RioPASS on Enfoque En Tu Futuro

Posted by | Posted on 09-08-2010

This clip about Rio Salado College’s RioPASS program is from Enfoque En Tu Futuro, which is a Spanish language program with English subtitles. It is part of MCTV and focuses on the Maricopa Community Colleges. The entire show and more is available at http://www.maricopa.edu/mctv. Read more…

Preparing for first grade

Posted by | Posted on 09-08-2010

Thursday Order of Play

Posted by | Posted on 09-08-2010

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2010

CENTER COURT start 12:00 noon [16] M Bartoli (FRA) vs [2] C Wozniacki (DEN)

Not Before 3:00 PM [7] A Radwanska (POL) vs [10] M Sharapova (RUS) V Azarenka (BLR) / M Kirilenko (RUS) vs [3] K Peschke (CZE) / K Srebotnik (SLO) – POSSIBLE COURT CHANGE

Not Before 7:00 PM [4] K Clijsters (BEL) or D Safina (RUS) vs [WC] C Mchale (USA) [4] L Raymond (USA) / R Stubbs (AUS) or N Grandin (RSA) / A Spears (USA) vs [WC] C Gullickson (USA) / C Gullickson (USA)

GRANDSTAND start 11:00 am A Ivanovic (SRB) vs E Vesnina (RUS) [11] F Pennetta (ITA) vs [6] V Zvonareva (RUS) [1] J Jankovic (SRB) vs [Q] A Amanmuradova (UZB) D Cibulkova (SVK) / A Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) vs [2] G Dulko (ARG) / F Pennetta (ITA)

Not Before 7:00 PM S Hsieh (TPE) / A Kudryavtseva (RUS) vs [7] Y Chan (TPE) / J Zheng (CHN)

COURT 3 start 11:00 am [8] N Li (CHN) vs [12] Y Wickmayer (BEL) [13] S Peer (ISR) vs A Pavlyuchenkova (RUS) [8] C Black (ZIM) / A Rodionova (AUS) vs M Shaughnessy (USA) / E Vesnina (RUS)

D.C. public school teachers begin orientation ahead of start of academic year

Posted by | Posted on 08-08-2010

Day One for the District’s 400 or so newest public school teachers began in a not-quite-air-conditioned auditorium Wednesday with a welcoming gift from Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee: her pity.

“I know what you are about to go through, and I feel really, really bad for you,” Rhee said somewhat tongue in cheek. Her audience was dominated by faces so improbably young they looked as if they should be out buying binders and calculators.

Rhee also struck other more inspirational themes as she began a three-day orientation at the Columbia Heights Education Campus for the corps of new teachers, who are preparing for school to open Aug. 23.

Read more…

Encourage Your Student to Create an Advisor Connection

Posted by | Posted on 08-08-2010

For at least 18 years, you have probably considered yourself to be your student’s principal advisor.  You have been there every step of the way, literally from the first steps taken, and then on to the first words spoken, the first tests taken, and the first degrees granted.  You probably didn’t have any “training” to be a parent, but somehow you figured it out.

Now, or when college classes begin, there should be another advisor assigned to help your student, and he or she is likely to be professionally trained.  As you step back, you should encourage your student to build a relationship with this academically skilled person who will be working with him/her for the next four years or however long it takes until graduation.

Similar to the situation with orientations, there is no one-size-fits-all model when it comes to advising.  Some schools have a group advising pattern, where a student rarely gets one-on-one time with the advisor, but does have an opportunity to meet in a group setting with both the professional and with peers.

Other schools have a tiered approach, sometimes called a “divisional model,” in which there is little, if any, personalized substantive exposure to the adviser in the freshman or sophomore year, but a great deal of exposure, and an opportunity for a relationship, that may develop down the road.

But the approach you are likely to get is fairly straightforward: a professional individual who is assigned to have an advising relationship with your son or daughter from Day One but probably only for Year One.  This could be someone who is advising for the first time, perhaps a grad student or a teaching assistant.  Or it could be someone who has been at this advising role for decades, perhaps since you were in college yourself.

It’s hard to say which individual profile will be better for your student, and it’s even harder to try to make a switch, so don’t bother.

Don’t you agree that even the very worst situations can be a lesson for your son or daughter?  Down the road, in a profession or chosen career, he or she will likely be forced to interact with people who are “assigned” to him/her and that’s just the way it will be: no questions asked.  In the same way, it’s a good “life lesson” now for your son or daughter to be able to work effectively with an assigned advisor.