What online classes have worked for your 2e kid?

[Porridge]

I’m looking toward the high school years for my 2e (ADHD, dysgraphia, …) child. I’m realizing this child does better with me as coach and not as grader. He needs to feel that I’m on his team, not that he will somehow “fail” to meet my (as teacher) expectations.

What online classes have worked well for your 2e child? Many of the online classes are so long - (for example, CLRC Intro to Lit is 2 hours) and my ADHD kid has a hard time sitting through even a 1 hour class.

Derek Owens has worked well for us because the videos are short, with active practice problems in between videos. The partially populated notes are great for keeping him engaged and mitigating the hand-writing challenges with note-taking.

I *think* Clover Valley Chem might work for this child - the videos are long, but are asynchronous, so he can probably break the viewing sessions up.

I’d love to find a humanities option that could work, but I’m not confident that this child will be able to participate in 1-2 hour long discussion based classes. The child also has working memory issues, so having to orally participate in discussions can be very demoralizing and exacerbate anxiety.

For humanities,  I suppose It doesn’t have to be an online class. In that case, I guess I”m looking for something with clear assignments and grading rubrics that are not determined by the parent, so that I can stay in coach mode. I create custom classes for my older child, so I’m less familiar with online and pre-made curricular options. 

Any suggestions are welcome!

 

ETA: It is probably important to know that for this kid’s goals, we’re looking for a solid colllege-prep high school learning experience. We’re actually quasi unschooling now — providing ample time for the child to pursue his own interest (he’s very, very pointy / spiky - whatever the terminology is - in one area). He spends~ 3 hours/day on academics + piano, 1 hour/day on exercise (my mandate) + probably 3-5 hours / day on his own projects.  I’m not sure how to create a solid college-prep high school load while also giving him a lot of time to do his own thing, and also not requiring me to be the one to customize his classes (because then I’ll end up as the grader instead of the coach)! Are those three goals even compatible? 

Edited March 21, 2023 by WTM

[desertflower]

Have you looked at Athena's Advanced Academy?  My son loved their philosophy class when he was in 7th grade.  My children hasn't had any high school classes with onlineG3, but it's a sister company to Athena's Advanced Academy.  My son took their middle school history class this year and liked it.  I liked what he learned from it too.  He talks about what he learned in history all the time.  So, interesting facts out there that I didn't know about! 

[SeaConquest]

I agree that both Athena's and Online G3 have been great for my 2e kid. The classes have live meetings (generally, 60-90 minutes in length/week), which my kid enjoyed. They are especially great classes when you need to balance out a heavier load in other areas -- generally, high-interest topics, but not uber demanding in terms of output.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, SeaConquest said:

I agree that both Athena's and Online G3 have been great for my 2e kid. The classes have live meetings (generally, 60-90 minutes in length/week), which my kid enjoyed. They are especially great classes when you need to balance out a heavier load in other areas -- generally, high-interest topics, but not uber demanding in terms of output.

Did you feel you could use these classes as stand alone credits for highschool? Were they robust enough with read to content and output?

[desertflower]

For high school chemistry, yes. 

What I like about Athena's is that it's there for your learning.  It depends on the child if he/she wants to do all of it.  One doesn't even have to do the reading. 

They really want the questions answers, and for the student to comment on other's answers every week. This buildsa community.  Otherwise, it's up to the student what he/she gets out of it. 

AP Psychology too.  Lots of reading from a college level text.

Not sure about the other classes though.  I would assume they would be the same.  Especially, any courses that are for high schoolers.  Not sure about the courses that say grades 7 - 12th though. 

[maize]

We used a bunch of 1 on 1 tutors through preply.com (it's not just for languages, my family has found tutors for math, chemistry, music lessons, etc.)

[SeaConquest]

45 minutes ago, WTM said:

Did you feel you could use these classes as stand alone credits for highschool? Were they robust enough with read to content and output?

I think that would be fine for their high school classes in the humanities. I don't have knowledge of their STEM offerings at the high school level. 

[lewelma]

On 3/22/2023 at 6:36 AM, WTM said:

 I’m not sure how to create a solid college-prep high school load while also giving him a lot of time to do his own thing, and also not requiring me to be the one to customize his classes (because then I’ll end up as the grader instead of the coach)! Are those three goals even compatible? 

I counted my older boy's 'projects' and readings as courses. I described them in the course descriptions, described the output, explained that I used 'mastery' as my grading system, and gave him credit.  I did not actually grade these courses with tests or with me giving grades for papers etc. I could tell my kid was learning a ton, and didn't have any interest in putting a grade to his efforts until the transcript. If he mastered what he was learning (which of course he did), then he got an A. So yes, I think the goals are compatible.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, lewelma said:

I counted my older boy's 'projects' and readings as courses. I described them in the course descriptions, described the output, explained that I used 'mastery' as my grading system, and gave him credit.  I did not actually grade these courses with tests or with me giving grades for papers etc. I could tell my kid was learning a ton, and didn't have any interest in putting a grade to his efforts until the transcript. If he mastered what he was learning (which of course he did), then he got an A. So yes, I think the goals are compatible.

How did you define "mastery" on the transcript?

[lewelma]

from school profile

from transcript

 

[lewelma]

These were in context of a lot of other stuff. I'll screen shot them and then delete them..

[lewelma]

That is the second page of the profile below the transcript. I can screen shot the first page too if you want. 

Basically, I made his entire school experience look so rich that the homeschool grade situation did not stand out as unusual. Just one thing amongst many. Like, of course this is how it is done. 

Keep in mind that I never knew my older boy would go to america for university, so I never even considered giving grades because homeschool courses mean nothing here in NZ. When I had to make the transcript for the US, I had to go back through 4 years of notes and retroactively create classes out of his 'projects' and readings and give grades retroactively too. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by lewelma

[lewelma]

What is most interesting is that the one area where I had no testing data to support my mommy grades - the social sciences -- is where he won an award in university.  He just read and read and read for 4 years, and I retroactively divveyed up all this work, created classes, and just gave him grades for mastery. And then he was named a Burchard Scholar at MIT for his work in philosophy and ethics, the one area that was really truly his self-directed learning in highschool.  So sef-directed project based work is real. Don't convince yourself otherwise. You do NOT have to do things just like school; you just have to package them so that admissions can understand it.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, lewelma said:

What is most interesting is that the one area where I had no testing data to support my mommy grades - the social sciences -- is where he won an award in university.  He just read and read and read for 4 years, and I retroactively divveyed up all this work, created classes, and just gave him grades for mastery. And then he was named a Burchard Scholar at MIT for his work in philosophy and ethics, the one area that was really truly his self-directed learning in highschool.  So sef-directed project based work is real. Don't convince yourself otherwise. You do NOT have to do things just like school; you just have to package them so that admissions can understand it.

What kind of projects or output did he do in the humanities? Did you have him write papers, or did he volunteer /want to write papers to codify his own knowledge? 
 

did you read all the books with him? If not, how did you interact with him to understand what he was learning? 
 

did you curate the humanities books / magazines for him, or did he choose his own? did he come up with a reading list at the beginning of the year and work though it, or was it a more organic, pick-as-you-go approach?

[Guest]

@lewelma by the way, Thank you. This is so helpful. 

[lewelma]

These are the course descriptions for the 3 classes he self organised

Contemporary World Problems. (1 credit)
This course covered political, economic, social, and environmental problems and sought to examine
current events from a historical perspective. The course explored relationships between events, evaluated
competing beliefs and goals, and identified bias. Scientific and technological advancements were also
studied to better understand the part they play in solving some of the world’s most difficult problems.
Periodicals were read year-round throughout high school, yielding 800 hours of reading. Course
requirements included reading assignments, participation in discussions, short essays, and a research
paper.
Texts: The Economist, National Geographic, Scientific American

The History of Western Thought. (1 credit)
This course examined the development of the western intellectual tradition from the Greeks through to
20th-century thinkers. Topics included metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. The
course examined the rational basis of belief in all areas of inquiry, and taught critical and creative thinking
and how to construct a cogent argument. In addition to studying the great thinkers of each era, influential
philosophical novels by classic authors were read and discussed including Voltaire, Dostoyevsky, Borges,
Camu, and Hemingway. The course also took a detour into the philosophy of consciousness and how it
can be analytically modelled. Course requirements included reading assignments, participation in
discussions, and short essays.
Texts: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, by Simon Blackburn
The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books, by James Garvey
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter
Justice. EdX. Harvard University

The Economics of Inequality. (0.5 credits)
Using Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, this course evaluated and analyzed the history,
theory, and implications of inequality in the world. The focus was on understanding how historical data
can aid in understanding past and present trends in multiple countries. The length of the book (700 pages)
required complex arguments to be tracked and reconstructed, and its focus on using evidence such as
facts, statistics, examples, and expert opinions encouraged a nuanced understanding of the nature of
evidence and how it should be evaluated. Great Courses lectures were used to provide the necessary
background on economic growth, the business cycle, the global economy, unemployment, inflation, and
economic policy. The Economist was used to understand macroeconomics in the context of current events
and across many different economic and political systems. Course requirements included reading
assignments, participation in discussions, and oral presentations.
Texts: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty
Unexpected Economics, by The Great Courses and Timothy Taylor
Thinking Like an Economist, by The Great Courses and Randall Bartlett
The Economist

[lewelma]

He course requirements sound way more lofty than they were.

Reading assignments = whatever he chose to read (not assigned)

Participation in discussions = us talking 

Oral presentations = prepping a complete idea to give to his dad (not formal, but a monologue, not a discussion)

Short essays = journalling for philosophy, but proper essays for world problems (where I taught him to write in 9th grade)

Research papaer = 9th grade he did a research paper because he was so interested in Islamic State, so I put it here

---

We read Capital in the 21st century together, out loud over a year. It was excellent. We looked up whatever we didn't know and talked all the time about it. History of Western Thought and Contemporary World Problems were his. He just read read read at night, and I collected all the book names and made courses. 

I also do not think that learning needs to be vetted by me. He was clearly engaged with what he was reading by going on and on about stuff he found cool, or being able to carry on a very erudite conversation with some well-read friends of mine. He chose to spend his time in the way that he saw fit, and I just stayed out of the way.

Edited March 23, 2023 by lewelma

[lewelma]

Here is English

19th-Century American and British Literature. (1 credit)
This course covered American and British literature from the 19th century, with a focus on Gothic
literature of the Victorian period including the differing approaches to gruesome, psychological, and
supernatural horror. Course goals included familiarity with poetic and literary elements, the informal
fallacies, and genres and themes. The course also focused on how to critically analyze essays with various
patterns of development including narration, description, analogy, cause and effect, definition, and
comparison essays. The course had a strong composition component focusing on analytical and
persuasive essays.
Textbook: Supernatural Horror in Literature, by Howard Lovecraft

The Art of Argument: an Introduction to the Informal Fallacies, by Aaron Larsen
Common threads: Core Readings by Method and Theme, by Ellen Repetto
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
The Picture of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexane Dumas
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Late Victorian Gothic Tales, by various authors
Selected short stories, by Edgar Allan Poe
All short stories, by Howard Lovecraft
Selected poems, by Emily Dickinson

20th-Century American and British Literature. (Blended course: Te Kura & self-study, 1 credit)
This course covered American and British literature of the 20th Century with a focus on postmodern
literature and its literary response to historical events and previous movements such as modernism. This
course also analyzed rhetorical devices in academic writing using They Say, I Say, with a focus on how to
integrate an argument within the larger context of what others have written. This course had a strong
composition component focusing on response, expository, and research papers. The composition
instruction was provided through Te Kura and satisfied the New Zealand 11th-grade English requirement.
NCEA Level 2 exams and assessments: 14 NZ credits achieved with excellence
Textbooks: They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, by Gerald Graff

The Lively Art of Writing, by Lucile Payne
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

1984, by George Orwell
Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by John le Carré
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski
The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Silverberg
Selected short stories, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Selected short stories, by Ernest Hemingway

Russian Literature. (Blended course: Te Kura and self-study, 1 credit)
This course covered seminal Russian literature with the goal of identifying themes, ideas, and cultural
contexts. Discussions focused on philosophical concepts such as free will, nihilism, and Freudian
psychology, as well as dealing with questions such as the nature of historical evidence and the degree to
which objectivity is possible. The course also contained a unit focused on the critical reading of classic
and modern essays and the how each author built a persuasive argument. This course had a strong
composition component including expository, analytical, and narrative essays with a focus on audience
and purpose. The composition instruction was provided through Te Kura in preparation for NCEA
Level 3 credits in 12th grade.
Textbook: The Hedgehog and the Fox, by Isaiah Berlin

The Art of Reading, by The Great Courses and Timothy Spurgin
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Selected short stories, by Nikolai Gogol
Selected short stories, by Anton Chekhov

 

World Literature – NCEA Level 3. (Blended course: Te Kura and self-study, 1 credit)
This course focused on World Literature and featured representative works from various genres and
periods. It examined how conventions and themes vary throughout the history of the novel, drama, and
poetry; and how historical, literary, and personal contexts influenced each author. The course also
compared and contrasted various productions of the same Shakespearean play to identify and appreciate
different dramatic interpretations. This course had a strong composition component including analytical
and expository essays, oral presentations, and a research paper. The composition instruction was provided
through Te Kura and satisfied the New Zealand 12th grade English requirement.
NCEA Level 3 exams and assessments: 6 NZ credits achieved with excellence

12 NZ credits in progress

Textbooks: Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, by Thomas Arp
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition.

Texts:

Candide, by Voltaire
Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
The Stranger, by Albert Camus
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Slaughterhouse 5, by Kurt Vonnegut
Labyrinth, by Jorge Luis Borges
100 years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italio Calvino

Film adaptations:

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
12
th Night, by William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s dream, by William Shakespeare
As You Like It, by William Shakespeare
Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
Henry V, by William Shakespeare
Othello, by William Shakespeare

[lewelma]

Clearly you can see that this kid just read all the time. 

He did not do very much writing in these classes. But I did listen to a lot of the books (or at least the first half) and we would discuss them for fun.  Never for evaluation/judgement on my part. 

In the beginning of the year, I would pick 30 books that I thought he would like, and then when he was ready for a book, I would describe them so he could pick one he wanted to read.  He read as much as he wanted to and never had to finish a book. And when he was done with a book, I would describe them all again and let him pick his next one. He loved having the choice -- books were not assigned. He only wrote essays on like 3 of these books. Also, the lists look way more organised than then were. I only sorted them by topic for the transcript -- he did not read them in this order. And I have that great line in the profile "courses were listed in the year that the majority of the work was done." So this got me off the hook to re-sort so it made more sense to the admissions officers. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by lewelma

[EKS]

On 3/21/2023 at 10:36 AM, WTM said:

What online classes have worked well for your 2e child?

This was 10+ years ago now, but Derek Owens was the only online option that worked for my 2E son with dyslexia. 

I think it's due to a number of factors:

• The structure is simple and consistent.
• Mr. Owens obviously cares about communicating.  This is not the case with the vast majority of online offerings.
• Since Mr. Owens teaches the same material in person, he gets real time feedback about where students get confused.  My impression is that he occasionally updates his materials to correct for this.  
• The workbook with skeletal notes and worksheets is really helpful for kids whose executive functioning could use support.
• The lack of due dates allows for pacing adjustments (in both directions) and makes it so students aren't punished for EF deficits.

[cintinative]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

This was 10+ years ago now, but Derek Owens was the only online option that worked for my 2E son with dyslexia. 

I think it's due to a number of factors:

• The structure is simple and consistent.
• Mr. Owens obviously cares about communicating.  This is not the case with the vast majority of online offerings.
• Since Mr. Owens teaches the same material in person, he gets real time feedback about where students get confused.  My impression is that he occasionally updates his materials to correct for this.  
• The workbook with skeletal notes and worksheets is really helpful for kids whose executive functioning could use support.
• The lack of due dates allows for pacing adjustments (in both directions) and makes it so students aren't punished for EF deficits.

This might be a sort of side question, but how did you scaffold/provide supports for your son for notetaking in other subjects?  This is a real issue for my son with dyslexia. In one class which he is taking which is all lecture, there are no provided notes and the lecturer speaks very quickly.  So at the moment I have him typing notes as he can into a word file on a different screen while he listens. The only other thing I could come up with is creating my own "notes" outline from the lectures I had listened to previously and having him "fill in" the information.  The concern I have is what happens when he gets to college--not all providers will write things down, or provide an outline, etc. and I obviously won't be sitting in  his college classes and taking notes myself. Any input would be great. 😃

[EKS]

15 minutes ago, cintinative said:

This might be a sort of side question, but how did you scaffold/provide supports for your son for notetaking in other subjects? 

My son with dyslexia (now age 26) was actually able to take notes by the time he did Derek Owens, which is one reason I was so happy with the skeletal note system.  I think it helped him learn to take notes in a classroom situation because he went from being unable to do so before DO to doing just fine afterwards.

My other son (age 21, who is only just now in the process of getting a diagnosis that would qualify him as 2E, though not for lack of trying when he was younger) required a lot of support, both because he was young (did DO prealgebra in 4th grade, geometry in 6th grade, and Algebra 2 in 8th grade) and because he had issues with writing by hand as well as EF issues.  I actually prewatched all of the videos and took notes myself and then presented the material interactively to him.  He then wrote out the practice problems, HW, and tests on his own.  With regard to other subjects, he just didn't take notes.  He also flunked out of college recently, so there you go.

[royspeed]

28 minutes ago, cintinative said:

This might be a sort of side question, but how did you scaffold/provide supports for your son for notetaking in other subjects?  This is a real issue for my son with dyslexia. In one class which he is taking which is all lecture, there are no provided notes and the lecturer speaks very quickly. 

I suspect that it is a side question, yet an important one. And I suspect that among the most important scaffolding/support is models for effective note-taking, but few students ever see such models.

In her classes, my wife coaches her students on taking effective lecture notes, and her methods really seem to work. For instance, for the beginning note-taker in her biology course, she provides what she calls "note-taking sheets": they're basically fill-in-the-blank sheets that "model" effective notes. — You can view a sample here:
https://hscollegebound.com/PDFs/Biology/Honors-Biology-With-Lab-WORKBOOK-PREVIEW.pdf

Over the course of the semester, and then the year, the sheets become increasingly sparse; the student has begun to see, through repeated experience, how to take effective notes, and so, gradually, the support scaffolding is withdrawn. Specifically, students must learn what it means to —

• Select the key concepts & facts — in a live lecture, you don't have time to write down everything. Studies of students' note-taking suggest that those who try to type notes into a laptop end up, essentially, transcribing, i.e., they go on automatic pilot, not so much thinking or digesting as simply typing. For this reason, the same studies suggest that students who hand-write their notes end up with far better retention.
• Synthesize the ideas & information — summarizing & paraphrasing are vital skills, but performing such intellectual feats on the fly, in a live lecture, while you are scribbling away AND simultaneously listening to the next idea, well, it's a daunting multi-tasking challenge. 

Hope that's helpful.

[Guest]

@lewelma Your examples are so helpful. My DS reads a lot, too — I think I’ve been so uncertain / not brave enough that it might be “enough” for high school. It’s hard for me to see, looking forward, how I might be able to group his readings together into themes and “classes,” but it sounds like you “trusted the process” and were able to retrospectively look back and find themes.

You mentioned that your son did not always finish a book that he started - did you count / include the unfinished books as part of the courses?

[Guest]

@cintinative This may not be helpful now, but many colleges and universities will have note taking services. My undergrad institution would hire a student in each class to take notes. The notes were, if I remember correctly, offered free to students who sought support from the learning support center. 

I wonder if your son could ask his teachers for a print out of the power point /slides (if the teacher uses slides) so taht he can take notes directly on the print out? The print out would function as a kind of skeleton outline the way the DO notes function.

[Guest]

@royspeed Could you offer any insight on how a 2e student with learning or neurological differences (ADHD / dysgraphia / dyslexia, etc.) might interface with Hscollegebound science courses? The note templates are excellent, but as the templates become more sparse, I could see that posing a problem for students with, for example, dysgraphia (unless the templates are available as PDFs that can be typed into). Are the live classes recorded so that a student could rewatch portions of the lecture?

@cintinative My current concern is that my child will really only be able to do well with Asynch classes, where he can slow down or rewatch portions of the lecture. Mine is only 12, so may change. I hope over the next few years to work with him so he’s ready to succeed in a DE course before high graduation - that would reassure me that he could handle college classes….

[cintinative]

48 minutes ago, WTM said:

@cintinative This may not be helpful now, but many colleges and universities will have note taking services. My undergrad institution would hire a student in each class to take notes. The notes were, if I remember correctly, offered free to students who sought support from the learning support center. 

I wonder if your son could ask his teachers for a print out of the power point /slides (if the teacher uses slides) so taht he can take notes directly on the print out? The print out would function as a kind of skeleton outline the way the DO notes function.

For his lit class, I did ask and there is no such thing. I did ask. The teacher doesn't even use an outline. I would have to create it from my notes. (My oldest took the class as well and I took notes).

The funny thing is that my youngest did not do well with DO physics.  He did have more time to take notes, etc.  and the format itself wasn't bad. What he struggled with was the discipline to stay focused on it with no outside accountability. It was taking him three weeks to do one week's worth of work. When I started sitting with him, he quickly sped up. So clearly it was an executive skills thing. The intersectionality of learning challenges with executive skill deficits is hard. 

I am not sure if mine has dysgraphia or not but he is a very slow writer and very messy.  So it is definitely faster for him to type.  I know there have been lots of studies that show that it is better for learning to hand-write things (makes it stick better somehow), but for him, handwriting adds a lot of additional time that he doesn't have during a live lecture.  I hope that if/when he goes to college he can get the sort of notetaking help you mentioned.  😃

 

[EKS]

18 minutes ago, cintinative said:

What he struggled with was the discipline to stay focused on it with no outside accountability.

I provided that accountability for my sons.  I made sure they did the work they needed to do each week and I scanned and sent their papers in for grading.

Edited March 23, 2023 by EKS

[lewelma]

6 hours ago, WTM said:

You mentioned that your son did not always finish a book that he started - did you count / include the unfinished books as part of the courses?

He refused to finish Metamorphasis by Kofka and Frankenstein by Shelly. Just too depressing. I don't see them on the list, so apparently not. lol.

But he only got through half of Capital, which is a 500 page economic tome. And I built an entire class around just half a book.  He also did not finish a lot of the textbooks for English, some were for reference, some were read and studied in their entirity, and some we just picked specific chapters.  I didn't put that kind of detail into the course descriptions.

 

[lewelma]

 

7 hours ago, WTM said:

It’s hard for me to see, looking forward, how I might be able to group his readings together into themes and “classes,” but it sounds like you “trusted the process” and were able to retrospectively look back and find themes.

Take this course as an example of pulling together a variety of things: 

The History of Western Thought. (1 credit)

This course examined the development of the western intellectual tradition from the Greeks through to
20th-century thinkers. Topics included metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. The
course examined the rational basis of belief in all areas of inquiry, and taught critical and creative thinking
and how to construct a cogent argument. In addition to studying the great thinkers of each era, influential
philosophical novels by classic authors were read and discussed including Voltaire, Dostoyevsky, Borges,
Camu, and Hemingway. The course also took a detour into the philosophy of consciousness and how it
can be analytically modelled. Course requirements included reading assignments, participation in
discussions, and short essays.
Texts: Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, by Simon Blackburn
The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books, by James Garvey
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter
Justice. EdX. Harvard University

 

It sounds like it all goes together, doesn't it.  But yet this course was a crazy mismash, and I bolded the "took a detour" to see how I pulled in a Computer Science text.  But it works. It is all about how you write it up.  

For my younger son, if he chose to apply to an American university, I had already planned to retrofit his learning to a course on leadership. We read a book outloud called "the 48 laws of Power" and then he would go to all of his external acitivies and try out different techniques, see the response, and then come back and talk to me about it.  You need to think out of the box!

Edited March 24, 2023 by lewelma

[lewelma]

Here are the courses that I retrofitted based on my younger boy's interests (I didn't write them up with course descriptions, sorry).  They were all project based work. He had a question, and then went searching for an answer.  Clearly with the exception of the first class, none of these are typical highschool classes because they are based around my ds's very specific questions.

1cr Geography - with trade books (Guns, Germs, and Steel + Collapse, NZ Geographic, National Geographic) 

1cr The Social, Economic, and Political Impact of Colonialism on Africa

1cr Physical and Cultural Geography of the Mackinzie Basin, NZ

0.5cr NZ Demographics (comparing the causes and consequences of European vs Māori demographics over 150 years)

0.5cr The Causes and Consequences of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami - (the physics of waves, the immediate response, and the long term social and economic impact. This course also studied how International aid agencies work.)

0.5cr The history of Early NZ 1800-1840 (Pre Treaty of Waitangi -- the founding document of NZ)

1cr Māori worldview, values, and protocols. (This is what we are currently studying - also includes some history and language)

[lewelma]

10 hours ago, cintinative said:

This might be a sort of side question, but how did you scaffold/provide supports for your son for notetaking in other subjects? 

I am still helping my younger, who has dysgraphia, with his note taking.  Freshman year in university, he would take the notes and then once a week we went back over them and improve them, make summary sheets, make lists of vocab, etc. As a sophomore, he is now independent for the better taught classes, however, still needs help with the poorly taught classes. He just told me last week that one of his classes is just so poorly organised that he had no idea what to do, so I took a look at the lecture slides, and he is not kidding!  So I'm going to work with him over spring break to show him how to use the reference textbook to clean up the notes. 

Basically, for a kid with learning disabilities, they need continued explicit instruction as the tasks get more complex.  I am happy to provide support for as long as he wants it. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by lewelma

[lewelma]

7 hours ago, WTM said:

@royspeed Could you offer any insight on how a 2e student with learning or neurological differences (ADHD / dysgraphia / dyslexia, etc.) might interface with Hscollegebound science courses? The note templates are excellent, but as the templates become more sparse, I could see that posing a problem for students with, for example, dysgraphia (unless the templates are available as PDFs that can be typed into). Are the live classes recorded so that a student could rewatch portions of the lecture?

@cintinative My current concern is that my child will really only be able to do well with Asynch classes, where he can slow down or rewatch portions of the lecture. Mine is only 12, so may change. I hope over the next few years to work with him so he’s ready to succeed in a DE course before high graduation - that would reassure me that he could handle college classes….

Freshman year of university, ds did all his lectures asynchronously so he could slow down and take notes.  Now as a sophomore,  he does 3 classes in person and one asynchronously - chemistry.  He needs to screen shot chemical equations because he can't type them, so being in class does not give good notes. The courses he does in class can be typed: ecology, urban policy, and GIS. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by lewelma

[royspeed]

3 hours ago, WTM said:

@royspeed Could you offer any insight on how a 2e student with learning or neurological differences (ADHD / dysgraphia / dyslexia, etc.) might interface with Hscollegebound science courses? The note templates are excellent, but as the templates become more sparse, I could see that posing a problem for students with, for example, dysgraphia (unless the templates are available as PDFs that can be typed into). Are the live classes recorded so that a student could rewatch portions of the lecture?

We've had many, many students with ADHD / dysgraphia / dyslexia and other challenges, and in our science courses they tend to do rather well. That's partly, I suspect, because we're pretty flexible in our approach to meeting their needs, making accommodations where needed, but also our course designs include more than just the kind of knowledge featured on an AP test. Our science courses include development of executive skills and communication skills. — Executive functioning is an issue for every student, and our students always need support with becoming more effective at communication.

All sessions are recorded, so that whenever a student needs to revise or beef up his or her notes, the recordings are always available. — Additional points you may find interesting:

• Note-taking sheets. We ship to each student the printed workbook (of which you saw a sample above). But sometimes the parent of a student with learning differences requests a PDF version, and in those cases we readily make it available. Also, you mentioned that the templates becoming more sparse might not work for all students, and that's true. But the note-taking sheets are not the only support for taking notes in the live lectures; e.g., on her slides, Diane tweaks the information to help students with the challenges of selecting / synthesizing / synopsizing key ideas and facts — it's often as simple as bolding or highlighting key words.
• Research projects. Diane assigns research projects both in her year-long courses (Honors Biology, Honors Chemistry) and in her 8-week Science Intensives (Ecology, Genetics, Botany). The purpose of these projects is partly to give students a workout with their research skills, but it's also to provide a context for developing their planning skills & their communication skills (e.g., these projects often culminate in a live presentation to the class). The projects are always assigned early, with a 6–8 week gestation period, and with project planning, Diane coaches her students on two fronts:
  1) thinking through the components & stages—starting with the end point (e.g., a presentation or report due on a particular date) & working backwards to identify everything that must be done in the interim;
  2) managing their time & their tasks—analyzing their own current schedules and obligations to identify where they can fit in all that needs to be done for their projects. Diane's aim here is to convey to her students that time is a limited commodity: if you blocked off a weekend afternoon for working on your research project and now your friends want to go ice skating, fine; go ice skating—but you must make up that time with sacrifices elsewhere in your schedule.
• Communication skills. Diane designs her science courses to foster lots of science communication. Our classes are live & interactive, so students discuss science issues, ask questions, and hear & discuss the answers, all in real time. — Implications: Students speak extemporaneously and soon discover that what sounded brilliant in your mind, in your thoughts, may come out garbled when you try to express it aloud. Speaking off the cuff is a skill, and like all skills, the only way to get better at it is through practice in real time. So we provide lots of practice in all our courses. (Many asynchronous classes use online forums; they designate required numbers of entries in such forums, but those entries are written, worked and re-worked; there is no practice in the challenge of expressing yourself in real time.) 
      Another important form of communication workout is designing & delivering the research presentation. For some students, their first presentation comes as a rude awakening—i.e., they thought it was going to be easy; they discover that their research was insufficient, their design not very audience-friendly, and their talking points woefully under-rehearsed. In short, they find themselves in the real world. We have watched as students pick themselves up, resolve to do better, and then, with their next project, actually do much, much better in all phases—the research, the design, the live delivery... It's a glorious thing to watch.

There's more to tell, but the above points, @WTM, should give you a fairly good idea of the kinds of experiences students find in our science courses. — Hope that helps.

[Malam]

15 hours ago, lewelma said:

We read a book outloud called "the 48 laws of Power" and then he would go to all of his external acitivies and try out different techniques, see the response, and then come back and talk to me about it.  You need to think out of the box!

I have to know more. How did he apply laws 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33... Etc. Etc?

[lewelma]

3 hours ago, Malam said:

I have to know more. How did he apply laws 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 25, 26, 27, 31, 33... Etc. Etc?

lol. He didn't apply each law.  He did talk to his dad about which laws he had seen used at work. That was very eye opening.  What really happened, is that he wanted to try out different leadership styles and personal interactions and see how they were interpreted.  I remember the first time - he was about 12 and decided that he would be arrogant at gymnastics and brag about his accomplishments for a month and see how the kids responded, and then he would change tacks and see how long it took to win them back. When he was like 14-15, I remember that he trialed different leadership styles at swimming with the younger kids who he played with and who loved him - dictatorial, supportive, quiet, loud, demanding, encouraging etc. Nothing rude or rough, just subtle changes to his leadership style. He did that for like half a year. As he got older like 16-17, he trialed a lot of stuff at drama. He got feedback from his friends and teacher for how different facial expressions impacted people and how he could act in a way that was convincing. He just tested different ideas at different activities for years.

This all sounds a bit unusual, but he was just fascinated to see how people respond.  My young boy's greatest skill is his charisma, so these trials he was running were the equivalent to an athelete improving his skill through training. This kid is interested in jobs like mayor, professional mediator, environmental activist.  Jobs where persuasion and leadership is required. Once I realized what he was doing, we started reading books on leadership, and studying leaders. He worked for 4 months on a research project comparing the leadership styles and ramifications of Mobutu to Seretse Khama. That was certainly his idea, not mine. lol. He was and is just fascinated with this topic, but always felt that it needed to be hands on learning not just book learning. So he created the hands on element on his own.  This would clearly have been a class on his transcript.

Edited March 24, 2023 by lewelma