Advertisements
More online promising practices. In a recent posting, I outlined five promising practices for online programs. Here are more:
- Teacher Communication: Teacher communication with students must be regular and purposeful. This can occur through email, phone calls or virtual classroom software. This is to provide consistent, meaningful feedback to students. It could be to offer encouragement to students to get on track, to schedule a meeting for remediation, or to substantiate a student’s good work.
- Oral Examinations: At significant course milestones or as part of remediation cycles, students should be explaining their learning to their teachers. In math, students can work through a problem or two in virtual classroom software. For other classes, students can present their projects or teachers can ask questions that students answer to demonstrate their understanding and application of the course content.
- Problem of the week: Accelerated students enjoy challenge problems and group problems. This focus question or problem allows students to deepen their understanding of the topic.
- NCAA Approval: This is important so that prospective Division I athletes can complete the courses. NCAA has a course approval for core high school courses. If a course is designed with a school’s traditional content structure and assessments, the online version can get approved easily. Once approved the courses will appear under the school’s approved courses on the NCAA web site.
Many promising practices exist for online learning programs. These practices ensure rigor and course quality as well as assure your community that students participating in them learn at least at a level consistent with traditional classes.