Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESULTS THE KEY COMPONENT OF ONLINE EDUCATION
Recently, Florida State Sen. Stephen Wise indicated he plans, during the legislature’s special session, to push for more schools to use Florida’s virtual education programs. Wise believes that online education is “the wave of the future” and can save schools money.
A new survey of public school administrators shows that online learning is increasingly common. More than 1 million U.S. students took online courses during the 2007-2008 school year, a nearly 50 percent jump in 2 years, according to the recent study. And several states now require at least one online course during a student’s high school career.
It’s a fantastic innovation of the 21st century that online education is now available to a great number of middle and high school students. At one time, it was thought that only graduate students could demonstrate the motivation and organizational skills to succeed in an online education. Then the late 1990s presented an explosion of undergraduate online education.
And now we’re finding that many middle and high school students can thrive in an online educational environment. Educators have known for many years that students (both adult and child) learn in different ways. And the century-old format of six-classes-per-day, fifty-minutes-per-class isn’t the optimal solution for everyone.
In fact, a NCREL research report showed that students seem to perform equally well or better academically in online learning compared with traditional classroom education. And 80 percent of teens and parents believe the Internet helps teenagers to do better in school, according to a recent study. So, it’s becoming clear that online education can be an effective option.
Kids come to an online education for many different reasons: to set their own pace; because of attendance or transportation issues; because of disabilities; to avoid damaging peer pressure; because the drop-out wants to catch up; or simply because the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom isn’t always the best place to learn.
Advanced Academics classes have supported at least one child who is autistic and is now considering college; this was never an option when working in the traditional classroom. We’ve also taught students planning on medical school who want to work faster than their peers. And we’ve even had graduates who were bicycle BMX champions and professional level dancers who formerly were missing too much class time but could stay on schedule and succeed with online class work.
So, it’s thrilling to be able to present an option for kids who have struggled for whatever reason but can thrive working independently online from anywhere. Further, how extraordinary it is that this option can be presented at no cost to students and parents. And it looks as if the online education can be delivered less expensively than traditional classroom education, a boon in these budget-crunch times for public school educators.
So how do we ensure this innovation is remains a viable option for more people? It’s vital that we maintain a rigorous dedication to measuring student results and success. We need to be certain that students are indeed thriving in the online world. At Advanced Academics, we diligently study class attendance, the quality of student assignments, are students staying on track, and what their test results are. This is all good but we know we need to get better.
Educators tell us they are excited about the possibilities for online education- particularly in its ability to draw those who have dropped out back into the educational system and moving toward a high school diploma. For online education to maintain its support among educators and legislators, we need to continually increase our ability to understand and quantify student success.
By Andy Scantland
VP Marketing/Research
Advanced Academics, Inc.
A new survey of public school administrators shows that online learning is increasingly common. More than 1 million U.S. students took online courses during the 2007-2008 school year, a nearly 50 percent jump in 2 years, according to the recent study. And several states now require at least one online course during a student’s high school career.
It’s a fantastic innovation of the 21st century that online education is now available to a great number of middle and high school students. At one time, it was thought that only graduate students could demonstrate the motivation and organizational skills to succeed in an online education. Then the late 1990s presented an explosion of undergraduate online education.
And now we’re finding that many middle and high school students can thrive in an online educational environment. Educators have known for many years that students (both adult and child) learn in different ways. And the century-old format of six-classes-per-day, fifty-minutes-per-class isn’t the optimal solution for everyone.
In fact, a NCREL research report showed that students seem to perform equally well or better academically in online learning compared with traditional classroom education. And 80 percent of teens and parents believe the Internet helps teenagers to do better in school, according to a recent study. So, it’s becoming clear that online education can be an effective option.
Kids come to an online education for many different reasons: to set their own pace; because of attendance or transportation issues; because of disabilities; to avoid damaging peer pressure; because the drop-out wants to catch up; or simply because the traditional brick-and-mortar classroom isn’t always the best place to learn.
Advanced Academics classes have supported at least one child who is autistic and is now considering college; this was never an option when working in the traditional classroom. We’ve also taught students planning on medical school who want to work faster than their peers. And we’ve even had graduates who were bicycle BMX champions and professional level dancers who formerly were missing too much class time but could stay on schedule and succeed with online class work.
So, it’s thrilling to be able to present an option for kids who have struggled for whatever reason but can thrive working independently online from anywhere. Further, how extraordinary it is that this option can be presented at no cost to students and parents. And it looks as if the online education can be delivered less expensively than traditional classroom education, a boon in these budget-crunch times for public school educators.
So how do we ensure this innovation is remains a viable option for more people? It’s vital that we maintain a rigorous dedication to measuring student results and success. We need to be certain that students are indeed thriving in the online world. At Advanced Academics, we diligently study class attendance, the quality of student assignments, are students staying on track, and what their test results are. This is all good but we know we need to get better.
Educators tell us they are excited about the possibilities for online education- particularly in its ability to draw those who have dropped out back into the educational system and moving toward a high school diploma. For online education to maintain its support among educators and legislators, we need to continually increase our ability to understand and quantify student success.
By Andy Scantland
VP Marketing/Research
Advanced Academics, Inc.
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