teachers will continue to prepare responsibly for class. Slackers will continue to slack. I think that you get the best performance from responsible, dedicated employees by allowing them to make decisions about how to do their job while still holding them accountable for their job performance. If the classroom performance doesn't suffer, then who cares how much time these teachers are using on-line? I think that part of the problem is this: There is simply too much stuff out there on the Web. Even when I go looking for something in particular, I can spend "too much time" because my search queries find SO MUCH stuff and it takes a long time to go to all those sites and check it out. To skip one is maybe to miss a gem. That is why some organizations are creating job positions (this would be a good thing for a school district to do) where someone's full time job is to go out there on the Web and look for good stuff for the other employees of the organization (like the other classroom teachers) and report back to them on what's out there in such a way that the teachers can access this stuff quickly and without a lot of wasted time searching for things they need or want. If you have a URL in your hand and know it's the one you need, there's not much time wasted! Sheila --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400031 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 04:47pm \/To: DAN TRIPLETT (Read 4 times) Subj: Netmail access/Off-topic Dan, In a message to Matt Smith you wrote: -> Ahhh..date-rape......another topic for another echo..... Exactly. Your entire paragraph that follows on your opinions about that date rape issue are off-topic and you should not have posted that here. I have tried to reach your system by netmail. The taglines at the bottom of your messages appear as follows: -> * Origin: The South Bay Forum - Olympia, WA (360) 923-0866 -> (1:352/256) I am trying to send mail to the Fido Adress shown above and our machine is looking it up in the FidoNet nodelist and dialing the area code and phone number shown above, but I have been unable to connect with your system. Are you the Sysop? If not (I'm supposing not) please mention this to him. I need to be able to access users in this forum via netmail or their posting priveleges may be in jeopardy. Sheila King Moderator, EDUCATOR 1:218/804 cking@cyberg8t.com --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400032 Date: 07/01/96 From: SHEILA KING Time: 05:22pm \/To: MELVIN BILLIK (Read 5 times) Subj: Personalities in EDUCATOR -> I am concerned with the derogatory remarks made towards Matt Smith. I am as well, although I would prefer in this post not even to discuss Matt individually, but any theoretical EDUCATOR participant. -> Let's see, must everyone show his/her pedigree before being allowed -> to post here (or be taken seriously)? Must one be a teacher in order -> to post? These questions have been answered before. No, one need not be a teacher, but as you can read in the frequently posted echo guidelines, this IS an area intended for educators. As such, posts that annoy teachers are probably inappropriate here. Does one need to show his/her pedigree to post here? No. To be taken seriously by other echo participants? Probably, yes. Experience and qualifications figure largely in how much credit I'm willing to grant to something someone says. Why else in court room cases would we call on experts for witness about certain things if anyone's opinion was as good as anyone else's? To post here: your BBS system must be accessible by Netmail (this is a FidoNet requirement), and you must follow the EDUCATOR guidelines. -> Most of our posts are anecdotal in nature. Very few of us are -> pontificating with reams of studies to cite. This is a good point. However, most of us have more experience in the field than Matt, which draws his annecdotes into question. As well, you seem to have missed out on some of his wilder posts which some of us find nigh impossible to believe. Also, when a person posts annecdotal reports of a few occurances and attempts to use this as a persuasive argument to generalize some point, others are bound to ask them to back up their story. Part of this comes from the poster's insistence of their version of the truth. -> I may not always agree with what Matt says, but I think his posts -> HAVE been reasonably intelligent and well-stated. -> Perhaps I'm unaware of some past battles, but it does seem like we -> can discuss and disagree without being disagreeable. The last statement of yours quoted above IS part of the echo guidelines and is to be standard practice in this forum (I realize I have quoted you out of order, but I don't think I misrepresent your point of view). Now, as to disagreements, discussions and debate.... It is certainly OK to disagree with a participant, and even to criticize their their posts to an extent. If someone is not responding to the point you made (i.e. misinterpreting what you meant or simply changing the topic), you can tell them so. If someone is contradicting themself, you can tell them so (and you should probably point out why you say that by examples from their posts so they can respond to your claim of self-contradiction), if someone is using poor logic, again, you can say so and POINT OUT what it is in their posts that makes you say that. Basically, I find it OK to attack the posts. But it is not OK to attack the person. Of course, there gets to be a fine line here. If a person often writes illogical messages, and someone keeps telling them so, it begins to seem like someone is almost calling that person illogical or stupid. But I can't see that the purpose of discussion or debate is well-served by disallowing participants to critique another's post. Can you suggest a way to handle this? I am always open to suggestions, and prefer to discuss this type of thing in Netmail or e-mail. Sheila King Moderator, EDUCATOR 1:218/804 cking@cyberg8t.com --- PCBoard (R) v15.22/M 10 * Origin: Castle of the Four Winds...subjective reality? (1:218/804) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400033 Date: 07/02/96 From: RON MCDERMOTT Time: 03:31pm \/To: RICK PEDLEY (Read 3 times) Subj: 'PUTER-TECH CURRICULM RM> I was suggesting here that working with the CLI (command line RM> interface) is probably pointless since so much is now done RM> using a GUI... The GUI also helps prevent "accidental" damage RM> being done which is all too easy using CLI... RP>Regrettably, no one seems to understand anything about even the RP>simplest things like file and directory structure anymore. I saw RP>the same phenomenon happen with the Mac in '84; a file is dragged RP>and dropped into the wrong "folder" (because there were a bunch RP>overlapping one another on the desktop) and suddenly that file RP>has completely "vanished". GRIN..... A little knowledge is a dangerous thing! You're right that the GUI has had unfortunate side effects; one being that since so much is being handled FOR you, it allows someone with limited knowledge to function successfully (a good thing), but also to mess up royally without knowing it (a bad thing)... RP>He thought there is only one directory, Windows 95, on his C: drive, RP>and everything he installed was going into that -- somewhere. He's only off a little - Everything is going on C: -- somewhere! ;-) RP>The problem is Windows isn't nearly so good as System 7.x at hiding RP>the underpinnings, and when the slightest thing goes wrong, it's RP>like trying to pick up dimes wearing oven mitts; Windows just gets RP>in the way when serious work needs to be done. I'm inclined to agree with you; took me a LONG time to be comfortable working with OS/2's GUI (I avoided WINDOWS like the plague, so had limited experience with GUI).. It's grown on me over time, but I still do a lot from the commmandline. RM> you're going to lose them.... Let them "play" with a GUI.. RM> Any formatting, etc, let them do from the GUI. Forget RM> programming; if one out of 200 goes anywhere with programming RM> it'll be a miracle... RP>This is "old think" Ron..... I take your point, Rick, and I agree that there are places to go with programming (although I suspect there will be a lot more of the programs-writing-programs software around in years to come)... My concern here stems from the way that things went in high school - Computer courses became just programming courses under the aegis of the math department. They then became another math class. Kids stayed away in droves. I think that for 6th graders you have to approach this the way one does when s/he is trying to get a child's interest: Make it fun first, THEN, if the child becomes "hooked", bring in the complications... RM> Wordprocessing is big; they're going to need it, and it's easy RM>enough to get them to write a report on what they did on a given day... RP>What they're going to do Ron, is speak into a small microphone, RP>whereupon the converted speech-to-text will be passed through RP>spelling and grammar-checking filters. Dictation will likely become the way things go, but word processing isn't just dictating text (of course I guess one could argue that at some point it becomes desktop publishing)... RM> * MR/2 2.26 * WIN95: Start me up,...you can make a grown man cryyyyy! RP>Sure -- make him use OS/2 instead! The choice of champions! You're aware, of course, that the new release (late summer or early fall) will be the first OS to incorporate speech-to-text and voice navigation?! Maybe this should be required in schools!? ;-) ___ * MR/2 2.26 * DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something... --- Silver Xpress Mail System 5.4P1a * Origin: The Dolphin BBS Pleasant Valley NY 914-635-3303 (1:2624/302) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400034 Date: 07/02/96 From: RON MCDERMOTT Time: 03:31pm \/To: MATT SMITH (Read 3 times) Subj: DISCIPLINE MS>True, but irrelevant to the issue of whether excessive drinking is MS>more a problem for profs than for K-12 teachers. Hmmm... I think this was YOUR issue, not the original issue? I think we can concede that drinking is a bigger problem in college than in high school, though it's a problem at both levels... I suspect it's NOT much of a problem in elementary school... BTW, if this is to become a "drinking" thread, it's drifting off-topic... ___ * MR/2 2.26 * WINDOWS95 only promises what OS/2 DELIVERS! --- Silver Xpress Mail System 5.4P1a * Origin: The Dolphin BBS Pleasant Valley NY 914-635-3303 (1:2624/302) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400035 Date: 07/02/96 From: RICK PEDLEY Time: 08:41pm \/To: DAN TRIPLETT (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: Class Size Over-Rated -=> Quoting Dan Triplett to Rick Pedley <=- DT> OK.....what is Coffee Mug Software....Im interested in anything with DT> Caffeine in it.....Dan I guess I can make a one-time plug here: I write mostly education- related software, the main one being a gradebook (DOS-based at present). The following is an excerpt from the program's on-disk docs: "If you have a modem, you can call The Crossroads BBS to check for and download the latest version of any Coffee Mug Software product. To do this, configure your terminal program to use the 8N1 setting (8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit), and the Z-Modem transfer protocol, and dial 1-613-545-3745 at 9600-28.8K bps. Logon with a First name- Last name of COFFEE MUG and enter SOFTWARE as the password. There is no long registration process; just press "F" for File Directories, select "Coffee Mug Software" from the list that appears, and then press "D" and type the name of the file to be downloaded. All arch- ives are in self-extracting format in case you don't have the neces- sary de-archiving utilities; just run the downloaded executable file to extract the component files; then run INSTALL from DOS." The gradebook-related files to download are: GVG350.EXE GVGP350.EXE GVGU102.EXE plus a couple of others if you're interested. They can also be found at Ziff-Davis Interactive on the Net at http://www.zdnet.com. Once at their home page, scroll down a bit and use the search box to search for "grenville", at which point the programs can be downloaded. When downloaded they will have the names GRDR.ZIP, GRDRP.ZIP, and GRDRUT.ZIP respectively. P.S. We drink only espresso around here :) coffeerp@adan.kingston.net ] COFFEE MUG SOFTWARE ] ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 --- InterEcho 1.18 * Origin: CrossRoads * Kingston, Ont. (1:249/1) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: DB400036 Date: 07/02/96 From: RICK PEDLEY Time: 08:41pm \/To: DAN TRIPLETT (Read 3 times) Subj: What he does... -=> Quoting Dan Triplett to Ron Mcdermott <=- DT> Hmmmmm.....maybe I should write to him and DT> tell him what's wrong with lawyers! Had a few bad experiences that I DT> could draw some over-generalizations from. But was your father a lawyer in North Carolina? coffeerp@adan.kingston.net ] COFFEE MUG SOFTWARE ] ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 --- InterEcho 1.18 * Origin: CrossRoads * Kingston, Ont. (1:249/1)