Virtual classrooms: an alternative path to post-secondary
High school students prefer flexibility and independence of learning online
When Amanda Regan finished her Grade 8 year at Hillcrest Private School in Orangeville, Ont., she knew she wanted to continue her education at a private high school. However, living just outside of Orangeville, that was easier said than done.
“There were other private schools in the area, but none at the time that taught high school,” she says.
Regan decided to take learning into her own hands by signing up for Virtual High School, a fully accredited online private school that offers Ontario secondary school diploma credits. Although Regan was initially worried about whether she’d receive the level of support she had in a classroom, it didn’t take long before her fears were laid to rest.
“As soon as I started the program, I was able to make great connections over email with the teachers,” she says. “I loved that I was able to go at my own pace. I wasn’t stuck in a classroom going too slowly or too quickly. If I was having difficulty, I could take some more time to understand the material.”
Regan isn’t the only one singing the praises of an online secondary school education. Once primarily geared toward students with learning needs outside of the norm — such as highlevel athletes, teens with physical or mental illness, and mature students — online schools are no longer in their infancy. Instead, they’re experiencing a growth spurt, with schools like Virtual High School boasting enrolment numbers of more than 6,000 students annually.
It’s an opportunity many traditional bricks-and-mortar private schools are also starting to capitalize upon. Since 2009, the 14 private schools that form eLearning Consortium Canada (ELCC) have collaborated to provide online courses for their students. Each member school is responsible for creating a course and dedicating a teacher to the program. For students, the result is access to unique subject areas that may not be offered at their own school, such as Mandarin or Latin.
“It opens up choice to students,” says Dan Strutt, director of ELCC. “They’re getting the same amount of support that they would in a classroom course. It just gives them that extra flexibility without losing any of the guidance.”
That was the experience of Kassie Hill. During her Grade12 year at Hillfield Strathallan College in Hamilton, she enrolled in an online business management fundamentals course, taught by a teacher from Crescent School in Toronto. Not only would the subject have otherwise been unavailable to her, she says the experience allowed her to develop time-management skills.
“I have to regulate myself and take the time to work on it,” says Hill. “It’s good preparation for university.”
However, online education still has growing pains to overcome, including high dropout rates.
“It’s not for everybody,” says Hamed Bahador, principal at Ontario Academy of Technology in Toronto, which offers its own online correspondence program. Thirty per cent of the instruction is in-person, but even that model doesn’t guarantee success.
“We’ve had a number of students who thought they could work through the material and they didn’t manage to finish in the timeline we provided,” says Bahador.
But for self-motivated students like Regan, logging on to school provides
“I was able to go at my own pace. I wasn’t stuck . . . going too slowly or too quickly.” AMANDA REGAN VIRTUAL STUDENT
an opportunity to work through the material in their own way. Regan, 22, recently graduated from Nipissing University in North Bay, Ont., where she studied concurrent education — Virtual High School equipped her well for the experience, she says.
“Being able to manage your time and self-motivate yourself is a valuable skill for university and college. Virtual High School also prepared me well for the standards expected,” says Regan.
When it came time for Regan to choose a one-month placement as part of her university program, her choice was an educated one; she worked as an associate teacher at Virtual High School.
“It was an incredible experience seeing the school from the other side of the screen,” she says.