🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <77102@apple.apple.COM> billc@Apple.COM (Bill Cockayne) writes:
>...what people thought of Education By Appointment curriculums.
>
>In this setting, the students carry mostly the same course load as they 
>normally would, but they are not required to meet for class more than, say,
>one hour a week. In this hour the teacher interacts with the class as a whole
>explaining something that the students might not have seen in their book (ie,
>.....
>	All the students start on the same assignment, but when Suzy is done
>she goes and takes the "test" on it, even if no one else has even started. Suxy
>[Suzy] is then given the next assignment to work on. She could fininsh the 
>class in a couple of weeks if she were determined, or slack off compleeley and
>only finish a percentage of the course. The student will not advance within
>the classes curriculum until she has passed the current test (ie, you take the
>test until you pass with an A).
>
>	Could we do this in the present GT programs? In normal curricula?
>

I taught under a system like this called "Continuous Progress" for several
years.  It is a wonderful system for both teaching a curriculum and skills
like self-motivation and self-discipline.

Some problems led to its demise during the years that I taught:
1.  The system seemed to work well when each teacher handled 80-100
students.  Four years later, when the same teachers had 120-130 students,
the system had collapsed.  It seems to require low student-teacher ratios
to work.

2.  I believe the second problem is related to the first.  As
student-teacher ratios grew, the teachers were less able to trouble shoot
lapses in self-motivation or self-discipline among the students.  When
faced with the alternative of telling student and parent that Suzy had not
finished the course, there was a collective loss of nerve.  Instead, more
courses were created that Suzy could not help but finish because
everyone-was-taught-the-same-thing-at-the same-time.  Of course now the
problem was worse, instead of Suzy not finishing the course, Suzy was
failing the course.  Still, parents seem to prefer this option.

My conclusion is that this approach will be politically feasible among
students who are already fairly motivated and disciplined.  Students who
lack these skills cannot develop them without close supervision by parents
and teachers who constantly point out the effects and consequences of
their choices.