BJU Press Writer

Why Do You Homeschool? Teaching from the Heart

March 29, 2016 by BJU Press Writer

Last week we introduced you to homeschool mom Deborah and told you that in the coming weeks we would be revealing her top five reasons to homeschool. Today, let’s take a look at the first of those reasons—teaching from the heart.

Think back to when you were a student, however close or far away that might seem. If I asked you to give me the name of a teacher who really taught from the heart, could you do it?

What are some qualities that teacher possessed? Did he really make learning “come alive”? Did she inspire you to be what you are today? Did he encourage you to follow God? No matter what your reasons are, I think we could probably all agree on one thing in particular: that teacher cared.

As a parent, you know more about your children than any other teacher could. Not only do you care about their education, but you also care about their hearts, their futures, and their walk with the Lord. In Deborah’s words, “The ability to guide a child’s heart is precious. I looked at homeschooling not just as a time of learning academics but a time of teaching life skills and strong character traits based on biblical truths.”

It’s no secret that secular ideas have pushed the Bible out of many schools. As a result, spirituality is no longer a goal worth striving for; morality will do. In some cases, “what is best for me” is even substituted for what’s moral. As a parent, you want your kids to do the right thing, but more than that, you want them to do it for the right reasons. All parents hope their children will become productive members of society, but as Christians, that’s not enough. We should pray for them and guide them to become champions for God’s kingdom.

Homeschooling your children allows you to address issues of the heart on your own terms. There’s no competition between what you teach at home and what’s taught in the classroom since they are one and the same.

As a parent, you are the ultimate caring teacher.

What are your reasons for homeschooling? We would love to hear from you!

Read more of Deborah’s motivations for homeschooling.

• • • • •

A Creative Writing graduate of Bob Jones University, Hannah worked for BJU Press for almost nine years as a writer and proofreader. Currently a coffee barista and freelance writer, she also tutors one student in French. While Hannah herself was not homeschooled, her experience in tutoring and teaching violin have shown her how beneficial one-on-one education can be. She hopes to homeschool her own kids someday.

How Can I Use That Distance Learning Online Feature?

August 25, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

If you’ve viewed our quickstart guides, you and your child are probably navigating Distance Learning Online (DLO) pretty comfortably by now. A few more features that we’d like to share with you relate to choosing settings and connecting with other families using DLO.

Blog

The DLO blog is primarily used by the students. This feature functions like a chat room and is actively monitored by our DLO team members. They interact with students on an as-needed basis according to the guidelines listed in our DLO blog and profile policy. And every time your child publishes a new conversation thread, it can be viewed from your DLO Dashboard.

A relatively new capability you have in DLO is to adjust certain settings for your child’s student profile. This option is helpful for monitoring your child’s access to the blog or time spent on it.

We also recommend that you enter a test password so that your child is unable to view his assessments until it is time to take them.

Communities

Here you have access to discussion forums that are grouped according to your child’s grade level, technical questions, feedback, homeschooling topics, and more. Like other discussion forums, this one allows you to join current conversation threads or post new ones. You’ll find that many DLO parents are willing to share ideas and offer support. Your child doesn’t have access to these discussions.

Grades

Your child can view his letter grade and current average for each course he’s enrolled in. You can view and edit his grades. In fact, we have provided three options for recording grades. Both the Record of Grades PDF and DLO Spreadsheet Record of Grades can be downloaded. The Online Gradebook is easiest to work with since it automatically updates every time your child completes an assessment. All three options can be found when you view a course under your parent profile.

Help

If you or your children have any academic or technical questions, send us a Help Ticket. Our DLO team members are prepared to offer support.

Thank you for choosing BJU Press Distance Learning Online! As we partner together this year, we know your child is sure to receive a sound education from a biblical worldview, and we’re pretty sure his love for learning is going to grow as he gets to know his distance learning teachers.

What other questions do you have about DLO?

How Are My Distance Learning Online Materials Organized?

August 20, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

You and your child have been successful in accessing Distance Learning Online (DLO); so now let’s talk about how things are set up. We’d like to cover two aspects today.

1. Printed Materials

Each course includes a Video Lesson Guide and Student Handouts. These packets provide an overview of the course and any related handouts to save you time and money on printing.

Video Lesson Guide

The VLG is specifically for parents and allows you to see how the course is laid out. It outlines the content, materials needed, Student Text or Worktext pages, assignments, and parent responsibility for each lesson.

Student Handouts

The SH packet provides the handouts your child needs for the lessons. Each page has the related grade, subject, and lesson printed on it. (We know how things can sometimes get out of order!)

The VLG and SH packets are the more challenging pieces of DLO to keep organized—primarily because of all the paper. We have three-hole punched each sheet so that it easily fits into a notebook, folder, or tray. You might want to consider color coding different subjects if your child is enrolled in multiple courses on DLO.

Creating an organizational system requires some planning, but the packets lend themselves to easy grouping by lesson, subject, grade, or any other option you choose! Our goal is to provide your family with sound educational resources from a biblical worldview that support your goals but are flexible enough so that you can choose to do what works best for your family. And if these printed materials get lost, no worries. The materials from these packets are in PDF form on DLO.

2. Online Course Materials

Each course Homepage in DLO provides your child with access to the course’s eTextbook (available for each course that includes a Student Text as opposed to a Student Worktext). This eTextbook can be viewed online or downloaded once you’ve created a Vitalsource Bookshelf^® account. You can learn more about our eTextbooks at bjupresshomeschool.com.

Below is a summary of how the courses are set up on DLO.

Lessons

You and your child have access to the course lessons through your separate profiles. From here, you can both view the course lessons we have provided for your child to complete. (You can view sample videos of the lessons.) While DLO does allow you to customize your child’s learning experience, we recommend that you check your state guidelines to see what is required. Instructions, answer keys, and other attachments are provided as needed for you every day. Specific instructions for the parent are featured in a green box that your child is not able to see under his student profile.

As your child completes each item, he can mark it complete to record his progress in the course.

Discussion

Our high school math and science courses include discussion forums. Your child has the opportunity to ask questions related to his course and receive feedback from one of our DLO team members or other students currently enrolled in the same course. The forums don’t appear under your parent profile, but you can still view everything your child posts from your DLO Dashboard.

Our distance learning teachers have integrated different activities and materials specifically for your child into their courses. All of the educational materials we provide are designed to build up your child’s joy of learning. In the next post, we’ll share additional features in DLO, such as adjusting settings and connecting with others.

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Now That I’ve Ordered Distance Learning Online, What’s Next?

August 18, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

Welcome to the BJU Press Distance Learning Online community! We’re excited to be on the same team for your child’s educational experience. Our distance learning materials are crafted to provide your child a sound education from a biblical worldview. Starting something new can be challenging; so over the next two weeks we’ll share the how-tos of our online program.

Welcome Email

Once your Distance Learning Online (DLO) order has been processed, the first thing you receive is a welcome email directing you to create a profile. At the same time, your child should also receive a welcome email.

To create a profile each parent and student is asked to provide a unique username and password and to confirm the first and last name. The confirmation of this information allows us to provide you and your child the distance learning content and educational materials related to his enrollment. Protecting your family’s privacy is important to us, and you can read how this information is used in our Children’s Privacy Policy. If you choose not to provide a separate email address for your child, then all emails related to his enrollment in DLO will be sent directly to your email.

Printed Materials

Your printed materials should arrive soon from our distribution center. These materials may arrive all together or in separate boxes. What you receive depends on the grade and subject ordered, but each kit should include these items.

DLO grade/subject kit no textbooks:

Video Lesson Guide
Student Handouts

DLO grade/subject kit with textbooks:

Student Text(s) and/or Worktext(s)
Video Lesson Guide
Student Handouts

If you’re looking for the Teacher’s Edition, tests, or test answer keys—don’t worry. An abridged Teacher’s Edition PDF and other resources are located in DLO. We’ve also provided available eTextbooks in DLO for you and your child. Most courses in grade 5 through grade 12 also include online assessments that are graded and recorded electronically. (Courses up to grade 4 that use tests include the printed tests and test answer keys when you order the grade/subject kit with books.)

Logging In

When you and your child log in to DLO for the first time, you’ll both need to agree to the terms of Edvance360. It’s important to remember that all of our distance learning content (video presentations, assessments, and other educational materials) is hosted online by this third-party company. Their terms will appear on the screen when you set up your profile. (For children under the age of eighteen, a parent needs to agree to the terms.)

Once the terms are agreed to, you will see the Homepage, which we also refer to as the Dashboard. From here you can access informative messages (Alerts), courses, resources, and your student’s progress. Your child also has a similar Dashboard; however, he doesn’t have access to the Contacts, Communities, or Mailbox. Another feature your child will have view-only access to is the Gradebook. We’ve created a quickstart guide for parents and another guide for students for easy navigation reference. It might be helpful for you and your child to review these PDFs before starting the first course. (We update these guides periodically.)

Our distance learning teachers and textbook writers are focused on providing your child with sound educational materials that will build the joy of learning. If you’re missing some of these materials, please let us know. We want to make sure you have everything you need to make the school year a successful one. In the next post, we’ll talk about how these materials are organized. Please let us know if we forget to include information that would be beneficial for you.

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How to Plan Your School Year

August 13, 2015 by BJU Press Writer

“Planning your work and working your plan” helps with more than scheduling your errands—it can make a big difference in organizing your teaching too. Whether you homeschool your children or teach a classroom of students, you probably begin each school year armed with a plan. It’s much easier to complete the different subjects and lessons when you have a plan to follow.

What should you consider when creating next year’s academic road map? Here are two ideas to get you started.

1. Start at the beginning.

A great place to start planning your lessons is by looking at the beginning of your textbooks. Review the table of contents in each textbook to see how it is paced and when concepts are presented. You’ll also want to see if your curriculum provides any lesson objectives or goals. Some of our BJU Press textbooks present the goals or objectives at the beginning of the textbook and others at the beginning of each chapter. Make sure to take good notes on what you find and consult your school calendar—you don’t want to start a harder concept right before a break.

2. Personalize to meet your student’s needs.

To tailor your plan, check your students’ test scores. Test scores are incredibly useful for showing strengths and weaknesses, letting you know what to spend more or less time on when teaching.

The percentile ranks and stanines at the top of the score report show your student’s overall ranking in a subject or as a whole.
The lower half of the score report shows a close-up of your student’s performance with specific skills. Check the number of questions that were available for each skill, and how many your student attempted. Missing 25% of only four questions means your student missed one question; missing 25% on a section of twelve questions would be more significant.

Tip—Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you’re not sure what the test scores mean, need help pinpointing a possible weakness, or can’t find your test scores, talk to your achievement test provider. Our Testing & Evaluation service provides customers with unlimited access to test score reports, and staff members are happy to answer questions or consult on score results. Your test provider may offer the same service, so be sure to ask.

Apply your findings

For your student’s strengths, it’s okay to move more quickly through new material, include projects that encourage your student to apply his knowledge, or do a bit of both. For his weaknesses, it’s best to plan on spending more time reviewing old concepts and explaining new ones.

How do you usually plan for the school year?