Virtual Academy Collaborative Materials

TIP has released e-course supplemental materials in Math I, Math II, Math III, English I/II, and Biology as part of TIP’s Virtual Academy Collaborative (VAC). All course materials are free and available through the Canvas Commons or via download at https://vac.tipnc.org.

Course packages have been curated over the past three years by subject-area teachers from TIP member districts, with logistical support from the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at N.C. State University.

TIP districts have seen significant value through their use of the VAC course materials. “The materials were created by teachers, for teachers, to help them personalize education based on each student’s needs,” says Freddie Williamson, superintendent of Hoke County Schools. “Our teachers rave about the benefits of having resources that pertain directly to North Carolina’s curriculum and that offer strategies for teaching to the depth of the standards.”

TIP members use the VAC course materials in a variety of contexts, including as electronic alternatives to textbooks, as supplements to in-class instruction, to set up “flipped classrooms,” to create mastery checklists and let students proceed at their own pace, and for credit recovery and homebound students. In Hoke County, Dr. Williamson explains, “teachers use the materials to remediate struggling students and to extend learning for students that need enrichment. Some teachers like the resources so much they have created blended learning stations to use them in class. Other teachers have used them to extend their instructional efforts beyond the normal school day and to help give absent students opportunities to learn while they’re out of school and to make up missed work.”

All content is licensed as Creative Commons (CC BY-SA-NC 4.0). Teachers may use the VAC site to locate resources for their classrooms, or they can import course packages into their learning management systems and remix, modify, and customize the content. The license requires users to give appropriate attribution, refrain from using the material for commercial purposes, and distribute any materials built on these course packages under the same Creative Commons license.

The release of these course materials fits with TIP’s practice of incubating new and promising projects within its network of member districts and then making them widely available to the field.

For those interested in getting a feel for the course materials, Lead Developer Stacy Moore conducted a detailed walk-through of Math II to coincide with its release in August. Math II includes full ADA accessibility (alt text and closed captioning). The archived webinar walk-through is available by clicking on the image below.