Online Courses Coming to Paramus Catholic
Online Courses Offer New Way for High School Students to Learn
By KAITLYN STERZEL ’14
PARAMUS, NJ – Paramus Catholic High School students may enroll in collaborative, online learning courses for the 2013-14 school year.
Administrators at Paramus Catholic added five full year courses and eleven semester online courses for juniors and seniors. Students who take these courses will learn with a class of 15 to 25 other students from around the world. There is no face-to-face instruction and teachers expect their students to work on their assignments during their designated class period.
PC's Associate Principal, Ms. Stephanie Macaluso, said, “We have added these courses for disciplined, self-motivated students to learn about new topics and to connect them with students from other parts of the world. These classes will also give them a taste of the courses that will be available to them at the college level.”
The full year online courses are AP Music Theory, AP Government and Politics, AP Economics, AP Environmental Science, and AP Calculus BC. The semester courses are Music: Fundamentals of Composition, Biotechnology, DNA Technology, Genes and Disease Honors, Engineering Principles, Philosophy I Honors, Sports and Society, Twentieth Century Women Authors, Spanish Culture and 20th Century Hispanic Literature, German Language and Culture, and Russian Language and Culture.
According to Ms. Joan Silo, Vice Principal of Academics, “Online collaborative learning is not for everyone, as there is no face-to-face instruction time with teachers.” She added, “This type of learning requires self-discipline, academic ability, and technical competence. Students in these courses must be comfortable communicating through modern technologies.”
Students who plan to take these online courses must obtain their guidance counselor’s approval before they can begin the class. Guidance counselors will approve or deny requests for online courses after checking each student’s grades from previous classes and seeking teacher recommendations.
Michael Kenny, a junior at Paramus Catholic, said, “I’m excited to take an online course and challenge myself. I think I’ll be able to handle an online course. It’s pretty cool that we will be working with students and teachers from around the world, too.”
