Tuesday, December 20, 2005
A school choice even the STrib loves
One notable point though is his fourth:
...this is really the wrong approach - it goes the wrong way. If anything, the colleges should consider coming to the high schools. It's logistically much easier and far less disruptive to send a professor to the high school. Make that AP History class a Senior elective; don't hold it on campus. I know of one case where this is being partially done, and it's been very successful.We do this; one faculty member goes out to four or five high schools each term and lectures once every other week or so to supplement the teacher on campus. (SCSU readers will know this as "senior-to-sophomore".) We assess that course, and it turns out those students are gaining knowledge in basic economics at or above the level our on-campus students gain. That's gain -- those students are normally good students, and they score higher on the pre-test of economic literacy than most students will. We're measuring the difference between tests administered before and after the course.
I agree that the model works really well. But you have to find teachers at the sites who can teach the AP-level course. That's hard, particularly outside the metro area. For those students, PSEO may be the only reasonable option.
Categories: education, higher_ed