Yeah, one of my least favorite things about the (apparent) thinking surrounding "honors" (or GT, at all) offerings in secondary education is the myth that autodidactism is the norm for the cohort of kids in those classes.
In fact, while HG+ kids may exhibit significant autodidactic tendencies in their areas of passion... it's often far from global, and I got
really sick of administrators telling me that a lack of instruction was "enabling" autodidactic learning. {barf}
There was also a nasty whiff of "Ohhhhh... well, if you need
help learning the material..." the implication being that if you expected ANY instruction at all, you must not actually belong in the course. Toxic, that one. "You're an honors student-- figure it out" is a not-uncommon answer to student queries.
I suspect that much of this nonsense probably transcends virtual settings, and GF2's post backs that hypothesis.
The bad part is that at least in a regular classroom setting, the assessments are tailored to what IS happening in the classroom, as lackluster as that might be. In a virtual setting, those assessments aren't controlled by the course instructor, and may be based on... well, things that
are not being covered. At all. Students are still responsible for them, however. Yes, this is a bit of a Catch-22, isn't it?
