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Schools Examine Content, Delivery of Online AP Courses

As the number of online Advanced Placement courses rises, more students are accessing those college-level classes than ever before. But teachers, students, and the governing body that authorizes such courses have had to adapt over time to determine how materials should be presented online and whether that method measures up to face-to-face instruction.

High schools that were once limited in the number of AP courses they could offer—whether from a lack of money, isolated locations, or student numbers too low to justify them—now have a plethora of online providers to choose from and free material to access. At the same time, course creators are learning new lessons about how to organize such information, and online-course requirements from the New York City-based College Board , which sponsors the AP program, are also evolving.

Though many teachers and AP experts insist the best way to dig into an advanced course is in a small classroom setting with face-to-face interactions, even traditionalists acknowledge that the online offerings are an important opportunity for students who previously did not have...