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Home schooling at the middle and high school level presents a unique set of problems for both parents and children. Parents must often relearn mathematical or scientific processes in order to teach them to their children, and finding quality materials that are engaging, intuitive, and interactive is a huge challenge. Internet research takes up valuable time, especially when each web site must be verified for sound content.
To help home-schoolers with these problems, SAS inSchool's Curriculum Pathways® software provides online access to interactive lessons and includes state and national standards, as well as web sites applicable to each learning activity. Web-based software from SAS inSchool enhances teaching and learning in English, social studies, mathematics, science, and Spanish for grades 8-12. Curriculum Pathways is a teacher-planning environment organized by core subjects. This online resource includes lesson plans, teaching ideas, and web sites related to 28 categories and 208 topics. The Student Gateway provides easy access to engaging online learning activities appropriate for classroom use, review, or homework, as well as carefully selected web sites for research.
Student InterActivities promote in-depth understanding. They are carefully focused and integrated into specific topics in Curriculum Pathways. Web Inquiries increase students' understanding of fundamental concepts found in national and state standards. Working independently, students read, conduct research at carefully selected web sites, and respond to a key question.
Each activity results in a measurable outcome related to the content standards. Handouts, worksheets, graphs, charts, lab manuals, and graphic organizers are available for use with the online content to guide students and measure what they learn. English products cover all phases of the writing process and provide practice in various types of writing. In each of the five subject areas, students conclude by applying, analyzing, or synthesizing key concepts.
All online lessons are accompanied by a teacher-planning page, which details how to assess the outcome. For each topic, there is a bank of categorized, annotated web sites offering a variety of activities and information for enrichment or remediation. Answer keys and rubrics are available for efficient easy assessment.
Mary Sagstetter, who home-schools a younger child in Rochester, Minnesota, uses Curriculum Pathways as a supplementary resource to help her two high-school aged daughters. "Curriculum Pathways is flexible enough to use at a variety of grade levels," she says. "I use it to supplement what is presented in the classroom or to clarify concepts that are problematic for our daughters. The web links are great, and we also use the product as a research liaison. We often use Curriculum Pathways as a substitute for hiring a professional tutor. The lessons and teacher materials are well-organized and quite clear. I just go through the InterActivities by myself first and then I am really able to help the girls."
Since the InterActivities and lessons are based on topics, rather than grade levels, students can move at their own pace. They are also able to review when necessary or go deeper into the topic with enrichment activities. "My three-year-old is just fascinated with the InterActivities on Density and Photosynthesis," says Sagstetter. "At this age, he loves to work with the product, but he can only understand so much. Then again, he'll certainly be ready when the topic comes up in our curriculum!"
Talk about individualized instruction! To find out more about methods for individualizing instruction, read Caroline McCullen's article Celebrating Differences: Using Technology to Differentiate Instruction.
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