Teaching High School Science

Live Group Classes, Self-Paced, or 1-to-1: Which is the Best Format?

• Kesha "Doc" Williams • Episode 22

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In this episode of Teaching High School Science, we’re diving into the best ways to deliver high school science for homeschool families. Whether your teen thrives in structure, needs personalized guidance, or craves flexibility, I’m breaking it all down so you can make the best decision for your family.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • Live Group Classes:
    • Perfect for structured learners who enjoy interacting with peers.
    • Explore traditional teacher-led formats or Montessori-style, student-driven options.
    • Learn the pros, cons, and how to support your teen for success.
  • Personalized Tutoring:
    • One-on-one sessions tailored to your teen’s needs and interests.
    • Great for teens with unique schedules or goals, like pre-med, engineering, or theater.
    • Tips to maximize progress and confidence through individualized attention.
  • Self-Paced Courses:
    • Maximum flexibility for independent learners.
    • Discover the difference between drip-content and all-at-once formats.
    • Get tips for keeping your teen on track and avoiding overwhelm.

I also share exciting details about my new Chemistry course launching in January 2025! 🎉 This drip-content course is designed to keep learning manageable, logical, and stress-free while ensuring your teen builds a strong foundation in chemistry.

👉 Join the waitlist today! Click here to sign up and be the first to know when enrollment opens.


Thanks for tuning in!

For more insightful discussions and resources on science education, visit my website at thesciencementor.com.

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Are you looking for bite-sized science tutorials to use with your students or for a refresher for yourself? Visit my YouTube Channel.

Let's continue the conversation and explore the wonders of science together!


Speaker 1:

Let's talk about how your teen can take online high school science in a way that works best for them.

Speaker 1:

Last time, we broke down the levels of biology, chemistry and physics. Now it's all about delivery how your teen will actually take these classes whether it's a life, group classes, self-paced or personalized tutoring and what's going to work best for your family dynamics, because, let's face it, homeschool life is already full and you don't need one more thing that doesn't fit. So grab your coffee or your favorite note taken out and let's make sense of all the options so you can choose the one that works best for your teen and your family. Let's dive in. Welcome to Teaching High School Science. I'm your host, doc, a former biochemist turned high school science teacher and private tutor. Whether you're homeschooling your teen through high school science or teaching online, join me as I share tips and strategies I've learned over the years for at-home and online labs and activities, breaking down complex concepts and structuring learning in a way that makes sense. Now let's dive into today's topics. We're going to talk about three types of online courses live group classes, self-paced classes and personalized tutoring and while each of these can offer multiple types of courses on multiple levels, I'm focusing on full course or full curriculum biology, chemistry or physics courses, and we're going to talk about the structure, advantages and disadvantages, as well as how to support your teen in each of these courses, so that you have a really good idea of what could be entailed in each one, so that you can make the decisions you need that best fit your teen and your family.

Speaker 1:

First, let's talk about live group classes. Now, while live group classes can bring that traditional classroom into a virtual setting, it can follow a range of formats depending on the teacher's approach. While some of them are more of a traditional classroom setup, some of them can be designed in a Montessori-style format that allows the student to take the lead in their learning and the teacher is more of a facilitator. However, the common thread is that multiple students will be attending the same class, and this provides opportunities for peer interaction. So let's talk about the structure for peer interaction. So let's talk about the structure. Live group classes that follow more of a traditional setting may include more teacher-led explanations, student group discussions and activities, or they may be more student-driven, and this depends on the teacher's style. The labs in these courses can be virtual labs or they can be home-based labs. They will also include assignments and assessments, but they will have a structured approach to learning, and by this I mean you will have a teacher-led instruction, some type of lab, some type of activity or assignment, and then an assessment at the end of a unit. On the other hand, you can have live group classes that are more flexible, where the teacher acts more as a facilitator while students explore topics at their own pace, but within a group setting. As far as materials are concerned, some classes may provide all required materials, while others may require you to purchase additional lab kits for those hands-on experiments that you can do at home additional lab kits for those hands-on experiments that you can do at home.

Speaker 1:

Now the advantages and disadvantages. Advantages include real-time interaction, and this fosters a sense of accountability and engagement in your students. You have peer collaboration that can enhance learning and make it more enjoyable, and another advantage is that you can select the class that either has only virtual labs or have home-based labs as an alternative, and this is great for families that may not be in a setting or have a situation where they can either complete home-based labs or can properly supervise their student through all home-based labs. Now let's talk about the disadvantages. One disadvantage is the required time commitment. Generally with a live group class, there are scheduled live group sessions and it's best if your student attend the live session because that way they get the most out of the class. They get the live peer interaction and the live interaction with the teacher. But this may conflict with your family's routine. Also, the level of individual attention can vary, especially if you have larger classes. So this may be something you want to consider if you know your team is going to need more one-on-one, individualized attention. Now let's talk about how to support your team if you're taking a live group class.

Speaker 1:

First, create a dedicated, distraction-free workspace. There have been plenty of times in my live group classes where my students become distracted by either by siblings or other things going on in the home, so having that distraction-free workspace helps them to pay attention to what we're doing in class. You also want to sync the class schedule with your family calendar. This will avoid any conflicts, any distractions from maybe preferring to be somewhere else instead of in class because we had a family double book time. And you want to encourage active participation. Even though some of my teams may not be on the camera, they are constantly chatting, they are sharing things and we know that they are participating. So, whether it's a teacher-led discussion or peer interactions, you reinforcing the teacher's expectation for active participation will help your teen to get the most out of that live group class.

Speaker 1:

The next one I want to talk about is personalized tutoring class. The next one I want to talk about is personalized tutoring. This is a one-on-one instruction tailored to your teen's specific needs. This approach worked best for my teens that needed high school credit but also had specialized needs or interests. For example, I had a teen that was with a traveling theater group. The schedule was really crazy. However, they needed high school chemistry credit. I was able to tailor the class where we saw chemistry at work in a theater, with props, makeup, lighting, and this resonated with that student's interest, while ensuring that they met their high school science standards. Another example may be integrating more anatomy and physiology lessons into a biology class for a pre-med focus, or designing physics challenges for an aspiring engineer. And for my teens that were earning credit, I would provide a complete structured program with lesson plans, labs, assessment and consistent feedback. This structure was designed for them, to meet their needs and to provide them with what they needed to take into college if that is what their next step was Now.

Speaker 1:

The advantages of this is that it's highly personalized, making it ideal for students who need extra support or want to explore specific interests. It is a flexible scheduling For my teens that traveled. I was able to adjust our meeting times where they still had live interaction with me, but we were able to better adjust to fit their changing schedules. And it also built up confidence, not only in science, but for chemistry and physics. It also built the confidence in math. Now, the disadvantages is that there is a higher cost associated because these are one-on-one sessions versus self-paced courses or live group courses, and it did not provide opportunities for peer-to-peer interactions. Because it was me and a student, they were not able to bounce those ideas or those understandings off other peers.

Speaker 1:

Now here are some tips on how to support your team. If personalized tutoring sounds like something that you want to explore more of to help your team meet their science credit, work with the tutor to set clear goals for progress. That is important. Make sure that you are understanding the scope and sequence of the class, your tutor has a clear understanding of your students' interests and goals and you set clear goals and milestones for that progress and you schedule sessions at times when your team is most alert and focused, while these times may change some teams are morning people, some teams are evening people but picking that time because you have that flexibility to be able to select the time where they're most focused take advantage of that and reinforce what they will learn in sessions by discussing these concepts and then encouraging real-world applications. For example, if you notice that your teen is studying plants and types of plants in biology, then reinforce that when you go to somewhere like Home Depot or take a field trip to a botanical garden.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about self-paced classes, and these allow your students to work through the material independently. That means without any teacher interaction or limited teacher interaction, and these courses are ideal for families needing maximum flexibility. But not all self-paced classes follow the same format. There are two that I'm going to talk about drip content classes and all-at-once classes. So drip content classes this is where the content is released gradually as students complete modules. They can be a pre-designed schedule where every other week you will get three assignments, or it can be as they complete a unit and they turn in that quiz, the next unit is open.

Speaker 1:

It just depends on how that class is set up, and the advantages to drip content is that it reduces the overwhelm that is often experienced when students will see all of the course materials at once. It also helps parents to monitor progress and ensure that students build a solid foundation before moving on to the more complex topics. And this leads to my third advantage is that it prevents a common stress point for both parents and students, and this is when students want to skip around the course, trying to complete easier lessons first or to make sure they complete a certain amount of lessons per week in students. And this is when students want to skip around the course, trying to complete easier lessons first or to make sure they complete a certain amount of lessons per week. Now, when they do this, it often backfires because they are skipping foundational concepts that they need in order to make later lessons make sense, and that leads to frustration and disengagement when these. Now.

Speaker 1:

A disadvantage for drip content courses is that it is less flexible for students who prefer to move ahead quickly. For example, if the next module is not released with the submission of the previous quiz, then they may have to put the brakes on for a second until that time frame roll around for that next module to be released. Now keep in mind that if a drip course is released based on a submission of a module or a lesson, the students tend to get a little wise to this and they will go ahead and submit that lesson just to get the next module open, but still have skipped lessons. So monitoring these courses is always the best bet, and having a drip content class helps you to be able to step in there and monitor their progress. Now let's talk about the all-at-once classes.

Speaker 1:

All of the content is available immediately, allowing students to move through it at their own pace. This is highly advantageous for those students who are highly disciplined and independent learners. They know the content, they are very quick with whatever that content is, whether it's biology, chemistry or physics and they just want the course within a very short period of time. They have the content to really go through it at a much quicker pace. Now the disadvantage is that it can lead to overwhelm. Also, when they see all of that content at once, they automatically become just so buried in what they have to learn that they feel that is unmanageable, and this lack of progress, if the student don't start strong, can lead to time management issues, and another disadvantage is that it makes it harder for you as parents to ensure that your teen is following a logical progression through the material, because they can have skipped several lessons before you even realize that they have skipped those lessons. Trust me, it does not take long for them to do so. If you feel your teen need more support in being structured through a self-paced course, then definitely look at your drip content. But if your teen is highly disciplined they are structured then going through a all-at-once type of self-paced course may be the best choice.

Speaker 1:

Now for the self-paced courses that I offer. They are drip content. This is why because most of the students that I work with need that extra support. In fact, based on the time you're listening to this podcast, you may be just in time for my first chemistry self-paced course, which is launching January 2025. Students can enroll anytime, complete the lessons at any time and you have access to the course for a full year, but the content is dripped. So, no matter the time that you enroll, then the content will be dripped and new lessons will be open on a timed basis. So this allows you, as parents, to better monitor your teen's progress and more easily know what is going on in the course before that overwhelm hits.

Speaker 1:

So now let me talk about how to best support your teen in self-paced classes. If this is sounding like something you would want to do, help them to establish a consistent schedule for working through the course, even if it's a drip content course, especially if it's a time drip content course. You don't want them to fall off or stop working and then have lessons constantly open up. They will begin to feel that overwhelm. You want to reinforce the importance of following that course sequence to avoid any gaps in understanding, and check in regularly to review that progress and address any challenges that your student may be facing, either with content or time management.

Speaker 1:

Now I hope this episode made picking the right online science course for your team a little less overwhelming. Live group classes are perfect if your team loves structure and learning alongside peers. Personalized tutoring is the way to go for one-on-one support tailored to their goals, whether they need extra help or they need to dive deeper into a topic or just have a special schedule and interest that they are pursuing. And self-paced courses well, they are ideal if your family needs the maximum type of flexibility, and whether they are drip content or all-at-once content will depend on if your student needs more of a structured approach to self-paced courses or if they are highly independent learners. Now, the best part is that there's an option for every learning style and schedule. It's all about finding what works for your teen and your family, so science will fit seamlessly into your homeschool high school plan. And don't forget, speaking of options, about my chemistry course that launches this January. This drip content class is built to keep things manageable, logical and stress-free, while helping your teen master the material they need to get their high school chemistry credit.

Speaker 1:

If you are listening to this podcast now, go ahead and use the links in the show notes and join the wait list to be the first to know when enrollment opens. And, as always, let me know if you have any questions, ideas or other experiences that you'd like to share. Head on over to my podcast page, which you can access by visiting my website at thesciencementorcom. Then select podcast from the menu and subscribe now to the Teaching High School Science podcast for your regular dose of motivation and just-in-time science ideas, and together let's make high school science a journey of exploration and achievement. Until next time, remember curiosity leads to endless possibilities.