Enhancing Your Homeschool Experience: Seton’s Projects for 2016

At Seton, we’ve always been about supporting Catholic families and Catholic education.

Part of that mission is to ensure that your homeschooling is easily accessible, up-to-date, and focused on the most important things: Faith and family.

There are many exciting developments at Seton Home Study School that share these qualities.

As this new year kicks off, we are eager to share with you some of the hard work our team has done to enhance your homeschooling experience.

Here are our top three projects:

Seton Online Courses

Over the past year, Seton has been actively developing new digital courses as optional upgrades to high school student enrollments.

These digital courses make full use of the latest instructional technology to help your student better learn his or her material and assist you in tracking your student’s progress.

Here are just a few of the exciting new features these digital courses will offer your family:

Integrated Multimedia

Video, images, and audio are embedded throughout the course materials. Students will not need to hunt down any extra resources, or visit a separate resource web page.

All the materials available to help students are delivered at the right place in the lessons just at the time it is most relevant to the students.

Interactive Lesson Plans

Unlike printed lesson plans, course content and course instructions are integrated into one. Students simply follow the interactive instructions to complete their coursework, and are rewarded with visual cues that help them easily gauge their progress in the course.

Self-Checks

Throughout the digital courses, students have frequent opportunities to take interactive self-checks in order to reinforce materials learned and provide an idea of how well the student understands the material.

These self-checks don’t contribute to the overall grade, but help the student prepare for assignments that do.

Adaptive Lesson Delivery

In some courses, students have multiple study options. In English, for example, a student may choose among several books for book reports. With new digital courses, once a student indicates his or her choice, the resources and lesson material relevant to that specific student choice will be automatically integrated into the day-to-day lesson content.

This can be a tremendous time saver and academic help to students.

Seton will be releasing these courses as they become available. Stay tuned to Seton Magazine for details and news on when the first courses will be ready for student enrollment!

Seton in the Philippines

How many students can truly say they are a part of a school that has global impact? At Seton, you can because this past summer, Seton Home Study School was officially launched in the Philippines!

Recently, the Philippine Department of Education is requiring schools to transition from a K-10 to a K-12 curriculum. With the increased interest in homeschooling, Seton felt it was the right time to develop a support program to help educate the next generation of Catholic leaders.

Abby Sasscer, a regular contributor with Seton Magazine and a Filipina homeschooling mom herself, provided critical leadership and insightful guidance during the launch, as well as solidify relationships with our Partner Centers in Quezon City and Cebu City.

Abby was also able to coordinate Seton’s presence at a nationwide homeschooling conference-the first international conference outside of North America that Seton has ever attended!

Now, for the first time, Filipino familes can enjoy the benefits of homeschooling. This program:

• Delivers the same level of support to Filipino families as can be gained from our US-based program
• Provides access to counseling, grading, and Catholic materials for Filipino families;
• Offers an 11-12th grade curriculum to Filipino students, who will be required by law to complete a 12th year of formal education as of the 2017-2018 academic year;
• Opens the door for an expansion of local services as the Filipino homeschooling population grows.

To learn more about Seton and the Philippines, visit us on Seton Philippines, or on Facebook.

The Bayley Bulletin for Seton High Schoolers

The autumn of 2015 saw a relaunch of the Bayley Bulletin for Seton Home Study School’s high school students. Dramatically revised and expanded from the original format, the new Bayley Bulletin provides Seton high schoolers with their own outlet for advice, inspiration, information, and opinion, as well as a showcase for creative talents.

One of the most important features of the Bayley Bulletin is the way it connects Seton’s College Partners with our high school students.

The institutions in our College Partner Program are some of the finest Catholic colleges, and we are proud to be affiliated with them as well as support their significant contributions both to education and to Faith Formation. For many of our students, the Bayley Bulletin provides their first introduction to the colleges in our partnership, and it’s a great introduction because it combines:

• Brief overviews of the colleges;
• Easy access to additional information;
• Articles about life at our partner colleges from embedded Seton graduates;
• Partner College articles, written just for Seton students.

The combination of all these elements ensures that our students can come to know each college on a more personal level, even before visiting and/or applying.

Other features to enjoy in the Bayley Bulletin include:

• Literary contest winners;
• Seton alumni profiles;
• Seton staff articles on academics and life issues;
• Student essays on a variety of topics.

Read each issue, sound off on the articles, subscribe for free and/or contribute to our Embedded Grad series and more at BayleyBulletin.com.