If you are home schooling high school (or an advanced child), you should know about MIT OpenCourseWare, especially their website designed for high schoolers. They have video and written material to help explain science and math concepts. I even found papers by MIT students on stage technology (sets, lighting, etc).
Being the interest-led type of teacher that I am, I would set my kids loose on this site and let them explore. If you want to check it out first and give some initial guidance, that might help. I circled my favorite places on their sidebar.The AP resources are designed to help your child study for the AP exams held every May (sign up by March 1 to take the test). If they get a high enough score, they can earn college credit, just by taking the test. You can prepare for AP exams with study books
and these videos, and then count that study time as a high school class with a chance at college credit. Peter did this for Literature and World History with study books, other resources, and lectures from The Teaching Company, but then opted out of the tests. We still counted the study time as a class for his transcript.You can also design a high school course around their free course materials. Choose a topic and look at the syllabus, required readings, lecture notes, and assignments. Going through all the content of one of these classes would definitely be worthy of high school credit. Keep in mind that a one-semester college class is generally equivalent to a two-semester high school class.
Peter especially loves podcasts from UC Berkley. You can listen to classroom lectures for free. They also have a YouTube channel. Peter spent a lot of his senior year in high school listening to Berkley lectures and doing the readings. Those classes also ended up on his transcript.
I am amazed at the amount of high quality, free resources we have to home school high school. Youtube even has a channel dedicated to free college classes on video. If you know of other sources, let us know in the comments. Thanks!
news article about Youtube's college course channel
Related Posts:
Should I Home School High School?
Preparing for College
Home Schooling and College Scholarships
You'll Never Guess What Peter Did This Weekend
3 comments:
I love that anyone can listen to lectures online! I'm goin' to Harvard, Baby! LOL Good stuff to know for the future!
I didn't comment on your post on Peter's weekend. I will say that that was NOT going on anywhere near me when I was going to college! Parties and more parties were the norm. So refreshing to see a kid who went to school to learn!!!!!
Thanks for sharing this information Jena. You know you can never get rid of your blog, right? You have too much information here. We aren't quite ready for the high school/college stuff, but it is nice to know I can come here when we are ready. Cathy
Great info, thanks for sharing! MIT Also offers their full college curriculum for free as well. Something to consider if a student wants attend college at home also. Although, the drawback is that he or she wouldn't receive a degree from it.
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