We are certainly living in uncharted waters right now. Who would have ever thought that we would be remote learning and teaching for the final
There exists an ever growing body of research on mentoring online students. In this article we seek to answer the question: What does this research tell us about mentoring K-12 online students?
Why are on-site mentors so important for online students? In this article, Jered Borup, a digital learning researcher and professor at George Mason University dives into research that supports the critical role that mentors play in highly successful online learning programs.
In 2017 and 2018, the Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute published a series of blog posts written by Michigan Virtual’s Regional Mentor Leaders to bring to life what mentors do to build and maintain a supportive online learning environment to help students be successful. We thought it worthwhile to revisit these posts and again hear firsthand what mentors had to say about the work they actually do day to day and what it means to them.
The mentors of K-12 online learners wear many hats and serve as a critical pillar of support for their students. What is less commonly recognized is how mentors act as stewards of personalized learning for their online students. The constant pulse-checking mentors do with their students allows them to work with an online teacher to customize instruction and support based on their students’ needs.
In this month’s Mentor Forum, we hear from Debbie Lynch, our Outreach Coordinator for Mentors about the important role that mentors play in online learning and some strategies for connecting with and supporting online students.
This is the fifth in a series of blog posts written by Michigan Virtual’s Regional Mentor Leaders to bring to life what mentors do to build and maintain a supportive online learner environment to help students be successful. If you are a mentor and would like to share a strategy, a success story, or another topic that illustrates how you support students, please email [email protected]
We’re sorry to inform you that we have reached capacity for several of our Semester 1 and Trimester 1 courses. You’ll notice when attempting to enroll students in our Student Learning Portal that some courses are unavailable. While we are no longer accepting new enrollments for these courses at this time, many courses continue to remain open for enrollment.
With many students across the state 100% remote, demand for our online courses is greater than ever before. Because every course we offer is taught by a Michigan-certified teacher, this high volume of enrollments has created capacity issues for our teachers who provide each and every student with individual feedback.
While the Michigan Virtual team anticipated and planned for significant increases in student enrollments this Fall, the increased demand we’ve experienced has been unprecedented. As a result, we are taking steps to hire even more part-and full-time teachers to support larger numbers of student enrollments for Semester 2 as well as for Trimester 2 and 3.
For schools that still need online learning options this year, please fill out the form at the bottom of our virtual pathways page to meet with someone to discuss other solutions. While some of our teacher-led courses are full, we may still have the capacity to help you in upcoming terms or can discuss timing to implement a whole-school or collaborative program in which local teachers from your school/district use our online course content to teach students. We also have free course content and resources available for you to use.
We know this is an incredibly stressful time for all, and we’re sorry if the courses you’re looking for are unavailable. We never want to turn away a student who wants to learn from us. Our top concern, however, is student success, and we have a policy to not take on additional enrollments if we cannot guarantee that all students will have a quality online learning experience.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate the unusually high volume of enrollments we are receiving.
