Regentrude, and anyone else who would like to comment

[Ohdanigirl]

In another thread, this snippet caught my eye. I find this very interesting and would love if you could share some specifics about how children in Germany (or other places) are prepared. What is done to reach this end goal. How can we do something similar at home? What kind of oral presentations?

 

Thanks.

 

Danielle

 

 

 

I find that students are working much more independently in Germany - whereas in the US, even college is like school: handholding with weekly assignments, graded homework, quizzes to "motivate" the student to read the textbook. A German high school student will have to do more independent work in school, will have had to give oral presentations since 4th grade, and is generally better prepared for independent work at the university. At a German university, nobody grades weekly homework or gives attendance quizzes; students are expected to work with textbooks (which they have learned in high school) and do what they need to succeed. They are much more responsible for their own education than their US counterparts. I simply could not expect from my US college students what had been expected of me at my German university. Since I do not believe that German students are inherently more intelligent, this simply must reflect their high school preparation.

 

[regentrude]

In another thread, this snippet caught my eye. I find this very interesting and would love if you could share some specifics about how children in Germany (or other places) are prepared. What is done to reach this end goal. How can we do something similar at home? What kind of oral presentations?

 

Oral presentations are done in many subjects. Students get a topic and have to prepare their presentation with visuals. My kids attended ps in Germany in 4th and 6th grade for one semester. During this semester, 6th grade DD gave one presentation in biology about respiration in insects; one in history (forgot the topic) and two or three in German literature - either prepared alone, or in pairs.

 

 

Things that I noticed as very different:

No worksheets. Kids in German schools use textbooks and are taught to take notes in class; the teacher writes on the board, kids keep a binder or notebook. This was a striking contrast to the stacks of worksheets my kids brought home weekly from their US ps. No fill-in-the-blanks. Math problems are copied from the book, or worked in workbooks.

Kids are generally taught a lot more independence in general. They are not constantly supervised, not even in school.

 

I find it hard to answer your question because it is a bit vague; not sure what to tell you specifically.

 

 

ETA:

The main difference in school system is that kids are tracked starting in 5th grade and have a different amount of required school years depending on what they want to do. Kids who are strong learners and whose parents and/or teachers think they will attend university (it depends on teh state whether school grades/teacher, or parents have the final say) attend a college prep high school through 12th grade. Kids who attend the other track graduate after 10th grade with a high school diploma and move on to vocational training or apprenticeship (or, if they were late bloomers and want to go to university, attend a three year program to achieve the college prep diploma). I am only familiar with the college prep track.

[Ohdanigirl]

Actually, that was very helpful. Thanks.

 

Danielle

[Laura Corin]

I was surprised to hear about quizzes and multi-choice tests at the high school and university level in the US. For the last two years, Calvin has had exams a couple of times a year. Almost all his work was essay-based. Almost all the marks for his two-year IB programme will be derived from final examinations in his last term at school, for which he will have to know the whole content of the two-year course. He did have a few multi-choice tests last year, but I would be very surprised if they came up again.

 

When I was at university, studying French and Drama, we had no testing apart from annual exams. The only marks that counted were those achieved in final exams after three or four years of work. All work before that was exploratory, mostly in the form of essays. French language work (dictee, translation, etc.) was marked weekly, but we were expected to do underlying studies (grammar, vocabulary) for ourselves. I spent at least four months in my final year doing nothing but synthesising and learning everything that had gone before.

 

Oral exams were used sparingly except in language study. For French, I had to analyse orally a previously unseen piece of French poetry.

 

In addition there were vivas for some. British university degrees are graded Pass, honours III, honours II.2, honours II.1, honours First. If you were borderline between levels, then you were called in to defend your degree in a viva voce - being questioned by a panel of expert examiners from your own and another university. Everyone who was due to be awarded a First also had to defend his or her degree at a viva.

 

ETA: when I was in high school, we rarely gave oral presentations. This is not the case now: both my boys often have to present on a subject at school.

 

Laura

Edited October 9, 2012 by Laura Corin

[angela in ohio]

Hmmm, I probably had the same idea of American schools before my dc actually started attending them, but I have been suprised.

 

The majority of my dd's PS and CC classes don't have graded weekly assignments or grades for attendance, and they definitely don't have worksheets. I don't think you can make that blanket statement about courses in the US. One dd is giving her second presentation to the class this year in PS Chemistry next week, also.

Edited October 9, 2012 by angela in ohio

[Joan in GE]

Oral presentations are done in many subjects. Students get a topic and have to prepare their presentation with visuals. My kids attended ps in Germany in 4th and 6th grade for one semester. During this semester, 6th grade DD gave one presentation in biology about respiration in insects; one in history (forgot the topic) and two or three in German literature - either prepared alone, or in pairs.

 

Things that I noticed as very different:

No worksheets. Kids in German schools use textbooks and are taught to take notes in class; the teacher writes on the board, kids keep a binder or notebook. This was a striking contrast to the stacks of worksheets my kids brought home weekly from their US ps. No fill-in-the-blanks. Math problems are copied from the book, or worked in workbooks.

Kids are generally taught a lot more independence in general. They are not constantly supervised, not even in school.

 

I don't know the state of American high schools today so maybe this has evolved, but I was just cleaning out my old notes from high school and I had lots of notes, and not many worksheets. This might be area dependent....

 

In my limited experience (ie Germans I've met here who seem to be very articulate), the emphasis put on oral expression in Germany is a very strong point and has made me want to work more on discussions with my dd....

 

A German high school student will have to do more independent work in school, will have had to give oral presentations since 4th grade, and is generally better prepared for independent work at the university.

 

Actually I disagree because there is a very high failure rate - at least here in CH and you said in DE as well. In civil engineering it is 50% the first year...and lots of other programs have a high failure rate as well, I just don't know precise statistics. So clearly some are well-enough prepared but not others.....I know that we've discussed before how some students that you teach have not even had physics in high school - so that is a clear lack... But I do see independence encouraged in other ways in American society - compared to Swiss society where if university level students live far away from home during the week, they still come home on the weekends (bringing their laundry with them) and they frequently don't know how to cook, haven't held a job, etc.

 

Jobs which would be held by teens or young adults in the US like waitressing or cashiering are frequently held by adults who will do that job all their lives...

 

Joan

[Susie in CA]

I agree with Regentrude here. I have taken courses in the US as well as Austria. And the biggest difference here are study skills.

 

In Austria (even in elementary school) we really didn't have worksheets. When we wrote something we wrote the whole thing from the beginning. Homework wasn't graded. Starting in Middle School homework was hardly even looked at. At this point homework was already considered practice to get better not something to check off. In other words school didn't really care if you did homework; they cared about whether or or not you knew the material. We never had multiple-choice tests at any level in school. Questions were to be answered in writing. Sometimes a sentence might have been enough; often a paragraph was needed (at least) This was standard already in middle school. By the time we got to high school we didn't really have homework. Our homework was to study.

 

Yes, not all schools and CCs are the same, and not all courses are the same. However, the amount of really silly homework, multiple-choice tests, etc. that people endure here are unbelievable. The way this is done does not foster independence at all.

 

Just my opinion from my experience in both worlds.

[MBM]

Hmmm, I probably had the same idea of American schools before my dc actually started attending them, but I have been suprised.

 

The majority of my dd's PS and CC classes don't have graded weekly assignments or grades for attendance, and they definitely don't have worksheets. I don't think you can make that blanket statement about courses in the US. One dd is giving her second presentation to the class this year in PS Chemistry next week, also.

 

I agree. Schools are all over the place academically here in the U.S. It's difficult to sum up education when schools vary dramatically from one to another.

[bobbeym]

I agree. Schools are all over the place academically here in the U.S. It's difficult to sum up education when schools vary dramatically from one to another.

 

This is definitely true. I had no idea a student could actually fail a course because they wouldn't do the daily work assignments, but my oldest son did - twice.

 

Thank you, Danielle, for starting this thread. I'm finding it very insightful to see how high school education is done in places other than Texas.

 

I'm not giving a grade on daily work this year, although I do still check DS14's work for completion and comprehension. I make him correct anything wrong until it's correct and then he can do the review and the graded quiz or exam. I will give him a "notebook grade" worth 10% of his final grade for the year but it is only to help motivate him to learn to take notes and keep a tidy notebook. I don't plan to do it after this year.

 

His writing skills are not at all strong so we're slowly working up to paragraph answers and essays being the norm. I feel like there is just so much remediation we need to do to "fix" what he should have learned in ps but didn't, in order to really get to a point to be able to do high school level work.

 

This thread gives me encourage to stay my course, knowing that I'm not alone or just being odd in not wanting daily busy work and multiple-choice quizzes to be all there is to ds's high school years.

[Χά�ων]

I find this topic fascinating. I have reccently started to research international standards in education because I do not like the idea of using US standards as the base for my expectations.

 

Here the community colleges require students to take an entrance examination to determine if incoming students (primarily recent high school grads) are ready for college level course. If a student does not pass they are required to take remedial courses. Before we moved we lived in the district that was the best in the area and 47% of graduates had to take remedial classes at the community college because they were not ready for college level courses.

 

I do not know what they are doing and I do not really care enough anymore to find out. I used to care but when I went to meetings to discuss education reform and ways to help the schools do better all the parents talked about was how wonderful the schools were doing. Everyone assumed that their child would never be one of the 47% having to take remedial classes because their child was not lazy and they made sure their child did their homework and studied.

[regentrude]

Actually I disagree because there is a very high failure rate - at least here in CH and you said in DE as well. In civil engineering it is 50% the first year...and lots of other programs have a high failure rate as well, I just don't know precise statistics.

 

 

There are two factors that I see in play here:

1. This is a direct consequence of the fact that universities in germany can not select their students for almost all majors- anybody who passes the Abitur can enroll. Universities must accept all these students. So, weeding them out through hard introductory courses is one way or eliminating students who lack aptitude.

2. A second factor is that, while US universities put a huge effort into retention (after all, students are paying customers), at German universities this is not a consideration: the student is supposed to be motivated and do the work - or else he has to leave. There is no sentiment that underperforming students should be coaxed along and prevented from leaving the university; they are left to fail if they are too immature to do the work.

In contrast, here we have to submit "academic alerts" to students with lots of absencies or failed exams so the student knows that he is underperforming (like, you don't notice that you missed three weeks of class and have an F on the test?). Totally different approach.

 

 

But I do see independence encouraged in other ways in American society - compared to Swiss society where if university level students live far away from home during the week, they still come home on the weekends (bringing their laundry with them) and they frequently don't know how to cook, haven't held a job, etc.

Jobs which would be held by teens or young adults in the US like waitressing or cashiering are frequently held by adults who will do that job all their lives...

 

 

But that is much later. I am talking about grade school children out and about independently, about teenagers traveling without adults.

I agree that in Europe, the tradition of teens holding jobs is not the same as in the US. But it always strikes me as strange that here many kids are constantly supervised, even as teens (a subject about which I have gotten into many discussions with fellow parents) until they are sent away to college at age 18 and expected to be totally independent.

[regentrude]

Hmmm, I probably had the same idea of American schools before my dc actually started attending them, but I have been suprised.

 

The majority of my dd's PS and CC classes don't have graded weekly assignments or grades for attendance, and they definitely don't have worksheets. I don't think you can make that blanket statement about courses in the US..

 

OK, so it may be just our local public schools, which are supposed to be good and award winning. My kids did attend ps for 6 years, they have friends who attend ps, and I know parents of high school students. Generally, homework constitutes a large portion of the grade. There is something due and graded every day in most classes. Kids can fail a course if they do not turn in daily assignments, no matter how they perform on exams.

[momma2three]

This is a very interesting conversation. I'd love to hear more about it.

 

I see my family moving to Europe at some point in the next decade or so, and when that happens my children will be enrolled in school. I'd like them to not be too far behind. We will most likely move to England, but DH can work anywhere in the EU so it would depend on work opportunities and how far we feel comfortable living from our parents.

 

I've read as much as I can about the English school system, but it still seems so foreign to me. DH went to private schools where they did things very unconventionally, and only went so far as his GCSEs before moving to the US, so he's not much help either.

 

I'm amazed at how many more subjects they seem to study. 10 GCSEs seem to be the norm, but I don't think most US students even take 10 courses in high school! Geography, 2 foreign languages, Religion, a range of Technology subjects, several different sciences... and DH says these are all stand-alone subjects offered in most mid-sized schools.

[Nscribe]

I recall several courses in undergrad which would have approximately 10% of the final grade tied to attendance, homework, and so forth. The reason given: 10% is a solid letter grade difference and would distinguish able from reliable + able. In other words, scoring 100% on midterm/final reflected mastery, but not work ethic and those profs wanted to see both.

 

I actually have adopted this approach in our studies, because I see this as my opportunity to impress on Dd the value of skill/ability coupled with persistence/reliability.

[Ohdanigirl]

I am so excited to see the conversation growing here. It is always great to learn from others. I also find it helpful to hear how things are done in different schools, what has worked for others, and people's thoughts about the way different schools do things. There is always something new for me to consider in my decisions, and I hope it helps me to grow as a mother.

 

Thank you everyone.

 

Danielle

[MBM]

At my son's public high school, homework varies by class and level (there are 3-4 tracks available as well as independent study). Usually lower tracks have more daily homework, which is seen by the teacher, so that a student can get help with material he's not understanding. Higher tracks expect students to get help themselves, so in some classes, homework might not be collected (mostly math courses). For example, my son takes independent study math (abstract algebra this semester and, if he finishes that, Galois Theory next semester) He submits his problem sets and then meets with a math teacher once a week to discuss. Other than that one meeting, my son completely self studies. I know quite a few kids at different high schools throughout the Chicago area who are doing something similar, so I don't think it's that unusual.

[creekland]

Here math is the only subject with daily homework and it is just a completion grade.

 

Kids start doing powerpoint presentations back in middle school (7th - 8th). By the time they reach us in high school they already know how to do power point presentations and generally have to do one per non-math class per semester, but it depends upon the specific class and teacher.

 

That definitely doesn't mean our educational system is up to what I'd like it to be though, but our kids do know how to use technology. What they are missing is how any of the info they are learning applies to everyday life. They are cramming info, then forgetting it as soon as the test is complete. They might remember that water molecules are cohesive, but miss out on why that is important and how it can affect life. By next month they'll have also forgotten that they are cohesive.

 

BUT, to be honest, when we had our German exchange student back in '99 - '00 there wasn't much difference. Our Asian exchange students tend to be best at memorizing and retaining, but also need to learn to apply.

 

I think learning to apply knowledge needs to be taught world-wide and some are more naturally talented at it than others regardless of country of origin.

 

One needs both - the knowledge and understanding the meaning of that knowledge. What we don't need is cramming the memorization tests without the meaning.

[angela in ohio]

At my son's public high school, homework varies by class and level (there are 3-4 tracks available as well as independent study). Usually lower tracks have more daily homework, which is seen by the teacher, so that a student can get help with material he's not understanding. Higher tracks expect students to get help themselves, so in some classes, homework might not be collected (mostly math courses).

 

This is what I have seen. I think many times average American classes or students are compared to the highest tracks in other countries. I have seen this in some of the studies, and in conversations, and I think it certainly influences some of the differences.

 

Like a pp, I don't think you could get the teachers to sign on for grading that much daily work. I can't imagine how they would grade five classes of daily homework each night, considering the workload in the higher level classes.

[bobbeym]

I recall several courses in undergrad which would have approximately 10% of the final grade tied to attendance, homework, and so forth. The reason given: 10% is a solid letter grade difference and would distinguish able from reliable + able. In other words, scoring 100% on midterm/final reflected mastery, but not work ethic and those profs wanted to see both.

 

I actually have adopted this approach in our studies, because I see this as my opportunity to impress on Dd the value of skill/ability coupled with persistence/reliability.

 

This sounds similiar to what we're doing with the notebook grade concept. Would you mind sharing more details on what exactly is included in your 10% grade? Do you give it per term or just once per school year?

 

I don't want DS to grow used to having a notebook grade in high school, but I haven't been able to figure out a better way of defining what it is I'm trying to accomplish. Your method sounds like it might be more of what I've been looking for. :D

[Elinor Everywhere]

I think learning to apply knowledge needs to be taught world-wide and some are more naturally talented at it than others regardless of country of origin.

 

One needs both - the knowledge and understanding the meaning of that knowledge. What we don't need is cramming the memorization tests without the meaning.

 

:iagree: This has so much to do with learning versus the box-checking/test-taking mentality. Our Latin motto for our school translates to "We learn for life" and that's what we strive for, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.

[Nscribe]

This sounds similiar to what we're doing with the notebook grade concept. Would you mind sharing more details on what exactly is included in your 10% grade? Do you give it per term or just once per school year?

 

This year we are working on a quarter system and it amounts to five points of a possible 100 per term/per subject. Dd is in her first year of high school so I am trying to establish good habits but recognize I am still dealing with a kid with a rather short term perspective. She has five points per subject/content area that she begins with as a given. I randomly check a couple of the content areas per week and if she is not keeping on pace with work assigned, a point is lost. So far (first quarter just ended), so good.

 

I should note that I am far more directly involved this year than had been true, because she and I realize that at this stage she needs that extra push.