New "Guessing" Flag Added to Acellus Live Class Monitor

Acellus has added a new feature — the “Guessing” Flag — to the Live Monitor that alerts teachers and parents when it determines that a student might be guessing instead of really trying to answer the questions. 

The “Guessing” Flag allows those working with the student to reinforce the importance of learning the concepts and putting forth the effort to work the problems correctly and to give other intervention if needed.

Learn more about the Acellus “Guessing Flag” feature on my Blog for Educators.

New Acellus STEM Course - Elementary Engineering

Acellus has added a new STEM course for elementary school - Elementary Engineering. 

The new course stimulates young minds with a basic understanding of the engineering design process and then gives them practice using those principles they are learning.  

 As part of the course, students are introduced to different engineering fields and study some of the legendary engineers and engineering feats of our time. 

This exposure to engineering could open the way for students later on to look into a career in engineering.

Read more about the Elementary Engineering course on my Acellus Blog for Educators.

New Acellus Course - Epic Moments in World History

Acellus recently released the new “Epic Moments in World History” course, a  Hollywood-style social studies elective for high school students.  

The course begins with the early civilizations of the Indus Valley and covers landmark events all the way up through the Cold War and into modern times. 

We feel that the course is unique both in the subject matter covered as well as in the way it is presented, which gives students an engaging “you-are-there” experience of many significant historical moments. 

Read details about the new “Epic Moments in World History” in my Acellus Blog for Educators.

Acellus Provides New “Standardized Test” Report

To allow schools to compare the final exam scores of their students who are taking Acellus courses with the National Norm, we have added a new feature to the School Performance Reports — the Acellus Standardized Test Report.   

An important feature of the report is the statistical data on the performance of various sub-populations within the school. 

This data will aid school administrators in analyzing the success of their students overall.  

Read more about the Acellus Standardized Test Report on my Acellus Blog for Educators.

Homeschool Students Can Earn a High School Diploma

The cost of offering a high school diploma program over the Internet is expensive.  The accreditation requirements of providing a satisfactory ratio of highly qualified teachers substantially increases the cost of such programs putting them out of reach to many families.

To help out, Acellus has created a courseware program to be used by parents homeschooling their children.  This program allows students to take the same online courses used in the accredited program, but at a substantially lower cost.

The problem then becomes, what happens when a student is ready to graduate?

Here are three strategies offered to help homeschooling parents that want their child to receive a diploma... 

Read more on my Acellus Blog for Parents.

Acellus Launches the Internet of Learning — a New Internet for Education

Today our world, and therefore our schools, are under cyberattack. To protect school networks from this increasingly dangerous and expensive problem while still providing the enrichment of digital resources students need, Acellus and the International Academy of Science have created the Internet of Learning — a new Internet designed specifically for education. 

The Internet of Learning gives students access to essential information without opening the door to Internet-spawned distractions and malicious network intrusions.

The idea for the Internet of Learning came while I was attending an MIT course on Advanced Cybersecurity that highlighted the critical condition of the cybersecurity world now and how we need breakthrough technologies and radical new approaches because what we’ve been doing isn’t working. That’s when I envisioned a new Internet for education.

Read More 

Acellus Success Zone

Dr. Roger Billings – White Paper

Published in the Journal of Science

Motivating teachers is one of the great challenges in education. There are many different thoughts and philosophies around how to evaluate teacher effectiveness in a way that is motivational. One thing that everyone seems to agree on is that when performance is monitored, it improves. Effective and timely feedback is critical for motivating teaching staff. However, close monitoring of a teacher can often result in lowered morale.

The traditional and commonly used instruments of teacher evaluation were reviewed: test scores, standardized tests, homework, quizzes, and end of unit exams. From an analysis of this feedback, it is evident that traditional teacher evaluation models are constructed on the philosophy that if the students all score well, the teacher is high-performing. A conclusion of this review of evidence shows that this method cannot be used to effectively monitor and inspire teachers. This legacy approach has been shown to be ineffective. What is needed is a new rubric for monitoring and evaluating teacher performance.

The student “Success Zone” model is focused on evaluating teacher performance in a way that does not discourage teachers. To create the Success Zone tools, technology, blended learning classrooms, and the power within teachers to inspire and motivate their students were studied.

Teachers are on the front-line and have the most influence and knowledge about how to motivate students in a way that results in success in the here, in the now, today, and in every classroom across the country. Teachers must be motivated to motivate students in the classroom. The ground-breaking impact of Success Zone is that timely feedback is provided in real-time to the teachers, administrators, and board members at the flashpoint when teaching improvement must occur.

 Dr. Billings

Read the full Article:

Journal of Science, Success Zone – Dr. Roger Billings