3 Ways to Use Courseware’s Digital Curricula in Your Summer School Program

Summer school planning is upon us, and likely credit recovery, transition, and enrichment programs are top of mind as a result. As you’re considering the summer learning needs of your school or district, think about how you can use proven, customizable digital curricula from Edmentum to augment your program. 

If you’re already feeling your jaw clench just thinking about resources to put on a summer school program, you can relax. Our Courseware digital curricula can be taught using your own teachers, of course, but we also can assist you with a completely virtual option that utilizes our own state-certified EdOptions Academy teachers! EdOptions Academy is our fully accredited virtual school, and it provides the flexibility to fit learning into busy summer schedules with anytime, anywhere access to mobile-friendly, engaging curricula and dedicated instructor support and guidance. Here are a few engaging ways you can customize your students’ learning this summer.

1. Recover Lost Credits

We know that a significant summer school need for middle and high school students is credit recovery. For students who are just a few credits shy of a grade-level promotion or even graduation, summer school is a game changer. Our customizable digital curricula can be a perfect fit for this need, allowing students to target the skills, units, or entire courses they need to earn credit. Even better, the robust curricula and self-paced nature of our program allows for fewer teacher resources while students independently work on only what they need to recover credits.

Additionally, our accelerate mini courses (five to nine weeks in length) allow students to accelerate to high school math (Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2) and ELA (English 9–12) content by providing direct instruction on essential skills. These courses intentionally cover some of the highest-need credit recovery areas to ensure that you’re giving your students the best changes to meet their graduation goals. Each mini course begins with a pretest, allowing students to skip over the content they already know so that they can focus their efforts on the content they don’t. This approach ensures that students master more content in even less time.

2. Bridge Difficult Grade Transitions

Some grade transitions are more difficult than others for students. The transition from 8th grade to 9th grade, for example, is a notorious  spot in education transition where students often struggle. In fact, research tells us that student performance in 9th grade is a strong indicator of later high school success or failure. Get more insight into this transition in our infographic.

Digital curricula in Courseware can be a powerful tool to drive a successful summer bridge program. With Courseware, students can focus not only on skill gaps with specific Flex Assignments but also get exposure to study skills and career exploration using courses found in our robust elective and career and technical education (CTE) libraries.

3. Enrich Learning and Get Ahead

Summer learning is also a great programmatic option for students on an accelerated path—those students who may desire scheduling flexibility, the charge to get ahead, or even exposure to new topics and courses they might not otherwise get the opportunity to explore. For students on this path, summer break might be the perfect time to choose from a list of fun electives in our electives library, such as mythology and folklore, music appreciation, and archaeology. Explore even more of these exciting electives and CTE course options in our full Courseware course catalog.

Once you’ve decided which needs your summer school program is best suited to solve, it’s time to really dig in and start planning. Explore our four-step process to do this successfully by checking out our blog post, Planning Your Instruction with Courseware.

This blog post was originally published on April 4, 2019, by Fabiola Garcia and has been updated.