Some high school students access college courses for free

Students attending an online private school are eligible for college credit

The for-profit DeVry University has partnered with Connections Education to offer college courses at no cost to high school students attending International Connections Academy (iNaCA), an accredited, online private school serving students in grades K-12 worldwide.
Through DeVry University’s Passport2College program, juniors and seniors attending iNaCA can earn college credit while still attending high school. Students can enroll in such courses as Computer Applications for Business with Lab, Introduction to Business and Psychology.
“Passport2College is a wonderful opportunity for high school students to learn first-hand the college learning experience,” said Donna Loraine, chief academic officer and provost of DeVry University. “iNaCA students will be able to participate in the same academic learning environment that all DeVry University undergraduates encounter and obtain knowledge of how they can transition from high school to the collegiate level.”
Hannah Rinehart, director of school for iNaCA, commented, “More and more students are interested in taking college courses in high school.” In fact, the numbers topped 1.3 million students in the 2010-11 school year according to the most recent survey on the subject by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). “We are excited to bring opportunities like this to our students.”
Passport2College will launch for iNaCA students in the 2015-2016 school year.

How online learning is changing credit recovery

As learning becomes more accessible, credit recovery programs are evolving

Online learning is playing an increasingly important part in credit recovery for students with a variety of academic needs, according to a new report from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).
Credit recovery solutions often lower the bar for student performance as a result of pressure on school administrators and policymakers to “fix” graduation rates, authors Allison Powell, Verena Roberts, and Susan Patrick note.
Many online credit recovery solutions tout low costs but require only low levels of teacher involvement and often don’t use much rigor when asking students to demonstrate proficiency, according to the report.
Here’s where competency-based education comes in. Strong CBE programs will help students focus on their skill gaps, catch up, and stay on track for graduation. This intervention occurs before a student has failed an entire course.
New Hampshire has what the authors call one of the boldest CBE efforts. The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School is a charter school that also serves as the state’s virtual school. Its supplemental online classes include 62 “competency recovery” courses let students take an entire course or allow them to focus just on the competencies they did not pass. Students work with their parents and teacher to determine their individual learning pace.
“Competency-based learning gives students the opportunity to complete lessons that demonstrate their mastery of content as well as the support they need if they are having difficulty with specific content,” the authors wrote. “A true competency-based approach requires the students to advance upon demonstrated mastery—often through a ‘performance’ of demonstrating
the competencies and creating evidence of the deeper knowledge, skills and dispositions acquired.”
“Research shows that more than 75 percent of school districts use blended and online learning for expanded course offerings and credit recovery,” said Allison Powell, iNACOL Vice President for New Learning Models. “The case studies in this paper provide guidance to educators in helping over-age, under-credited students to catch up and get back on track to graduate.”
Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL, said, “Millions of students are still not completing high school, causing them to face increasing challenges throughout life. When students have struggled, online learning is a tool that can open up new pathways to success—students can find alternative ways to learn and to graduate, while also developing new skills for success in life.”
To read the report in its entirety and for more details about the state of online learning for credit recovery, click here.

Full-time online school launches in Georgia using FuelEd (Aventa)

FuelEd, Vidalia City Board of Education open full-time online school for Georgia students

The Vidalia City Board of Education (Ga.) has partnered with personalized learning provider Fuel Education (formerly Aventa Learning) to launch a new full-time online learning program for K-12.
The public, full-time online school, Vidalia Academy, offers students across the state of Georgia the opportunity to learn in a flexible educational model that is tailored to each student’s needs.
Accepting enrollments for the 2015-2016 school year through the end of this month, Vidalia Academy will be able to provide thousands of students with personalized learning through an extensive catalog of standards-based online curriculum, instructional services from highly qualified, state-certified online teachers, powerful course customization and other technology tools, and a host of support resources, all provided by FuelEd.
“Vidalia City Schools selected Fuel Education because of their proven ability to partner with schools to help them effectively launch, grow, manage, teach, and support successful online learning programs,” said Randy Rodgers, Director of Virtual Education for Vidalia Academy. “As a public school leveraging an innovative model, we believe that together with FuelEd the Vidalia Academy can offer more students across Georgia with the best education possible.”
For middle school and high school, Vidalia Academy will use FuelEd’s PEAK personalized learning platform, an open technology platform that provides a single, unified view of online and blended learning activities across multiple solutions for administrators, teachers, and students.
PEAK provides intelligent reporting and analytics to help districts reduce system complexity and simplify administration as they adopt more digital and online learning solutions. To differentiate instruction, teachers can use the PEAK Library to customize courses using FuelEd content, teacher-created content, open education resources, or other third-party content.
Fuel Ed’s full-time school solution also includes benchmark and formative assessments; an anti-plagiarism tool; a web-based counseling system; and a variety of live and online student and parent resources available through the Strong Start program. To learn more, watch this video or read this case study about FuelEd’s partnership with Miami-Dade Public Schools.
Gregg Levin, Fuel Education’s General Manager, said, “We are very excited to partner with the Vidalia City Board of Education as they make a new, innovative education option available to students across Georgia. With the experienced staff at Vidalia Academy, and Fuel Education’s experience providing online learning solutions to thousands of school districts, we look forward to helping Vidalia Academy personalize learning and improve outcomes for more students.”
Parents and students who live in Georgia and are interested in the new school can visit the Vidalia Academy website for more information. The school will be accepting enrollment applications through September 28, 2015.
In addition to full-time schools, FuelEd supports districts with a variety of online and blended programs, ranging from catalog expansion for low-enrollment or hard-to-staff courses, to hospital/homebound education, full-time school programs, language exposure and learning, alternative education, remediation and kindergarten readiness, among others.

Research examines blended learning, student achievement

New white paper explores effective instructional models and course customization benefits

A new research report from Arizona State University (ASU) focuses on various evidence-based instructional models and strategies integrated within courses from an online curriculum provider in order to determine if they lead to increased student achievement and engagement.
Research conducted by ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and Technology Based Learning and Research division examines whether the instructional strategies put into practice within Odysseyware courses consistently demonstrate the largest effect of success as a supplemental instructional strategy, especially when implemented within a blended learning model.
Odysseyware aims to provide a learning solution for schools seeking the flexibility and customization of online courses, as well as for those looking to offer students a virtual learning environment. On average, students taking partial or entire courses online outperform students taking the same course solely through face-to-face instruction.
Titled, “A Research Report: Odysseyware Instructional Design & Strategies,” this research report provides an overview of research conducted in these areas:
• Transforming the learning landscape with pedagogical flexible models
• Standards-based, personalized learning using customization
• Systems of assessment, instruction, intervention, and monitoring tools
• Use of frequent, meaningful interactions and embedded feedback
• Interactive content including visualizations, virtual labs, and simulations
“By 2016 a projected 5 million students will be enrolled in online courses. Many schools have a difficult time finding a standards-based, effective online solution that is easily customizable and adaptable to learning models such as blended learning,” said Odysseyware President Beth Te Grotenhuis. “We are extremely proud of the content we create and take great care in doing so. This research shows that with careful implementation planning, professional development, and adequate resource planning, student engagement and success with increase.”
Material from a press release was used in this report.

10 districts that have seen big blended learning success

Edgenuity highlights schools, districts implementing blended learning

As schools and districts try to better meet the needs of students with different learning styles, blended learning programs are becoming increasingly popular.
Because blended learning combines face-to-face instruction with personalized online learning, students have some degree of control over their learning pace and how their content is delivered and consumed.
Online and blended learning provider Edgenuity works with more than 16,000 schools, and from that base, the company identified 10 schools and districts that are taking blended learning to the next level through student-centered, personalized instructional models that create new ways to address instructional goals and deliver better student outcomes.
“There is no doubt that blended learning is a proven solution for transforming the educational experience for students,” said Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity. “What is less understood is the level of thought, planning, and change management required by schools to implement these new models. We’re glad to recognize these schools and districts for effectively executing on a vision of using technology to empower students and teachers, and we look forward to sharing what these schools have learned to help more and more students across the country.”
“Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools has a commitment to ensuring success for every student. One of the ways we do this is by providing a personalized learning environment that caters to individual student needs. Technology allows us to accomplish this goal. Edgenuity has been an important partner, enabling us to provide rigorous, aligned content in online and blended formats. It is exciting that Edgenuity recognized CMS as a top district for innovative approaches and commitment to students,” said Hope Kohl, Director of Virtual Learning and Media Services at CMS.
The schools and district’s on Edgenuity’s list are:
Carpe Diem Schools
• Tuition-free virtual school with campuses across the US serving grades 6-12 that provides students the freedom to complete coursework when and where they like.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, N.C.
• The 2nd largest school district in North Carolina, the district is comprised of 168 schools and serves more than 147,000 students in grades K-12.
Clark County School District, Nev.
• Serves over 316,000 students across 377 schools with a student teacher ratio of approximately 22-to-1.
Derby Public Schools, Conn.
• Serves approximately 1,600 students in grades K-12 across 4 schools.
Henry County Schools, Ga.
• The 7th largest district in Georgia, serves 40,000 students in grades K-12 across 14 schools.
Jefferson Chamber Foundation Academy, La.
• Students are provided with the opportunity to work at their own pace to earn their diploma.
Rio Rancho Public Schools, N.M.
• In 2005 the district founded Rio Rancho Cyber Academy, the accredited, diploma-granting school for nearly 170 students in grades 6-12.
East Pennsboro Area School District, Pa.
• A growing, progressive school district with a total population of approximately 2,700 students in grades K-12.
Tift County Schools, Ga.
• Serves approximately 7,650 students in grades K-12 across 12 schools, including one alternative school.
Village Green Virtual Charter School, R.I.
• Opened in 2013 for students grades 9-12, the school has a state-wide enrollment policy and any student entering the 9th or 10th grade and who lives in the state is eligible to attend.
“As technology has grown to become more mainstream in education, we’ve seen too many schools focus on the hardware itself rather than on the proper implementation of that technology,” said Stacy Hawthorne, Blended Learning Strategist at Edgenuity. “It is critical that schools first take a hard look at what they want to accomplish with a blended learning program, which students they are hoping to serve, and how the program will fit into the district’s broader goals before moving forward. This requires strong leadership, which the schools named today should be applauded for.”

10 things all great online educators do

Best practices for any educator organizing online courses

It’s no secret that virtual education has become more and more widespread, with new online schools popping up regularly and brick-and-mortar institutions adding a blended component. With that in mind, certain strategies, tips, and guidelines have been proven to help instructors begin what can seem like an overwhelming task—teaching a course without ever even needing to physically see her students. Throughout my years of experience, I’ve compiled a list of ten best practices and tips that I believe can help save instructors a lot of time when teaching or developing online courses.
Develop a strong classroom presence. Whether it’s multiple times a week or every day, using communication tools such as discussion boards or announcements will help keep students from feeling isolated. Taking part in class discussions by consistently asking leading questions, extending student thinking, and contributing relevant, instructive subject matter expertise will build a strong foundation for collaboration and engagement. Discussion boards encourage critical and creative thinking and supports students in their own reflections and inquiries. Boards also allow students to get to know each other personally and intellectually.
Encourage substantive feedback from students, to students. Don’t let students get used to the notion of “one post” as an acceptable standard. If they don’t receive feedback from the teacher saying otherwise, or if they receive one short “good job” post to a comment, they tend to start thinking of their contributions as individual notes to the teacher, instead of as contributions to a whole-classroom discussion. Equally important is to encourage students to respond to each other’s comments or to ask questions about what they have posted.
Check for questions frequently and provide timely feedback on progress. Teachers should access their courses and monitor discussions daily and respond as quickly as possible to students’ questions, requests for review, submitted work, and other posts, even if it’s to just acknowledge receiving it, with an answer coming later.
Be mindful of tone, modeling respectful behavior for students. Teachers should phrase comments and responses carefully and be noticeably helpful and supportive; comments can be misinterpreted when students can’t see facial expressions. Teachers should address students by name and sign all posts. This models what we’d like students to do.
Help students develop time management and organizational skills. Virtual students often choose to take an online course because they assume it will provide more flexibility for their busy schedules. They will need to know what is expected of them so that they can organize their time to meet course requirements. This increased time management responsibility for the learner also means that there is an increased organization responsibility on the teacher. Prepare syllabus and assignment due dates carefully and well in advance so that students know what to expect and when. In my district, all of our online courses follow a consistent format, with weekly checklists and rubrics that the teachers monitor.
Don’t overload your students with material. Many online courses aren’t broken down into manageable pieces. If you deliver too much content in one sitting you have to work very hard to get the learner to be willing to accept your attempts to reinforce the material. By breaking up your course into smaller, separate modules you make it easier for students to retain knowledge and pay better attention to your lesson.
Establish good course practices. A good course might have a “capstone project” that all the course activities build toward. Instead of just reading and writing weekly assignments from a book, students read and write in service of completing a larger project. A good course teacher provides annotations to all the websites she or he asks the student to visit. This provides an advanced organizer to students — a preview of what’s to come — so they know why they’ve been sent to each site, and what some of the pitfalls might be when they get there. Make sure students can move easily between navigation and instruction. Clear, precise distinctions should be made in all instructions. Before students leave a document, they need know where to go next after completing the work you have just assigned.
Present material in different ways. Understand how to engage learners of different styles, presenting material in multiple ways. Considering using both synchronous and asynchronous activities, which helps provide a good balance of activities. Engage learners in more collaborative and reflective activities; those that include real-time interactive brainstorming and sharing are often just as effective as those that require students to think, plan, write, and summarize.
While the day-to-day instruction is just one facet of online learning programs, administrators should consider these points when offering virtual programs:
Online programs should be multifaceted for greater student voice and choice. Insist that your online program offer many unique elective offerings and a vast array of AP courses (and don’t overlook credit recovery options, either!) This gives a student a way to “personalize” their education and allows them to discover and choose what most interests them.
Make sure teachers have the best training available. In our case, we collaborate with The Virtual High School, who we consider an online learning pioneer. VHS requires each teacher to graduate from a six-week, rigorous graduate level training program. During this program our teachers were immersed in the online world and learn as their future online students will learn. This philosophy and approach is the heart and soul of our program and the teachers often tell us what they’ve learned in their online teaching and training helps inform their own local, face-to-face instruction.

Do online charter schools measure up?

A three-part research study indicates that online charter school performance may be underwhelming

New research offers evidence that online charter schools post weaker academic performance and struggle more to maintain student engagement than their conventional brick-and-mortar peers.
The National Study of Online Charter Schools, released Oct. 27, analyzed online charter school operations, policy environments, and their impacts on student achievements.
The three-volume study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, and the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, describes the achievement effects of online charter schools.
Volume 1 analyzed the 200 online charter schools in operation in the U.S. and the 200,000 K-12 students in attendance. It examines the instructional programs of online charter schools; methods used to engage students and parents, along with expectations of parental involvement; the teachers and principals of online charter schools; and the schools’ management and governance.
That analysis found:
• Student–driven, independent study is the dominant mode of learning in online charter schools, with 33 percent of online charter schools offering only self-paced instruction
• Online charter schools typically provide students with less live teacher contact time in a week than students in conventional schools have in a day
•Maintaining student engagement in this environment of limited student-teacher interaction is considered the greatest challenge by far, identified by online charter school principals nearly three times as often as any other challenge
• Online charter schools place significant expectations on parents, perhaps to compensate for
limited student-teacher interaction, with 43, 56, and 78 percent of online charters at the high school, middle, and elementary grade levels, respectively, expecting parents to actively participate in student instruction
“Challenges in maintaining student engagement are inherent in online instruction, and they are exacerbated by high student-teacher ratios and minimal student-teacher contact time, which the data reveal are typical of online charter schools nationwide. These findings suggest reason for concern about whether the sector is likely to be effective in promoting student achievement,” said Brian Gill, a Mathematica senior fellow and lead author of the report.
In Volume II, the Center on Reinventing Public Education examined how state policy impacts the online charter school landscape. Researchers found that online charter schools exist in a number of different policy environments due to variation in state charter law and administrative regulation.
Most of the existing regulation is reactive to controversy (restrictions on growth and autonomy), rather than proactive policies to guide the unique opportunities and challenges of online charters.
The authors found several drawbacks to forcing online schools into the charter context, including:
• Open admission requirements that prevent schools from screening for students who are most
likely to be successful in an online school.
• Authorizing and accountability provisions that are not well suited to the unique challenges of
regulating online schools.
• Funding mechanisms that preclude outcomes-based funding
CRPE director Robin Lake, who co-authored the study, said, “We need policies that address legitimate
concerns without needlessly restricting growth.” The report recommends that policymakers consider
moving online schools out of the charter context, or craft unique provisions specific to online charters.”
Volume III, from the CREDO at Stanford University, examines impacts of online charter enrollment on the academic progress of students.
While findings vary for each student, the results in CREDO’s report show that the majority of online charter students had far weaker academic growth in both math and reading compared to their traditional public school peers.
To conceptualize this shortfall, it would equate to a student losing 72 days of learning in reading and 180 days of learning in math, based on a 180-day school year. This pattern of weaker growth remained consistent across racial-ethnic subpopulations and students in poverty.
“While the overall findings of our analysis are somber, we do believe the information will serve as the foundation for constructive discussions on the role of online schools in the K-12 sector. We see an
opportunity for the providers to do a better job of documenting the benefits they provide to their
students and to connect with and learn from operators who are doing well,” said Dr. James Woodworth, Senior Quantitative Research Analyst for CREDO at Stanford University.
This mixed-method analysis included data from 158 online schools across 17 states and the District of
Columbia. The data set for online school students is restricted to those students attending public, full-time online charter schools.
Material from a press release was used in this report.