[Incoming freshman - check in here]

This was a serious problem at the bricks-and-mortar university I attended. Yes, there were quiet dorms and other forms of specialist dorm (there was even consideration of having an alcohol recovery floor, though that never got past the planning stage). Considerable effort was made to socially include sober and teetotaller students, including many activities where alcohol was not an option. However, there was still a large endemic culture of binge drinking on campus. One attempt that looked promising at the time but whose success still being evaluated when I graduated was to prevent clubs from block-booking events involving alcohol (the idea was to make them look less cool).

Unfortunately, the confluence of the first moment of freedom for many students being university enrolment age and the legal age to drink alcohol being 18 led to a problem that hasn't really been solved. The good news is that the current generation of students averages less tolerant of alcohol (both in terms of drinking less of it themselves, in safer drinking patterns, and of discouraging the habit among their peers). The bad news is polarisation; the relatively small number who haven't reduced their drinking have instead become more likely to drink more, binge more, drink in ways others around them consider anti-social and/or dangerous and more likely to egg peers into having "just one drink" when the peer would rather have zero. Demand for how to deal with this has not kept up. The whole situation is a sad mess.

My current university has not got this problem - because statistically the average student is in their late 20s and most people have either got out of the experimental phase of alcohol by that point in their lives, or know with certainty that they never will enter it in the first place. (Most of the rest are either not interested in pursuing a degree at the same time or are quite aware that they are not capable of doing it justice due to the heavy drinking).

To change subject, my own course is in its latter stages. I am halfway through submitting the portfolio, which has lots of fiddly bits meaning I'm managing to get about 15% submitted per hour before frustration kicks in at the uploading system. Hopefully by the end of next week, all of this work I've prepared for the portfolio will actually be in the system. (The deadline is a month away, and I also need to submit an exam).

[Phonics programs?]

Seconding the blending work and running around outside, and also wanting to add listening to lots of books and spoken language (whether you're reading them, other adults are reading them or as audiobooks). It is of course possible that OP is already doing lots of all these things, but I have no specific advice to offer on the "which curriculum" side of it, except to say mixing things up can sometimes help, simply through providing variety.

[Comparing Costs of Homeschooling and Public Schooling]

2 hours ago, thriftschooler said:

That's another big issue with American schools, at least in my experiences. Often, they had some sort of reward - usually a free day or free half-day, often with snowcones or some other treat - if you sold a certain amount of whatever the latest gimmick was.

Yikes! The only time there was an intentional reward or penalty connected with any of the fundraisers I've seen or participated in at schools so far was the threat of detention for deliberately messing up (if a student chose not to participate, the penalty was only possible if the student had deliberately interfered with the letter informing the parent of the event - and in these days where email and texts are preferred, not every student would be given a letter to lose/damage in the first place). Also, the children in my experience never sold anything to benefit the school individually - rather, the children would sing/play instruments/dance round a maypole and the adults got the job of selling things and soliciting donations.

[Comparing Costs of Homeschooling and Public Schooling]

Where I live (central England), the cost of public school itself varies quite a bit, although it is hardly ever free.

Uniforms: there will almost certainly be one. £250 per year (on top of the amount that would have been bought if homeschooling) is typical, but some primary schools may only cost around £40 per year (two sets of regular clothing that happens to be in a specific colour, with the average year containing a mid-year growth spurt). Some of the stricter secondary schools can be more like £400 per year, due to wanting a much longer list of items from a specific supplier.

Books: Usually none in primary school. Often rises to £10-£30 a year (fee includes all subjects; schools differ for which subjects attract the charge) in secondary school, plus another £10-£30 for each course that has an exam at the end of that specific year to cover revision materials (so maths would get the extra charge in GCSE year but not the others).

Other supplies: similar to what the same items would cost in homeschool. Schools have different lists of what is required, but these are often shorter than I've heard is common in USA schools (there's no expectation of supplying tissues to the teachers, for instance - as you will see, schools typically prefer financial donations if they're soliciting contributions at all).
 

Lunch: the absolute bugbear of many cost-conscious parents. Typically £2.50 per meal, and it's common knowledge by this point that in many schools, they only get 61 p per meal spent on the ingredients because the law requires it. (Costs to external suppliers for labour and services are the most commonly-cited additional costs in audits, though the sheer cost of heating is becoming an increasing factor, and ingredient costs are themselves rising). Quantities are reducing and unhealthy food is creeping back onto the menu simply to make the figures work. It has reached the point where it is usually half the price, and often healthier, to send in a packed lunch with pre-packaged ingredients (so, not even taking the home-made element into account) - if the school permits this. An increasing number of students also find school food unpalatable due to these changes, meaning that expenditure gains absolutely nothing. This is where the cost saving of homeschooling is most transparent.

Some schools cost less than this, some give out actually nutritious meals. Breakfast is free where offered, and all primary schools are required to offer it (some secondary schools do too, especially in high-poverty or very affluent areas), but is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the high cost of lunch. School is 39 weeks a year in central England, so typical saving on lunch for homeschooling works out at £487.50 per year (assuming homeschooling lunch is a pre-packed meal from a shop rather than the cheaper but more variable cost of home cooking). The calculation also assumes that free school meals are not in play - this happens automatically in some schools (either for specific year groups or the entire school, the latter being more common at special schools and places where most people are low-income), but otherwise only covers students whose parents earn below a certain income that's largely only possible if the household is running on government benefits and/or part-time income(s) (the threshold is below a single full-time minimum wage).

Transport: increasingly, even free public transport requires a £10 annual fee for the photo (as school buses start letting fee-paying general members of the public use the buses to save money and increase rural transport options for adults, on the understanding that they are then bound by the same rules as the children on board). However, even this only helps if one lives near a bus route. Otherwise, walking (the officially encouraged option), cycling or the car are the only options, and many school routes are considered too unsafe for children to walk due to inconsiderate traffic, bullying and/or badly-planned access routes to the school. Cycling sheds and the like are often no longer provided by schools as security cannot be guaranteed. Students with special educational needs that involve transport get that transport free (even if it is an adapted taxi) since otherwise most of them could not access school at all. The car costs an average of 20 gallons per year, currently £160, but if it's on the way to work that's somewhat cheaper.

After-school clubs: often attract fees of £2-£3 a session nowadays, to pay for the teacher. This is far from a blanket rule, and many schools that do charge have free alternatives (e.g. the ability to use the library while waiting for transport home instead).

Donations: British schools rarely have teacher kit lists, but many schools do solicit for donations. There are strict rules about this. Community events that are also fundraising are common and traditional (e.g. May Day carnivals, Christmas choir concerts). Some schools outright request donations (£10-£50 a year is typical) but the wording is tightly controlled - schools have to make it clear that schooling won't be affected for the specific children whose parents don't partake, also there have to be protections if someone on a sufficiently low income tries to donate (to make sure it's not peer pressure or inadvertent child coercion at play). However, parents do feel that pressure and it's not surprising if parents are finding themselves paying, say, £30-£40 a year on these elements.

Sometimes there is separate fundraising or per-participant fees for specific elaborate field trips (think "spend a week abroad" or "three-day adventure trip"), although the typical field trip integrated into school hours is free (apart from optional gift shop expenditure and any extra clothes needed - that would probably have been bought anyway had a homeschooler organised the trip). The exception is if the location charges schools entry fees for children of the age that are visiting, which is not a given even for museums that charge homeschoolers (local schools often get free entry to paid-for educational attractions as a gesture of goodwill).

Note that British homeschoolers often put students into college for examinable subjects on exam year, simply because otherwise it can cost around £400 per subject to get assessed, and an academically-included student typically needs 5 (GCSE Maths/English and 3 A-Levels or equivalently-priced qualifications appropriate to their preferred degree). Another big complaint from homeschoolers.

[French III Help]

If you are doing a non-option #1, you could speak to individual members of the Alliance Française to see if any of them would be open to conversing with your daughter, even if it is once a week for part of the year. This would probably be less socially daunting than going to the whole Alliance Française class (since you could be reasonably confident of her speaking to the same stranger through the year), but still gives an opportunity to maintain French speaking skills - and of course those hours can be counted towards the credit, giving you fewer hours to plan in detail elsewhere on the course.

[What Writing Skills does a STEM Student need in College?]

I'd like to add a couple of writing skills that may also be transferable to other areas:

 

- Citations

- Answering the question presented

- Wise use of typing assistance tools like spellcheck and grammar check (including when not to follow the computer's suggestion).

In all three cases, it's sufficient to be working towards these skills - nobody is expected to have fully mastered them before college.

[Are engineering programs still male dominated?]

17 hours ago, Serenade said:

Perhaps I'm not understanding what you are suggesting, but I'm not quite sure how the pathway through a particular engineering major could be significantly altered due to sequencing issues.  Engineering is so inflexible because so much builds on the previous courses and thus going out of sequence is not really possible. Maybe I'm missing something?

What parts are the ones that build on each other, what parts are the context? Have multiple contexts to get each of the "build on each other" parts that are all considered valid pathways through engineering, and there is a more flexible course (that if done in a thoroughgoing way, would also be more flexible in at least one sense than any of the course structures we've discussed in this thread - even the course I mentioned still has only one module that is considered suitable to teach certain subjects, and membership of professional organisations is therefore affected if those specific modules get dropped). Clarita gave a good course-specific example for how certain essential content can be taught in multiple ways.

The research I quoted didn't know why more women cared about the engineering course being flexible than men, as it was designed to be an initial exploration (of a gender difference result that had not been expected). That would be for other research to figure out. That was the finding, and perhaps some of the statistics various people have been giving about their courses would help future researchers zero in on what type of flexibility, exactly, is the type to make the most effective difference and still develop really good engineers out of the process.

[Are engineering programs still male dominated?]

42 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

This makes sense. I don’t know why suggesting that there are gender differences in preference for certain careers has become so politically incorrect.

Possibly because there's evidence coming in that small changes to the situation makes a big difference. If the Open University study generalises, then something approaching half of the young women interested in engineering in high school could be getting lost simply because most engineering courses only allow one path through the core engineering modules, rather than offering a choice of modules that cover the same essential content. Even offering students the choice of learning essential topics through the context of different types of engineering (instead of cramming all of them into the same module and insisting students only take that one) might result in some improvement without causing the individual accreditation difficulties that can open up when making engineering a free-for-all degree.

If it's possible to halve the number of female students lost to engineering by a relatively small change of curriculum format, then I would venture to suggest that the gender difference isn't as important as intuition might suggest. (It's also worth adding that there are simply many more university spaces in biological courses these days than engineering, to the point where despite the bias, there are also more young men pursuing biology than engineering. There are possible directions for this, some of which could feed into Roadrunner's suggestion. There is a lot we don't know about this subject and there may well turn out to be merit in the intuitive position, so nothing can be ruled out yet.

[Are engineering programs still male dominated?]

22 hours ago, freesia said:

I think there needs to be a shift in making engineering as a job more family friendly. We used to live in an area with lots of engineers and it was definitely not the type of environment that would be easy to bear children and have small children ( if you wanted to ever see them.). If the work culture becomes more flexible, I would imagine it would attract more women. 

Not just workplaces, but the education establishments as well.

Open University has an Open STEM course which allows free access to engineering courses (provided module pre-requisites are met) in addition to its conventional engineering degree. It found that in October 2019, the gender imbalance in the engineering introductory unit almost halved in the Open STEM version compared to the conventional engineering degree (33% women in the Open STEM route compared to 16% in the conventional route). Prominent reasons cited by students for this include:

- the ability to substitute one or two disliked modules for something else, including from a completely different subject (a common complaint was that some modules just weren't desirable to study)
- breadth of study (for example, some women wanted to combine engineering and mathematics, to an extent the conventional engineering course did not permit)
- confidence

I'd like to see a follow-up study, since mathematically most of the students in that cohort would be over halfway through their degrees, and some would have completed them. However, a couple of other studies indicate that multi-discipline scientific courses are attractive to women in ways that single-subject engineering is not.

It's possible that colleges/universities that only allow one fixed route through their engineering degree could be losing a large number of women that would otherwise at least give studying engineering a try. It would also go some way towards explaining why liberal arts colleges have a greater proportion of women doing engineering - they typically have ways of integrating some breadth into studies and a cultural expectation that the breadth be taken at least somewhat seriously.

Scotland cares if some fields are female-dominated - it requires those of its universities with courses in any field where Scottish student gender bias is at/above 25%/75% in favour of either men or women to take measures to reduce the bias, known as the Gender Action Plan. (Currently, fields classed as male-dominated are Architecture, Building/Planning, Engineering, Technologies and Computer Science, and those classed as female-dominated fields are Social Sciences, Nursing, Teaching and Psychology. The statistics will be reviews, and focus subjects changed as appropriate, when people get round to it - this was meant to happen last year but COVID led to an indefinite delay).

[Are engineering programs still male dominated?]

This may depend on which STEM field is involved and where one is studying.

Across the UK, women comprise 81% of the 2020-2021 intake of student vets and psychologists, about half of general biology students, 42% of physics and chemistry students, 30% of maths students and 21% of computing and engineering students.

 

The statistics for other places may be different.

[Spreading Biology over 2 years? Or skipping altogether?]

6-10 experiments from a book containing a good range of biology/biology-related experiments, such as the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments by Thompson & Thompson, would complement the work already done in Miller-Levine nicely. (You'd be surprised how few experiments some lab classes in schools have). Spread them out when you want a hands-on break from the writing- and conversation-heavy work done elsewhere, or simply in weeks where the workload is lower than otherwise, and let it spill into 12th grade if needed or desired. (If your student desires more "experiment breaks" in 12th, but does not want them to be in biology, there exist similar experiment-focused books for chemistry and physics).

[Thinking ahead: history]

History I-IV is a perfectly valid naming convention, although it's entirely reasonable to mention civics/econ on the transcript if your pathway through history/social studies (be that the WTM method or not) involves enough work on those topics that it's worth specifically mentioning. History IV: Modern History and Civics is a possible example title (obviously, change the time period and additional bit ), bearing in mind that in the WTM method, you'll probably sprinkle teaching about civics, government and/or economy across the 10th-12th years. (History II: Medieval History and American History I. followed by History III: Early Modern History and American History II, could convey to colleges that you included the study of American history as an integral part of your WTM-style history).

Please bear in mind that a WTM approach still leaves some scope for student-chosen specialisation, if there's a particular part of history or social sciences that particularly interests your oldest, without adding more books or time. Simply make sure a sufficient number of the selected Great Books have something to say about the chosen area. Nobody in the 21st century is likely to study every Great Book in the high school years because there's too many of them. You're not even obliged to give 2-3 credits a year for the work like WTM 3rd edition does (thus not obliged to set 2-3 credits' worth of reading and writing/discussion) A few such books read deeply and well-understood will serve better than trying to read a lot. So within reason, feel free to pick and choose as suits your family's preferences.

The amount of time taken depends on how fast oldest reads and writes. as well as exactly how much credit you want to give. I'd recommend trying to alter the number of books to fit the amount of work you want (at least for the first few books), rather than predetermining a number of books and trying to guess how long this will take. A useful exercise might be to give your child a short prose Great Book and see how long it takes them to read a section of it. You can then extrapolate from this to decide how much reading appears to make sense. (Remember to allow enough time to demonstrate understanding, be that in writing or orally, and a whole credit is usually 120-180 hours, depending on how important the subject is compared to the others your student is studying).

There's no minimum number of essays/writings, although given that it's likely to provide at least some of the literature part of your English credit as well as history/social sciences, you'll definitely want to include some. The important things are to ensure oldest is engaging with each book in a meaningful way, and is gradually improving their understanding and academic skills.

For each book, choose a particular thing to focus on. This will help you reduce the length of writing/discussion needed to show understanding.

It's OK to set questions based on the elements of books you do understand, and it's also OK to ask the student to discuss the book with someone else who enjoys that book (in the case of Great Books that are enjoyed by other people you know - if all else fails, see if a student who recently studied a book you find challenging would accept payment to discuss the book with your child via videoconferencing, email, post, phone or in person).

[Incoming freshman - check in here]

I got a 93% average on my first 3 exams (both of the Biology ones and the first one about Water). If my coursework was getting that sort of grade, I'd be well on target for a Distinction (the highest grade this course carries), but they're not, and I'm not. A high-level Pass* looks increasingly likely.

* - Fail is the only other result given for these modules. If for some reason I wanted that Fail on my transcript at this point, I'd have to either forget to submit the final coursework item altogether - that's an automatic zero - or average 14% on every remaining item of coursework and every remaining exam.

The two optional modules I planned to do (about AI and computer audio) have been completed and were awarded 100%. I am currently seeking further challenges.

The highlight of the course so far in 2024 was doing a scientific experiment at a friend's house (the friend enjoyed being a "lab assistant"). Unfortunately I'm not allowed to share what that experiment was due to coursework rules, because it would have made a good science experiment for a homeschool science lab (some of you might even have done the experiment before).

I've got a Plan A and a Plan B for how to progress after this course. The Plan B is is being considered due to certain complications that have developed on this course, combined with a new opportunity to finish my intended degree that might have a more useful module combination than the proposed final year plan for the Plan A pathway. If I do Plan B, there's three different points at which I could opt into it, so no hurry to make a decision, but this will inform some of the optional studies I plan to do.

[Dual enrollment course with no syllabus posted]

Also consider passing on a quick, sympathetically-worded message to the university's IT department. "Possible technical issues" can be a wonderful social lubricant because it means that the computer or "the person-computer interface" can take the blame, rather than the prof directly. Plus if the prof is having genuine technical issues (or IT skill issues), the IT department will be able to discreetly arrange for additional training for the prof to avoid a repeat.

[Rhetoric Courses]

Toastmasters have to be 18+. However, many (perhaps most) Toastmasters groups allow under-18s* to be guests and potentially also to join as "gavellers". They have fewer rights with their membership than Toastmasters (i.e. regular members) do, but they are allowed to attend and speak (within certain rules that may vary by group). The best way is to go as a guest and talk to the membership secretary about your situation.

If you see a "Gavel Club" in your research, this is a Toastmasters group specifically aimed at particular gavellers (for example, a group of Girl Guide teenagers with perhaps a facilitating adult or two could form a Gavel Club).

* - A few Toastmasters groups are effectively 18+, be that due to the group being aimed at advanced Toastmasters (gavellers are not allowed to do advanced courses, but can do the youth programs) or due to being scheduled at times when the members expect children to be in school (in the latter case, a homeschooler would have a strong case to have an exception made for their child).

[Time estimate for DE courses]

43 minutes ago, silver said:

So you've answered part of my question, that 8 hours outside of class is about reasonable.

But what about this situation, where the professor (whether by fallacy or experience) thinks that will not get a student a C in the course? If you were advising a student that needs an A or B, and the professor is insisting they put in twice the reasonable amount of work in order to pass, and the student doesn't have 10 extra hours a week, what would you advise? 

I would advise that the lower the passing grade, the more reliable instructor time estimates tend to be - and the more use they are to the student in question.

Some people get A or B rather than C because they worked more hours. Others do so because they knew how to use their hours well, or intuitively grasped the material, so completing the course with an A/B in less time than it took the C student to get their C. A few might simply have prepared so well, that the A or B barely requires significant study. The first category often would have worked those extra hours anyway because they are teaching themselves to mastery (thus not needing the teacher's estimate). The second category will, at some point, grasp that they're learning faster than expected and be happy with their learning. The third are likely to realise the advice wasn't intended for them in the first place (since instructors have to assume some level of entry, and if the student knew they exceeded that level before starting, the student would know the time estimate was not meant for them).

For an A student, hours per week are a loose guideline unless it's the sort of course where most of the time is expected to be spent in class.

Advise eldest to study the material to mastery (or as close to it as compatible with other demands on time). Also look if there are easier ways to do what is expected, and start experimenting with them early. These tend to include:

- maintaining reasonable health (with particular attention to getting enough rest, nutritious food, fresh air, exercise. time with friends and free time alone)

- sorting out small problems before they become big ones, and mitigating big ones as far as practicable

- better study methods

- working on known weak points and capitalising on strengths

- finding ways to check understanding of the conceptual course material that don't depend on waiting for the coursework to be marked

- better understanding of the expectations of whoever is marking the work (this may or may not be the lecturer)

- understanding what matters more and less within the materials

- good use of time: frontload reading the material (whether that's assigned material or wider reading), start coursework early, avoiding overthinking assignments, revise throughout the course

- savvy use of approved assistance methods like office hours and the community college library

If it's taking more than 20 hours to understand the material and complete all the work to their satisfaction in Week 1 (or any single week thereafter), to schedule office hours and/or other appropriate assistance as soon as possible. The same applies if the student is running out of time in any particular week and not fully understanding the material (even if the student had very little time to study) - incremental effort towards finals is a lot easier to postpone to next week than grasping what is to be learned.

Another possible reason: if the instructor is assuming it could be some students' first course at this institution (or the first at this level of study), the worst-case scenario for the first and last weeks may have been quoted, rather than a true average. If this is the case, it is entirely possible that 20 hours/week won't be any student's average. However, it would be plausible for a first-timer not used to the form and lacking optimal study habits for this type of course (i.e. the most likely type of student to be a C student rather than B/A) to need 20 hours a week to adjust to expectations at the beginning, and then to cram for finals/exams at the end. Given that students often hear what they want to hear, a figure that takes the worst weeks into account means students are more likely to give themselves time to learn the material. This avoids three adverse results from insufficient time at the beginning:

1) mass withdrawals from the course

2) lots of underperformances because the foundations weren't in and/or the students did too little coursework/revision too late

3) excessive unfair comments in the post-course comments that could have been solved by better allocation of time

(For scale: the module I'm currently doing at university is quoted as requiring 16-20 hours/week. However, it's also considered to be half a full-time course load and is designed to be a first course at this level. I'm a B student and I'm not spending close to that amount of time on it, but students new to this level were spending 20 hours a week at the beginning).

 

[AP Computer Science Principles]

That sounds like a strong vote for "yes because this child needs it now". First formal exams go better if they're with material the student knows well and also still finds sufficiently interesting.

[What's new in Gifted homeschooling in the last four years or so?]

Hope it went well!

[AP Computer Science Principles]

Some universities count Computer Principles and Computer Studies as the same subject (since they are both computing qualifications).

Some universities don't count Computer Principles as valid for entrance to computing specifically, although it is possible some of them might count it towards other subjects.

They are not necessarily the same universities, and this far out, it's possible the answers could change between now and graduation. (For example. of the five nearest universities to me (in the UK), 1 accepts both courses towards the 3 it requires provided the other one is in maths, 1 accepts both with no other conditions regarding AP subjects, 1 accepts either Computer Principles or Computer Studies but not both (and offering Computing Studies for that university allows 4s instead of 5s on the non-IT APs), 1 will only accept the Computer Studies, 1 appears to require completion of year 1 of a 4-year degree or equivalent (without accepting APs).

 

This far from likely graduation, I would suggest that study be aimed at the child in front of you, rather than the child who will go to university in 4-5 years' time. If you think your child would benefit from doing Computer Principles now, go ahead. If something else looks more appropriate for right now, do that instead.

[Article on AP--Taxpayers paid at least $90 million for AP tests that many students failed.]

I believe it is possible to make a history survey class interesting. There are plenty of books summarising the history of the world, countries, groups and/or practices in bookshops that prove this. However, if one wishes to do this, the assessment has to reflect the intended learning goals. This is because teachers will tend to teach according to the assessment, if that assessment is sufficiently high-stakes (the threshold for many students is low, because of an assumption that the teacher and/or the student themselves would prefer the student does well rather than badly on the test). If a survey exam assesses too widely, or concentrates on types of details students would not find interesting at survey level, then it would not be possible to have an interesting history survey class.

 

A little bit of selectivity, a little bit of choice and perhaps a little more open-endedness (e.g. indicate at the start of the year 3 areas of potential particular focus and then have on the exam "You have 3 choices for Section B, choose the one concerning the element of this era you focused upon most in the survey") could potentially go a long way. A truly beginner-level survey would probably simply subdivide the survey into 3 time periods, an intermediate one might use different lenses such as medicine, causes and consequences of a particular battle/war, engaging with a specific primary document in detail or the experiences of a particular group of people. Section A in this model would still be questions about the whole survey, so it could still be confirmed that students knew about a wide variety of events, people and procedures relevant to the whole area surveyed. However, being able to focus the study a little (assuming the exam board does not then require tons of learning about the "focused" era in what is meant to be a survey course) would allow more scope to make the learning interesting rather than rushed or feeling factory-processed.

[Given this, what score would you need to get an A+?]

I think the first one was a typo and the second one is more likely. However, were I the student, I would try to polite enquire as to which of the scoring scales was intended. Especially if I had any reason to suspect that the correct answer was "neither".

[Article on AP--Taxpayers paid at least $90 million for AP tests that many students failed.]

Definitely a thing, at least in some places. One problem with having an all-or-nothing test is resisting the temptation to have every class simply be a version of the class that teaches to that test. This is how come many UK upper secondary schools' history end up with 3 years of World War II. This would be less bad if it didn't include 3 terms of "this is how the war started", which isn't a big enough topic to sustain 3 terms of teaching at that level. This has been cited as one reason relatively few students take History beyond the compulsory age. (Admittedly, the same exam obligations - the history exams are supposed to cover 2 millennia of history - mean the other 2 years of a student's last 5 years doing a history-focused course will be on other topics).

Subjects with sequential pre-requisites like maths tend to be hit less hard with this effect, as do less prescriptive exams.

[Chat GPT and Outlining]

Welcome to the Well-Trained Mind forum! Outlines are an excellent idea, not just for avoiding AI use, but for helping build students' capabilities to write their own work.

Look for hallucinated text - facts that are wrong in ways that students of this age group are unlikely to get wrong (especially given what the students already do or should know). An example of what hallucinated writing looks like can be seen on the Interactive Fiction forum (someone asked Chat-GPT to give a walkthrough of a famous game and it "confidently" generated text full of invented rooms, items and objectives). To give a more history-related example:

If a student, responding plausibly to an essay question, is going into 5 pages of detail about the American Revolution with lots of details that make superficial sense, the essay probably shouldn't mention that Denzel Washington commanded the Continental Army. (For anyone reading this who doesn't recognise the name, Denzel is a 20th-century actor/producer/director, thus such a "fact" would be impossible).

Said mistake should not occur on page 3, after associating George Washington with that position for the previous 2 pages. (A student writing their own work is more likely to either make a typo or substitute a name that is vaguely similar to the previously-used one).

The student's work should not indicate this basic error has been printed in any credible source the student would consider valid to cite (unless this is a university class and this is an essay where low-credibility sources are permitted).

The essay really shouldn't claim that such an erroneous statement came from a scholarly book or research paper that doesn't exist (complete with reference that doesn't tally with anything findable using a search engine search or library catalogue check). Artificial intelligence is currently abysmal at citing sources that exist and match the quotes/material attributed to them. It often gets basic facts wrong about areas where it can generate plausible (not always accurate) information about more detailed exercises.

Check all graphs and charts correspond with the tables that generated them and the text they are meant to support - AI often gets the relationships between the three elements wrong.

Consider having several really clear instructions in key assignments, rather than just one vaguely-worded one. For example, "Describe and explain three causes of the Great Depression, with reference to at least two primary sources" is a better request than "Explain why the Great Depression happened". Where students can choose a thesis, similarly ask them to be specific on what the question will be. The more specific the request, the less likely it is that a large language model will succeed in a way that fools you or indeed the student. Better still, agree a definition of command words with other staff members at the school - AI can't interpret organisation-specific definitions of command words very well at this point because it depends on dictionaries and general user experience.

Creative requests (like writing a letter as if from someone involved in a historical event) are more likely to generate plausible nonsense, but also more likely to reveal that an artificial intelligence wrote it rather than the student (as it is less likely to match the student's pre-existing style).
 

If you have a large class (more than a couple of dozen students), try to set different tasks to different students. For example, you could ask half the class to explain the causes of a decision and the other half its consequences (swapping them next essay, whether sticking to the same general topic or using the next one in the syllabus). Having a third of the class do an essay about each of three consecutive presidents would also work, especially if the students will later present their findings to their classmates. The reason is that if dozens of students put in the same request, the AI can learn to make something more likely to trick the student into thinking the generated work might be accepted.

 

Also, if possible, teach at least some of this to the students so they are alert to signs of adulterated writing, and that large language models are not as competent as their websites/apps/companies present them as being. Dishonest people increasingly try to pass off AI papers as genuine research because it's easier than writing genuine research. The more people learn how to spot AI bloopers, the fewer of them will cause problems, and the easier your job will be with the people you've taught to avoid over-dependence on AI.

[Math help]

If she's open to and able to learn online, there are a bunch of courses on OpenLearn that start with the absolute basics (Succeed with Maths: part 1 is the most basic, and Everyday Maths: part 1 goes over much of the same content) and go all the way through to algebra, via a number of courses on specific pre-algebra topics (ignore anything not labelled as Level 1). Check that your daughter can work with manipulatives first, as HomeAgain suggests, and remember it's OK to use those manipulatives alongside such courses.

[Alternatives to physics for 12th grade science?]

How about scheduling some time to do a large science project/investigation (on a topic of DS' choice, within reason as defined by you)? The time taken to independently research background for the area in which the project/investigation was to occur, develop the experiment, do the experiment and then write up is often not there in years focused on getting through a specific body of science, and it could be a good opportunity to discover connections between different strands of science. You can decide how much accountability there is (weekly or twice-weekly progress reports and documentation checks would be wise, but you can alter these depending on your student's capabilities and course load), an extended piece of writing (perhaps in the style of a scientific paper or report) that can be developed over the project, and have DS do a presentation of the results to you and any other audience you would want at the end, like a professional scientist might do at a conference. A lot of these skills will be useful on the technology major, without necessarily using any technology in the project (again, you ultimately get to decide how much and in what context is allowed/needed).

 

You may well have time afterwards (or even during, if the practical part needs to be timed for a specific part of the year) to look into a special-interest topic or two within science that might not fit readily into a standard-format course. (These could even be physics topics, without the pressure of them having to be precisely the format of typical 12th grade physics courses).