Online courses becoming a hit

Enrollment in online courses is soaring at Albuquerque Public Schools, and officials hope the district’s 3-year-old credit recovery program will help boost graduation rates, giving students an opportunity to make up failed credits or even get ahead.

More than 1,500 APS students are enrolled in about 2,280 online classes this semester, and officials expect that number will continue to grow.

Providing opportunities for online credit recovery – the ability to make up failed credits -has been a key priority of APS Superintendent Winston Brooks since he came to Albuquerque in 2008. Starting in 2009, Brooks closed the evening school at Albuquerque High and made credit recovery available at every comprehensive high school.

This means the schools keep their computer labs open for an additional two hours, providing an opportunity for students to take online courses outside the regular school day. The program is cost-neutral, since the money was taken from the former evening school.

“Kids now live very nontraditional lives from what we were accustomed to when we went to school,” said Eddie Soto, APS assistant superintendent for secondary schools. He said administrators sought to use emerging technology to accommodate those non-traditional lives. “How can we open up opportunities for kids who either work, have a kid, or come to school at odd hours? How can we open opportunities for those kids to still get in a full day of school?”

Of the students who graduated in 2011, 800 had used extended day to earn a necessary graduation credit. APS officials can’t say for sure that those students graduated because of credit recovery, but they believe it helped.

Lynda Tiefa, a counselor who monitors extended-day classes at Eldorado High School, said the online classes are helpful for all kinds of students. Some students are making up classes they have failed, while others are satisfying a new state requirement that all students, starting with the class of 2013, take either an Advanced Placement, a dual credit or an online course.

While online learning can happen at home or in a computer lab, students are also required to periodically meet with their teachers in person. For science classes, students come in for lab experiments, while they do more traditional reading or practice problems online.

Tiefa said she thinks that connection with teachers is a key to student success.

“I think a huge part of any education is the connection,” Tiefa said, adding that students are more likely to email or contact the teachers of their online classes if they have met them and can picture them. “I see that Mr. Malone is the teacher, now I have a visual, I feel like I have a connection.”

“Mr. Malone” is Stephen Malone, the online coordinator at APS’ eCADEMY and teacher of online courses. The eCADEMY offers online courses, which are developed and taught by APS teachers. Last semester, Malone taught English, and this semester he is teaching New Mexico history.

Malone said like any English class, his involve a lot of reading, which is all made available online. Even novels, he said, are in electronic form. Students are then required to submit essays, creative writing and other assignments, which he returns with feedback. Malone said he also tries to include other forms of media too, like videos that explain different literary genres.

Five high schools, including Eldorado, are pairing with eCADEMY to offer their extended school day, while other schools are using different vendors for their programs.

APS spokeswoman Johanna King said various high schools have tailored their extended day programs, depending on the needs of their students. For example, Highland offers online credit recovery, as well as an opportunity to make up a more traditional science class. At Rio Grande, online classes are available before school and on Saturdays. And at La Cueva, they offer the four classes in greatest demand, which this semester are English 9, Algebra I, Geometry and English 10.