REVIEW OF Ontario Virtual School BY student, Alyson Chen

(4.5) Student Experience

I completed the SCH4U (12 Chemistry) course here. The lessons, gradebook, and coursework were well organized. Everything was relatively easy to find, and if I couldn't find it, my teacher, Ms. Eshaque, whom I had emailed often, would respond and help. A virtual lab in the last unit was only fully accessible when done in full-screen mode, which was a bit of a hassle because I did not realize it until I misclicked the button, as I never usually study in full-screen mode. But regardless, when I sent an email, my teacher had forwarded it to admin for help. My teacher responded and marked my assignments very quickly, usually responding within the same day or the next day. The virtual labs were very interesting. Regardless, it was a nice experience, especially since I was able to learn at my own pace and research in addition to reading and listening to the lessons.

The Best Part

My teacher responded and marked my assignments very quickly, usually responding within the same day or the next day. I liked how there were learning checks at the end of many of the lessons with 5 multiple-choice questions.

Suggested Improvements

For the multiple-choice questions at the end of most lessons, I think some of them may have had the wrong answer selected in the system. But it's formative, so it didn't really bother me. I don't think many people are using the discussion forum; I wanted to check it out, but I didn't see anything posted on the forum.

Hidden Details

There's a point system! I didn't realize until I was on my last unit, but there's one for completed assignments and login and completed lessons, etc. It ranks you among students of this course of all time and those who are currently enrolled. Whenever you log in, you earn 10 free points, so I was motivated to log in to complete my lessons every day. There are competitive practices as well, which I did not discover/find until later, but that would have been a fun system to collect more points too.

(4) School Leadership

I wish they would give more thorough advice- I found that many of my comments under my submissions were repetitive, saying I needed to be more detailed. I wanted to improve and receive full marks because I'm quite the perfectionist, but I can't really do that if I don't receive enough comments/advice under my assignments to improve upon. But they were quite nice and respectful- I mainly only contacted my teacher and no one else. She always found ways to help me out and took my email regarding a test into consideration, as I was suspected of using AI for including too much detail on my first unit test. She corrected my mark and also explained to me a question I did not really understand on the test afterwards.

(4.5) Teaching

Comments and next steps written under my submissions were not enough for me to fully understand what I needed to improve upon, but I believe the teacher did not ask too much or too little of me. She makes sure that the expectations/criteria are met.

(5) Academics

All the assignments were just right; they took a good amount of time and were not a stress factor for me. There are a lot of assignments, though- more than what you'd get in day school- so sometimes it is a bit of a hassle, but I think it's expected for an online course.

(5) School Life

(5) Admissions