Latin For Children on ScholeAcademy

[Domiche]

I am trying to decide on Latin for 5th grade for a student with no prior Latin background.  I’m seriously considering the online course for Latin For Children A through ScholeAcademyOnline (vs teaching directly or from DVD).  I’m very drawn to the interactive class format and 3x/week frequency.

Has anyone taken the course?  Can you give any feedback (pros, cons, teacher eval)?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[SoCal_Bear]

We did it last year. My review of it is here. I posted it to the master list of online classes thread.

We are nearing the end of my son's Latin for Children A class at Schole Academy. He has been engaged and interested throughout the year. Mrs. Chilbert did take a maternity break so Mrs. Gerard (sp?) subbed in. Both teachers are enthusiastic and encouraging. He is a bit sad to not continue on with them because the schedule does not work for us in the fall, but he enjoys enough Latin so we will be using Wilson Hill in the fall solely because of scheduling reasons. I though Mrs. Gerard did do a better job of creating practice resources for the students to use on quizlet. It wasn't an issue for us as I already had quizlet set up for practice as well as a subscription to Headventureland. Both teachers are continuing to teach for Schole Academy for 2018-2019 and are teaching at least one Latin course. My son liked both of the teachers.

Please be aware that Schole Academy is distinctly Christian so the classes do follow a liturgical model and have prayer, devotional time and closing prayer. This is fine with me because it is consistent with our faith, but I did want people to be aware of this. The class is live video where you can see every student as well as the teacher. She controls whether or not a student can speak. There's no class chat box which does make the class a little less interactive, but it also removes that distraction from the students as well. The platform used is Schoology which seemed to be quite stable and was easy to use. Assignments were always posted and any homework that needed to be submitted was able to be scanned and uploaded pretty easily. At least for the Latin class, there are no recordings posted for the classes. If a student is absent, you can notify the teacher and a recording will be provided. Schole's guidelines do state that students may not miss more that 6 live class meetings. Class grades are given using magna cum laude, sum laude, satis, and non satis. Assignments that are graded on the Schoology are done via point value so the platform will generate a percentage grade based on those graded assignments.

When Mrs. Chilbert had to cancel a class due to illness, she did set up a make up class time and offered several options for parents to vote on. She selected the one that accomodated the most students. A recording was provided for students who could not attend. The maternity leave transition off and tranition back was handled very smoothly and with very little disruption to the class. All in all, we would recommend this class. My goal was solely to keep my son in interested and engaged. He was able to learn Latin from teachers who actually love Latin and that showed in their instruction. He was motivated to do well because of the "competition" that a class environment provided.

Please also note that it appears that Schole is switching LFCA and LFCB to meet 3x a week for 45 minutes instead of the 2x a week that it was meeting for approximately an hour.

 

[SoCal_Bear]

I would have continued on with Schole for LFC B except the class times didn't work for our other commitments, so I am paying more to do it over at Wilson Hill this year. 

 

[Domiche]

Calbear, thanks for taking time to respond with such a thorough review. This is very helpful.  I will be sure to check the online class thread as I research more online options in the future.  I didn’t realize that thread had reviews (vs just a list of online options).

[SoCal_Bear]

The class refund policy at Schole is very generous. You can withdraw within the first two weeks.