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Category: Aim Academy Online

  • College Prep Science at Home? Here’s What We Did.

    Vicki-Dincher-300x160My kids love to needle me by telling me the best teacher they had in high school was Vicki Dincher. She was also the coolest (she played bass guitar). Her science classes at our high school co-op were always the most popular — and they still are.

    Well, I know how to capitalize on a good thing when I see it: I convinced Vicki to join me in teaching online after we both finished homeschooling. And didn’t she just go and beat me at that game, too! I’ve never seen anyone master technology faster than Vick. Her lectures are punctuated with illustrations, video clips, live demonstrations, PowerPoint presentations with animation and, starting this year, a state-of-the-art microscope that she and all her students can look through simultaneously — no matter where they are in the world! Wow, I never thought teaching online could compete with a live classroom, but technology allows a teacher to do some things you just can’t do in person — and in some ways online instruction can be a better context for learning. For one thing, Vicki records all her classes and stores them in the cloud where her students can watch them repeatedly as they prepare for SAT, AP or CLEP exams.

  • Creative Writing: Interactive and Aware

    by Lilianna Serbicki, Aim Academy English Teacher

    While there are a myriad of writing guidelines and “best practices”, creative writing in particular has a very intuitive element. A delicate balance between discipline and individual expression is required. This is why detailed critiques – from both myself and student peers – are such a vital portion of my Creative Writing course. My students’ imaginations are given free rein and then continually “pared down”, with elegant and succinct writing as our goal.

    My creative writing class has a three-pronged focus: literary analysis, student writing, and peer critiques. Each section of the course focuses on a different element or genre: Character, Dialogue, Setting, Tone, Conflict, Point of View, Plot, Science Fiction, Realism, Poetry, Drama, etc. As we explore each topic, we analyze a work that highlights the appropriate element, complete a creative piece, and participate in peer critiques. We study short pieces by authors such as Flannery O’Connor, Stephen Crane, Jack London, Katherine Mansfield, James Thurber, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and others.

    The goal of isolating literary elements is to help students write with a greater awareness. All of my recent students were bright, enthusiastic, eager readers. However, even a well-read high-schooler who is working independently may not consider how individual elements such as tone, point of view, and dialogue enrich a piece of fiction. A writer must deliberately use each of these elements to tell their story in the best way using the best choice of words; last year we often worked through several drafts of a single short story to experience how writing evolves. As we added new elements to our repertoire, students were able to “build upon” the skills learned in each project.

    I am immensely proud of my creative writing classes the past few years. My students were able to build a full writing portfolio for use in their homeschool portfolio, contests applications, literary magazines, and other venues. Several students have won  Scholastic Art and Writing Awards; others have won college scholarships for their writing.

    I look forward to a wonderful 2013-2014 year! I will close with a few words from Creative Writing student Carmen Paddock. Carmen’s sympathetic analysis of human nature and keen ear for dialogue made her pieces uniquely poignant!

    “Mrs. Serbicki’s Creative Writing class is a must not only for those students interested in fiction and poetry, but for any student wanting to expand their writing horizons beyond the research paper (and have a great time while doing so)…Covering both the elements and forms of fiction made it unique and well-rounded among the other online creative writing classes that I’ve seen.

    While there was some variation in the structure, we read and discussed a famous piece of fiction one week and then worked on a related fiction project the next; while prompts were (thankfully) often provided, there was a lot of leeway to pursue our own ideas and plot lines!  We also had weekly Skype chats which were wonderful for that jolt of inspiration – chatting with Mrs. Serbicki and classmates was a great way to free writer’s block!  Over the course of the year my favorite projects were the character study, the dialogue study, the speculative fiction assignment, and the poetry weeks…I feel that Mrs. Serbicki’s instruction helped me get past my fear of writing fiction – under her guidance I actually finished stories – and fine-tuned my narration and plot development, steering me away from melodrama into honest, engaging tales.  I highly, highly recommend this class to any high school student interested in honing storytelling skills or just looking for a fun alternative to traditional English courses.”

     

     

  • Who Says Science Isn’t Creative?

    by Vicki Dincher

     

    Creativity isn’t just for the arts and humanities. It requires a great deal of creativity to think like a scientist. In fact, some of the world’s greatest scientists were also accomplished musicians and writers. One of the best ways to encourage a love of the sciences in your children is to foster their innate creativity when it comes to learning science principles. Think about what an engineer goes through as she attempts to design a new package to keep Oreo cookies fresh and unbroken until we get them home. (Did you know this is quite a large industry and pays newly graduated engineers big bucks!) There is a lot of creative thinking that goes into designing and refining the perfect package. And determining where to start and how to tweak things to produce desired results all require creativity. The same can be said for all great scientific advancements. Imagine where we’d be today if Alexander Fleming didn’t think creatively when he found mold growing on his petri dish of bacteria! Cultivating creativity in your home school science curriculum can help improve critical-thinking skills, motivation, and engagement in reluctant learners as well as helping students begin to understand the vital role of creativity in the development of new scientific information.

    So, what might this look like? Well, picture the average 8th grader who is studying the concept of motion. He should certainly read about motion and Newton’s laws, but I’m not sure how motivating and engaging that might be. But if you assign  him the
    project of designing a water rocket that will fly over a specific distance (say 50 meters or more) and then to spark his creativity tell him to study the physical characteristics of a variety of different balls (baseball, tennis ball, football, etc.) as they travel through the air, he just might learn something in spite of himself. (As a note, I do think these types of active learning approaches are great in small groups, so definitely include siblings or a small co-op class and you’ll find even more engagement occurring.)

    Make sure your student investigates the relationship between the ball’s physical characteristics (like mass, volume, density, shape, material, whether solid or hollow, etc.) and the distance it travels when thrown. Allow your student to decide how to analyze each relationship and how to control as many variables as possible – this will definitely bring out his creativity! For example – should each ball be thrown in the same manner, bringing the arm back to just the same spot, releasing the ball at just the same spot? how many throws for each ball should there be? how can we figure out where the center of gravity is? – see what I mean?

    After the data is collected, it should be analyzed in light of Newton’s laws and momentum and then another creative opportunity arises—designing a water rocket that has similar characteristics as the ball that traveled the farthest. With just a two-liter soda bottle, water, tire pump, and various household items used to modify the shape of the bottle and add ballast, students should be given the task of designing, creating, testing, tweaking (lots of creativity involved in testing and tweaking – how much water to use? ballast or no ballast? etc.), and sharing the ideas that led to their rockets. This, by the way, is the same process that engineers and working scientists use every day. I guarentee that your student will walk away with a better understanding of Newton’s laws of motion—not to mention how to approach and try to solve a problem—when learning through a water rocket experience than without one. And remember, there are no failures with this type of active learning. As Thomas Edison so wisely pointed out, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If you’d like a little more background information on building water rockets (but let your student figure things out on their own) check out the websites below.

    We can use water rocket (active) learning for all concepts of science. It does take a little more time and it might get a little messy (make sure to launch your water rocket outside), but the payout is so much greater. And isn’t that part of the reason that we home school?

     

    https://wwong.homestead.com/rockets.html

    https://www.instructables.com/id/Soda-Bottle-Water-Rocket/?ALLSTEPS

     

    Vicki Dincher has been teaching science to home educated students for 17 years and teaches physical science, biology, and physics for Aim Academy.

  • AAO Creative Writing Class

    A review by Carmen Paddock

    Mrs. Serbicki’s Creative Writing class is a must not only for those students interested in fiction and poetry, but for any student wanting to expand their writing horizons beyond the research paper (and have a great time while doing so!). As a writer, I fell into both categories. The main reason I signed up for this particular course, instead of the myriad others offered for homeschooled high school students, was the scope of subjects covered. The first semester was spent analyzing different elements of fiction, from characterization to dialogue to setting and beyond. The second semester delved into different types of fiction and storytelling, from point of view and tone to science fiction, poetry, realism, and drama. Covering both the elements and forms of fiction made it unique and well-rounded among the other online creative writing classes that I’ve seen.

    While there was some variation in the structure, we read and discussed a famous piece of fiction one week and then worked on a related fiction project the next; while prompts were (thankfully) often provided, there was a lot of leeway to pursue our own ideas and plot lines! We also had weekly Skype chats which were wonderful for that jolt of inspiration – chatting with Mrs. Serbicki and classmates was a great way to free a writer’s block! Over the course of the year my favorite projects were the character study, the dialogue study, the speculative fiction assignment, and the poetry weeks. The most challenging to me were the setting study, the realist retelling of a classic fairytale/myth, and the drama assignment.

    I feel that Mrs. Serbicki’s instruction helped me get past my fear of writing fiction – under her guidance I actually finished stories – and fine-tuned my narration and plot development, steering me away from melodrama into honest, engaging tales. I highly, highly recommend this class to any high school student interested in honing storytelling skills or just looking for a fun alternative to traditional English courses.

    You can find out more here.

  • The Scientific Method Ain’t What It Use to Be

    by Vicki Dincher, guest blogger & Aim Academy Science Teacher

    We all remember the 5 steps of the scientific method: observe, hypothesize, experiment, analyze, and repeat.  While science still involves hypotheses-testing,
    it is so much more.

    First, it might help to get the bigger picture of what science is and what it is not.  Science is not a collection of facts.  It is not
    boring, nor purely analytical. Science is not done by solitary, middle-aged men in laboratories. It is not absolute and unchanging, nor can it prove or disprove
    ideas.

    The goal of science is to explain the natural world around us. Every parent of a toddler or elementary school-age child knows that the desire to make sense of the world around us is innate.  Ever hear questions like:  “what’s that?”, “why is the sky blue?”, or
    “what make a marshmallow so puffy?” This is where true science begins.

    Yes, science involves exploration and discovery, but the process of science is nonlinear, unpredictable, and ongoing.  Its critical thinking and problem-solving at its
    best, or it should be. The study of science and the process of understanding the natural world around us known as the scientific method is better labeled as “active learning” IMHO.

    Learning that does not involve thinking is nothing but the memorization of facts not understood, resulting in the formation of
    mere opinions; not the possession of genuine knowledge and understanding. (Adler 1987, p.11)

    So what can you do? Make sure the science that you “do” with your children–their activities and assignments– are designed so that they need to think their way through them.
    As your child explores new topics in science give them opportunities to observe, hypothesize, contemplate, generalize, create, test, evaluate and talk about they are thinking.  Help them identify
    and solve problems or questions they come up with as they study science. Take your time. Let ideas percolate. Don’t be in a hurry to tell them the right answer or explain – let them practice reasoning from the evidence of what theysee.

    Then you’ll be using the scientific method.

    And the next time you’re asked what makes a marshmallow so puffy, go to the Popular Science website, https://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2008-11/anatomy-marshmallow
    and learn how to make some marshmallows with your children!

    At Aim Academy, our science classes use active learning strategies designed to aid students in gaining genuine knowledge and understanding of science concepts.

     

    Adler, M.J. 1987.
    “Critical thinking” programs: Why they won’t work. The Education Digest  52(7): 9-11.

     

  • What is Academic Writing?

    Academic writing is the type of writing students are expected to produce in response to content they learn about in an academic setting; i.e. school. It’s how they formally join the “scholarly conversation.” And it can begin at a very young age, when a child writes a report about a book he has read or a topic she has learned about. It is not a personal experience, nor a story, nor merely a description. (more…)