By Roger Hanley, VP of Instruction and Quality Assurance
Throughout the nation, nearly 5 million high school-age children do not attend high school because "life got in the way" or the traditional classroom doesn’t work well for them. The mission of Insight Schools, Inc. is to serve today’s teens who are seeking a different kind of high school experience. Using today’s technology, Insight Schools, a 2008 Elluminate Center of Excellence inductee, makes the personalization of education possible, providing a bridge that brings many students back into the public school system.
After our purchase last year by the Apollo Group, Insight Schools grew from one virtual public high school in 2006 to four in 2007. In 2008, we added an unprecedented nine schools to our national network, including our first national private-pay school. Today, Insight Schools serves 6,500 students at 11 public schools in 10 states with approximately 275 full and part-time instructors who teach 120 courses in a wide variety of core and elective courses.
Synchronous Learning Helps Drive Enrollments and Retention
This is our third school year of using Elluminate, and we are currently focusing on the teachers’ use of the tool with best practices around synchronous learning to drive enrollments and support student retention. There’s a way bigger focus on Elluminate Live! this year than ever before. Roughly 80% of our program is asynchronous with the ANGEL Learning Management Suite (LMS), and each course has at least one scheduled Elluminate virtual classroom instructional session per week. Students can participate live or watch the interactive recording.
We’ve trained our teachers not to focus on the technology but on what’s going on in the virtual classroom instead. Typically, the teacher sets time aside at the end of the session for students to socialize and just hang out. One thing we’ve heard loud and clear from our students is that when they are connected with other students for help, support and community, they do much better in an online distance learning program like this.
Unique iMentors, All-School Assemblies, and Online Clubs Facilitate Community
Insight Schools has a unique component to its program where every student, in addition to the highly qualified subject teacher, is assigned an iMentor who oversees the students overall progress and quality of work. This iMentor is responsible for a 360-degree view of student and is responsible for their overall progress. It’s very much like a counseling role, and they use Elluminate Live! for ongoing support, meeting with students, "walking" them to class the first day, and showing them how to navigate the ANGEL LMS.
In addition, students have access to the virtual classroom for extra-curricular club meetings. They also participate via Elluminate Live! on a monthly basis in all-school assemblies called "The Experience Series", to listen to high-interest, high-impact guest speakers, such as a Holocaust survivor, an Iraq veteran who completed three tours of duty, and a multiple gold-medal winner in speed skating. Elluminate Live! allows us to bridge the geographical barriers and bring students across the country together.
Professional Development Gives Teachers Tools to Engage Students
Insight Schools also uses Elluminate for staff meetings and professional development sessions, often held in the evening. These are always recorded and available for teacher review at any convenient time. The Elluminate training focuses on features and functions, as well as pedagogical strategies to give teachers the ability to authentically engage learners.
I just wanted to let you know how great my history classes are going! We have had three live Elluminate sessions so far, and today's was absolutely wonderful. The comments by the students during the lesson were so encouraging. They were truly interested in the material and some even wanted to share the session with their family members! I have been teaching for twelve years and, though I love the face to face contact with students at my brick and mortar school, I am REALLY loving the online teaching.
Insight Schools History Teacher
Teachers universally love to interact with students synchronously, and they love Elluminate. It gives them a way to connect with their students, make students accountable, and brings sense of immediacy to bear in teaching.
Elluminate Offers Broad Solution, Meets State Requirements for F2F Learning
Our Special Education department is using Elluminate Plan! to develop session plans for use in all schools to make sure individual counselors or coordinators at school level are following prescribed regulations and processes. In addition, I see huge value in new Elluminate Publish! 2.0 for audio and video podcasting, and the ANGEL integration is an important effort for us as well. Overall, I expect the adoption rate of Elluminate within our culture to increase.
One interesting thing to note is that we just opened new school in South Carolina, which has a requirement that 25% of a distance education program be conducted face-to-face. The state has accepted Elluminate Live! as comparable to face-to-face learning. Like other virtual schools, we are leaning on Elluminate to meet the South Carolina state requirements.
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