Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Belvoir Christian Academy announced that it is partnering with personalized learning solutions provider Fuel Education to implement a new blended middle school program beginning in the 2014-2015 school year.
Using Fuel Education’s new mobile, standards-aligned middle school curriculum to replace textbooks, Belvoir Christian Academy will offer its students an on-campus program in which they will take online courses during regular school hours in a dedicated blended learning space.
FuelEd certified instructors will teach the courses, while Belvoir Christian Academy’s mentor teacher will monitor student progress and provide assistance during the day. In addition, the Academy’s teachers will be able to take advantage of FuelEd’s Personalized Learning Platform – PEAK – to customize content and personalize each student’s learning plan.
“We are taking this step to provide online education at the middle school level based on today’s growing necessity for digital literacy, in both the academic and professional world,” said Frank Streufert, Belvoir Christian Academy’s principal. “We feel that now is the right time in the academic career of seventh and eighth graders to begin introducing them to online courses in preparation for higher learning.”
Students in the blended program will participate in sports and extracurricular activities on campus. Streufert emphasized that it is important that students who enroll in the blended program feel as if they are part of the student body, and that they have the daily advantages of social interaction with all students by providing the program on campus.
Streufert added, “We chose Fuel Education based on the variety of course options and the implementation and instructional support it offers. Upon initial exploration of the program, we were pleased to see the many choices of electives and foreign language options that our students would enjoy. Core subjects, such as math, language arts and science, will remain a priority in our academic program, but students will also have the freedom to make a few course choices based on their interests.”
“Belvoir Christian Academy understands that to truly prepare each student for a successful future, they need to provide them technology-enabled, personalized learning now,” said Gregg Levin, general manager of Fuel Education. “By creating this blended learning program, the Academy is using these formative years to instill the skills and knowledge that their students need to be successful. Fuel Education is very pleased to partner with them for this middle school program.”
Available on a wide variety of platforms and devices such as the iPad, Chromebook, and Android, FuelEd’s Online Courses for Middle School enable teachers to personalize learning for students in an online or blended learning environment. The curriculum:
Fully aligns to the Common Core State Standards goals and practices;
Features a modular, flexible design that facilitates customization of courses to meet unique district needs;
Prepares students for assessments from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium;
Integrates literacy and vocabulary development across all curricular areas;
Includes language arts and math courses that are fully aligned to Texas and Virginia state standards;
Integrates STEM principles in science courses; and
Is compatible with a wide variety of platforms and mobile devices, including the iPad, Chromebook, and Android.
The new middle school courses are integrated into PEAK, Fuel Education’s Personalized Learning Platform, which makes it easy for districts to integrate and manage all of their online learning programs. In addition, teachers can easily customize the courses with resources available in the PEAK Library, which includes more than 5,500 lessons and assessments plus content from third-party partners such as Britannica School®, and open educational resources such as Khan Academy and YouTube Education.