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Edvisions Off-Campus High School
A NEW APPROACH TO LEARNING
This off-campus Minnesota-based charter school uses project-based learning to provide a flexible, independent and enriching education to students.
FEATURE | EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL
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EDUCATION LEADERS TODAY
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EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL | FEATURE
Educating in a new way by Johanna Gretschel
Gigi Dobosenski’s trip through the Grand Canyon with a group of teenagers this past April sounds more like a spring break adventure than a week at school. But for students at EdVisions Off-Campus Charter School, the trip was just one of many throughout the year that enriches their education. As Co-Director of EdVisions Off-Campus with Cathy Diaz, Dobosenski is both an educator and an administrator for the project-based, online secondary education institution. EdVisions Off-Campus is a product of the Minnesota charter school resurgence that started in 1993, when educators, parents and community members in the Minnesota River Valley created the idea for what would become Minnesota New Country School MNCS. The group proposed a plan to add more flexibility and independence to the traditional secondary school program. MNCS opened its doors to 64 students in 1994 and by 2006 was
regarded as one of the top charter schools in the country. That year, 100 percent of MNCs students passed the Minnesota Basic Skills Test, despite the fact that 40 percent of them were enrolled in special education. The success of MNCS yielded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for 4.3 million dollars to start 15 similar schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin. EdVisions Schools was founded to oversee and manage the different schools. In 2003, EdVisions received another grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spread the education model across the nation. EdVisions has helped create over 40 schools in the United States, one of which is EdVisions Off-Campus. EdVisions had experimented with project-based learning in other charter schools and in 2004, decided to take that idea to an online format. EdVisions Off-Campus opened for its first
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FEATURE | EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL
“I only have ten students and so I am very able to say, ‘this student, I know she needs extra structure in her projects, she needs to check in with me every day and we need to work on her project everyday... other students that are much more independent. This is not a one-size-fits-all program.”
academic year in the fall of 2005. The EdVisions Off-Campus office is based in Henderson, Minnesota but unlike most secondary education institutions, there is no actual school building. The school’s 80 seventh through 12th-graders meet for class from computer desktops across the state of Minnesota. Each student has an advisory period with classmates in their grade that is supervised by an administrator or teacher. Dobosenski compares advisory to the homeroom period in a more traditional high school; students can interact with each other as well as the teacher during this time through video conferencing software. During this period, the advisor may address problems students are facing in their projects or discuss current events. “If I notice a weakness between my students, for instance they’re all having problems with writing, advisory is when we’ll work on that as a group,” said Dobosenski. Each student also has a daily individual appointment with their advisor, during which the student may propose a project or request assistance from the advisor in completing the project. Aside from these two advisory periods, math class is the only scheduled academic time for students. Students set up a specified time to get online to receive a math lesson from an EdVisions Off-Campus instructor. Students are free to schedule the rest of their school day around extracurricular activities, as long as they document and report six hours of time spent on 4 Education Leaders Today
school work each day. In a project-based learning environment, students are given the opportunity to create their own curriculum by proposing projects and selecting what topics they will concentrate on. Their advisor makes sure that the proposed project meets state standards. “We recommend that they all have a reading type of project and a physical activity project to get them away from the computer so they’re not staring at the computer all day long,” Dobosenski said. “We also encourage community-involved projects, something that involves going out into the community to actually talk to a person or going on a job shadow.” Math classes are held in a more traditional manner, according to Dobosenski, because students find it more difficult to integrate all of the mathematics standards into cohesive projects. “Math is still very individualized in that they still get to work at their own pace,” said Dobosenski. According to Dobosenski, students are required to meet a certain number of credits every year rather than complete a certain number of projects. If a student puts together smaller projects, they may complete a few dozen over the course of the year. However, more in-depth projects yield a larger number of credits and thus, a senior at EdVisions Off-Campus may complete only five projects during the school year. Students are assigned these credits for each project instead of receiving grades.
EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL | FEATURE
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FEATURE | EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL
6 Education Leaders Today
EDVISIONS OFF-CAMPUS HIGH SCHOOL | FEATURE
“Grades are meant to compare students and it’s impossible to grade students when they’re doing different projects so we just give them credit. If it’s not to our standards... they have the option to get a little less credit or go back and work on it.”
“Grades are meant to compare students and it’s impossible to grade students when they’re doing different projects so we give them credit based on completion,” said Dobosenski. “If it’s not to our standards or not what we expected from the project, they have the option to get a little less credit or go back and work on it.” With such a low student-teacher ratio, EdVisions Off-Campus teachers are able to provide extremely individualized instruction. “I only have ten students and so I am able to say, ‘this student, I know she needs extra structure in her projects, she needs to check in with me every day and we need to work on her project everyday,’” said Dobosenski. “There are other students that are much more independent. This is not a one-size-fits-all program.” Dobosenski emphasizes the point that EdVisions Off-Campus caters to several types of students but not every child would excel in such an environment. Other project-based charter schools exist in the Minnesota school district, but EdVisions Off-Campus is the only one that conducts class online. “A big positive to our school for a lot of students is that the social environment of a traditional school can be detrimental to some students,” said Dobosenski. “They still get social interaction; it’s in a different format, not every day passing in the hallway.” Most students begin attending EdVisions Off-Campus as ninth or tenth-graders, according to Dobosenski. She said students range from precocious learners who have succeeded but grown bored with traditional schools, to home schooled children
whose parents seek an alternative as they grow older and classes become more challenging, to students who have not succeeded in traditional educational environments. The extensive field trip program gives EdVisions Off-Campus students the opportunity to be social beyond the video conferencing software of their daily advisory. Advisories are organized by geography and each month, advisories go on a field trip in that area. Dobosenski said that monthly advisory field trips can range from art museums to pottery-making to skiing to bowling trips. “Sometimes it’s more academic and sometimes it’s more of a social place for the students,” said Dobosenski. There is also an all-school overnight field trip once per semester where parents are invited along and students present their projects to the group. Some larger field trips, including Dobosenski’s Grand Canyon expedition, are optional and open to the entire school. These field trips count as an interactive school day; at the Grand Canyon, students learned about water How can a and brickAmerican and mortar school Past use Infrasupport virtual conservation history. trips have included technology? Lots of and every day possibilities. exploits in New Zealand California’s redwoodShare forest.subject matter experts across school districts. Reach out to homebound Successful adults are the real world results of this unique students. Participate in science experiments with local charter school. Dobosenski each ofgeographical the school’s universities. Take virtual fieldsaid trips.that Eliminating 12 graduates to dateunprecedented has enrollededucational in some opportunities. form of postboundaries creates secondary education upon graduating, including trade and Contact Infrasupport for details. cosmetology schools. ELT
INFRASUPPORT
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