Education for Everyone Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Education for Everyone - Essay Example One of the most exciting trends in education that promises to help with the emergency in funding is the increased access to free online educational resources. While there are those who decry increased online learning as being corrosive to the social benefits that accrue from time spent in face-to-face instruction, the fact is that the online opportunities for education represent an important chance for school administrators at every level – from elementary to the university – to augment their current course offerings with a wealth of robust resources that will help their students succeed – for nothing. One important trend in education that seeks to capitalize on the benefits of free online resources is the â€Å"flipped classroom.† The traditional learning model involves the teacher delivering information through lectures, presentations, or other media, while students respond with some practice in the classroom, followed by the completion of assignments ou tside school. The â€Å"flipped classroom† is the reverse: instead, students access pre-recorded lectures or readings that teachers have posted online for them. With this information in hand, students are expected to come to class prepared for the activity that awaits them. If they have not listened to the assigned lecture or accessed the required information, they will not be prepared for class that day. There are several benefits of the â€Å"flipped classroom.† The most obvious is that students who miss classes for activities or illness no longer miss out on vital information. All they have to do is access the websites for their classes and view or listen to the materials that have been posted. Also, the role of the teacher has been transformed. Instead of lecturing to whole groups, the teachers instead become learning coaches, moving from small group to small group, or even from individual to individual, making sure that each student has gained mastery over the con tent and is generating a valid product (Bergmann and Sams). Finally, the students are readier for in-class instruction when it does come. Instead of yawning through a lecture of thirty or forty-five minutes, the students stop working on their projects when they need instruction – because they need the information to complete that specific task, the missing information can be delivered more quickly, and the audience will be more receptive to it. One might point out several drawbacks to this approach. What, for example, about students who do not have Internet access at home? Is it reasonable for a student living at that socioeconomic level to be expected to go to a public library to get online for class materials, or to come to school early to access the teacher websites, particularly when that student is likely to depend on school bus transportation and to have a job after school to help the family make ends meet? Some districts around the country have tried to answer this que stion by sending home laptops or computers with each student to help bridge the financial gap to computer literacy, but it is still an unanswered question. If the â€Å"flipped classroom† is to succeed for every student, then at some point, there must be a universal wireless Internet network available to every home, so that students can access the information they need while at home – even a free laptop cannot access the World Wide Web without a subscription, the way things currently

Free Secondary Education in Kenya Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Free Secondary Education in Kenya - Case Study Example ade schooling unaffordable, and pushed many children out of school and into work. According to Damiano (2004) the current issues of transition are of great concern and it is possible to see that the large numbers of children are unable to proceed with.Obande (2007)) also states that "Just over half a million candidates sat the Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE) at the end of 2003, yet only 46 per cent had the chance to proceed to secondary schools.Although the number of candidates enrolling for primary level examinations has steadily risen, the number of secondary schools has remained the same. Unless this issue is addressed, Kenya will be dealing with an explosion at the end of 2010, when the children who enrolled in 2003, with the abolition of school fees, will be taking their primary level examinations." Damiano (2004) states that the introduction of free primary education in 1974 indeed helped by increase in enrolment in primary schools by 40 percent. But with the advent of the cost sharing policy in education in the mid-1980s the parents had to spend more money on secondary items like textbooks, stationery, development fund, activity fees, and this led to discouraging of the enrolment in primary and subsequently secondary education. school and another reason for the eighties decline might have been the over all un affordability of education and this meant that despite golden promises by the post colonial government the primary education was not really free(Damiano 2004). However things were improving by the new millennium and in December 2002 primary and secondary education was wholly freed and this has resulted in a big enrolment increase of about 1,500,000 additional students.(Damiano 2004).The main problem which still haunts the free educational initiative is the lack of money,gender bias and poor economic conditions as described by Damiano (2004) citing , Uusitalo (1999) and Levin and Plug (1999) who have blamed the family background variables as instruments hindering free secondary education and according to Angrist and Krueger (1991) and Harmon and Walker (1995) as cited by Damiano (2004) demographic statistics are also responsible for these problems. Moses W (2006) offers a more historical perspective as he states that the post colonial independence and the end of racism in the segregated school system which suppressed the Kenyan natives ,the new democratic government has had a hard time catching uo with the challenges of the , shortage of skilled labour and rampant poverty and consequently the Government devoted a large