ASU Prep has expanded its curriculum to include an online option by launching ASU Prep Digital, which offers high school students the ability to take college-level classes.
The class can be accessed online anywhere in the world, and students can use the program for a few extra classes or for an entire curriculum.
Some schools in Arizona have already adopted ASU Prep Digital and offered it to students.
Miami Junior Senior High School, a rural high school in Miami, Arizona has integrated the ASU Digital Prep lessons into biology and English classes for their current sophomores.
Principal Glen Lineberry said his school was investing in the program to move “students much more rapidly into a better curriculum and better learning environment.”
The new classes are equipped with flat-screens that display learning content, and students can use Chromebooks to access the material. The school is spared the expense of textbooks, which can cost between $5,000 to $6,000 for a singular in-class set, Lineberry said.
“We're a small school with (a) very small budget,” Lineberry said. “We saw working with ASU Prep as an opportunity to use that world-class curriculum to benefit from their experience.”
The classroom set-up for sophomores at Miami Junior-Senior High can involve a teacher breaking students into groups, either randomly or by ability, depending on the task at hand. The teacher is free to offer attention to an individual group, while the other students can interact with the online lessons.
“It significantly increases the tools at the teachers’ disposal,” Lineberry said. ”It’s not just an online learning environment, because our teachers are still there leading class.”
Sixteen-year-old high school sophomore Victor Faulring first became aware of ASU Prep Digital when he saw its ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Now a full-time student in the program, Faulring said he was initially impressed by the program’s affiliation with ASU. He works as a model and actor based out of Seattle, and his old school schedule did not do enough to accommodate his busy lifestyle.
“Taking online classes … gives me more time for castings, auditions and all of my bookings,” Faulring said. “It just gave me more flexibility for life.”
Faulring is currently taking six different classes and said his parents were impressed with the Cambridge Curriculum. He was guided through enrollment by a counselor who made the process easy, filing his transcript and placing him into the appropriate classes.
“My learning success coach is a text, phone call or email away,” Faulring said.
Faulring said his teachers are all equally accessible and check in with him regularly.
“They just let me know to text them, to call them if I have any questions,” Faulring said. “As soon as I text them, I'll get a response in like five minutes. I texed my biology teacher today on help for on Punnett squares, and he sent me a recorded live lesson to learn about it.”
ASU Prep Digital CEO Julie Young had a 17-year history as an innovator in developing online programs in Florida prior to working with the ASU team. She said ASU Prep Digital offered students around the world the “opportunity to avail themselves to a high-quality education.”
As a college prep program, Young said the program's goal is to get high school students both interested and prepared for more advanced classes. It also helps students adjust to the reality of online classes being a likely part of their future curriculum.
"We want them to graduate from high school as a college student so that they will think of themselves as a college-going student, as opposed to considering whether or not to go to college," Young said.
Reach the reporter at sabine.galvis@asu.edu or follow @sabinegalvis on Twitter.
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