Blog Post 16: Self Directed Learning

I found this article to have a dramatic statistic that is  affecting our public schools.  According to the this article 500,000 for our Mexican descent students are leaving our U.S. public schools and returning to Mexico with their families.  The students returning are U.S. citizens who have grown up in the states and do not even speak Spanish.  The families are returning because the families source of income has moved or ended and now they must return to Mexico.  Unfortunate the Mexican schools have no clue about how to handle the influx of U.S. born children who do not even speak Spanish and their government is trying to integrate them back into the mainstream of their culture but now this students are being discriminated because they've returned back from the U. S. and do not know the native language.  Teachers in Mexico are not equipped to communicate with these children and now their goal is to transition the children as quickly as possible to be Spanish fluent.
This scenario is affecting our school community as closely as our own campuses.  At my campus our demographics show that our turn around for students who leave our campus is about 18% of our population.  When the students leave our campus and new students arrive we have to start at square one to bring them up to slowly integrate them into our dual program.  At least in the the U.S. we work with the student's native language but in Mexico the government is having a difficult time with this group of students.

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/11/13/498271392/invisible-children-raised-in-the-u-s-now-struggling-in-mexico

http://gettingsmart.com/2016/11/6-reasons-google-classroom-great-tool/

This article targets 6 Reasons Why Google Classroom is a Great Tool For Teachers
Students are growing up with 21st century technology use and so they must be exposed to to be able to compete with the world's job market.  The article emphasizes that students must be able to work online not only in their learning but also with their homework load.  Students must be able to access materials and resources online and be familiarized with different browsers used.  This online classroom has some teacher benefits which cut down on paperwork since assignments can be turned in and graded online.  Students are working on a live document that saves automatically and the excuse of not finding or loosing work will no longer be a believable one.  Student's use of technology is greatly engaging for students and they become more involved in their own learning.  Teachers can also monitor group projects and see their groups cooperating towards one common goal.  This article is very informative and a good source of reference to start our own Google Classroom assignments.