IU High School Online (IUHS Online) began work alongside Indiana K-12 educators in April to create online versions of the 40 most enrolled courses in Indiana middle and high schools. This initiative is a collaboration between the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE), Indiana University, and state educators. 

The Course Design Academy runs for nine weeks, from April 12 through June 11, and is made up of 182 educators in administration, general education, and special education from across the state. Designers are working in small teams to build modular courses that will allow teachers to select individual modules or upload the entire course into their school’s learning management system.

“We’re using IU High School’s responsive online pedagogy model to build this, and the whole Course Design Academy is built around IU High School’s guiding principles and our pedagogical model,” explained IUHS Online principal Dr. Rebecca Itow.

Course topics include math, science, social studies, English & language arts, world language, fine arts, and career and technical education. A cohort of special education teachers will create supplementary documents with suggested strategies for differentiation, accommodation, and modification to ensure online learning accessibility. IDOE and IU experts will review the courses and provide feedback to the designers throughout the program.

IUHS Online will host a second Course Design Academy in the fall to build a second group of 40 courses. In total, the IDOE will have the 80 most enrolled courses in middle and high school available online to licensed Hoosier educators by the end of the year.

“What’s really exciting is that we are expanding access to education for all Hoosier students. These are courses built by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers, to use with Hoosier students and families. Because it’s online and because we’re building them in a modular fashion. . . it provides the entire state with a core class,” Dr. Itow shared. 

The covid-19 pandemic prompted IUHS Online to share its repository of online pedagogical resources with educators in Indiana, who were unfamiliar with instructing in the online space, to help them teach online in pedagogically sound ways.

The Course Design Academy is a collaboration between the IDOE, IUHS Online, the IU System, and local school corporations. It is funded by the Governor’s Emergency Educational Relief (GEER) Fund which was created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). 

The IDOE and IU will announce when the courses are available. For more information about this initiative and to follow the development process visit: https://blogs.iu.edu/iuhs/category/cda/#.YImO-31Kj0o