The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was one of the first universities to offer online degree options. Photo by Alex Edwards, The Gazette.
Online education:
Schools from primary to post secondary offer flexible education options after lessons learned from COVID-19 By Alex Edwards alex.edwards@gazette.com
“What we are seeing long term is a continued growth in families seeking full time online school enrollment,” he said. “We also see a greater interest in — and demand for — part-time online enrollment.” Kottenstette said schools faced significant challenges in the early parts of the pandemic, but says those have evolved. Where CDE was originally concerned with keeping students safe and healthy, the statewide challenges they have now are “a lot of technical stuff.” As interest in online enrollment grows, Kottenstette says the CDE
Online education options remain a popular choice for some Colorado Springs-area parents in the wake of the COVID -19 pandemic. Student enrollment in online schooling peaked in 2021, according to the Colorado Department of Education’s Bill Kottenstette, who is the executive director of CDE’s schools of choice unit, which oversees online schools, charter schools and innovation schools.
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Sunday, July 31, 2022
is faced with finding the right balance between online time and live instruction. “How do we leverage what we’ve learned most effectively in terms of good practice?” he said. “We are looking at what we could be doing more of, and avoiding going back to the way we’ve always approached education.” This year, online enrollment numbers have declined but it still exceeds the number of online students enrolled in years leading up to the COVID -19 pandemic. But hybrid options, where a student
may spend some time online and some time in person are becoming more and more popular. “We are seeing teachers using digital tools within their classrooms to change the way they use instruction time,” he said. “We call it a ‘flipped classroom,’ where the lesson may be digital … and classroom time is used for activity they may not have had time for.” The hybrid model has been used to great effect at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. SEE ONLINE EDUCATION • PAGE 17
