The development team of instructional designers and support staff work with subject matter experts and curriculum reviewers to write the content and review the accuracy of the material. Today, she supervises five instructional designers and numerous subject matter experts for the school's development projects.
Echard and her team felt they could use the QM membership to help them make improvements in the quality of their courses. When VSLA joined QM and offered membership to every virtual school in the alliance, Ms. She first learned about QM when she attended the 5th Annual QM Conference in 2013 in Nashville TN. Tami Echard, the Supervisor of Instructional Development, has been with Georgia Virtual Learning since 2006. They now use their skills and expertise learned from the QM K-12 Secondary Rubric and review process to provide feedback on GaVS courses. This group has completed the flagship K-12 Applying the Quality Matters Secondary Rubric workshop and the K-12 Reviewer Course.
GaVS has used Quality Matters professional development workshops and courses to train a set of three teachers and two administrators. Their Development Team evaluated their existing courses and identified some areas of emphasis so their courses could be updated to meet more of the QM requirements. GaVS is using the Quality Matters Rubric as a guideline. Some of the partner schools are participating in QM-Managed Course Reviews for QM certification, while others are completing internal reviews. Joining QM as a consortium provides the members of the VSLA with a common language, and allows them to work together to conduct collaborative reviews across VSLA schools. The members of the VSLA have found value in their QM membership in a variety of ways. Georgia Virtual School and Quality Matters GaVS as a member of the Virtual School Leadership Alliance (VSLA), an association of the chiefs of virtual schools that provides collegial support and collaborative opportunities to the individual members and member organizations, is able to share resources, services, and expertise with other virtual State Schools. As a member of the VSLA, GaVS was able to become a member of Quality Matters (QM) to help review and improve the quality of their online offerings.
GaVS courses are free of charge to all Georgia public school students who are taking the courses as a part of their state reported school day, so course start and end dates coincide with regular school semesters. All GaVS courses are taught by Georgia certified, highly qualified teachers.
GaVS also equips students with an online media center and guidance center to support students throughout their online course experience. Last year GaVS served over 19,500 students in nearly 30,000 course segments, offering over 120 Online Courses and 97 Open Education Resources courses. Today, GaVS provides a teacher led, virtual classroom environment and operates in partnership with schools and parents to offer middle school and high school level courses across Georgia. With the many available virtual options available for our students, please contact our system's Virtual Learning Coordinator, Cara Hankinson, to help determine the best learning option for your child.Georgia Virtual School (GaVS), a program of the Georgia Department of Education's Office of Curriculum and Instruction was established in 2005 to provide options to students located in rural Georgia without access to AP courses. Thomas County Schools facilitates virtual learning for students in grades 6-12 using Georgia Virtual School. Georgia Virtual School is a program of the Georgia Department of Education's Office of Teaching and Learning. This program operates in partnership with schools and parents to offer students middle school and high school level courses across the state. K12 is a high-quality, personalized learning platform used by two million students worldwide. Thomas County Schools facilitates virtual learning for students in grades K-12 using the K12 online curriculum. The Thomas County Virtual Program serves students in grades K-12 from Thomas County as well as neighboring counties including Baker, Brooks, Calhoun, Colquitt, Decatur, Doughtery, Early, Grady, Lee, Miller, Mitchell, Seminole, Terrell, and Worth.