Korean Schooling Versus America Schooling: An Annotated Bibliography

Hughes, Mark. “School Years around the World.” Infoplease, Info Please, 6 May 2019, www.infoplease.com/world/world-statistics/school-years-around-world

This article is comparing schooling from all over the world. For our assignment, I focused on the South Korea portion of the article. This article explains that S. Korean schools typically run from March to February. They’re school days usually last for 8-9 hours, but most students stay later in the evenings. Classes are big, normally about 30 students, and students take initiative to keep the classrooms clean.

This site is a decent source of information. Infoplease is a website with different types of information on culture, history, government, and science. They have a shortcut to their links and references and have a team of editors. This article seems very scholarly and the source is a part of an education company called FENLearning.

Kim, Isaac. “Education: Korean High School vs. American High School.” Idigculture, I Dig Culture, 8 Sept. 2014, www.idigculture.com/education-korean-high-school-vs-american-high-school

This article is an analysis of certain aspects of South Korean and American schooling. Their main topics are school hours, grading systems, and vacation time. In Korean schools, classes are from 8-5, most students staying past that. On the contrary, Most American schools are from 8-2. Students may stay after, but they are normally for extracurricular activities like dance and drama. Also, In Korea there grading is based on ranks and fighting for the top, whereas in American school students are encouraged to “take things slow” and are not ranked. Lastly, this article compares the differences in school years. Korean schools have summer and winter vacations that last for about a month. In America, we have summer, spring, fall, and winter break, including breaks for holidays.

This article is fairly recent (2014) but it is not the most reliable source. This article is very biased towards Korean schooling and talks down upon the American side. While this article is very organized, it comes from a blog about culture. The author of this article has no real credentials and has no sources listed. It’s difficult to find any other Information on this article and its sources.

Tucker, Marc. “These Asian Countries Are Winning the Education Game.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 1 Mar. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/02/us-asia-education-differences/471564/.

This article discusses how the “reason” as to why the U.S. is lagging behind is because they allow students the option for failure. Schools in the U.S. blame being behind on the fact that students are underprivileged, but countries that are worse off still have students that are doing better compared to the U.S. When a student in the United States begins to fall back, they continue to fall because they are not being assisted. East Asian countries prevent students from falling behind because they help that student from the beginning. East Asian countries don’t give their students the opportunity to fall behind.

This article is a very well supported source of information because all of the claims are supported statistically. This article is a couple of years old, but the information given won’t statistically change in the time span of 3 years. The author of this article is the CEO of the National Center on Education, and he was also the editor of the book Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems. The information in this article is very documented and organized. The article also provided a large amount of information that shows the similarities between Asian education and American education.

“Time in School: How Does the U.S. Compare?” Centerforpubliceducation.org, www.centerforpubliceducation.org/research/time-school-how-does-us-compare.

The main topic of this article is the differences between how long the United States stays in school compared to other areas of the world. Students in Asian countries, such as China, attend school longer than students in America, which seems to be the most used reason as to why Asian students perform better. Even though Asian students attend school longer, they are receiving the same, or even less, instructional time compared to America. People feel as though Asian students do better because they spend more time in school each day, but most of that time is not dedicated to instructional time. Asian countries require less instructional time because the students are given more work in shorter amounts of time. Students in Asian countries also put in the extra educational time, aside from the 868 required hours. Asian schools have a lower required amount of school time, but most of the time they exceed that required amount of time.

This article seems reliable because it is published by the Center for Public Education. I am not positive as to how current the article is because the publish date is unknown. The information seems well documented, every now and then the text is broken in order to explain how they received their information. The article seems very scholarly because the information is very factual and has a very small amount of opinionated information. This article shows how the amount of time spent in school doesn’t really predict how successful the students become.

We had to created a script based a scene that took place in Sundiata. We were put into groups and had to make a play that included quotes from the story. We also had to act out the script and record it. This was a very detailed project that we worked on for many class periods.

This was a very enjoyable project, that was the best group project I have ever done. I enjoyed working with my group members, and also enjoyed acting it out because it was a fun experience. I learned many things such as teamwork, and also how to properly write a script. Our script had to be very detailed, but that just made the project even better. I chose this assignment, because I loved working on the Sundiata unit.

This assignment was part of unit 3. We had to use a compass in order to make segments and angles. We had to make multiple different geometric constructions. This was independent work. We had to create 8 different geometric constructions. After we completed the packet we had to take a quiz about how to make geometric constructions using a compass.

I learned how to properly use a compass, because for years I thought that you just used them to make circles. I enjoyed doing this assignment because instead of just equations and numbers we were able to be more interactive. I also thought that this was a very easy assignment. I chose this assignment because it wasn't boring and it was really fun to learn. After I was shown how to do the assignment I was able to blow right through it.

In this assignment we had to label the properties of quadrilaterals, and answer questions based on those properties. We used previous knowledge from previous lessons on angles and quadrilaterals in order to find the measures of angles and sides. We also had to plot points in order to make a quadrilateral. Not only did we plot the points, but we also had to mathematically prove that those points created a quadrilateral.

This was more of a review assignment from previous lessons. I enjoyed this assignment because I was having trouble fully latching on to this new concept. I chose this assignment because I honestly love anything that we do in math class. I specifically chose this assignment because I learned a lot from it and also liked how it wasn't just the same type of questions through the entire packet. Most things that we do in math class is fun.

In this lab we had to use a motion sensor for the first time. We were put into groups in order to record our movements. We had to record our movements using several position-time graphs. We had to figure out how we had to move in order to replicate the given position-time graph.

I enjoyed how interactive this lab was, and not only was it fun but I learned a lot of things. This lab helped me get a better understanding of how position-time graphs are created and also how to properly use a motion sensor. This helped out in later labs because this helped me with predicting how a position-time graph will look. I chose this assignment because I enjoyed working as a group, and also how we were able to interact with equipment in order to learn.

We had to take a lab that we have already done and turn it into a poster. We had the choice to do it with a partner or independently. If you were an honor student you had to actually go to the science fair. We had a lot of constraints, but it was an easy assignment. We also had to show our projects to the 10th graders.

I did my project with a partner because I actually had to go to the Science Fair. I enjoyed this because it was a very simple review for work we did earlier in the semester. I learned more about how to use motion sensors. I also learned more about predicted position-time graphs and velocity-time graphs. We compared the graphs in order to see how one cart could make two different types of graphs. I chose this assignment because it was one of the biggest assignments that we did this semester.

We had to make a pro-natalist poster for Korean, Japan, Singapore, or Taiwan. We had to take facts that we knew about our chosen area in order to make a poster. We basically had to promote people in that specific area to make more babies. We used different facts such as fertility rate and child mortality rate.

I enjoyed this project because it was fun to complete as well as educational. I enjoyed designing my poster, while learning information I didn't know about Taiwan. I chose this project because I feel as though the whole class enjoyed this assignment because a lot of effort was put into each poster. I chose this assignment because it was enjoyable making the poster, as well as presenting the poster to the class. This was one of the best assignments that we have done all semester.

We had to make a Scratch game that explains diffusion. We had to show 4 different types of diffusion. We had to visually show relocation, hierarchical, contagious, and stimulus diffusion. We had to design our own code that worked and visually showed these types of diffusion. The code also had to use motion blocks.

I learned many things while working on this assignment. It gave me a better understanding about how to use Scratch for future assignment, and also helped me with remembering the different types of diffusion. I chose this assignment because I had fun programming the characters. Another reason I chose this assignment because it was a great way to merge coding with what we were doing in AP.

We read a Spanish story called Ana Pobre. We did different activities depending on the chapter that we were reading. For chapter two, we had to act out the entire chapter with 3 other people. We had to make our own scripts, and had the responsibility of memorizing our lines before the next class. We only read up to chapter 3, and we did paper/written assignments for chapters one and three. This was a great way to practice for the reading portion of the STAMP test.

On most gym days we use the workout room as well as 7 minute workout apps on our phones. We use our own personal fitness plans when in the workout room to achieve the goals that we set. We split the time between the males and females, so for 20 minutes females are in the workout room while the males use the apps. After that first 20 minutes they switch. The 7 minute workout apps have free daily workouts that take around 7 minutes. Students are expected to complete at least 2 workouts in the 20 minute time span.

When I am in the workout room, I learn about different machines because I try to use all of them. When working on the machines I learn more about what I need to put into my personal fitness plan as well. The 7 minute workout app is my favorite activity in the class, because you can pause the activities. I also like it because some of the activities on the apps are very strange and fun to do, especially when you are with a partner. Daily activities that we do in gym class are very fun, even if its not just games.

The goal of this assignment was to redraw a larger elephant using a grid. We were given an elephant that was on a 4x5 grid, and had to transfer it to a larger 4x5 grid. We had to redraw what we saw in each square in the corresponding square. We had to use different details such as making some lines thicker compared to others, and also including small lines that seem irrelevant. This assignment was to help us when it as time to transfer our small sketch to our corn hole board.

I learned how to properly transfer pictures without damaging the proportions. I enjoyed this project a lot. It was favorite sketch prompt, which is why I chose this assignment. I feel as though I did well with keeping details and also having proper proportions. I learned many things about drawing and transferring when doing this sketch prompt. I am positive that it helps when designing our corn hole boards.