Utah High School Adult Education Online Program

A+® Accelerates Independent Learning on Uintah-Ouray Reservation

The Uintah-Ouray Reservation of the Northern Ute Indian Tribe is the largest reservation in Utah and one of the largest in the United States. Several thousand members of the Whiteriver, Uintah, and Uncompahgre bands live on millions of acres of Ute land in northeastern Utah, often in small, widely separated communities.

Fort Duchesne (pop. 621), which was closed by the Army in 1912, is part of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation and serves as its headquarters. There is work to do and decisions to be made: The Uintah-Ouray Reservation contains extensive reserves of oil, timber, and water. Raising cattle is a major source of income. The tribe operates a supermarket, gas stations, a feedlot for cattle, the municipal water system, and an energy company.

Fort Duchesne is also the home of the Uintah River High School, a charter school, and the community-based adult education program; they provide secondary education to mostly members of the Ute Tribe. Both the high school and the adult education program deliver courses with the A+nyWhere Learning System® (A+LS™) courseware.

Jenna Duncan has been the Ute Indian Tribe’s adult education program coordinator since 2007. “The high school uses A+LS for credit recovery with students who are still in school,” says Duncan. “In adult ed, we use A+LS with students who have dropped out and come back to earn a high school diploma.”

Duncan describes the adult education system setup: “We have 10 computers in the adult ed lab. A+LS tech support has been very good. My initial training on the system was thorough, and I got a lot of oneonone time. Right now, we use A+LS only on the local network. In the next several weeks, we’ll be adding a schooltohome capability that will allow students who have their own computers to study at home. Not all our students have computers, but many of the communities have a shared workstation, available to all community members. With schooltohome in place, our students will be able to continue their educations with fewer delays. At the same time, even though the students will be working offsite, I’ll be able to keep track of each student’s progress.”

“Our students are independent learners,” says Duncan. “They seem to work better that way. I’m not sure of the exact reason. I’m a facilitator, helping them learn. These are students who have had a hard time in the traditional classroom. But as independent learners using A+LS, our native students are succeeding. A+LS allows for very individualized learning. I like that A+LS can stop exactly where the student needs to stop, and then can pick up again exactly where the student left off—even if the student misses a week or two, as our adult ed students occasionally have to do. A+LS helps prevent the student from falling behind.”

Duncan strongly endorses a selfpaced learning strategy. “Some students can complete courses in less time than others,” says Duncan. ”A+LS creates a tremendous opportunity for each student to learn at his or her own pace and to earn credits in the shortest possible time. There is no fixed amount of seat time that is required of all students.”

“One student from this summer stands out as an example,” Duncan continues. “He needed six credits. Within two months he had caught up and was back on track for graduation. He was able to learn at his own pace. As he moved through the lessons and learned the material, the credits came as a natural result.”

Research Supports Experience

Research confirms Duncan’s observations. One study conducted in Texas, documented in Credit Recovery: A Technology Based Intervention for Dropout Prevention At Wichita Falls High School (Trautman and Lawrence, 2004), found that students who had completed half or more of the credits needed for graduation and who then took part in an intensive credit recovery program using A+LS courseware were able to earn recovery credits at about twice the rate of students in the general population. Furthermore, the students taking part in the credit recovery program did nearly as well as students in the general population on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test, which is required of all students for high school graduation in Texas.

Throughout their history, the Ute people have demonstrated a tenacious pride in their culture, land, and destiny. It’s a destiny that encompasses the people as a whole and each individual member of the tribe. “In the last two years,” says Duncan, “I’ve graduated 11 students through our adult ed program.” These students are now far better prepared to meet the challenges that inevitably lie ahead—better prepared to take part in a destiny that is, as the Ute people say, forever.

Read Published A+ Success Story HERE: Fort Duchesne Utah Adult Education Online Program A+ Success

Tags: A+ Success Adult Education, Duchesne Uintah River High School Credit Recovery, Online Credit Recovery Utah, Utah Adult Education Online Program, Utah High School Adult Education