I joined this forum to learn, and I've learned a lot. The more time has gone by, the more I've realized how much I might have missed the boat if I hadn't spent time listening to everyone here. A few years have gone by since we homeschooled our children, so maybe that's why I'd forgotten the importance of some of the basic principles. These have been reinforced over the last few weeks, and some new ideas have been developing in my mind! From the perspective of my start-up business, I had thought about working with curriculum providers so they could offer and teach online courses based on their textbooks. More than that, I've been in discussion with some of them who like the idea. While I'll continue to do that, I'm beginning to see that this approach would undermine the whole purpose of homeschooling. Why keep our children out of the PS, only to turn them over to teaching staff associated with a curriculum provider or virtual school? Isn't the whole purpose that WE teach our children and not delegate the task to others? Let me explain what I mean by giving a specific example. I'm well down the path of creating an example online course based on Apologia's Physical Science book. Here's what I've planning to do: - Build an online quiz for each module, with a large bank of questions so students can take the quiz over and over. This ensures students really understand the material covered in each module. Parents could purchase the 30-day use of any quiz at any time for, let's say, $5 (I'm making up numbers just to make the point). - Combine a complete set of online quizzes, and add tasks based on the experiments defined in the Apologia book, to create an online self-study. Now students would have access to all quizzes for 16 weeks, could keep track of the completion of all tasks, and see online grades online. Maybe a self-study would $50. - Add instructor support to these studies so students can join in online discussions with an instructor, submit reports for the instructor to grade, and take tests for which written answers are required (which instructors must manually grade). Students still work through at their own pace and can start and finish at any time. Since an instructor is required, maybe this guided study would be $100. - Pull all these things together to create a full-blown online course with a virtual classroom. Now, students must join in discussions with others in the class, work on team projects, and so on. This time, there's a definite start and end date. The instructor posts grades online, and so on. At this point, maybe the price is $150. But here's what I had completely overlooked, and some of the recent threads here have made this abundantly clear: Yes, students should be able to register to take a study or a course, but parents should be able to register as instructors! After all, isn't the whole point that we teach our children, that we guide the discussions, that we review and correct their reports, and that we grade their work? Why pay $150, for example, when we could take out the instructor cost and purchase and run the course ourselves for just $50? We keep our role as teacher AND we save money! As I write this, I see how obvious it is! As I think about this more, why should the courses be based only on standard textbooks? Why shouldn't we build our own courses, based on whatever materials we prefer, and teach them to our children? Why couldn't we then sell our courses to other parents for $50, to recover our costs and to allow them to benefit from our hard work? And why can't we offer to teach courses in topics for which we're an expert, and sign our children up for courses run by other parents who are experts in other subjects? This is the spirit of homeschooling, is it not? This is exactly what we did when we homeschooled, except that we were limited to teachers who lived within driving distance. I'm still thinking this through, but by listening to y'all, I'm now thinking how I can make my online learning system available to support such an approach. I'm still going to continue building courses based on Apologia and other textbooks ("I've started so I'll finish", as they say), but maybe you can tell me what you think about this. In particular, would you ever consider building your own courses online, teaching them to your own children, offering them to other parents, and offering to teach the children of other parents? Maybe this is a good time to say a hearty thanks for allowing me to be a part of these forums and for the incredibly wise and insightful advice you've given in many of the discussion threads. In some ways, you've completely transformed my thinking and planted all kinds of new ideas in my mind. Thank you!
Steve, I am enjoying seeing your ideas percolate and form themselves. It is almost as fun as homeschooling my boys and I don't even know you! I have been perking a few ideas of my own...a class on prayer (I am reading an excellent old book on the subject) Some Unit studies are also floating around in my head. My daughter (2nd grade teacher) and I are discussing writing curriculum in the future. (when I finish my own degree...next Dec.) What you are envisioning is an online co-op. It makes sense. We do so much online now, it makes sense that the co-ops could be online and that would be a huge benifit for those of us who live in rural areas without the YMCA and community college classes.
Well thanks. Sometimes I think I'm just rambling on as I document my thoughts, so I'm glad I'm not boring everyone. If you don't mind me asking, what degree are you working on? That's it. I didn't know how to say it clearly, but an "online co-op" captures the idea exactly.
Here's an example of a work in progress. Once I've finished all the quizzes, created a self-study, created a guided study, and built a comprehensive online course, I'll post links to them.
OK. I'm not one to beat around the bush. Once I've finished writing all the help text, let me create a "Homeschool Co-op" account at my system and invite any interested parties to create your own courses. It costs nothing to create courses anyway, but I'll also add some free credits so you can run initial courses free of charge as well. This can be an experiment to see whether the idea of a homeschool co-op has merit and takes off. It would be great to see a course on prayer, and maybe we can write some on character and good communication and some of the other wonderful subjects not traditionally taught in PS. We could review each other's work as we learn how to go about this. I'll run occasional online seminars so you don't have to waste time learning the system. As a result of being at these forums, this is the third initiative I now have planned. The other two are a novel writing competition and setting up a scholarship account for homeschooled teens about to attend college. Indeed, over time, we could link this online co-op idea with the scholarship account.
Wow Steve. how cool. I am working on my BS in Psychology. I am currently an RN with an associates. If I want to do anything besides staff nursing I need a BS. But I don't really want to be a nurse anymore...or not completely so I couldn't face getting my BSN. even tho' it would have been faster and cheaper. I never do things the easy way. But I put off the whole school thing for 13 years...so I felt it was better to go back for ANYthing...rather than avoid it because I didn't want to do the "obvious". BUT all that being said. I don't want to be a counselor either... I didn't go into nursing to take care of sick people (I do L&D) and I am not doing Psych to take care of crazy people. So I am hoping God has a plan...cuz I do not.
Our area is rural-most farms here go back hundreds of years in the families that own them-and we are fortunate to have the Y and community college. Churches here-small, country churches also going back hundreds of years- let hs groups use their classrooms. Where there's a will, there's a way.
I know Jake would love an online homeschool coop. The ones in the area are so expensive (based on the local income level) and honestly - I don't HAVE that amount of $$ to put out for classes - not with 4 kids...possibly adding more....and food
This is interesting, but I am a little confused. You mention that others could sign up for a class taught by some other parent that has the skills you lack. How is this different from your original idea where you have some professional teacher teaching a class? Would the parent run class cost $150 like the professional teacher run class? Also, a concern I would have is that I do not know who this parent is on the other side of the computer. Since this is not a paid professional teacher, what happens if the parent teacher decides to drop the ball half way through the course?
We had a private 'school' here once that was staffed by 'teachers' that were former homeschool moms. For 4,000.00 per year plus book fees, too.
It's different in several ways: - Parents retain control over the material and the teaching - There's no need to follow a set textbook; material could come from anywhere - Material could be supplemented (or replaced) by discussions during which parents share life experiences - Parents would work mostly with other parents they know and trust (or that others have recommended) - Parents probably wouldn't charge to teach the children of others (although they could if they wanted) - There need be no set schedule; classes could be run whenever From my experience, trust and informality are very important when involving others in our homeschooling activities. A neighbor gave our older daughter art lessons, so we knew her. Friends recommended a former missionary who was giving lessons in Spanish, so we followed up based on their feedback. The mentality of "formally qualified teachers" versus "the unwashed masses" disappears because we've now taken control of our children's education. Word soon gets about if someone is let down, so I doubt it would happen very much. Even if someone did have to pull out of teaching a class, another parent would step right in!
Taking this a little further, imagine the following scenario. Let's say I create a course and make it available to everyone else. The course includes quizzes and projects and discussions and so on. It also includes detailed teacher notes so anyone can run it. You do a search and find the course. You like it but would like to make a few small changes. You would be free to make those changes and then to publish your version. If you have a friend who is a teacher in that subject, you could approach them to teach the course. You inform a few other parents that you know, recommending your friend as teacher, and away you go. Before you know it, your child is in an online class with a bunch of friends being taught by your friend and including material and/or activities that you specifically added to the course. That is very different from paying a fortune to a curriculum provider that uses set material, teachers you don't know, and children in the class your child doesn't know. PS - it's rather ironic that the advertiser at the bottom of the page is a curriculum provider offering a discount on their online courses.
