Online Curriculum Systems Are Key To Helping At-Risk Students Get Back On Track

NovaNET from Pearson Digital Learning Helps Students Recover Credits as Well as Self-Esteem

Scottsdale, AZ - Thomas Love had given up on graduating from high school. "I thought there was no hope for a person in my position of being young, black, and without good grades. I had written off all hopes of a dream to go to college and make something of myself," says Love.

In seventh grade, Kelly Keene was this close to dropping out. "My peers teased me mercilessly and called me stupid. My self-confidence was non-existent."

Clayton Cook, who had a .08 GPA, reached an all-time low during his junior year. "I was going nowhere fast... and most likely would have ended up in jail," he believes.

Stories like these are all too common in high schools today, representative of a growing number of students considered "at risk" of failing and, eventually, dropping out of school altogether. According to a 2002 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 1.5 percent of the nation's public school students are enrolled in programs for at-risk students, and 54 percent of districts that offer such programs report numerous cases where demand for enrollment exceeded available capacity.

While schools grapple with how to adequately serve the growing number of at-risk students, one solution with mounting evidence of success is the use of computerized courseware systems in alternative programs.

In the case of Love, Keene, and Cook, all were fortunate enough to attend schools that use a program called NovaNET(R), an online courseware system based on more than 35 years of educational research that started at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Developed by Scottsdale-based Pearson Digital Learning, NovaNET delivers thousands of hours of interactive and engaging online curriculum aligned to national and state standards, designed specifically for middle and high school learners.

A growing number of school districts are turning to systems like NovaNET to help at-risk students overcome their unique challenges. Developers of the NovaNET system saw clear evidence of this trend this past May when more than 1 million hours of instruction were delivered to NovaNET system users around the country.

"On one day more than 9,000 students were logged onto the system at the same time," said Denise Gillis, NovaNET product manager. "There is no question that districts have seen the success students are having and are thus making it available to more students, and sometimes in very creative ways."

In Colorado Springs School District 11, for example, students who have not succeeded in traditional high school settings or have irregular schedules due to family, work or other circumstances, can now access the NovaNET system at the local Citadel shopping mall. The "Digital School," which opened in fall 2003, provides students with an opportunity to reconnect with school and engage in self-directed learning. In its first year of operation, the school helped raise the district's graduation rate by nearly four percent.

But even in traditional school settings, educators such as Dr. Donald Austin, principal of La Sierra High School in Riverside, Calif., have found that technology-based programs are instrumental in helping at-risk students who, research shows, are more likely to suffer from poor efficacy, expectancy, and confidence.

"Some students need the individual attention that is possible through technology-based instructional delivery models," said Austin. "These supplemental programs may provide the flexibility needed to meet the needs of more students, filling in the gaps that have grown throughout our students' previous years of education."

It is certainly true in the cases of Love, Keene, and Kelly.

"For the first time in my life, I am able to hold my head up about something positive that I have accomplished," says Love, who graduated this spring from the Albany High School Performance Learning Center in Albany, Georgia.

Keene, an eleventh-grader at Spring Lake Park Distance Learning in Spring Lake Park, Minnesota, says, "Because of NovaNET I am getting straight A's and am near the top of my class. I am reaching for my goal of becoming an architect and am excited about my future."

And Cook, who is at the KIND Alternative School in Indianapolis, Indiana, turned his life around. "For me, there is no better school program; it showed my true potential and gives me hope for my future."

SOURCE: Pearson Digital Learning