Your teachers will provide feedback on any assignments or projects you complete. You can also contact your teacher via email or through the course message center. In addition, each teacher has regularly scheduled online office hours. During the scheduled time, students interact with the teacher and other students in a virtual classroom.
Progress is measured through quizzes, exams, written essays, assignments, projects and semester exams.
Course pace charts are provided in each course. These charts will help you plan your work so that you will complete the course by the end of the school year. Pace charts are typically found in the Course Information tab in
Blackboard, the online learning environment.
iQ Academy Wisconsin runs on a school year calendar. Coursework should be completed by June. A one-credit course is designed to take 36 weeks or about 180 hours. As a general guideline, in addition to the time you spend online, you should also count on spending time reading, completing assignments, and studying for tests and exams. Therefore, you may need to spend approximately 180 hours to complete a course. This time is a guideline and will vary according to course, study habits, etc. You should assume that a half-credit course will take half as much time as a one-credit course.
The teachers play an important role in the Beacon Academy of Nevada program. It is the role of the teachers to meet individual learning needs of the students enrolled in their courses. Teachers have "office hours" and hold weekly sessions during which students can ask questions and have discussions with their teacher and classmates. Teachers are also available by phone and email, and students are encouraged to contact their teachers with questions.
As long as internet access is available, students can log into Beacon Academy of Nevada and get to their courses. For trips during which internet access may not be available, students can print off their assignments ahead of time and work from those in order to keep up with their work. Students should notify their teachers by email if they will be unable to access the Internet for a period of time.
Some of the qualities that we have seen in our most successful students are:
- The ability to work independently.
- The willingness to ask for help when needed. There are many opportunities to get help from teachers, from other students, or from technical support. Students have to be willing to make use of those resources and let someone know if they don't understand something.
- Some internal motivation to succeed in the program. Students who are forced into an online learning environment will be less likely to be successful
There are some things that you can do as a parent/guardian to help your child to be successful in Beacon Academy of Nevada:
- Help them set up a schedule for school to follow every day. Students should plan on approximately one hour of work per day for every class they are enrolled in, plus some extra time for outside readings or writing papers.
- Provide an area for them to work that has limited distractions and where all their materials are available to them.
- Encourage them to discuss their work with you. These discussions can give you clues as to whether they understand the materials and the assignments, and potential problems can be headed off before they turn into bigger problems.
This is not required; however it is important for your child to know that you are interested in how he/she is doing in school. It is unrealistic for most high school-aged students to handle the total responsibility of an online learning environment, without any parental intervention. The Beacon Academy of Nevada program does not require students to do all of their coursework during the traditional school hours, so it may be beneficial for some families to schedule at least some of their "school time" during hours that parents are home to provide support.
The main content of all of the Beacon Academy of Nevada courses is available directly through our secure, online student classroom area. In some cases, links provided by teachers direct students to other websites so students can take advantage of the wealth of educational information available online. In addition to limiting the sites to which students must visit to do their coursework, we have added a piece of software on all student laptop computers that filters out sites that are not appropriate for high school-aged children to view. Beyond that, good parental supervision and setting some guidelines for internet use that match with your family values will go a long way in protecting your children from unwanted information on the internet.
No, although high speed Internet access definitely makes the experience of learning online much more satisfying, it is not absolutely necessary. Some areas of Nevada unfortunately do not have high-speed access available yet. For those areas that have high-speed access available, however, it is definitely the preferred type of internet access for the program.
Yes! Every full time Beacon Academy of Nevada student has the option to use one of Beacon Academy of Nevada's computers while enrolled full-time in our program.
