Welcome to Brave Virtual Academy

About Brave Virtual Academy

Brave Virtual Academy is our learning option for Indian Hill families wanting to study in a flexible, online environment. Our priority is to make sure that you, your child, and our educators work together to build a world-class learning environment for students.

Factors for a great learning experience include:

• Motivation of the learner; the more learners are motivated, the more they will learn (reason or purpose for learning)

• Proper stimulus (in the form of knowledge, skills, or attitudes) presented in an engaging and interactive manner (teaching)

• Opportunities to evaluate learning (application of learning)

• Timely and useful feedback on performance, including guidance for incorrect responses and reinforcement of the correct responses (feedback and reinforcement to complete the learning cycle)

• Celebration of progress (reflection on and acknowledgement of learning)

As a part of our Brave Virtual Academy, many things will be similar to what our face to face learners experience. Learners will have a mix of live and asynchronous learning incorporating the best of teaching practices:

• Personalization: providing unique learning pathways for individual students

• Agency: giving learners opportunities to participate in key decisions in their learning experience

• Authentic Audience: giving learners the opportunity to create for a real audience both locally and globally

• Connectivity: giving learners opportunities to experience learning in collaboration with peers and experts locally and globally

• Creativity: providing learners individual and collaborative opportunities to make things that matter while building skills for their future

In addition to experiences that are similar to face to face learning, at the Brave Virtual Academy we plan to take advantage of the flexibility online learning offers. Online learners will have access to:

• More one one one and small group time with teachers

• Customization in pacing of material

• More opportunities to collaborate with peers embedded into projects

• Additional chances to engage in personalized learning

• Emphasis on student-selected topics of study.

Families will have multiple opportunities throughout the year to provide input and feedback as to how our Brave Virtual Academy is working for learners. In return, we would ask that you give us grace and support by assuming we are all working together to help our learners to reach their full potential. There are still many details to coordinate and plan and while we may not have all the answers today, we are hard at work to have everything ready to go when your children join us for our opening. I think you and your child are going to love what we are envisioning!

This school year is going to be spectacular and we are so happy you are with us as partners in your child’s education. Please know that I am here to be of assistance to the BVA teachers, students and families. If I can help in any way, feel free to contact me at Kim.Given@ihsd.us or (513) 272-4674.