ASU Support Cohort for independent coursework

A support cohort for students taking one of our preselected Universal Learner courses through Arizona State University. This allows students to try a college course facilitated through our organization with both in-person weekly group support meetings at our location in Naperville and the online course through ASU’s course platform.  Grading is done by Arizona State University and if you like the grade, there is an additional fee to convert to college credit.  If you don’t like the grade, no worries!  It won’t go on the permanent record!  Our instructor will have observer access to the student’s ASU Canvas classroom to monitor grades and progress.

See below for more details including parent considerations, required materials & time outside of class.

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Description

Support Cohort for students working on independent courses

In-person support group Fridays, 2:15-3:00pm and additionally approximately 8-10 hours of work to be done between meetings for 3 credit college courses; 11-13 hours of work for 4 credit classes.

Registration is for the Spring 2026 semester.  Course fee includes the $25 access to ASU’s Universal Learning courses but does not include optional $400 credit conversion feel.
Please consult us before winter break to ensure appropriate placement.

Courses Available (click here to expand section)
For high school students, a 3-credit college course fulfills a full year of high school credit.  Our organization will be helping students with planning and management of their course & projects in addition to consulting on the current course topic and additional information or ideas around the topic.  Our instructors have access to student’s ASU Canvas classroom to monitor progress and grading.

Courses we are prepared to support for Spring 2026:

With approval based on student writing skills:

If your student is interested in a course not listed, please e-mail us to inquire about whether we can support that course.  A full listing of ASU Universal Learner courses can be found here:  https://ulc.asu.edu/explore-courses/ 

Required Materials
 At minimum, students will need access to the internet (home or library) to access their online course, look up information, related published materials and/or videos and do work through the Canvas learning management system. Some videos provided by illuminat-ED will be subscription-based and issued by illuminat-ED as needed. Some videos will be freely available.

Additional materials may be required based on the course.

What Does Class/Meeting Time Look Like?
During the cohort meeting, we discuss:

  • How online/asynchronous courses differ from in-person courses so that students can learn to transition
  • Time management and planning challenges
  • Navigating the ASU course
  • Self-advocacy skills
  • Managing mental health, courseload and other life responsibilities
  • Additional topics as needed for the individual students in the cohort based on expressed concerns or our observations of student challenges

Students may also have a brief check-in with the instructor to discuss their individual progress and determine if they need an additional meeting time to help successful completion of their course.

Time Required Outside of Class
Arizona State University recommends 135 hours/semester for a 3-credit course (or 180 hours for BIO-130: Online Environmental Science) which would NOT include the time spent each week spent at in-person consultation at illuminat-ED because these meetings are not entirely devoted to the student’s individual course.  This leaves students with approximately 8-10 hours/week for 16 weeks (11-13 hours/week for BIO-130) to do outside of our in-person meetings.  We have found that amount of time will depend on your student’s speed/fluency with writing, reading, working on their course-related projects, extension activities they choose to engage in, or the difficulty of topic at hand and the content of the week.

Families should allocate 10 hours/week to complete various assigned activities and projects at first (13 hours/week for BIO-130).  This course assumes that students are working on their ASU course during Mid-winter Pause; but does assume work during Spring Break.

College Credit
This course is eligible for college credit transcripted through Arizona State University (ASU) on the students permanent college education record.  If at the end of the course you are pleased with the grade issued by ASU, you can pay a $400 fee to have the course transcripted.  You have one year to decide whether to convert to credit and process the conversion.

If you do not like the grade, you do NOT have to convert the course and there will be no permanent record of the college course involvement.  You can transcript the course as an introduction to health & wellness or simply “health” and use the syllabus to list the areas where your student has done well in your homeschool course descriptions.  We can help you with this.

Parent Considerations
These are college courses that are more demanding than a typical high school course.  There is a strong online component as the course is a fully online program.  As an ASU partner, we have access to a broad range of materials to help support students in-person with the content and are able to see where they might be behind or not doing well on assignments.

While we are running this cohort over the Spring 2026 semester, if your student is falling behind – they do have a full year to complete the course if needed.  Although your registration only covers in-person support for the semester, if your student lands in this situation, we will absolutely work with your family on a game plan for completion and are happy to provide check-ins each month through the end of their year-long access.

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