DVD homeschooling has been many busy family’s choice for years to give their kids a stable, structured homeschooling option. It’s convenient, sure, and not asking parents to build from scratch. But as technology advances and the needs of students evolve, most families want to add some more flexible and interactive tools to their DVD homeschool program.
This guide explores how DVD homeschooling works, the benefits of an online homeschooling program like Power Homeschool, and how to supplement homeschool DVDs with online learning.
What Is DVD Homeschooling?
A DVD homeschool curriculum is a set of educational materials compiled on a DVD. The content often includes instructions and teacher-led video lessons for a full school year. Depending on the curriculum provider, the DVD may be delivered with parent guides, workbooks for a particular subject or grade, and answer keys. This type of curriculum is effective for parents who want to provide instructions without creating their own lesson plans and materials.
Unfortunately, most DVD programs don’t incorporate built-in progress-tracking features, flexible lessons, or immediate feedback—areas in which a computer program such as Power Homeschool can really help out.
How Power Homeschool Can Supplement DVD Homeschooling
Power Homeschool is a Web-based curriculum that supports homeschool families with interactive, self-paced learning. Rather than replacing your current homeschool approach, Power Homeschool might complement DVD lessons, fill in academic gaps, or allow students to research topics not traditionally addressed in typical DVD curricula.
Here’s why Power Homeschool complements a DVD-based program:
1. Self-Paced Learning
Self-paced learning encourages students to learn at their own pace. They can move on to the next topic as soon as they understand a concept or receive additional assistance with the topics they find more challenging.
Prism Diagnostics® and Vectored Instruction™ are cutting-edge technologies we use to provide students with the assistance they need. Prism Diagnostics® identifies when a student requires a better understanding of core concepts and immediately provides them with videos that address these concepts. Vectored Instruction™ fills learning gaps by helping students master foundational skills necessary for their success in a current course. This personalized attention helps students improve memory retention and academic performance.
2. Flexible Curriculum
Another advantage of Power Homeschool is our comprehensive and flexible curriculum. We enable parents and students to tailor their homeschool curriculum to the student’s goals and needs. For example, parents can schedule the school day to match the child’s peak focus hours and their family’s lifestyle.
This makes our online homeschooling curriculum a great opportunity for traveling families or parents who wish to incorporate learning experiences into educational vacations and field trips. Online homeschooling allows you to dictate your own schedule every day to match your routine.
3. Range of Class Options
As a provider of Acellus® courses, we offer hundreds of course options for students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. While core subjects may be compulsory, we also offer a wide variety of elective and career training options. These course options help to expand students’ knowledge and skills to create a solid foundation for building a successful career.
Some class options include world languages, music, art and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. STEM subjects can be a great choice to leverage opportunities in a technology-forward world. These classes allow your child to sharpen their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
4. Engaging and Interactive Learning Materials
Our online homeschooling materials include resources that enrich the learning experience. Some key features include:
- Diverse support resources: Our resources accommodate different learning styles to help students retain information. To assist visual and auditory learners, we ensure each lesson starts with a video taught by teachers who are experts in their field. After video lessons, students may also receive practice problems to apply newly learned information, which is helpful for hands-on Students move on to the next lesson after mastering the current concept.
- Student dashboard: Students enrolled in Power Homeschool gain access to a student dashboard where they can access their courses at any time and from anywhere. Here they can also see their course grades, progress and goals set by you as the parent.
- Reviews and exams: Upon completing each unit, students take a review and then an exam, which helps them reinforce their knowledge. During reviews, they can study past lesson videos and help resources.
5. Goal Tracking Features
Power Homeschool has a built-in goal features where you can customize exactly how much work you would like your student to complete in each of their courses. These not only give you control over the pace at which your student completes their courses, but also motivates and excites students to get all of their schoolwork done on-time.
6. Parental Resources
In addition to goal-setting and tracking features, Power Homeschool also offers other parental resources to empower parents through the homeschooling journey. With our Acellus® courses, we also do the heavy lifting of grading all of the student’s assignments and the keeping of reports showing each subject they master. These include detailed reports showing their course grades, time spent, and progress, all of which can be printed at any time for your homeschool records. These features allow you to focus on helping your child wherever they need extra support, rather than spending countless hours on manual tasks.
7. Special Accommodations
Many families have reported outstanding results when using our homeschooling program for their students with special needs. Our courses allow students to work through lessons at their own pace and provides extra help resources when they find certain concepts challenging.
These resources help prevent them from falling behind and ensure students gain a solid understanding of each topic. They can also learn in an environment that is most comfortable for them.
How to Supplement DVD Learning with Power Homeschool
Here are a few tips for supplementing homeschool DVDs with online learning through Power Homeschool:
- Use interactive learning resources: Supplement your homeschool DVDs with video-based lessons taught by professionals in their field. Your child may also benefit from Power Homeschool’s practice problems, extra help videos and additional help resources.
- Make plans with other homeschooling parents: Use Power Homeschool’s parent support group to arrange extracurricular activities and field trips for your child with other homeschooled children. Doing so can increase opportunities for socialization with children learning similar concepts.
- Leverage reviews and exams: Instead of taking exams that need to be reviewed by parents, Power Homeschool offers digital review sessions and exams at the end of each unit to reinforce lessons. This feature allows busy parents to simply review student progress rather than creating a question sheet and marking their child’s answers after a DVD lesson.
Start Homeschooling with Power Homeschool Today
As a homeschooling platform, we aim to set students up for success with a range of resources that prepare students and keep parents engaged. Are you ready to upgrade your DVD homeschool curriculum with Power Homeschool?
Whether your child is in elementary, middle or high school, browse our courses to learn more today.
