New Masterclass For Parents Available Now

The Best Education Possible Homeschooling/Virtual Learning Masterclass for parents is now available.  Click the picture below or follow the link.

www.BestEducationPossible.com

Message To Parents: In The '20-'21 School Year You Are Not Alone - Get Help Now With The Best Education Possible Homeschooling Master Class

The 2020-2021 school year is going to present new challenges for parents.  Our founder, Debra E. West is a solution-oriented award-winning retired elementary school principal.  Here is her message:

Debra was recently quoted in a feature on HowStuffWorks.com in and article, The Pros and Cons of Pandemic Learning Pods by Carrie Whitney, PhD. 

Here is a brief excerpt from her comments:

Without outside support, online learning works best when parents are home, according to Debra West, a recently retired educator in Huntsville, Alabama, and founder of Best Education Possible.

"You really have to be there to supervise," she says and compares learning at home to being in a classroom where a teacher is constantly rotating around the room. Parents who have to work outside the home need more support. West saw this during the spring 2020 virtual learning when parents of her former students contacted her.

"They were really, really struggling and having a hard time," West says. In response, she created a course to help parents get started on the right foot.

"The main thing I'm trying to get across is that they have to start off correctly, and they have to start off with a routine," West explains. Go to bed, get up, get dressed, have a dedicated workspace, so the child knows where to work.

"You can't just leave it like it's going to be OK, because it's not," she says. "I just really feel like it's going to take a complete community effort."

Source: https://people.howstuffworks.com/learning-pods.htm

13 Tips For Parents Teaching Kids At Home

Best Education Possible founder Debra E. West is a retired, award-winning teacher and pricipal with over 30 years experience in education. Here she offers 13 tips for parents who are challenged with teaching their children from home. Please share with anyone you know who has children and is struggling at this time. Thank you! 

 Here is the video:

Teachers and Technology

In order to prepare students to be college or career ready, teachers must give them the tools necessary to be successful.  Technology is changing so rapidly that teachers must explore and learn the latest tools and programs.  It takes professional development and sharing of information to keep up with this rapid growth.  Students and teacher will lead and learn together. Real life problems and projects will be the wave of the future classroom.  Technology is here to stay and teachers must get on board.

I Pads, iPhones, active boards, and tablets will be the tools used in the classrooms.  Time is moving on and if teachers are not using all the tools available, they will be left behind and so will their students. 

How Can Technology Improve Student Learning?

Technology alone cannot improve student learning.  Teachers must allow their students to explore through technology and become global peers that solve real world problems.  Teachers must receive the training and professional development that is essential to support the technology or it will be an electronic text book.  Our children must learn to collaborate with peers and teachers to combined ideas explore new paths.  This is an exciting time in education for our students, but can be a scary time for teachers because things continue to grow and change so quickly. 

Project base learning is a very effective way to integrate technology into the classroom.  Students can perform in-depth investigation by creating websites, blogs, videos, and web tools.  Students learn better by experiencing it hands on and technology can increase academic achievement, critical thinking, collaboration, and motivation.  The technology that we are using today will be obsolete in 2-3 years.  Therefore, time is not waiting for education to incorporate technology.  Technology is dictating how students will learn and work and the direction that schools need to take
. 

Give up Cigarettes and Gain No Weight

According to an article in Good Housekeeping Magazine, June 2010, giving up cigarettes doesn't have to mean gaining weight. Researchers from Northwestern University analyzed 10 studies involving 2,233 smokers, and found that those who watched the scale while quitting put on less weight (about 1.9 fewer pounds) after three months thant those who just cut out the cigarettes. Success in one area encourags more success in the other. So, attempting both at the same time not only could prevent dreaded weight gain, it could also up your chances of stopping smoking once and for all.

Inequity in American Education of the Poor: Part 4

Another crucial factor in determining education inequality is the family background of students.  There is a proven correlation between the academic successes of parents with the academic success of their children.  In a Harvard’s “Civil Rights Project,” Lee and Orfeild identified family background as the most influential factor in student achievement.  Only 11% of children from the bottom fifth earn a college degree while 80% of the top fifth earn one.    This translates to a home-life that is more supportive of educational success. 

As mentioned in family background, access to resources play a hugely important role in education inequality.  In addition to the resources, access to proper nutrition and health care influence the cognitive development of children.  Children who come from poor families experience a disadvantage from the start.  The lack of resources is directly linked to ethnicity and race.  Black and Latino students are three times more likely than whites to be in high poverty schools and twelve times as likely to be in school that almost everyone is poor.  Therefore, parental involvement and awareness is extremely important.  Additionally, children from poorer families, who are often minorities, come from families that distrust institutions. Disadvantage parents must educate themselves in order to assure the success of their children and their children’s children.  Education must become a priority in the home and the schools must make these parents feel welcome and important partners.

High poverty schools must have all the characteristics of an effective school.  The schools of the poor students must focus on achievement and monitor student progress.   There must be a cooperative working environment and the school’s atmosphere must be safe and orderly.   With strong leadership, dedicated highly effective teachers, parental involvement, and high expectations for all students, and time on task any schools with poor students should meet with academic and personal success.