How Online High School Changes the Shape of Your Student's Day (And Yours)

When you're considering an online high school for your student, one of the biggest difficulties is that you have no idea what your day or your child's will look like. If you've never home schooled previously, particularly if your child has always been enrolled in public school, you might struggle with how the change will impact both your day and your student's. Learning what online high school really looks like will make it easier to make an informed decision and to prepare for what's coming.

Getting Started

With online high school, your child can choose when they want to get started with the "learning" part of the day. That can include several different things:

• Getting a later start to the day, including sleeping in, for a learner who struggles to jump up and get moving first thing in the morning
• Choosing to participate in other activities, from sports to the arts, instead of diving in with school during the first, most focused portion of the day
• Deciding to get up and get an early start on the school day to leave room later in the day for other options

When your child starts their school day is up to you and your child. No one else determines exactly what the day will look like--and that means you have the freedom to shape a schedule that works for your family, not one that just happens to work for your school district.

Learning Time

When you attend a Method Schools online course, there are several options for instruction. You can attend online classes on our campuses, where there are qualified instructors on hand to help deal with questions, technology issues, and other problems throughout the day, or you can have the flexibility to have your student do all of their learning at home. Their curriculum will feature a variety of materials that are designed to reach beyond the computer and allow your child to receive a high-quality education.

Real-time lessons allow your child to attend online classroom sessions at a specific time of the day when they know they will have access to their teachers and their peers. They'll be able to ask questions, interact with their classmates, and learn more about their core subject areas in a digital classroom that's not as different from a physical one as you might think! Teachers can still maintain control over the classroom, allow students to work together on assignments or projects, take questions, and share information with their students, just like they would if they were face-to-face.

Recorded lessons make it possible for your child to miss the scheduled online lesson time and still get the full value of the lesson. As an added bonus, recorded lessons can be revisited for a child who is struggling with a particular concept or who needs to go back over specific information that was shared during the class session.

One-on-one sessions with teachers are always available for students who are struggling or who need a little extra instruction in a given area. This specific attention is one of the greatest benefits of online classes. It allows students to process information their way, at their pace.

Online lessons are separate from the online classroom. Highly interactive lessons allow students to answer questions, test their knowledge, and even go back and redo lessons that they thought they understood better than they really did the first time they took the quiz or test. This style of instruction makes it easier for any student to succeed!

Integrating materials is seamless across the online curriculum. Students will work directly on the computer, out of textbooks, and with a variety of hands-on materials. They'll be encouraged to check out online games, explore maps and science experiments, and read books away from the computer, so the entire day won't be spent staring at the computer alone. The computer is a tool. In an online classroom, it's a valuable and necessary tool, but it's not the only one in your student's learning arsenal.

Parental Responsibilities

Many parents choose online school for their students because they're worried about being able to traditionally home school their students. They might not feel that they have the capability to explain certain math concepts, improve their student's writing skills, or deliver other information that's essential to the curriculum. Online school means that a high-quality curriculum and qualified educators will be delivering that information to your child with minimal disruption to your day.

The primary parental responsibility is overseeing your child's progress through the curriculum. This includes:

• Checking the online system to be sure that they're progressing at the appropriate rate for the point where they are in the school year
• Overseeing your child's lessons to make sure that they're completing the work as required by the assignment, not just randomly entering information
• Remaining in contact with your child's teacher to let them know about any circumstances that might impact your child's school day
• Encouraging your child to seek out help when they're frustrated or having trouble understanding an assignment

If you're comfortable offering instructional help in a particular content area, you can always step in to help when your student is struggling. If you aren't, however, there are always qualified teachers on hand--just like there would be if your child were in school.

Online school offers incredible flexibility in your child's school day. Unlike many styles of education, it's not restricted by a specific number of hours that your child has to spend in school, but rather by the amount of work that they need to complete and how long it takes your specific child to complete it. If you've been thinking about online school as a solution for your child, but you still have more questions, feel free to contact us to ask more about how we can help your student maximize their educational possibilities and make the most of the hours in their day.