|
QUICK GUIDE to teaching your children at home!
Interested in homeschooling, but still not sure? Read All You Need Is...'
How Will You Know They Are Learning?
A major component of education is evaluation. This is more frequently known as assessment and monitoring progress. There are two main elements to evaluation: observation and reflection.
Observation of your children's actions and reactions, their temperaments and developing personalities, allows you to build relationships with them to ensure successful learning in all areas of their lives.
Evaluation requires the conscious reflection on the usefulness, the appropriateness, and the outcomes (products and results) of their activities. Goals and objectives need to be measurable: by being able to compare 'then' with 'now' and having a clear plan of where you want your child to be in the future, you will build a confident overview of her educational progress.
The process of evaluation can include assessment, but involves much more than simply tests and exams. You need to think about what you are hoping to achieve, whether your methods are appropriate, and how things may have been done differently.
Being organised with keeping records, jotting down your observations and evaluative comments throughout the day will help you to plan their education to suit their emerging learning needs. It also plays an important part in building your confidence in your role as a home educating parent.
Tests and exams can be tailored to suit the individual child's learning needs, or adapted from commercial tests. Some text books and online learning programs include tests and answers. There are also 'test' books for each year level in each subject available.
How to evaluate - some questions to guide you:
- Was the learning activity, or method, effective?
- Have the objectives of the learning activity been met?
- What does your child know now he didn't before?
- What can your child do know she couldn't before?
- Was the learning activity easy or hard, and why?
- What do you know now about how your child learns you didn't know before?
- Did your child find the learning activity challenging?
- Was she enthusiastic and motivated? If not, what contributed to this?
- Were the resources and activities appropriate?
Record your responses in your diary, or on dated samples or your children's work. Use your evaluation to tailor the learning program to your child's immediate learning needs.
As a home educator I developed a couple of different diary formats: the weekly homeschooling diary is very similar to the familiar school diary and the learning naturally diary has been designed to help parents understand that when children are engaged in play, chores or following their interests they are also learning. Another recording approach I developed when my children were high school age, is the Home Education Report / Portfolio. Similar to an end-of-year school report, this document records major assignments or learning tasks undertaken throughout the year. It also contains broad objectives for students in each subject area. It was my aim in creating these resources to help ease parents into home education and to take the worry out of recording their child's progress.
There are dozens of articles on this site about record keeping and evaluation and assessment. Use the search function or look under 'Record Keeping' or 'Evaluation' on the site map. Getting Started with Homeschooling has a whole chapter on this subject, with many examples drawn from our own homeschooling life.
Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you?
Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating
offering encouragement
and reassurance to families
wanting
better outcomes for their children.
Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.
Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.
"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people." Vanessa
"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!" Davina
"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others." Lesley
"Thank you once again for your prompt and friendly service.
I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am
in the morning, I 've been encouraged!" Louisa
"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how
valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community.
I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now.
And I'm very grateful." Gythaa
Want to learn how to write your own education plans
to suit your unique children's individual learning needs?
Or you are looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips...
Comprehensive 3 workbook 'how to home ed' course
covering the essential skills you need
successfully home educate your children
|
|
Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!
We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine
3 ESSENTIAL STEP BY STEP GUIDES
Let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration!
|
Tap into Beverley's
experience
through her books
"Your books, your blogs helped me beyond words... they helped me to find comfort in knowing it is ok to choose exactly what is best for my family." Nisha
"Your books and information are mind blowing and already I am feeling good about this new experience." Diane
"Your guidance, understanding, support & words of wisdom changed our lives." Leslie
"I feel specially inspired by Beverley's words and, the more I read her comments, the more inspired I feel, since my need for support, respect for different parenting styles, and information are fully met." Marijo
|
 |
|
The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.
The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.
Advertise on this site.
Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.
Without revenue from advertising
by educational suppliers and Google Ads
we could not continue to provide information
to home educators. Please support us by letting
our advertisers know that you found them on
The Educating Parent. Thanks!
|
About
Thank you for visiting!