Upon Further Review...
Separating Myths from Facts About Virtual Schooling
After completing this week's readings, I still feel that I did a decent job describing the role of online school in K-12 education today. However, there were some interesting things I learned more about from the readings, and I do feel like I got a better understanding of online education as a whole. So below I am including my thoughts on the various systems that exist today to help a student learn beyond the traditional classroom setting.
In the North American Council for Online Learning article on "Top Ten Myths", I found a few things to be interesting. First, there are a lot of students taking online courses today in K-12 education- with over 500,000 across all 50 states, this is clearly an important and growing trend that administrators and politicians have to consider going forward. It also appears that virtual learning schools have to comply with the same rigorous state standards when they deliver instruction, meaning that a student who is taking the course should expect a similar level of rigor compared to a typical classroom.
One thing I disagreed with from the same article was that online courses do not represent an add-on to a burdened school system. This article was written from the perspective of a council that represents online education, and at least in my experience, this definitely stretches schools further when delivering instruction. I was already aware that most online learners go to a traditional school and may only take 1-2 courses online. However, in our building, I know how difficult that can look when students take these courses during traditional instructional hours. On the positive side, students can take the classes at any time during our school day since they are typically asynchronous in nature. However, because online learning requires a certified adult to check-in with students on their progress and support their education, we have had to assign this task to a Special Education teacher in our building as well as a counselor to take time out each day to interact with these students. This creates larger workloads for teachers and support staff, and also means that they are losing time somewhere else in order to help these students. Another positive is that online learning offers students to take courses that may not be offered in a particular school. Unfortunately with this increased choice also comes a price, as our school has to pay for these courses out of our budget as the student is still enrolled in our school.
One thing that I did not consider before reading the articles, and taking this course, is that online learning can actually be more interactive for a student than a traditional classroom. I particularly liked the idea that it offers students who don't "think well on their feet" to respond at their own pace, and it leads to greater levels of individual interaction between teachers and their students as well as with classmates when working on group activities. Before this course, I would argue against that, but I think when it is properly set up, students can still watch videos from their instructor online, they can read and learn at their own pace, and they can definitely have a larger voice in the classroom when they have time to respond to their level of comfort as well.
Lastly, in the Barbour report (2009) it described several learning options that I was not familiar with prior to reading. For instance, a student can learn entirely through online content, or for a only a few classes, but they can also learn in a live model as well as at home with a teacher who supervises the course, but the parent takes the reigns more as the traditional facilitator of instruction with their child. This last one in particular was interesting because it seems to follow more of the traditional home-school approach, and I was not aware that this was an option offered to students. The great thing about each of these varied approaches is that parents really have multiple options to consider when determining the best learning environment for their student. I would agree with the author, however, that I would like to see more valid studies on whether online learning produces the same or better results for students overall. One of the things that they mentioned in the report was that numbers could be skewed because previous studies did not take into account all of the students who dropped out of the courses prior to completion.
After reading all of the materials, it is clear that online learning is not going away. More importantly, as our technology continues to improve, it is very feasible in the near-future to see online training as a mandatory part of instructional courses for teachers. We need to be able to reach our students in whatever method is most effective for their learning. And it looks more and more apparent that as costs of buildings and materials continue to rise, the future of instruction may not involve a classroom at all.
Excellent post, Alan! You touched upon many important points here. Yes, Online learning isn’t going anywhere and instead of analyzing its advantages and disadvantages, more work needs to be done to make it a more authentic learning experience for the students. Online teachers need to go through extensive training before they take on this very sensitive task. They are what makes or breaks the experience for their students. I was very excited to take a course with a very known professor, but I can’t tell you my disappointment when I did. Although this professor has written books and is very well knowledgeable he/she didn’t have the skills to transfer this knowledge to us. I was turned off by the course and felt lost half of the time with hardly any support. Therefore, not all teachers are capable of taking on this very hard role and not all teachers have the skills and experience needed.
ReplyDeleteUgh, Sarah, I definitely empathize with your poor online experience. I, too, have taken online classes where the teacher clearly has a large knowledge base, but interacts extremely little with students and doesn’t seem able to share this knowledge in an online medium. Barbour rightly pointed out in this week’s reading that asynchronous online classes require a different skillset from teachers than traditional, classroom teaching. I don’t know if the professors I’ve had for particularly poor courses had received training in how to teach online, but I suspect the answer is no. Teaching is a skill that must be learned, and online teaching is no different. The Keeping Pace report stated that in Michigan, “MVU works with Michigan teacher preparation programs to shape pre-service teacher coursework and field experiences” so new teachers are prepared to teach in online education. I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall anything of the sort in my own education. And of course, Barbour reports Archambault and Crippen’s finding that most online teachers are actually more experienced veteran teachers, so we must focus on training already certified teachers, not just new teachers coming up through the system
DeleteThank you both for your thoughtful comments on my post! To me, teaching isn't about how knowledgeable you yourself are, but how well you are able to impart that knowledge to your students. I too, have had a poor online experience, and I also have never been trained in online education outside of my current coursework. A major issue facing administration today must be how to build upon the current skills of educators in order to enable them to successfully transition to online or digital learning environments. Dayna, you also make a great point about the fact that most online teachers are veterans, my only question is how is this possible if they have not been trained yet? For instance, one of the options I have in completing this degree is to be certified to teach online. Wouldn't other teachers have to follow the same process, or do different companies hold different standards or offer their own unique training for online education? If we really value the digital learning environment, the expectations must be better spelled out and there needs to be more training for everyone involved in order for students to be successful.
DeleteTo clarify, if your a student in MI taking an online course, the instructor of that course must hold a MI teaching certificate.
DeleteCurrently, there is no endorsement or requirement to teach online in MI. They're trying, but all the certificates, badges, etc., are non-binding.
MVU is working with new educators with a 2-year internship program. (see http://www.mivhs.org/ieducator for more information). MVU also works with ISDs to provide workshops, but again, none of these are 'required'.
The primary issues are financial and logistical. Logistically, how would we 'grandfather' in all of the current online instructors if some requirements were passed? Second, very few teachers get into teaching to just teach online. As such, how many people would pay for a 20 credit endorsement just to be able to teach a class or two here and there as their side hustle?
Good breakdown of the issues, Alan. I agree that online learning isn’t going away, and I understand how it is presenting a burden to your school and district. Clearly, moving forward we need to find a way to better accommodate online students. Perhaps paraprofessionals could oversee these students, rather than certified teachers.
ReplyDeleteThe funding issue is a complicated one. Who should pick up the tab for virtual education? Districts, states, the federal government? It certainly seems like online courses should be cheaper than traditional classes, based on their reliance on fewer resources, but with so many for-profit providers in the mix, how do we keep costs down? I have no answers here, just an awful lot of questions.
Thanks again for commenting, and in regards to your questions, I know in my district that since they are an enrolled student and we receive money for them from the government because of this, we are expected to foot their bill. The odd thing is that it seems quite expensive for each child to go through the online programs, but I wonder if that is because the district pursues them on an ala carte basis for individual students rather than a larger package if a larger network of students were interested. This is unfortunately a profitable business for companies, and I question how we as a school are supposed to be on top of each option out there beyond some state certifications that everything is covered. Perhaps there needs to be more transparency at least at the district level as to what coursework we are going with and the rationale behind it, perhaps even a training for the staff, so we can understand what the students are experiencing when they go online. Though not every teacher would be required to do check-ins with students, it could still provide very valuable insight as to what our current "competition" is in the virtual field and how we might organize our own online content should we choose to run a course or unit in a similar manner.
DeleteInteresting, I didn't really think about the transparency issue but I think you're right. Perhaps any online courses a district plans to use could be vetted by subject area teachers before use? Of course, this adds to these teachers' workload, so we'd need to either compensate them or find another way to make this work. This might actually be a great use for semi-retired teachers who could work part-time.
DeleteThere is some vetting to get into the MI online catalog to begin with, although I've heard that some are better than others.
DeleteAnd yes, they do cost money, but if it retains a student (and their whole FTE), or allows them to bring in other students from other districts, it is financially sound to do so. I've heard stories of students expelled from other districts being taken in, provided a laptop, and had a facilitator visit them at home. District B now gets all of that student's state funding, and even with the extra staff visits (i.e., a social worker) and giving them a laptop, the school comes out ahead.