SCHOOLS
System Structures
OnSchooler was designed from the beginning to be fully scalable from one student to millions, and to be structured in a way that provides a better system for students with special needs.
System Modifications
In addition, OnSchooler is designed to be very flexible so that the standard academic objectives can be met with a variety of different schedules and settings to meet each student's needs in various situations.
These features are particularly valuable when dealing with emergencies such as floods, fires and disease outbreaks.
Built-In Supports
Most of the students in our lab school had IEP's, were at least three years behind in reading and math, and getting poor grades. Within six months in our program they were on the honor roll and within two years were performing at grade level.
Since then we've also added the Bilingual option. Here's how all of our built-in supports help all of your students succeed:
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Long class periods (80 minutes) increase on-task time for students with ADD/ADHD. For a student who typically wastes 15 minutes "getting organized", switching from a 40-minute to an 80-minute class period increases on-task time from 62.5% to 81.25%.
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There is no regular homework until the Specialty Series. This levels the playing field for students whose parents can't help them at home. School work is done at school (except online lessons if a student was absent, which need no parental help).
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The predictable schedule, long class periods and half-online system work very well for students with social interaction issues. Half the day can be spent studying in a low-stress environment.
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Talented and Gifted students can reach their full potential by progressing at their own maximum pace. We recommend all mixed-age classes (3-year age range) as standard, which allows these students to blend in more easily.
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Automatic feedback from the computer treats every student exactly the same way: boys and girls; every skin color, hair style and attitude; rich or poor school or family; accent, physical disability, or behavior. The computer gives everyone perfectly equal treatment in every subject, every day. Even when there's a substitute teacher!
What's so great about a multilingual platform?
Your new English-learning students could fall behind by 2-3 years while learning enough English to study math, science, culture and communications.
Or, using OnSchooler, they can understand everything in every subject from day one. They progress with everyone else while rapidly learning English.
As a nice bonus, all of your English-only students can start picking up a second language at a much earlier age. It's easiest to learn a second language before age twelve, so let's do this the easy way and start at seven.
All your students can be fluent in two languages before becoming teenagers.
Unlimited Customization
There are many ways you can reconfigure our system's building blocks to meet your needs perfectly. Here are just a few:
Students
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Students who need speech or behavior therapy skip the Second Language class and use that period to build essential skills.
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A single-subject or 'credit recovery' approach allows some students to focus on one subject at at time and quickly get a win by passing a unit exam.
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Fully bilingual students can be trained as Teaching Assistants in the Second Language classes for students who only know English.
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Train a group of students to be Computer Assistants to help other students with common problems and do basic computer repair.
Schools
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In the Home/School Hybrid model, students do the computer lessons at home and only attend school for half a day to do the hands-on lessons with the teacher. (Also great if you're short on classroom space.)
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Create a "Focus" for your school (i.e. Technology, or Health & Fitness, or Young Entrepreneurs) and align all your assemblies, electives and field trips with your Focus.
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Switch to a full Dual-Immersion bilingual model, where half of the hands-on lessons are also taught in another language.
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Provide district-wide Foundations training for every preschool, daycare, parent and social worker. Even a high school dropout can teach their child numbers and letters--and the engagement benefits everyone. Include a weekly support group for preschool parents.
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Create a Distance Learning program in cooperation with the schools that share a group of migrant students with you. This can also be used for students who miss a lot of school due to health problems or family travel schedules.
Buildable Platform
You can think of our platform as the "Amazon" of e-learning systems: they started selling books but also allowed other people to sell anything using their distribution network.
We're the same way: we already have over nine hundred lessons on our platform, but you can use it to add anything else you want.
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Add your own curriculum. Maybe your school has been developing an exciting multi-disciplinary Forensic Science unit for the last decade. You can write new on-line lessons in any subject or swap out only the hands-on assignments with your own special projects or favorite activities.
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Add extra language translations for students in your school if we haven't done them yet (and get free credits).
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Remix online lessons to meet your needs. You can actually download the whole lesson, add or remove pages, replace pictures or sound files, and edit the text to have the focus/slant/reading level you want. You can chop a long lesson in half to be two shorter lessons, or combine the essentials from two lessons into one to make room for another topic you want to cover. Add things to meet your district's unique academic standards, or remove controversial material that your district doesn't allow until students are older.
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Rearrange the algebra and geometry math sequence to match with the local community college.
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Later we'll also offer opportunities for Lesson Writers to create Premier lessons for which they're paid a royalty, and Corporate lessons that are only available to your employees.
Built-In Bilingualism
Fluency in multiple languages has long been considered a hallmark of a quality education...for centuries, in fact.
Recently in the US, the focus has been on the growing population of students (now about 10%) who are not fluent in English.
In a 2006 study of the effects of Proposition 227, California’s “English for the Children” ballot initiative, researchers found that even after 10 years in California schools, an English language learner has less than a 40 percent chance of being considered proficient in English. (-AFT summary of a 5-year study)
https://www.aft.org/ae/fall2015/goldenberg_wagner
Studies show pretty clearly that students' scores across the board are much higher when they learn in both their native language and the target language.
Our platform makes this possible for all of your English Language Learners, at no additional effort to you. (This is a new feature so we're adding Spanish translations first, with others to follow soon.)
But let's expand the conversation: studies also show that all bilingual students are more employable and earn more money than monolingual students. What we want to do is leapfrog over the debate about the trouble and expense of bringing ELL students up to speed. Instead, we're going to make your entire student body bilingual.
Get a Customized Plan
In addition to all these benefits, the OnSchooler system was designed with the perfect combination of structure and flexibility to allow you to offer your community a wider variety of learning options that flow perfectly with your general system, including:
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Dual Immersion Classrooms & Schools
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Home/School Hybrid Programs
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Distance Learning Programs
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District-Sponsored Charter Schools
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Vouchers Done Right
The system can also easily be adjusted to handle temporary and long-term problems such as:
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Natural Disaster Disruptions
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Skilled Staffing Shortages
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Contagious Disease Outbreaks
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Tight Budgets
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Insufficient Classroom Space
OnSchooler will raise the success level of all of your students, give you the power to provide your community's requested features, and solve some of the challenges specific to your district or school.
Let's get the conversation started today: