Giant Campus Blog

I’m the Chief Financial Officer here at Giant Campus and I’m pretty passionate about changing the way middle and high school education is delivered.  I’m particularly interested in the Hybrid education model because as a father of six (yes, it’s the Brady Bunch) and a finance guy I see the lack of educational choices and how education funding continues to be cut.  I wholly appreciate the conflict created by lower school funding and the struggle by school administrators to balance the budget. But there is a better way. 

The Hybrid education model is still in its infancy but brings significant promise to traditional schools struggling with providing students relevant breadth and depth of choices in courses while facing significant funding pressure.  I define the Hybrid model as a traditional school that contains a room(s) with multiple computers connected to the internet with a teacher or teacher’s assistant monitoring students where they are afforded the opportunity to take approved online classes.  By implementing this model, students are able to choose from a wide variety of courses with highly specialized teachers that otherwise would not have been available.  Schools are able to save money by reducing headcount and instead offering online courses which generally are less. There is a better way.

I’m going to use my son’s high school as an example.  His school is in a district that is one of the better funded and higher performing districts in the state of Washington.   It’s a four year high school that has approximately 1,250 students with the usual activities ranging from drama, band and all the usual sports.  They have a reasonable technology program offering single classes in graphic arts, web design, digital photography, video/tv production and interactive media.  In languages, they offer Spanish, French and Japanese.  They also have a reasonable number of AP classes.  It’s the general store of education, a mile wide and an inch deep, in most subjects outside the core math, language arts, sciences and social studies. A student that wants a concentration in computer science or perhaps Chinese has zero options.  As a parent that believes China is going to be an economic powerhouse, I’d like my kids to learn Chinese and well…the computer science education…do I need to say more? It’s not available at his high school.  There is a better way to offer more breadth and depth in specific subjects with dynamic teachers and do it for less.

I think full online schools are wonderful for some students.  They offer a great breadth and depth of classes.  However, most students need and want the socialization of a traditional high school.  My kids fall into that bucket.  The hybrid model offers a student both. It’s a better way.

I will assume for argument sake that 75% of the 500 high schools in Washington and in the country don’t go as wide or as deep as my son’s high school because they are smaller and don’t have the same financial support. This applies to both public and private schools.  Those students are further disadvantaged because they don’t have the same opportunity. Rural students find themselves captured in that ugly cycle of minimal opportunity.  Parents who actively take part in their child’s education may supplement or educate at home to make up for the deficiencies but that is limited.  In Washington, there is an alternative if your school doesn’t employ the Hybrid model yet.  Students can drop a class at their resident school and enroll in a Giant Campus course taught by a world class teacher.  Its part of the public school system so it’s free and the credits are transferable to your student’s transcript.   There is one catch.  Your school district can be more interested in protecting its valuable funding and deny your child the choice to take these great courses even though it’s in the student’s best interest.  Check out our classes and if you find them compelling, ask your counselor if they will let your student take a class through an inter-district agreement. 

I encourage you to push your school administration to adopt the hybrid model. You’ll find that the quality of education will improve, kids will be more engaged in classes they enjoy and the school will save money by reducing teacher headcount.

Interesting article in USA Today about a growing trend of high school seniors, growing restless and unsatisfied by the current offerings in their school, choose to reinvent it on their own or skip out on parts of it. 

A selection from Greg Toppo’s article: “Trimble is part of a small but growing group of students — most of them academically advance and, as a result, a tad restless — who are tinkering with their senior year.  A few observers say the quiet experiment has the potential to reinvent high school altogether.” 

These stories get me going every morning.  Helping students and schools reinvent high school education is what we do at Giant Campus every day.  Make high school more relevant for our students and get them prepared for the future.  Our motto says it all:  Real Classes for the Real World!

Here’s a link to the full article at USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-02-25-senioryear25foronline_st_N.htm

Ever wanted to learn what it takes to launch your own business and become a successful entrepreneur? Well, learn how our Introduction to Entrepreneurship course (NEW for Spring 2010) can develop the core skills you’ll need to be successful! Check out the video below:

Our curriculum team is including an exciting new element in our courses called Career Connections. These Career Connection features are short interviews with successful professionals in the field.

The new Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Introduction to Entrepreneurship I courses launching this spring will be the first courses to include this new feature.

Career Connections give students a sense of how the course’s skills are used in the workplace.

Professionals from a variety of careers in the industry help to show the various career options available in this field.

For example, the CAD course features interviews with an architect, an interior designer, a landscape architect, and two engineers.

The Introduction to Entrepreneurship I course features interviews with outstanding young people who became entrepreneurs as teens (or even younger!) in a variety of fields.

Featured entrepreneurs include:

• 15-year-old Lani Lazzari of Simple Sugars (www.simplesugarsscrub.com)
• 17-year-old Web entrepreneur Donny Ouyang of Kinkarso Tech Ltd. (www.kinkarso.com)
• 19-year-old Jessica Cervantes of Popsy Cakes (www.popsycakes.com)
• 22-year-old men’s fashion designer Baruch Shemtov (www.baruchshemtov.com)
• 25-year-old Andrew Mohebbi, who created a successful paintball review Web site as a teen and then sold it

Watch for Career Connection features in these and other new Giant Campus courses!