Samoset Middle School Blog

Study after study, consistently ranks Finland’s school system on top in the world. This begs the question, how can we learn from what the Finns are doing right?  This is a question that my home town paper was interested in as well.

 As a part of the ‘The Des Moines Resgisters- World Class Schools for Iowa” series,education columnist and blogger Linda Fandel, recently traveled to Finland to find out why Finish schools get an A+ for student achievement.

You can read the entire report here, but Fandel highlights the following distinguishing characteristics of Finland’s Educational System:

• Careful selection, lengthy preparation of teachers.- Finns believe that the path to excellence starts with teachers. Finland draws its teachers from the top 10 percent of college graduates, and teaching regularly beats out law or medicine as a top career choice among high performers. Now,It doesn’t hurt that Finland’s teachers study education at government expense, receive strong professional support throughout their careers, and count on ample time for collaboration with colleagues.  This ongoing support creates a high “working morale” in schools. How grand it would be to teach in a system that truly trusts its teachers.
  
• A clear, rigorous national curriculum- teachers and students work from a clearly written standard that leaves no doubt to what is expected to learn and teachers are expected to teach. Like the US, this curriculum covers core subject areas, but includes ethics, religion, and music.Finland’s national core curriculum gives parents, teachers and students in every school in the country a clear understanding of the high standards expected. But it also allows for local adaptation, giving schools and teachers room to select textbooks and shape creative lessons.
• Constant, enthusiastic help for struggling students- this standard was best captured in a statement by Finnish student, ” They make sure we understand”  Teachers in Finland intensely monitor students’ progress and are paid extra to provide additional lessons after school if parents agree. Special teachers float among classrooms in the comprehensive schools and pull out students needing more help to study in a small group for part of the day.Remedial education is part of the national core curriculum. Teachers are expected to recognize and work with students’ differing learning styles to help them do their best. Makes me wonder-Is this what it means to really leave no child behind??
• Ongoing review of how to make the system better- Assessment is critical, but there is no testing mania here. Tests are given as teachers see fit.In Finland, achievement tests taken by a sampling of students nationwide are used to assess the performance of comprehensive schools, most of which are run by municipalities. Schools also have other tools for self-evaluation, but there’s no public shaming of those that don’t make what’s deemed enough progress year to year. As with students, the idea is to help schools needing improvement. Assessment is about improving instruction rather than proving content coverage.

While no system is perfect, there is no question that Finland leads the world wide school table on many fronts. I am sure their success can be explained by a number of factors and many complex graphics, but for me it comes down to three words:  Relationships, Engagement, Student Centered.

What say you? How are these principals of success working at your school?

Photo credit: http://cslsrv.ice.ntnu.edu.tw

When it comes to educational software, the trick is to make kids think they’re just playing a traditional escapist game, while they’re really being surreptitiously fed facts and logic problems that put their brains to work. But while many games have done this for years, the technique hasn’t really made the jump to online virtual worlds – most of the kid-friendly virtual worlds are more focused on socializing and having fun than learning. Now JumpStart, a best-selling educational software developer, is looking to fill this niche with its new JumpStart Virtual World, which launched this week in public beta.

The game has high production values, with rich 3D graphics, customizable avatars, and a large world to explore. The game is browser-based, and works on both Mac and Windows with a small browser plugin. The current release offers 5 themed zones, each of which is filled with games designed to entertain and teach at the same time (examples include a Story game, which requires the child to play a memory matching game as they attempt to find all of the parts of their story book). Each game also tracks the child’s progress, and allows parents to receive periodic updates via Email detailing how their kids are doing.

The JumpStart virtual world is broken into three main segments, each targeted towards a different age range. At launch the only one available is Story Land (for ages 3-5), but Adventure Land (6-8’s) and Futureland (8-10’s) will be opening up in March or April 2009. The game is free to try out and lets kids play in one of the world’s themed zones, but to access the majority of the content families will need to pay a $7.99 monthly subscription fee (the fee is per family, not per child, and also includes access to JumpStart’s library of retail games).

But while JumpStart’s world is loaded with content, at this point it doesn’t take full advantage of its online connectivity. To keep kids as safe as possible the game doesn’t allow for much socialization between avatars (an understandable restriction, especially with the 3-5 year-old set). But at launch there’s only one multiplayer game, though JumpStart exec Thomas Swalla says more are on the way. If JumpStart is going to be charging monthly dues, it needs to do more to separate itself from a standard off-line game. That said, in my testing the game was surprisingly fun (even though I am admittedly well outside the target audience), and could easily be a hit with kids.

Also check out Handipoints, a virtual world that tries to get kids to do their chores.
From TechCrunch