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Avoiding Common Distance Education Mistakes

An on the internet course may look like a doddle at first glance: you can work at your own speed, only study what you need to, and hand in projects when you prefer (although, still within deadlines). However, it can be difficult, especially if you have never used distance education before. If you are too informal with your effective time control and planning, it’s simple to lag behind and possibly not even complete your program. Here are three typical errors individuals make, and some guidelines to help you keep on track.

1) Bad choices – When it comes to on the internet, sometimes the most affordable and simplest course suppliers are not actually the best. They can even be a significant pitfall! Look out for so-called ‘diploma mills’ that provide “hassle-free” degrees that are not worth the document they are printed on. Before searching for any distance education program, do a little research and ensure that the organization is above board and reliable.

2) Procrastination – This is probably the single greatest problem with distance education. If you are a procrastinator by nature, you need to nip it in the bud, fast! Otherwise you will never graduate, as distance education requires good effective time control and a lot of self-discipline. You must set clear objectives, and adhere to them. It allows setting your own work deadlines too. It’s, therefore, better to work according to small, more controllable work deadlines, such as per month, every week, or even everyday objectives. That way you can accomplish your objectives on a stable and constant basis.

3) Not using additional resources – Many distance education programs provide free access on various web sources and research components. It’s usually not a precondition to look at these materials; so many individuals usually miss them. This is a big error, as these sources are intended to complement your abilities and information. It’s often simple to neglect these components and just do the lowest amount, but if you do this, you are only harming yourself. In order to get the most out of your course, you need to make use of this useful, readily available information.

Doing a distance education is practical, as you do not need to be present at actual physical sessions. However, distance education needs to be treated the same way as a conventional academic setting, especially when it comes to effective time control, self-discipline, being practical, and making sure that your preferred course is the right one. By preventing these typical errors, you can remain targeted, complete your major, and accomplish your academic objectives.

Advanced Placement Courses Makeover

To the many in the world of education and learning change, the newest AP Report to the Nation released lately by the College Board is cause for party on two fronts. The first accomplishment has to do with value.  During the program’s early history in the Sixties, Advanced Placement Courses were generally applied by white students.  Even as late as the mid-1990s, 80 percent of AP examinations were taken by whites or Asians.  Today, however, approximately a third of learners on the program are non-Asian learners of color.  And that number is growing every year.

The second accomplishment has to do with learning and training.  By the twenty-first millennium, AP was being assailed by its experts for unable to progress.  While college teachers progressively advised learners through closer examinations of topics with an alignment toward critical thinking and hands-on work, the Advanced Placement Courses continue to highlight survey-style coverage and content recall skills.  This newest report, however, details a course and examination upgrade that brings Advanced Placement Courses back to normal with “current methods while attending college education.”  And according to the College Board, changes in all subject matter will be significant. Both of these improvements are the result of effort, financial dedication (the Department of Education alone has invested one fourth of a billion dollars on its AP Incentive Program), and serious initiatives by everyone concerned to advertise the twin goals of value and quality. The problem, however, is that AP can do very little to actually recognize those goals.

Plan leaders, of course, are conscious of the restricted achievements of their labors, both through the Advanced Placement Courses and through other technically-oriented university enhancement initiatives.  Still, they keep favoring centrally-designed changes that can be applied in a top-down way because they get around the unforeseen and time-consuming work of engaging stakeholders, developing university potential, and creating a politically brave plan.  Consequently, their initiatives, while well-intended, never deal with the actual problems that impact school quality and academic value.  To use a metaphor of Larry Cuban’s, they make storm-tossed wave on the ocean’s surface without distressing the strong current below.

EMR and Patient Care

The EMR or electronic medical record’s guarantee of participation to health care price benefits got a second look recently, and the results were inadequate at best.  But what I found interesting was the “second look” was from the same company that did the first look: the corporately-funded, non-profit think-tank called the RAND Corporation.

From their second and more recent report:

A team of RAND Corporation researchers estimated in 2005 that fast adopting of health information technology (IT) could save the United States more than $81 billion dollars yearly. Seven years later, the scientific data on the technology’s impact on health care performance and safety are combined, and yearly health care expenses in the United States have grown by $800 billion dollars.

Who would have thought that such a famous company like the RAND Corporation could have made such a little, tiny multi-billion dollar mistake? After all, their 2005 study was financed entirely by several of the major EMR producers who have gained enormous amounts in income on EMR sales since.  Is there any wonder that now the same RAND Corporation sensed that the EMRs deficiency of price benefits is really the end-users’ fault?

In our view, the frustrating performance of health IT to date can be mostly linked to several factors: gradual adopting of health IT techniques, in addition to the choice of techniques that are neither interoperable nor easy to use; and the failing of medical service providers and organizations to re-engineer patient care procedures to obtain the benefits of health IT.

What a superficial evaluation.  There is no talk of the price of these techniques, their maintenance, deficiency of interoperability, inadequate user-interfaces, and in many cases, deficiency of design support.  Even more interesting, there was no consideration that someone might actually figure out a way to efficiently dress the government’s arcane certification requirements for compensation that would permit more patient care spending.  No, those tests would have been too obvious.  Instead, the Rand Corporation informs us that there were no price benefits with the EMRs because doctor- and hospital-customers did not re-engineer their patient care procedures or “adopt” poor first-generation techniques.

Realities in Assisted Living Centers

Assisted living centers are places where people, who are less than independent but not in need of full time care, are provided with guidance or support in the activities of daily life. It is a proper care option typically employed by the elderly who do not require the 24-hour health care typical of an elderly care facility. It gives seniors help in housing, support services and health care, on a needed basis. The setting is similar to a person’s own home; however, assistance is provided in the form of meals, housekeeping, entertainment and other lifestyle support. The senior gets the security of having assistance when needed and residing in a structured environment, while maintaining an overall stage of independence. Options include staying in a separate apartment or condominium type residing quarters, or if more assistance is required, staying in a dormitory. The stage of interaction with staff varies, depending on the stage of need.

One of the major drawbacks for those seeking assisted living is the cost. The median monthly cost for assisted living is $2,575. While this may be comparable to assisted living centers prices, covering the expenses is much more difficult. Medicare A and B, the traditional sources of funding for a senior’s care, do not offer comprehensive protection for long term, ongoing care in an assisted living center. Medicare A, which pays for hospital coverage for seniors, may provide partial coverage for care in an assisted living center for rehabilitation following hospitalization, but will only last up to 100 days. Coverage will decrease throughout the 100 days. Medicare B, which covers physician care, will not provide any coverage for assisted living expenses separate from treatment by a doctor. Private insurance is the most effective way to pay for assisted living care.

Medicaid, a state and federal program which provides health care for low income individuals, may cover some assisted living expenses. However, the availability of State Medicaid programs coverage will vary by state, and likely will be decreasing coverage rather than expanding in the coming years. In contrast, traditional assisted living centers are covered by Insurance coverage if the senior stays in Insurance covered certified house after a qualified hospital stay (at least three days).

Nursing Home Inspections

In reaction to a Freedom of Information Act demand by ProPublica, the government has launched unredacted write-ups of issues discovered during nursing home examinations around the country. We’re making them available these days for anyone who wants to obtain the complete editions. For several weeks now, ProPublica has made redacted editions of this same information available in an easily retrievable format in our Nursing Home Inspect device. These editions, which are posted on the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website, Nursing Home Inspect, sometimes empty out patients’ age groups, health circumstances, schedules and recommended medicines.

The organization has said the redactions are designed to balance individual comfort issues with the need to notify customers about the quality of care. ProPublica asked for the unredacted reviews because they are public records and because the included information can make them more useful. For example, prescribed information in the unredacted write-ups can help recognize situations in which sufferers obtained medicines such as antipsychotics that are risky for those with dementia.

Sufferers and workers are not determined in either the redacted or unredacted reviews. Nursing Home Inspect allows patients and their loved ones to recognize nursing homes in their states and recognize those with serious inadequacies and charges in the last three years. The entire national collection of reviews, record more than 267,000 inadequacies in nursing homes nationwide, is retrievable by keyword and key phrase. At this point, Nursing Home Inspect is constantly on the link to only the redacted examination reviews. To search through the unredacted editions, you’ll have to obtain them and use a program like Microsoft Excel or a text manager that enables you to search for keywords and phrases.

The New Era of Healthcare

For many physicians, I believe the latest difficulties around the market have taken some of the fun out of their work. Problems such as new and modifying rules, improved legal cases, growing costs, and hardly controllable patient loads, among others, have all taken their cost on the physicians, nursing staff, and directors who, I believe, joined the healthcare field to have a fulfilling, long term profession providing individuals and assisting them live better lives. This scenario provides a real problem for basically everyone lucky enough to have access to contemporary healthcare. Population development and ageing communities in many nations around the world mean we need more physicians, not less. More happy, more effective physicians and nursing staff mean better care for their sufferers. And, individuals who devote decades of their lives to practice medicine should have a fulfilling experience.

For physicians, there is great news; you are at the edge of a rebirth in healthcare. Technology, including the Internet of Everything (IoE), robotics, 3-D printing, wearable technological innovation, reasoning, flexibility, and many others, promises to guide in this new era in medical care. In short, the best is yet to come. To prove the point, here are a couple of illustrations that should change medical care over the next 10 years.

Scaling skills to extend quality care: One of the difficulties of healthcare these days is that skills are often included in a set place or individual person. For example, a physician who has become an expert in doing a complicated, life-saving function can be in only one place at a time. Later on, the mixture of video clip, robotics, sensing, action identification, and IoE will allow physicians to execute functions at exclusively prepared, distant places.

Your sufferers…only better: Innovations in 3-D printing are developing realistic-looking, comfort and ease appropriate and efficient ears for sufferers. The ears are designed by treating (like an ink jet printer) living tissues into a hypodermic injection pattern. In just three months, each ear develops fibers in the form of the pattern. While technology will play a critical role in changing healthcare, real and long lasting change will come from people who have the interest to matter.

Gender Gap in Mathematics

The misconception that men exceed females in the mathematics and science fields has persisted for decades. However, scientists from Brigham Young University, University of Miami and Rutgers University recently conducted a study to challenge that misconception and the gender gap associated with it. In their report, which was already released by the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization and showed up in a EurekAlert public launch Feb. 25, scientists determined females are as efficient as men in mathematics when changing the conditions of a competitive environment.

Joe Price, the lead specialist of the research and an associate lecturer of business economics at BYU, said the idea for his research occurred out of a couple of main issues. “We’re getting to the point where there are more ladies in college than young boys, but there are some careers that men are much more represented,” Price said. He detailed CEOs and associates in law companies as a several examples of generally male-dominated careers. “If women don’t do as well in aggressive configurations, they will not do as well in these careers or will fall out of those careers.”

Price said this was one reason why he and scientists started learning the gender gap’s existence in educational and aggressive surroundings. With the increase of female’s registration in higher education, he said it has become progressively important for scientists to examine the causes and solutions of gender gaps. Between 2000 and 2010, colleges underwent a 39-percent increase in women registration, as opposed to 35-percent increase among men, according to a review by the Institute of Education Sciences. This number is predicted to improve significantly over the next several years. Price said a part of his inspiration for the research was personal. He is a mathematics fanatic and a dad of two girls. “[I was] really inspired to find mathematical contests that ladies could flourish in,” he said.

Advanced Placement Courses Role

Learners in high school have many choices in terms of seeking the kinds of training they want. Many regions offer Magnet Programs that provide improved knowledge in specific areas (Arts, Science) which students are keen on seeking later on. Other educational institutions have implemented the International Baccalaureate Program, which has become highly popular, for its focus on separate, globally-minded query. There is also Advanced Placement Courses, a traditional mainstay of high school improved program.

There was lately interesting news brief on the current state of Advanced Placement Courses in United States public education. The piece stated that 1 in 3 United States High Schooler’s, in public educational institutions, took an Advanced Placement Courses Examination this year. Of that, 33% of High Schoolers, 1 in 5 received a passing score on the test. These are really quite impressive numbers. First, a third of United States, openly educated students is seeking advanced instructors in high school, presumably, on their own accord, though with the support of their family and instructors. Second, the opportunity to engage in serious work in United States educational institutions is available, and with knowledge of what is out there, students have real opportunities. One third of scholars are certain enough, during high school, that educational accomplishment is really important and that the work they put in during high school will pay off in college.

And, it will. A passing score on an AP Examination is worth a credit at most colleges, amounting to a significant savings in money. Enough time spent in high school can be an appealing factor in higher education and kids realize this. Significantly, Advanced Placement Courses is a wide effort and covers topics from Math to English to the Arts with many areas of expertise in between. There were 34 different subject examinations given most lately, indicating the breadth and depth this method has achieved. After all, this is a high school program with 34 college degree course choices.

Hospital Mergers

In an article in New York Times, the Supreme Court gave power to the Federal Trade Commission or FTC to block hospital mergers so it could limit the authority of public hospital management from immunity to federal antitrust laws. The undivided decision renewed the power of the F.T.C. to task the merging of the only two medical centers in Albany, Ga. Some professionals said the decision could mean that medical centers will have to be more aware of antitrust concerns when they get together with other medical service suppliers to form so-called responsible care companies, as known for in the new medical care law. “I think this is going to restrict one of the collections of protection that the A.C.O.’s will have,” said David Dranove, lecturer of wellness market control at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern School.

Various medical centers are consolidating now, often disagreeing that mixing increases the range of services and makes them more effective. But merging can also increase the hospitals’ influence with insurance suppliers, resulting in higher prices. In the Georgia situation, the F.T.C. had tried to prevent the acquisition of HCA Holdings’ Palmyra Medical Center by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, which is owned by the Hospital Authority of Albany-Dougherty County.

States are usually exempted from government antitrust regulations, and that resistance can increase to regional government regulators. Both the Federal District Court in Georgia and the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided that the Albany deal was exempt because it was under the auspices of the county hospital authority. But the Supreme Court said that regional government regulators be eligible for a antitrust resistance only when they are acting pursuant to a clearly articulated state plan to restrict competitors. And that was not the situation in Georgia. “We hold that Atlanta has not clearly articulated and affirmatively indicated a plan to allow hospital regulators to make products that considerably reduce competitors,” Rights Sonia Sotomayor had written for a legal court.

Distance Education and Learning Styles

Although researchers regularly debate and criticize any particular design of learning styles, it is educationally and naturally well approved that different individuals learn differently; significance they have different learning styles. One of the most discussed designs of learning styles is called VARK. VARK is an acronym for the four learning styles it suggests, which are

  • Visual (V)
  • Aural/Auditory (A)
  • Read/Write (R)
  • Kinesthetic (K)

The titles of learning styles are pretty illustrative of what they are. The visible students think in images and may understand best from visible shows such as blueprints, illustrated textbooks, overhead transparencies, video clips, flipcharts, use of interactive whiteboards and giveaways. These students need to see the teacher’s body gestures and face concept to completely understand the content of a session. The hearing students understand best through spoken training, conversations, discussing factors through and enjoying what others have to say.

Read/Write students choose terms – studying and writing in all types. They love to work with details, dictionaries, PowerPoint and Internet. Kinesthetic students understand best through hands-on strategy. They like presentations, designs, video clips and films of “real” factors, case research and practice. Although individuals often have one prominent learning style, it does not mean that they learn in only one way. Generally, a mixture of different learning style works best for each individual.

Typically, distance education has depended almost specifically on posted content for providing learning. They really had no options previously. Audio/Visual helps were not easy to make or use, much less to transport to people seated kilometers away. Instructor connections were obviously out of the question. So, conventional distance education catered mostly to Read/Writer students. Technological innovation is now modifying the experience to train and learn everywhere. But it would not be an overstatement that it can help improve online learning much more than the frequent educational setting knowledge. Not only has technology made it possible and easy to make multi-media content, Internet has created even their submission easier. So now, all types of students can accept distance education.