| In a North Texas school district, students taking online courses in a variety of subject areas were not successfully completing courses at the district's expected levels. The district pays for courses and student support while remaining financially responsible to the community and programmatically to students' online success. Students' unsuccessful completion of these online classes, both at the local district and at the state level, became the rationale for the current study's formal evaluation of the program. The qualitative project study evaluated the district's online program and allowed for opportunities for data collection and analysis for improvement recommendations. Guided by the constructivist theory, this study examined whether the current online instructional program was perceived as effective by students and faculty involved with online classes. Qualitative surveys and focus groups were employed to gather data on the overall design of the program. Students taking online classes and faculty working with these students participated in the survey and randomly selected participants were involved in the focus groups. The qualitative data were analyzed according to themes and then interpreted for meaning. Data analysis determined both effective and ineffective practices of the program, including issues of local support related to technology and increased 1-on-1 support at the campus level as identified by students and the need for more resources and familiarity with the online course content as identified by mentor teachers. The findings from this research provided specific strategies for improving supports that promote success. This increased success for high school students will impact social change regarding how administrators, teachers, students, and parents view alternative educational opportunities for students in the future. |
