Education First

In this day and age of multiple careers many people are considering furthering their education online. While this distance education alternative to the regular college campus offers the convenience of working with your current daily obligations this mode of education is not a good choice for all. If you are thinking about obtaining additional education and are looking at distance or online alternatives look over the following personal characteristics to help you decide if you would make a good distance student.

Are you self-motivated? This personality trait is perhaps the most important when it comes from separating successful distance education students from the rest. Unlike a traditional classroom you will not be meeting several times per week to keep you moving along towards progress. You will be assigned projects to complete, and have tests to take, and perhaps will view some teacher notes and then you will be left to your own devices. This means you have to make yourself study even the blandest of material. Your success or failure in learning the material and meeting deadlines will be solely on your shoulders.

Are you a procrastinator? While self motivation and procrastinating seem to go hand in hand, some people are motivated, but only at the last minute. If you wait until the last minute to study for tests or write assignments a distance education would not work well for you. Since you are on your own to prepare you will need to set aside time to prepare and study routinely in order to succeed.

Do you learn well by reading? If you went to a traditional college you would spend most of your class time in lectures, viewing videos, and participating in classroom discussions. If you learn well by reading and have better than average reading comprehension skills youll be more prepared to digest all of the reading material on your own. Unlike reading in a traditional environment, reading for a distance education may replace the majority of your lectures. If you cannot readily recall written material vs. learning by listening this could hurt your chances of doing well. There are some study tips that you could utilize to help you in this regard but you need to assess your learning style honestly.

Are you distracted easily? If you find yourself accidentally spending your study time watching the newest reality show, or on the phone, or surfing the internet, you will have to make sure you can discipline yourself come study time. Setting aside a quiet area to study will help. But ultimately, if you cannot resist temptation you wont be able to take in the material you are attempting to learn.

Lastly are you a social butterfly? For many considering a distance college education you may be past the traditional college years and not mind missing out on sorority parties, or keggers. However, college has other social opportunities including classroom debates, and just taking in the eclectic sort that hang out on college campuses. If you are craving the social interactions that can only be had on a college campus you may regret choosing a distance education.

So, if you are self motivated and have faith in yourself and do not need the assistance of lectures or others to learn you may do well choosing a distance education.

The Problem
In our rapidly moving culture, special education students, diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) are an ever-increasing challenge for teachers. Having taught in some capacity for nearly 40 years and being a parent of an active little boy, I have studied these conditions with immediate personal interest.

Holding Their Attention?
Early in my work with the attentionally challenged, I observed that if the learning activity were engaging enough, many of these students could hold attention for long periods. Special Education students diagnosed with ADD or ADHD often have the ability to attend for long periods working with computers or video games. I wondered, could the problem lie more in the pace of the learning activity?

Give Them What They Need
Subsequently, I began to provide activities in my classroom that had some of the same qualities of the immediate response achieved in those computerized attention-holders. One of the most successful of these was the excavation of fossils.

The Setup
Fossil excavation was a 6-week class – more of a club, really in which students excavated a real fossil fish from a soft rock matrix. This time the class was made up of many special education students with various learning challenges, especially ADHD. The outcome of the class was remarkable.

Getting Their Interest and Attention
We started with a sort of guessing game involving fossils hidden in velvet bags and moved quickly into individual excavation of the fossils. Within minutes, my work was done; the students worked independently for the remainder of the two-hour class. My hardest work that day was to enforce clean-up-the students simply didnt t want to stop working.

Tools And Supplies
The only tools needed for this activity were small screw drivers-the sort that are available from any hardware store in a set of increasing sizes beginning with an eye-glass tool . I also provided magnifiers of varying types. The most sought after were the dissecting microscopes, which gave the individual the best view of the fragile fossil. However, much of the work could be easily accomplished using the naked eye or a magnifier in a stand, just to leave the hands free.

And Then There Are the Behavioral Challenges
I was presented with a new challenge about halfway into the second class: a behaviorally disruptive student who had been removed from another class. I did what I could to introduce him to our work and bring him up to speed. His initial work was little more than digging a hole through his rock, paying little attention to the fossil it contained.

Success!
Then a wonderful thing happened. Another boy, a challenging special education student who generally had little academic success, began to teach. You see, this boy was enthralled with digging out the fossil and he was having incredible success. He single-handedly took over and my work was done.

Students Give Rave Reviews, Almost
The final endorsement came at the end of our 6-week class. Throughout the period, I had rarely interrupted their work, but I had shown a couple of videos to give the students some additional detail about fossil preservation and excavation, geologic history and so on. At the last class, I asked the students to verbally evaluate the class. When I asked how I could improve the class, all agreed: Only show the videos if we can continue excavating our fossils during it!

This is a true story of success. In this six-week project middle school children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and receiving special education services enjoyed the same success, if not more than, the other students.

Even the most absorbing tool, the TV, was not high on these students list of significant work. As a teacher, I felt I had been given a great gift of learning about how to support these special students. I encourage you to try it!