The Homeschool How To

Curriculum Series: ASU Universal Pathways- College Courses Weaved Into Your Homeschool

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The Homeschool How To Curriculum Series

Access to Curriculum Series

Ever wondered how a 12-year-old can manage college-level studies while being homeschooled? Meet Layla, an inspiring young learner who shares her unique educational journey with us. Layla discusses how the ASU Universal Learner program's online college-level English course, which focuses on ChatGPT, has been both manageable and enriching. Through homeschooling, Layla has been able to pursue advanced studies in library science, working towards an associate's degree and planning for an early high school graduation. This episode is a testament to how homeschooling can foster individualized learning paths and early college preparation, making higher education accessible regardless of traditional enrollment.

As we conclude our chat with Layla, we take a moment to express our gratitude for her insightful contributions. We also urge you to spread the word about our main series, "The Homeschool How To," by sharing it with your friends, family, and across social media platforms like Instagram and homeschool group Facebook pages. By sharing this podcast, you help us continue to offer hope and valuable insights for the future. Join us for an inspiring episode that showcases the boundless possibilities homeschooling can offer for young, motivated students.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Homeschool How-To Find my Curriculum, a series where we talk all about curriculum. I've been interviewing homeschooling families for over a year now on my main podcast, the Homeschool How-To, but I really wanted to zero in on curriculum. There's so much out there. How do I know what would work best for me and my child? How do I know what works for one child would work for the other? I might like the curriculum I'm using now, but how do I know there's not a better one out there, especially if I don't know all the curriculums? And what about supplemental curriculum? Should I be using that too? This series is to help you decide just that. I'm going to interview parents who are using all the curriculums so that you can decide the absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. The absolute best way to unfold your homeschooling journey. Welcome with me. Today for our curriculum series. I have Layla, who is a homeschooled student. Layla, thank you for being here. Of course, it's great to be here. So you are homeschooled yourself right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I am. I've been homeschooled for all my life, 12 years.

Speaker 1:

Wow, okay, so how old are you?

Speaker 2:

I am turning 13 in three months, and so yeah, I'm only 12 right now.

Speaker 1:

Wow, do you, do you enjoy being homeschooled?

Speaker 2:

I do. I really like it because you know I can spend more time with family and stuff and focus on my extracurricular stuff more than the broad stuff that I won't really use in the future.

Speaker 1:

That's so true. I mean, yeah, I've been just noticing that more and more and the more people I talk to like how much of the basic stuff that we spend so much time in school learning about, but you never really get into any sort of nitty gritty to it to even know if it's a field that you would want to go into. Like they just brush over these weird things, all the different maths and stuff that you never need to know, but they never put it in any sort of context Like this is the job that you would need geometry. It's just like you're there to just waste your days away. So, all right, that's cool. That that's how you said. I can't wait to talk to you further about that stuff, but for right now we are going to talk about ASU Universal Learner. It's an English program, correct?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it is. It's a college level English.

Speaker 1:

Ooh. So at 12 years old, you're taking college level English.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I'm doing dual enrollment. So I will have my associate's degree this next year for library science. So yeah, I'm getting into the college stuff. I'm taking college classes this year.

Speaker 1:

That all right. I can't wait to talk to you on the main podcast about that stuff. So you're 12 taking college level stuff. Is it hard?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it's okay. So the English it's. It's pretty easy and forward. For this English it's more of like a relax. It's okay. So the English it's. It's pretty easy and forward. For this English it's more of like a relax. It's online. I don't do in person stuff and I think it's honestly comes easy for me because I've always loved writing and stuff, so I think I think it's not as hard as people expect it to be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, and especially, I guess, when you're going into that field. If you're going into library science, you obviously like reading. But wow, what does that say, though, about like, what kids can achieve when you're not locked in a building all day long and you can do what?

Speaker 2:

interests you. I know because of homeschooling. Like you know, if I wasn't homeschooled we wouldn't have time for all this stuff and all this learning so that I can get, like, into a good college. That's my whole point, for this stuff is to get experience for my future.

Speaker 1:

I mean, what college will you need? You'll have, you'll have like a master's degree by the time you're 16.

Speaker 2:

That's I know, that's what I that's what I'm graduating high school when I'm 16, because of all the stuff that I'm doing and I want to do Claremont College and library science and get my master's and bachelor's for library science.

Speaker 1:

Oh, how cool. Well, congrats to you on your accomplishments so far. But let's, talk about ASU Universal Learner? I have not heard of this one, so this is is this for homeschoolers?

Speaker 2:

It's no, it's for everyone, it's just. It's just like an online college course and it's mostly about the main topic they focus on is chat, gpt and how it helps, and it's pretty long Like I think I've been at it for like four or five months now and I do one main assignment every week and then a little bit of that assignment each day.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so can do. You have to be accepted into a college to take this class.

Speaker 2:

Um, no, I think it was. It was actually really cheap. It was like $25. You don't have to really do anything for it. It's not like it's part of a certain college, but it's not like you need to be in it, because I'm not in this college, but I'm taking this class. It was really cheap and it's just for experience.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's important for people to know, people to understand. Even if you have young kids and you're kind of looking at the future, like is your goal for them? College? Is it to be, you know, a business owner, um, or maybe a two year school, versus you know the the university path? It's important to know that we can have our kids take these classes they don't have to be enrolled in school and it's affordable and that, whether they are going to be an entrepreneur or go on to a university, these help gain the experience. They make your portfolio look good.

Speaker 1:

I'm assuming to say that hey, at 12 years old I took a college level English class. It probably looks really good. I'm sure that is not something that most public schoolers have on their resume. So, all right, give me an example of what an assignment would be for ASU Universal Learner.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, I did. I'll start with the first one I did. It was pretty simple. It was like how would you ask for a longer deadline to your boss on an assignment, you know, and it was an essay, and you had to write a letter, like you're writing to a boss, which it was kind of like teaching you how to talk to authority figures and how you should address them and how you should talk professionally, especially for jobs later. So it's preparing you for all of this type stuff and I remember I think I did get a full grade on that, which is pretty good, and you know it was. It was, it was pretty easy. You know they don't do like they're not crazy assignments. There's essays, but I think it was 700 words, 500 words. It was 700 words, 500 words, I want to say. So it was. It was pretty good for the first one. And then they have, you know, questions and like surveys sometimes about what you know, just to make sure you know your understanding.

Speaker 1:

And then they have videos you can watch as well, okay, and do you have an actual teacher for this?

Speaker 2:

There's like the teacher. They have you learn off of transcripts of the videos or just the videos themselves. They don't per se like actually go on like a Zoom class and teach you. It's not like an online technical like that kind of thing, it's just videos and reading and they grade you on. It also helps with your attention to detail, you know, because you don't have someone talking to you at on the spot. You know you can take your time to read and pay attention and, you know, really get that in your head more, which does help for college, so you can learn to be ready on the spot. So who's doing the grading? Um, I'm not sure of the name, but I think it's one of the. It's one of the teachers from the issue.

Speaker 1:

It's a human.

Speaker 2:

Yes, is, it is a human indeed. Yeah, and they get feedback. Like you know, they'll have like a paragraph of feedback for you interesting, okay, so where is the chat gpt?

Speaker 1:

where does that fall in?

Speaker 2:

okay, so it's. It was, you know, after the email to the boss and stuff it came into does chat gpt like there's a whole like section of assignments where it was chat gpt correcting your work it's helping you understand that you need an editor. Everyone has an editor. It's basically saying you know teaching kids, if someone corrects you, don't be like, don't be upset, it's just they want to help you in that. In that way this helps them understand like, oh, you know, maybe everyone needs an editor. And if they're not like comfortable, I guess you could say with someone like telling them chat gpt is a good way to check your work and make sure you check your work and it's about running things, your work through chat gpt. So it'll have it. You write an essay and then you put it through chat gpt and change some things and you know. So it could say oh see, it actually helps you and it's not like scary or bad to use chat gpt okay.

Speaker 1:

So how does the teacher know that you're the one writing this?

Speaker 2:

with a chat gpt editor, that's versus you.

Speaker 1:

Just have chat gpt, write it for you see, that's the thing with all these things.

Speaker 2:

Now is that's another thing the course we're talking about it's like no one knows if it's chat gpt writing it, you know. So it's it's telling you, it's trying to convince you not to is one of the main points it has has with the argument they're trying to say is that the course it's like you know it's just do it fairly. You know you can add in some aspects of chat dpt's words and it's teaching you don't don't just fully generate it. People can tell. There was an assignment where it was like which one was chat dpt and what was human, you know, and it was just trying to get you to say, like you know, oh, maybe it's kind of easy to tell whether it's chat TPT or maybe it's not. And they're trying to tell you that maybe you should just rely on yourself and you can still add aspects of chat TPT without cheating.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a fine line, isn't it? It's interesting, I did not have that when, I mean, when I was in school, we didn't even have like internet. I'm sure there was an internet, it wasn't in everybody's in the palm of their hand and I guess yeah, I guess we had it at home, but it didn't have stuff like write my essay.

Speaker 1:

You know, I feel like. I feel like when I was your age well, or high school level, you you would go online and like find sources and write your essays, and they didn't even want you doing that. They wanted you to go to a library using encyclopedias and reference like actual physical books, and so nowadays they'd be so happy that all you did was go find different sources on the internet. Where will we be when you know you're 40? Oh, I don't know, it's kind of scary and I'm 106.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you're using ASU Universal Learner. How many, how many years or semesters does this course go through? Like? How far can you go with this?

Speaker 2:

I think it's one or two semesters. I want to say it's one and I'm just taking it for one because I know I'm ending my. My mom said she I thought this was going to count for like actual high school credit, but she, this is just for experience. Apparently, this is not something that's going to count for me, it's just to help me in the college world. And I think it is only going through one semester.

Speaker 1:

That was going to be my next question. Are you also getting credit on this for your homeschool, like going towards what you have to report? Why would this not count?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's my mother, I guess, because I would love for this to count. This could count. She's okay. It's my mother, I guess, because I would love for this to count. This could count. She's okay. It's difficult. It's like it counts for my English I'm doing right now, so I don't have to do any other English, but it doesn't count towards the high school stuff. It doesn't count towards the credit or the dual enrollment or anything like that. It just it. It's what I'm doing right now, but it doesn't really count for the future. It's just experience for me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so is there an additional English that you have to do to meet what you have to do for high school?

Speaker 2:

In the fall I'm taking a college English and that one I will. It will count for high school and then college stuff so I can get my associates with a library science.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right. So yeah, that's stuff for parents to keep in mind too. Like what you want to count, some parents you know you can finagle how it's worded to make it count for you know the high school credits that you need or whatnot, but do you want to? Obviously, there's you know, you don't want to skip corners either. Are we doing ourselves any favors If?

Speaker 2:

you do that.

Speaker 1:

What English did you use as you were in, like, the elementary level and middle?

Speaker 2:

school. I use Blossom and Root for language arts, english I guess, and science. Bloss and Rue it was. It was a good curriculum, I guess you could say they had like things. It was just certain little things that helped me write. It would have me read a book and then write stuff about it, so it was basically like book reports and that kind of thing, and I would just write what happened in the book that week or write you know that kind of thing did you enjoy doing the Blossom and Room?

Speaker 2:

I, for some reason, I really liked writing at that time. Like it would be like what I would say, oh, you don't have to write that much. And then I would go full on like two pages worth of recap on the book I read and I liked it at the time, like it was really fun, and then it was kind of like it's getting. It's getting repetitive, which is what I hate when it's like the same thing over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you would have liked it for a year or two but maybe not the entire time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wanted to switch it up, all right. Well, layla, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please consider sharing this podcast, or my main podcast, the Homeschool how To with friends, family, on Instagram or in your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. The more this podcast is shared, the longer we can keep it going and the more hope we have for the future. Thank you for your love of the next generation.