Sevenstar Blog

Top 3 Reasons to Register Early for AP Courses

Interested in online Advanced Placement courses for your students in the 2012-2013 school year? Here are some reasons to think about enrolling students early:

1. Flexibility. Taking an AP course online means you will have the power to set start and end dates for the course, and your student can select his or her own due dates.

2. Rigor. Advanced Placement courses are just that–advanced. At the traditional pace, a student will be expected to spend 10 hours in the course per week. Early enrollment would lower the weekly workload on the student.

3. Testing. AP tests are held in May for the 2012-2013 school year. Ideally, students should be finishing their courses by the end of April to have time to prepare for the test.

Next year’s testing dates: http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/ap/about/dates/next-year.

For full credit AP courses consider enrolling your students this summer. A student who starts AP Chemistry in June has 50% more time than students who enroll in September.

Use Important Start-up Events to Set Expectations

Clear communication is important for any developing relationship. The teacher-student relationship is no exception.

One of the most important steps toward your students’ connection with their online teacher is the facilitation of the “Welcome Call.”

One idea is for Virtual Lab Monitors to ask new online students what questions they have, and direct them to ask the online teacher during the welcome call. (They should have at least a few questions if this is their first online learning experience!)

It might even be a good idea to facilitate a group welcome call if your students are all in one computer lab taking the same course. As always, any effort you make toward connecting your students to their teacher is a step in the right direction.

Marketing an Online Program Means Starting Small

Wondering how to get your marketing efforts running effectively and efficiently?

Check out this blog post about how to get the most return on investment (ROI) for your school’s marketing efforts through Inbound Marketing: http://www.schneiderb.com/where-should-i-start-with-inbound-marketing-for-my-school/

Fund Your Online Program Through Corporate Philanthropy

Have you looked into how businesses can support your online learning plans?

Check out this short article on finding and tapping into corporate giving programs: http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/12/22/how-to-tap-corporate-philanthropy-in-support-of-ed-tech/

Have a Struggling Online Student? 

Six Questions to Consider

-Are work expectations clear to the student?
-Is the student aware of their low performance?
-Does the student have enough time to complete the work?
-How often is the student in contact with their online teacher?
-What are other obstacles in the way of their success?
-Would the student benefit from tutoring services or emotional counseling?

Rolling Enrollment Provides Quick Solutions to Sudden Needs

Remember that your partnership is available both as a long term value add to your ministry and a quick solution to immediate academic needs.

This is possible through Sevenstar’s commitment to provide rolling enrollment for all partner schools. Every Monday, new students are starting in online courses.

What is the Time-frame for Online Course Registration?
Enroll a student to start in an online course on ANY Monday of the entire year by requesting and paying for the course by the previous Wednesday.

If you have questions about your course selections, contact your Partner Coach for one on one assistance.

Help Students Start Off Well in the New Year

Coach your online students to periodically revisit the New Student Orientation mini-course. This orientation course remains in each student’s ANGEL account, allowing them to revisit the concepts whenever they have a need to do so.

Preventing problems in advance is the best way to solve them when the enrollment approaches completion.

What is the New Student Orientation Course?
Every new student you enroll in an online course begins by completing a one hour orientation mini-course, enabling them to acquire the necessary skills to be an effective online learner. Several important topics are presented, like accessing course email, submitting assignments, contacting tech support, and navigating the LMS. The course is largely video based, but there are pages of text as well.

Do Your Families Know Where to Find Your Online Program’s Policies?

Establishing policies for your online program is all about guiding the decisions of your parents and students to reach the best possible outcome in any situation.

Policies provide a shelter for your students and your institution to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Ask yourself these questions:

•  Have we created policies that are developed in proportion to the usage of online courses we wish to see?
•  Are our online program policies accessible to our families and staff?
•  Are our policies written for the intended audience?
•  Do we take time during the registration process to confirm the family’s understanding of our policies?

How Can Learning Go Mobile at Your School?

Mobile learning has been shown to increase student engagement and lengthen learning time.

Here are some tips for viewing your online courses on a mobile device:

-When possible, use a supported browser on your device. We rated 5 android browsers on our website page about mobile learning.

-Try “PDA mode” by clicking on the icon on the lower left hand corner of the learning environment.

-Click on the button that says “text only version” under flash components in the course that are not compatible on a touch screen.

-For more information about Sevenstar and mobile learning, click here: http://sevenstar.org/mobile.php

Register a Student Early by Setting a Future Start Date

You can start a student in a Sevenstar online course any Monday of the year as long as you submit the course request and payment in by the previous Wednesday. In other words, Wednesday is the last day to register students if you want them to start the following Monday.

Consider the best practice of registering students 1-2 weeks earlier than the deadline.

Then, if you needed to make any changes to your request before the student begins the course, you can request those changes from Sevenstar admissions well before the enrollment is solidified.

Fees will not be assessed for course request changes that are requested before the course request is processed (on the Thursday before the start date).

The 1-2 week buffer period could serve as an important expectation setting time that students could use to preview the course syllabus and materials requirements in the course catalog.

You might also use that margin to spend time on the very important task of communicating expectations to the student and parents.