When to Outsource in Homeschooling High School

Right now we are 11 years into our home education journey. I've had a front row seat to my children's entire education and it's the best and hardest thing I've done.

As someone who has spent a career in education and genuinely loves lesson and unit planning I have always written and developed 95% of my children's courses and I've been continuing this as we've moved into high school. I will say though that the time involved to create these courses in high school is increasing exponentially. Due to this I've been exploring ways to outsource and provide my teens with independent learning opportunities.

One resource that has proven valuable to us is Study.Com . This is a subscription based site that has literally thousands of online courses. Due to being online the delivery is typically video based with follow up online quizzes and exams. The videos are short and transcripts are provided. That said, the courses themselves are quite lengthy and thorough.

For me when I started looking at the options for courses I quickly learned that it wasn't my nature to outsource anything that I LOVED teaching or had considerable knowledge and skills in. Those are still best taught and facilitated by me. I am amble to provide a level of customization and creativity that suits our homeschool the best. What I CAN outsource though are the courses that interest my kids that I don't have a large knowledge base in or simply that I don't WANT to teach. Let's be honest here, you as a parent factor heavily into what is taught and how it is taught.

Recently my grade 10 son started the Computer Science 103 course. This is a great course for me to outsource given that I don't want to teach it and that I have spent 20 years as a Mac user. My son however has built his own gaming PC from scratch and this course gives him additional knowledge and skills in the PC world. PLUS (and this is a big plus), this particular course is recommended for a college transfer credit. This applies mainly to the US as the ACE and NCCRS accreditation boards recommend certain courses for college transfer credit and those boards are recognized at many US colleges and universities. While they may not transfer for credit within Canadian post secondary institutions I still find the courses valuable and will be including them as credits in my son's high school transcripts.

Another course I have my eye on is the Personal Finance 102. Recently our province declared that all students must have a Financial Literacy credit in order to graduate. I'm personally a fan of this move and it was already on our list to include even before it became a requirement. Resources and curriculum have been slow to be released and so I'm currently going to look at using the Personal Finance 102 from Study.com to get the ball rolling on that credit and for my teen to learn the ins and outs of personal finance.

Given that it is US based there will certain tax information that won't apply to us as Canadians but I've already taught my teens about the Canadian Tax system through the project I created. Click HERE to check it out.

If you'd like to check out Study.com click HERE or the picture below to access my affiliate link which will get you 25% off your first month's subscription fee.