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Are You Teaching High School History For Your Homeschool Co-Op? 3 Tips To Get Your Group Ready For College

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Homeschooling co-ops allow parents to pool their strengths so that every student benefits from learning from the most qualified teacher. While your love for history has led you to be the ideal teacher for this subject, you also carry the heavy weight of making sure that each student in your group is ready for college at the end of high school. As you plan for the upcoming school year, use these tips to make sure that your history lessons are effective for preparing every student for the next stage of their academic career.

Research College Admissions Requirements

Colleges often vary regarding their admissions requirements for homeschooling students, and some schools even specify how may credits of each type of history a student must complete before they are eligible to enroll. Talk to the parents and students in your group to find out which schools the students plan to apply to as they approach their high school graduation. Then, check out the websites or contact the college admissions department at each school to find out the history requirements that are in place. Using this information, you can then select a high school history curriculum that ensures each student meets the requirements.

Encourage Independence

By the time your students leave the homeschooling co-op, they should be capable of reading a textbook on their own and completing the assignments. Although you will naturally supplement the curriculum with lectures, videos, and hands-on learning experiences, you must first begin by helping each student understand how to follow their lesson plans. Depending upon how often your co-op meets, provide assignments for the students to complete between your formal teaching sessions. Then, follow-up to make sure that the work is done correctly and completed on time. As the students progress in the program, begin to have them self-correct their work while you continue to provide feedback.

Assign Group Projects

While independent learning is critical for college success, you can also take advantage of the cooperative environment to help your students learn how to work with others on group projects. In college, many professors encourage group work that includes brainstorming and creating presentations to prepare students for working as a team in the workplace. You can incorporate this strategy into your high school homeschool history lessons by putting two or more students together and assigning them a topic to present to the rest of the group.

The high school years are an exciting time to be homeschooling, since each student is able to demonstrate higher levels of thinking, yet you must be vigilant to make sure everyone learns what they need to know for college. By aligning your curriculum and lesson planning strategies with college expectations, you can look forward to celebrating each student's move to the next level of their education.


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