| | ::::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], I've never been involved with a group which didn't have a statement of faith but still included Christian prayer. I'd be very interested in hearing more of your views on this, especially the counterproductive/productive point you make above. Can you explain a little more of what you mean? I'm always interested in learning more about organizing and running homeschooling groups. No need to reinvent the wheel when someone else has it all figured out! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:44, 3 October 2008 (EDT) | | ::::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], I've never been involved with a group which didn't have a statement of faith but still included Christian prayer. I'd be very interested in hearing more of your views on this, especially the counterproductive/productive point you make above. Can you explain a little more of what you mean? I'm always interested in learning more about organizing and running homeschooling groups. No need to reinvent the wheel when someone else has it all figured out! --[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:44, 3 October 2008 (EDT) |
| | ::::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], one of the things I like about homeschooling is that teachers like you and I can tailor the content of our courses to the needs, abilities, and interests of our students, rather than just routinely serve up the expected fare (based on some generic set of lame standards written by a government employee) or "teach to the test". You might be interested to know that some of the nation's elite college prep high schools are moving away from AP courses; instead letting their teachers teach what they deem important, rather than what's on the AP test. All the same, you might want to give a friendly "heads up" to your students (and their parents) not to use "AP US History" to describe your course on their transcripts, even if they take the AP exam - a misunderstanding on this point could be embarrassing for both you and the student. Also, if they do want to take the AP exam, they will want to get significantly more practice with essay writing and DBQs outside of class (unless you're planning to assign some of that soon). The kinds of questions you've assigned so far will most likely not be sufficient to prepare them for the exam. Many colleges will give college credit for a good score, so it can save your students some money/time later on. (More schools seem to accept AP than CLEP.) Plus of course it will help their applications, both in terms of getting into a good school, and in some cases helping to make the case for a merit scholarship. They would need to approach a local high school to see if they can take the exam with the school's students - I'd start asking around in January to make sure there is time to shop around if they meet resistance, though the deadline is not until March. You might want to Google around a bit - there are quite a lot of AP prep materials available on the web, which would give you an idea of what's typically covered in these classes, both in terms of content and also important skills (like writing responses to essay questions and DBQs, using primary sources, etc.). Not, of course, that your content would be the same - you will want to teach what you feel is important - but you could get a sense of depth and breadth of coverage, etc. It sounds like you are enjoying teaching this course. How much fun it is to go back through our nation's history, discovering new nuggets of information each time! There's always more to learn in every subject, even for us teachers!--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:40, 3 October 2008 (EDT) | | ::::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], one of the things I like about homeschooling is that teachers like you and I can tailor the content of our courses to the needs, abilities, and interests of our students, rather than just routinely serve up the expected fare (based on some generic set of lame standards written by a government employee) or "teach to the test". You might be interested to know that some of the nation's elite college prep high schools are moving away from AP courses; instead letting their teachers teach what they deem important, rather than what's on the AP test. All the same, you might want to give a friendly "heads up" to your students (and their parents) not to use "AP US History" to describe your course on their transcripts, even if they take the AP exam - a misunderstanding on this point could be embarrassing for both you and the student. Also, if they do want to take the AP exam, they will want to get significantly more practice with essay writing and DBQs outside of class (unless you're planning to assign some of that soon). The kinds of questions you've assigned so far will most likely not be sufficient to prepare them for the exam. Many colleges will give college credit for a good score, so it can save your students some money/time later on. (More schools seem to accept AP than CLEP.) Plus of course it will help their applications, both in terms of getting into a good school, and in some cases helping to make the case for a merit scholarship. They would need to approach a local high school to see if they can take the exam with the school's students - I'd start asking around in January to make sure there is time to shop around if they meet resistance, though the deadline is not until March. You might want to Google around a bit - there are quite a lot of AP prep materials available on the web, which would give you an idea of what's typically covered in these classes, both in terms of content and also important skills (like writing responses to essay questions and DBQs, using primary sources, etc.). Not, of course, that your content would be the same - you will want to teach what you feel is important - but you could get a sense of depth and breadth of coverage, etc. It sounds like you are enjoying teaching this course. How much fun it is to go back through our nation's history, discovering new nuggets of information each time! There's always more to learn in every subject, even for us teachers!--[[User:Hsmom|Hsmom]] 20:40, 3 October 2008 (EDT) |