FLVS- any opinions?

[jcross222]

I have 2 rising 8th graders. I am beginning to think about coursework for high school. I would love some BTDT comments from anyone who has used FLVS (Florida Virtual School). How did you use them? For which classes? General impressions?

Any information would be more than I have now.:001_smile:

Thanks.

[beachnut]

We've had a great experience w/ FLVS so far.

 

DS15 took/is taking the following courses: Latin I & II, Biology Honors, Geometry Honors, Algebra II Honors, Driver's Safety & Education. His 1st course was Latin I, which he started in the spring/summer before 8th grade. All of his teachers have been helpful and responsive, giving him as much help as needed via email and phone.

 

DS12 just started taking FLVS middle school advanced math & science courses for 6th grade, which he finished about 1.5 months early (we thought he'd be done at the end of May, and he was done by late March/early April). He was able to move on into 7th grade math a bit early and is working on it over the summer. He is also taking Business Keyboarding and Critical Thinking. He doesn't like the Critical Thinking course as much as the others because it requires the student to do more project-based assignments and he does not like projects. :glare: We had a small glitch w/ his 6th grade math course when they switched teachers on him mid-course, but everything ended up working out OK. However, he really loves math and I think he'd be challenged more by the AoPS curriculum, so I'm going to switch him from FLVS to AoPs for Pre-algebra (and beyond?), as long as he can study mostly independently.

 

PROS:

* FLVS is free for FL residents, and this is a huge plus for us.

* Also, my weaknesses are math, science and foreign language, so I love to be able to outsource these, esp. at the high school level.

* I like that the boys are accountable to someone else.

* They can resubmit their assignments until they've mastered the concept.

* They can work at their own pace (sometimes faster, sometimes slower as abilities and schedules permit).

* They can work on the courses when and where they want (they have done some course work at night, on weekends and even on vacation; they've worked at their computer desk and they've worked on the sofa and the back porch w/ my laptop).

* The high school science courses include labs (although mostly virtual), and this fulfills the graduation/college requirements of 2 sciences w/ labs.

* They've got opportunities to work on collaboration projects with other FLVS students taking the course.

* They can take honors and AP courses, so the opportunity for more challenging coursework is available.

 

CONS:

* I don't like them taking more than 2 FLVS courses at a time. We have a bit of overlap right now (where a course should have been finished but is not, and the boys started 2 new ones). That translates into too much screen time for my comfort.

* Not lots of hands-on activities so far. (Some virtual labs and real-life activities, but not a lot.)

 

Overall, I'm very pleased with our experience and will continue to use FLVS for math/science/foreign language courses and maybe a few half-credit electives as our schedule permits.

[Cindy in FL.]

We've used FLVS for Keyboarding, math (Math 2 & 3, Algebra 1, and Geometry so far), Driver's Ed, and Spanish 1. I agree with the pp's assessment of the pros and cons.

 

We have been happy with the courses and the teachers we have had so far.

 

Cindy

[Jenny in Florida]

I have 2 rising 8th graders. I am beginning to think about coursework for high school. I would love some BTDT comments from anyone who has used FLVS (Florida Virtual School). How did you use them? For which classes? General impressions?

Any information would be more than I have now.:001_smile:

Thanks.

 

Each of my kids has done a few courses through FLVS. They've had great experiences and negative ones.

 

Let's see . . . My daughter took Geometry, Algebra II, Honors American Government, Spanish I, Honors Chemistry and AP Microeconomics. She also attempted but dropped Precalculus. Geometry and Spanish were great, as was government. Algebra II was just okay. Chemistry and Microeconomics were bad experiences. The teacher she had for Chemistry was brand new to FLVS, and the course was in the middle of a redesign when she took it. So, the teacher didn't really know the curriculum and wasn't especially interested in learning it, since her answer to any problem was that it would "be fixed in the next version." Microeconomics used an online text from another outlet (in other words, not one built into the FLVS course), which was poorly written and confusing. The teacher was competent, but not what one would call "warm." In both of the latter cases, she got through the course and was happy to see the back end of it.

 

My son took their middle school math sequence (very good), an art class (okay), language arts (fine) and World Geography (pretty good), all at the middle school level. He also took the first segment/semester of their middle school American history course, which was awful. For high school classes, he's taken Earth Space Science (fine), Liberal Arts Math (pretty good) and Geometry (good). This year, he tried their Spanish I course, which has been redone since my daughter took it, and didn't make it past the first semester.

 

In his case, both of the classes that have been bad for him have had the same problems. The courses, themselves, have been redesigned to be extremely heavy on graphics and light on content. There is too much busywork and far too many assignments that don't have much to do with the subject being studied. Both courses also included questions on quizzes and exams that were not adequately covered in the lessons.

 

FLVS has also been experimenting with a new platform for their courses, which was very buggy and clunky. They ended up dropping it part-way through this year, which resulted in more downtime and disruption.

 

But the killer aspect of both of these was the teachers. In both cases, he got instructors who were not very good at communication and weren't especially available for help.

 

Since those were the last two courses he tried, we've opted not to sign up for any more FLVS for a while.

[FloridaLisa]

It's been a mixed bag for us.

 

On the whole, I've appreciated being able to use FLVS when and where needed in our home school.

 

Among my 5 oldest dc, they have taken:

 

*Latin I, Latin II, Latin III (automatic honors) -- Latin has been our best FLVS course. The teachers my dc had years ago knew my dc pretty well and showed interest in them beyond just the course. As FLVS has grown, I've noticed a difference. The teachers now are equally capable, but the student/teacher interaction is much more perfunctory. I like that FLVS offers Latin Club, the National Latin Exam and Junior Classical League. I wish FLVS offered Latin through the AP level and offered an honors level for Latin I and II.

 

*AP biology -- oldest ds had an excellent teacher. He received the Campbell book and a box of lab materials in the mail. He had excellent support throughout the year. All in all, a good experience.

 

*AP Environmental Science -- meh. Second ds found the course interesting, but there was much less teacher involvement and all course materials were online. That makes either a lot of online reading or printing. The course prepared ds well for the exam.

 

*AP Eng. Lang & Comp -- I would give this a thumbs up. Two of my dc took this at the same time which worked very well for studying together and the dreaded group project. The class prepared my dc well for the exam. Reading was interesting, writing was challenging, feedback was fairly quick and solid.

 

*AP Macro -- just a real misfit for my oldest. He just wanted a live teacher and interactive class by 11th grade and was completely dulled by the subject. Just a misfit for his interests and needs that year.

 

*Honors World History -- no thank you. The teacher was young and always seemed to be coming and going on trips. The class covered miles of history at a inch deep. This class more than any other made me realize how much better learning at home can be -- with real books, deep discussion, analysis and writing, at a manageable pace. And the honors designation only meant one additional busywork assignment every module. Again, I have no problem calling many of my dc's classes honors after seeing the FLVS honors requirements.

 

BE AWARE that many Florida counties have tbeir own Virtual School. The oinline course IS the FLVS course managed by the county's teachers. It's been somewhat of a legislative compromise that allows the counties to keep some/most of the money for students in the county version, rather than watching it go to FLVS.

 

My ds accidentally signed up for Honors Physics through our county. It was pretty dismal: the teacher taught in a brick and mortar school and was available only for an hour after putting his kids to bed late at night. He was unfamiliar with the technology and course which caused a lot of problems. He was slow in grading and just disinterested.

 

HTH,

Lisa