November 2005

Boosting Student Success with Online Courses

Juanita-Futures High School, Leanne Dunlap, Dean of Students

One of the questions on schools' minds this year is "How should we distribute our Course Credit Funds?"

Leanne Dunlap, Dean of Students and DLC Registrar at Juanita-Futures High School in the Lake Washington School District, offers one answer to this question—plus some advice for ensuring student success in online courses.

Online courses can help students graduate on time

"We're saving our funded spaces for online classes until second semester," says Dunlap. "And we're targeting seniors who are not going to graduate without access…They are our highest priority."

Last year, Juanita-Futures had thirty students who took online classes through the DLC that they needed to graduate, and twenty-eight of them completed the courses and graduated on time. "That's a good percentage," Dunlap happily reports.

She attributes this high rate of success to two factors: "Motivation to graduate was number one, and ensuring that kids didn't fall behind and had the help they needed at school was critical."

Early intervention is critical to student success

Dunlap has found that you can't guarantee students will do well in online courses just because they do well on the online assessments that test their readiness for online learning. "We've had highly capable kids who didn't do well in online classes and kids who have failed classes before and gotten A's in online classes. I think the X factor is motivation, and you can't figure out what that’s going to be."

To ensure that all students pass online courses, Dunlap stresses that "early intervention is critical." But first, you need to have a monitoring system in place to know when a student needs help. Between Dunlap, shadow teachers, and Teacher/Mentors in the online learning lab, each student's progress is closely monitored.

"At the beginning you've got to be doing this weekly, and then you can move to biweekly, and then monthly," Dunlap explains. If a student starts to fall behind, he or she is required to attend Reb Tutorial (named for the school's mascot "the Rebels") to get extra help. Dunlap says that the only way to get out of Reb Tutorial is to start passing the online class.

Some students only stay in Reb Tutorial for a couple of weeks; others need the structure and stay until they complete the course.

The message they stress with students is "You've taken on an obligation as a student to pass the class." But Dunlap also points out that the school has good support within and from parents—which makes a world of difference.

Want to read more? Browse the Success Stories page.