Interesting piece on NPR’s Morning Edition and website on a move by some innovative public school districts to add online courses to their offerings
The NPR segment focuses on Virtual Virginia, a state program that offers dozens of online classes to middle and high school students. “The program allows children to take classes that aren’t offered at their schools,” Larry Abramson reports. “Nationwide, programs like Virtual Virginia help hundreds of thousands of students take the kinds of unusual courses that make colleges sit up and take notice.”
I believe this approach holds out promise for public education, for differentiation and enrichment, well before the high school level. As a teacher, I long lamented my inability to give my brightest 5th graders a truly challenging curriculum faced with a classroom mostly filled with high-needs kids. I experimented with “learning contracts” that allowed them to pursue individual academic interests, but the self-discipline it takes for a 5th grader to work independently is seldom seen. I would have loved to have online units or mini-courses based on the Core Knowledge Sequence, for example.
