From what I have seen personally, most of these are decidedly.... not good.
My criticisms:
1. Science instruction at this level isn't memorization (aside from a few topical areas in biology, geology, and to a somewhat lesser extent chemistry and physics)-- but that IS how most online courses approach the material.
2. Interaction is (IMO) necessary to the development of the particular critical thinking skills in science, and the foundation of all that comes after these introductory courses. Skip that or skimp on it... and the result is "science lite." Think Popular Science. The problem with canned instructional modules is that they can't answer questions in real time, which is what (especially beginning) students truly NEED-- because having an expert shape your thinking process and learn to SELF-critique is really crucial (okay, not all high school teachers are good at this either).
3. Too few labs, too little actual connection to the principles of the course. "Virtual" labs don't cut it for anything but physics, IMO.
Online science classes CAN work. But there are some caveats... they require a living expert instructor to be available. That's the big one. Science is like literary analysis this way-- it just can't happen in a vacuum. Sure, doing some of the grind of learning formulae, techniques, etc. can, but learning to extend/apply generally cannot, because students who are LEARNING lack the expertise to know when they have a detail or two wrong. KWIM?
They also generally require a home-brewed lab, or at least significant improvement to the one on offer.
Name brands that I would (most certainly) AVOID-AVOID-AVOID:
1. Connections Learning
2. Pearson
3. KC (Distance) education
4. FLVS-- this is the Florida Virtual School
5. Virtual Sage
The ultimate issue with prepackaged courses in the sciences in particular is that the people WRITING the curriculum very definitely do NOT understand that material at the (post-baccalaureate) level that one must in order to evaluate the important stuff, and not write questions about minutiae.
Last edited by HowlerKarma; 02/01/14 09:59 AM.
