Online learning’s reputation has taken a hit in recent years amid reports of poor academic performance and concerns over lax regulation. While there is certainly some cause for concern, many of the problems center on for-profit providers who manage full-time virtual schools. The truth is that not all online learning experiences are of suspect quality.

When done well, online learning can be highly successful—opening the door to numerous learning opportunities that students otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to, while providing very rich and rigorous instruction. In fact, students who take online Advanced Placement courses from VHS Learning consistently outperform national passing rate averages on AP exams.

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What are the elements that lead to high-quality online learning? They’re the same components that define high-quality learning in general. Here are seven key characteristics to look for in an online program.

Qualified teachers

At the heart of any effective learning experience is the teacher and his or her relationship with students. This is true for both face-to-face and online instruction.

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To ensure they are highly qualified, the teachers in an online program should be certified in their subject area. If they’re teaching an AP course, they should attend the College Board’s AP Summer Institute training. Teachers should be adept at inspiring wonder, giving effective feedback, and forging a strong connection with students.

For us, online learning isn’t really about the technology; the technology is merely the conduit for building relationships between teachers and students. Still, teaching in an online environment is different than teaching in a face-to-face classroom.

Online teachers should be highly skilled at teaching in a virtual environment, which is why all our teachers are required to successfully complete a graduate-level course in effective online teaching practices—where they learn how to facilitate online discussions and make sure students are fully supported throughout their experience.

Engaging curriculum

A high-quality online learning experience delivers highly engaging instruction in which students interact frequently with each other and with their teacher, not just with a piece of software.

As in a traditional classroom, students should be completing hands-on, authentic tasks and projects and engaging in rich discussions about the material with their peers. Every assignment should have a clearly articulated learning objective, along with rubrics for measuring success. Assessments should include projects, labs, and other performance tasks, not just multiple-choice exams. And students should have opportunities to reflect on and revise their work, not simply turn in an assignment and move on.

Sense of community

One of the challenges involved in taking classes online is the sense of isolation that students might feel when they’re not sitting in a traditional classroom surrounded by their peers. Effective online learning solves this problem by establishing a strong sense of community among students, so they feel connected with each other and their teacher.

This can be done by having students interact with one another frequently as part of their coursework. At the beginning of a course, teachers should assign “icebreaker” activities to help students get to know each other and feel comfortable interacting with their peers online. Clear ground rules should be established on how to interact and give peer feedback respectfully, so that everyone feels welcome within the online learning community. All students should have a voice and be active participants in their online classroom.

Adequate structure

An important benefit of learning online is the degree of flexibility and personalization it enables. Yet, students still need structure in place to help ensure they are able to finish their coursework successfully and on time. A fully self-paced course without established deadlines might work well for high achievers who are self-motivated, but many students will end up lost if they don’t have a clear structure to guide them.

A high-quality online learning experience strikes the right balance between flexibility and structure. For example, weekly due dates can help keep students moving forward. Within the established timeframes, students can be free to complete assignments when it’s convenient for them to do so.

Small class sizes

Many for-profit providers rely on technology to deliver much of their instruction, and the teacher’s role is minimal. This allows providers to keep their costs low in order to maximize profits through high student-to-teacher ratios, but students end up paying the price when they don’t have a lot of personal interaction with an instructor.

As they do in a traditional classroom, students who are taking courses online learn best with smaller class sizes, where the teacher can give each student support and personalized feedback about his or her work. Our online classes are typically capped at 25 students, with an average student-to-teacher ratio of 21 to 1.

Frequent feedback

Research from John Hattie and other academics confirms what educators already know to be true: The more feedback students receive about their work, the more effectively they learn.

As in a brick-and-mortar classroom, high-quality online instruction must include frequent opportunities for students to receive substantive feedback that guides their improvement.

High-touch support

Students need to be supported throughout their educational journey, and that’s especially true when they’re learning in an online environment.

An effective online learning experience should include some kind of orientation for students at the outset, so they know what it takes to succeed in the course (and how they can ask for help). Teachers should check in with each student on an individual basis several times per week, and typically more frequently, to make sure they don’t feel lost in the class. What’s more, there should be a qualified online program coordinator on site—a librarian, a teacher, or a paraprofessional—who can provide direct support to students and serve as a liaison between the student and online instructor as needed.

It’s not only the students who need support. For online learning to be effective, school leaders need support in implementing the program—and site coordinators need training in how to support students most effectively.

The keys to effective online learning aren’t a secret. They’re the same elements that lead to high-quality learning overall. We’ve integrated these elements into our online courses for more than two decades, with remarkable success. Our experience proves that when implemented well, online learning can indeed be very effective.

Online learning has come a long way since its early champions saw it as a supplement to classroom learning. Skeptics initially questioned the viability of the new model, wondering if it would provide the right levels of support, curriculum, and engagement needed to ensure student success. And while online learning has more than proven itself to be both an alternative to and complementary offering for traditional classroom instruction, some misconceptions still persist.

For example, because virtual instructors aren’t physically present in a classroom, their qualifications and expertise can come into question. The subject matter itself—often thought of as “boring” or “unengaging”—is another area where myths persist. And finally, online skeptics are still talking about issues like lack of teacher support and low student success rates.

Dispelling the myths about virtual learning

To help dispel these myths and provide some insider knowledge on how online education really works, here’s a five-point list of things that you may not have known about virtual learning.

1. It hasn’t reached its peak yet.

Students of all ages are learning online—from the third-grader who wants to get a jump on her foreign-language skills to the college student who takes half of his credits online to the supply chain executive who wants to learn about the latest tech trends in her industry.

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According to Stratistics MRC, the global e-learning market accounted for $165.21 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $275.10 billion by 2022, growing at a 7.4 percent compound annual growth rate during that time. Key drivers behind this growth include flexibility in learning, low cost, ease of accessibility, and increased effectiveness through animated learning.

2. Online teachers know their stuff.

Anyone who is teaching online coursework in public schools must have a teacher’s license. Online educators must meet the same education standards as their non-virtual counterparts, which means earning a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree in teaching (depending on what grades he or she is going to teach).

The problem is that online courses offered by for-profit providers often have high student-to-teacher ratios, limiting the time teachers can spend one-on-one with students. This leads to issues ranging from boredom to an inability to understand material to students feeling like they’ve been left out in the cold and unsupported.

3. In the virtual world, it’s all about dynamic, engaging, and interesting experiences.

When virtual learning was still in its infancy, most courses were static. Course content was text-heavy and the interactive content that did exist was limited. Fast-forward to 2018 and the best online courses are dynamic and jam-packed with elements that keep students of all ages engaged and on task. Videos, quizzes, discussion boards, and other interactive elements not only accommodate diverse learning styles, but also inspire students to learn about the subject matter while fostering independent learning skills they can use to prepare them for college, careers, and life.

4. Personalized support rules online.

Early on, skeptics assumed that virtual classrooms would be filled to the brim, with little opportunity for teachers to interact with their students. This assumption is flawed; Virtual High School (VHS), for instance, has an average student-to-teacher ratio of 21:1 (the national average for physical classrooms), which allows for personal attention and quality feedback.

Online teachers are trained to be responsive and timely, and to facilitate thoughtful discussions in their online classrooms. Every student has a private, personal discussion thread to ask questions of their teacher 24/7, and their teacher responds within 24 hours Monday through Friday. Those relationships sometimes deepen into true friendships, as was the case with English teacher Mrs. Osierre who recently attended Boston Adventist D.R.E.A.M Academy’s graduation ceremony. “Our kids invited her,” says the school’s co-founder. “It was phenomenal for them to see the teacher who they had never met in person before, at their graduation.”

5. Students have a say in their own learning.

Whether they pick an asynchronous course or a self-paced option, e-learning options give students learning choices they might not have otherwise. But there also rules in place to keep youngsters on task. For example, even though a student can access his or her class anytime, VHS provides due dates and scheduled deadlines for assignments and activities. This helps give students the structure they need with the flexibility they desire. For students who need to complete credit-recovery courses at their own pace, many virtual programs offer self-paced flex courses.

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The good news is that the positives for many online learning programs far outweigh the negatives. Not all programs are created equally, so it is important to do your homework and be sure the program you choose provides the support and services you need to help your students succeed. As online learning continues to mature and as more K-12 schools use online courses as part of their curriculum, online learning myths will fade further into the background and e-learning will be seen as a valued option for all learners.