Edgenuity: The Comprehensive Guide

Edgenuity is an online platform for learning that is used by schools and students across the United States and internationally. It provides standards-aligned curriculum and virtual instruction to support traditional classroom programs and full-time virtual schools. Learn more from here about Edgenuity comprehensive guide.

What is Edgenuity?

Edgenuity Inc. is an educational technology company that offers online curriculum, instruction, and assessment tools for middle and high school students. Founded in 1998, Edgenuity’s digital curriculum aims to provide engaging and effective learning solutions to schools and districts in helping students develop knowledge and skills aligned to state and Common Core standards.

Some key things to know about Edgenuity:

• It offers core curriculum for math, ELA, science, and social studies for grades 6-12. Subjects like AP®, honors, electives and CTE courses are also available.
• Uses an online learning management platform to assign video-based lectures, assignments, quizzes.
• Aligned to state standards and Common Core. Course content has won multiple awards from reputable education organizations like SIIA.
• Used for both blended learning alongside regular classroom instruction and for full-time virtual programs.
• Claims to offer a high degree of flexibility with self-paced learning or structured virtual classes. Students can access lessons 24/7.
• Has reporting features that give real-time data on student progress to teachers. Aims to identify gaps in understanding.
• Used by over 1000 school districts, charter networks, and virtual schools across all 50 states in the US. Also used internationally.

So in summary, Edgenuity is a leading online learning platform for middle and high school curriculum, instruction and assessments to meet student learning needs in traditional, blended and virtual education models across the country.

How Edgenuity Works

Edgenuity delivers its online curriculum and instruction through an easy-to-use learning management system (LMS). Students access their learning materials by logging into this Edgenuity platform using a provided username and password.

Within the LMS, students have an overview page where they can view the entire curriculum and see how they are progressing in each course. Core features of the platform include:

Direct-Instruction Videos

Students watch short video lectures delivered by virtual instructors. These videos explicitly teach concepts, model processes and skills, and provide examples to scaffold learning objectives. Videos range from 5-15 minutes.

Practice Activities

After watching a video lecture, students complete low-stakes practice activities to start applying the knowledge, test understanding, identify areas needing review. This helps knowledge stick.

Assessments

Students are assessed through regular quizzes, unit tests, cumulative exams, and writing assignments graded by AI algorithms and/or teachers as needed. These measure mastery on standards.

Tracking Progress

The LMS captures and reports data on time students spend in the system, completion rates for assignments, score results and progress to teachers in real-time. This is used to diagnose problem areas and advance students accordingly.

With this combination of instructional videos, ongoing practice, assessments, adaptive remediation and progress tracking features, Edgenuity aims to offer an effective solution to meet rigorous learning goals both in traditional and virtual schools.

Edgenuity Course Offerings

Edgenuity provides over 300 standards-aligned courses for middle school and high school across core subjects, AP®, electives, career and technical education (CTE), and credit recovery.

Core Curriculum

The core curriculum focuses on courses in:

• English Language Arts (ELA) – covering reading comprehension to writing composition
• Mathematics – options range from pre-algebra to calculus, statistics
• Science – physical science, biology, chemistry, physics and more offered
• Social Studies – world history, US history, government, economics

Along with meeting state standards, many Edgenuity math and ELA courses are also aligned to Common Core standards. All content is designed by subject matter experts and undergoes rigorous reviews to ensure quality.

Advanced Placement®

Over 30 AP® courses are available on topics spanning English language and composition, statistics, psychology, environmental science, human geography, macroeconomics and beyond.

Electives

Edgenuity has over 100 elective course options in areas like:

• World languages – Spanish, French, Chinese
• Fine arts – music, visual arts, art history
• General electives – personal finance, health, computer skills

This flexibility allows schools to offer diverse electives. Students can also enroll in classes not available locally to advance learning.

Career and Technical Education

For career prep, Edgenuity offers over 50 CTE courses to provide career skills training in high-demand fields such as business, engineering, IT, healthcare and skilled trades. Many courses help students prepare for industry certification exams as well.

Credit Recovery

For students who have failed courses previously, credit recovery courses are available to allow them to complete credits at their own pace to potentially graduate on time.

With curriculum customized state by state, Edgenuity gives schools in all 50 states online options aligned to local standards needed for graduation requirements.

Benefits of Using Edgenuity

Edgenuity touts numerous benefits associated with using its online learning platform including:

Personalized Learning

Self-paced courses allow students to move at their own pace whether accelerating learning or needing more time to study concepts in depth without falling behind. Direct instruction is available anytime as needed.

Engaging Platform

Short video lessons aim to better capture student attention online (compared to lectures) while also allowing flexibility over pace and repetition as needed. Practice activities test understanding.

Standards Alignment

All courses strictly align to state and/or Common Core standards giving schools compliance for scope and sequences mandated in their district or state. Rigorous reviews ensure quality.

Advanced Placement®

The College Board does an annual audit review of Edgenuity’s 30+ AP® courses for alignment to ensure they effectively prepare students for success on AP® exams. Partnership allows even small or rural schools to offer more AP options.

Real-Time Progress Monitoring

The LMS captures granular student usage analytics and performance data to enable educators to diagnose knowledge gaps in real-time, intervene early, and keep students advancing appropriately towards completion.

By leveraging technology for direct-instruction, practice, assessment and tracking, Edgenuity aims to offer an engaging platform that also keeps students progressing towards rigorous goal completion. Benefits include personalization, flexibility, alignment to various standards, expanding course options, and actionable performance data.

Effectiveness of Edgenuity

Edgenuity claims its online courses are proven to deliver positive student outcomes based on student performance data collected from usage nationally. However, independent third-party research validating effectiveness is limited currently.

Some key metrics Edgenuity reports based on its broad usage across schools include:

• Average course pass rates of 70% nationally
• Over 60% of students showing gains on pre and post course assessment results
• Higher credit attainment and grade improvements specifically within credit recovery courses

However exact study details substantiating these claims are not outlined transparently for objective evaluation. There is a need for more randomized controlled trials specifically isolating usage of Edgenuity courses as the intervention to measure effectiveness rigorously based on control groups.

Some smaller third-party studies have shown moderately positive outcomes so far:

• A 2018 study showed Edgenuity students outperformed control groups on district EOC exams. But sample was very limited at one virtual school.
• A dissertation paper revealed greater course pass rates for at-risk students using Edgenuity for credit recovery vs traditional methods. But this had no control group and methods lacked scientific rigor.

Larger scale scientific research is still needed on Edgenuity’s impact on indicators like student grades, test scores, graduation rates to substantiate its claims of improving student outcomes for diverse student groups. Ongoing research guided by their Research Advisory Board aims to address this need. But prevalent studies in peer-reviewed journals are still minimal presently.

So in summary – while internal usage analytics data indicates potential promise, truly scientific third-party evidence validating Edgenuity’s efficacy to improve student learning is still emerging. More quantitative studies meeting evidence standards are required to guide usage and adoption fully.

How Much Does Edgenuity Cost?

Edgenuity charges fees on an annual per-student basis. Basic costs are based on total student enrollment size, additional costs apply for supplementary services needed. Some key details on pricing options:

• Their website provides general pricing guidance based on total students but exact rates require direct contact. As enrollments rise, per student rates can lower making larger contracts more affordable.
• Annual contracts allow for unlimited student enrollments in Edgenuity courses with rates starting from $1250 per student at lowest subscription tier. Higher tiers offer decreasing rates down to around $225 per student for highest enrollment bands. Minimum orders also apply.
• Additional fees would apply for any supplementary services needed like custom content development, LMS configurations, implementation training, live virtual instruction add-on, and professional development for teachers.
• On average most school districts spend between $150-$250 per student annually for Edgenuity usage including supplementary services based on education week cost analysis. Mid-large districts may negotiate lower volume rates.
• Besides unlimited students option, schools can also purchase limited enrollments like 25, 50 or 100 student packs but this raises per student costs again. Site-based licenses also offered.
• Credit recovery and summer school limited enrollments offered at lower rates since duration shorter vs full course enrollments.

In general costs vary based primarily on total student volume as this drives per student rate discounts. But supplementary services needed and specific contracts like limited enrollments or site licenses also impact pricing. On average $150-$250 per student per year is common although lowest and highest extremes also exist.

As with any software platform, total cost of ownership should evaluate both direct fees paid to vendor as well as internal staff training, implementation, and management costs over time. Cost efficiencies via automation must outweigh expenses of maintaining and supporting the technology integration.

Criticisms of Edgenuity

While Edgenuity is used broadly across US public schools and has promising data indicators on utilization, it also faces some criticism regarding aspects of the student experience and overall efficacy:

###Tedious User Interface The interface involves clicking through multiple pages and somesmall action steps that students find repetitive. The constant stopping, loading of pages and answering one question at a time hinders engagement and workflow for some.

Surface-Level Learning

The emphasis on short lecture videos and bite-sized formative activities is viewed by some educators as promoting more surface vs deeper learning as students focus on doing least to progress. Passively clicking through videos and inputs doesn’t cement comprehension.

Teacher Involvement Still Crucial

While Edgenuity aims for students to have some autonomy in self-directed learning, lack of teacher presence and relationship building makes students less accountable. Direct human intervention is still key for discipline, relationship building and deeper instruction.

Research on Effectiveness Lacking

As outlined earlier, clear quantitative data from large well controlled studies validating improved student achievement via Edgenuity is still lacking. Research following scientific standards can help schools make fully informed adoption choices.

In general while Edgenuity offers a promising platform for expanding curriculum, automating instruction delivery and tracking performance data, questions remain on whether this truly translates into student learning gains across contexts. More formal research is still needed to substantiate benefits for certain student segments.

Combining Edgenuity in a blended learning model – leveraging strengths of technology for personalization while retaining human teacher guidance for relationship building and deeper instruction – may provide the right balance for many schools instead of wholly replacing teachers with just automated video lessons. The balance of innovative technology plus teaching art remains key.

Conclusion and Summary

In summary, Edgenuity is a leading educational technology provider of online curriculum, instruction and assessment tools for middle and high schools across the United States. It offers core, elective, AP® and CTE courses along with features for self-paced learning, performance tracking and reporting.

Benefits highlighted include personalized learning, expanding access to more course options, alignment to various state and national standards, and real-time progress monitoring of student data. However costs vary based on total student enrollments and supplementary services needed for setup and training.

While internal data indicates positive usage trends, third party research substantiating Edgenuity’s impact on actual indicators like higher test scores, grades, and graduation rates is still limited. Some critique aspects like the tedious interface and surface-level learning being promoted via the bite-sized video format. More quantitative studies are needed to validate effectiveness conclusively, especially for struggling student segments.

In balancing innovation with art, Edgenuity may prove most effective when blended with some human teacher guidance instead of being used as sole replacement for instruction. Combining benefits of flexible pacing, expansive course access and instant performance data with human relationships and interventions tailored to individual learners may allow schools to leverage Edgenuity’s platform strengths most optimally in serving all students.