The Online Course Experience: Evaluation Of The Virtual High School’s Third Year Of Implementation

Abstract

The Virtual High School (VHS) is a consortium of high schools that offer network-based courses taught by consortium teachers for students in participating schools. Each school contributes at least one teacher who teaches a VHS course online, typically in place of teaching a section of a regular course at the school. In the VHS model, the school also provides a site coordinator who handles administrative matters and supervises local students enrolled in VHS courses. The VHS teachers, with the help of experts, design netcourses to be offered over the Internet, using the LearningSpace™ software. Each school in the consortium can enroll 20 students in these netcourses for each section of a teacher’s time (i.e., one netcourse) that it contributes to the pool. The quality of the course offerings is controlled, in part, by requiring each VHS teacher to successfully complete a graduate-level netcourse (called the Teachers Learning Conference) on the design and development of network-based courses. The netcourse for teachers is intended to provide participants with appropriate educational strategies and technology skills.