Virtual School Report
A Quarterly Newsletter Focused on Effective Virtual K-12 EducationSpring 2006
Published by Connections Academy
What’s Inside
Socialization
2
Teaching
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Conferences
FETC; Orlando, FL; March 22 - 24. www.fetc.org TechEd - Technology in Education International Conference; Pasadena, CA; March 26 - 29. www.techedevents.org/ 2006/conference. Don’t miss Connections Academy-facilitated session: “Live and Connected from Virtual Elementary!” ASCD 2006 Annual Conference; Chicago, Ill.; April 1 - 3. www.ascd.org. EduComm; Orlando, FL; June 7 - 9. www.educomm. educatorsportal.com. Don’t miss Connections Academy-facilitated sessions: “Virtual Learning Trends That Will Impact YOU” and “Is Your District Primed for a Virtual School?”By Robert L. Blomeyer, Ph.D.
Learning Point Associates
Professional Development for Effective
Teaching and Online Learning
Keeping Pace with Online
Learning Trends
By John Watson
Contributing Writer
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Continued on page 6
W
ith the rapid growth of online education programs comes concern that administrators, state legislators, and other decision-makers are not well informed about online education policy issues. Several organizations around the country have been addressing this lack of policy information over the last two years with annual research reports titled Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning. The 2005 report reviewed statewide programs, suchas the Florida Virtual School and the Illinois Virtual High School, as well as state-level policies affecting online education. In some states, such as California, Minnesota, and Kansas, these policies are well thought out and appropriate for online programs. In quite a few other states, unfortunately, there has been little systematic thinking about the issues faced by and created by online education.
Key policy findings from Keeping Pace in the last two years of research suggest several significant issues
O
ne of the National Education Technology Plan action goals for improving the use of educational technology is to “support e-learning and virtual schools” and one of the strategies within this goal is to “enable every teacher to participate in e-learning training.” (U.S. Department of Education, 2005b, pp. 41–42). The context of research on K–12 online learning confirms that the quantity and quality of staff development vary significantly and that likely less than 1 percent of all teachers nationwide are trained as online teachers.Many of the teachers currently teaching in online environments lack
both the theoretical and practical understanding and are “learning on the job.” To further complicate the issue, teachers are provided little if any release time, no extra funding, and little acknowledgment for their efforts; they often are overwhelmed by the enormity of the enterprise. To date, the characteristics of effective online teachers have been the topic of limited research. Some of the re-search in K–12 e-learning does iden-tify some of these characteristics, although policy and standards have not been adopted, jeopardizing qual-ity assurance.
Researchers in eight new studies commissioned by the North Central Educational Laboratory (Smith, Clark & Blomeyer, 2005) identify staff
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By Carrie J. Ross with Valerie Chernek
Contributing Writers
Virtual School Report
Published by Connections Academy
President Barbara Dreyer
Vice President Mickey Revenaugh
Editor Daniel Lott
For additional copies contact the editor at (800) 382-6010, email [email protected] or
write Daniel Lott, Connections Academy, 1000 Lancaster Street, 6th Floor,
Baltimore, MD 21202 www.connectionsacademy.com
M
y son, a virtual school ninth grader, was with me in a store recently in the middle of a weekday afternoon and found himself faced with a barrage of questions from a curious and friendly sales clerk. Questions like “What do you do all day?” “Do you work in your pajamas?” “How do you manage to socialize with your classmates?” kept on coming. I watched my son take a deep breath and describe the details of his virtual school program.There was a time when I dreaded questions like these be-cause I felt them to be an attack on my choice of education. I felt that I was different from other parents and feared that my children would pos-sibly not be normal as they grew into adulthood. Was I doing the right thing for them?
Over the years, through the va-riety of virtual school settings my family has tried, I have discovered that some of the advantages of vir-tual learning are easier for the gen-eral public to grasp than others. Personalized learning, challenging and diverse curriculum, specialized
teachers, and alternative schedul-ing: most people can understand that these options are benefits and with time they get behind them. The idea of socialization, however, draws many blank stares and more questions.
The reality is that patterns of so-cialization for virtual learners are not so different from those in a tradi-tional school. Virtual learners whose parents are involved in the community may have “double the opportunity” to socialize and partici-pate in events. For my kids, our fam-ily, virtual school and community all combine to strengthen my children’s social muscles by
help-dents come together to compare notes on topics like the Civil War. It is a requirement that students post their opinions and responses to classmates so that all students col-laborate and interact in project-ori-ented study. Occasionally, students will use a live virtual meeting room with their teachers to discuss math or science. In these live online meetings, students ask questions in real-time and collaborate in live work groups – often with peers who are hundreds if not thousands of miles away. This form of construc-tive socialization is pretty unique to the virtual school setting.
Outside of class, virtual school students socialize through commu-nications tools such as email and message boards – just like kids in traditional schools, only more so. My seventh grade daughter will run to check her webmail and the stu-dent message boards for the latest chat on the books, movies or feed-back to her poem in the Poetry Cor-ner. Internet safety is a big concern for all parents, and since my chil-dren rely so much on these tools, I take comfort from the fact that our school’s webmail and message boards are part of a closed system – accessible only to our students, their families and teachers. Facili-tators coordinated by the Connec-tions Academy family services staff moderate the student (and parent!) message boards, making sure the postings are appropriate and act-ing swiftly when they are not.
Virtual socialization opportunities for my son and daughter also in-clude a potpourri of clubs and ac-tivities open to Connections Acad-emy students across the country. They can take part in Quiz Bowl trivia contests, contribute to the online literary magazine, and help put together the Connections Acad-emy yearbook. There are book
The reality is that
pat-terns of socialization for
virtual learners are not
so different from those
in a traditional school.
Virtual learners whose
parents are involved in
the community may
have “double the
oppor-tunity” to socialize and
participate in events.
ing them to learn the behavioral expectations of each group. Other students and their families need extra support and structure to make the most of socialization in a virtual setting. A high-quality virtual school program will ensure that such sup-port is readily available.
In our virtual school, INSPIRE Connections Academy in Idaho, some social models are available in person and others are online; the students don’t seem to draw that heavy a line between the two, un-like those of us over 21. Recogniz-ing that peer interaction is impor-tant, my son’s teacher creates
velopment as an important element in the success and sustainability of online learning. Lowes (2005) states that teachers need to engage in staff development to support an understanding of online course de-velopment, online pedagogy, and methodology. Hughes et al. (2005) state that changes in innovations, curriculum, or policy require staff development “to develop new knowledge and practices to be ap-plied in the K–12 classroom” (p. 9). Leu et al. (2005) argue that time has to be built into teacher schedules to engage in staff development and that teachers should not be man-dated to take staff development pro-grams but should have the oppor-tunity to “buy into” available choices. Lowes’ (2005) study provides several indicators of success within online learning, including the follow-ing:
• The ability of teachers to have much closer supervision of the students they serve.
• The understanding that the con-straints and opportunities af-forded by online environments lead to positive transformations in conventional teaching and learning practice in terms of con-tent and pedagogical ap-proaches (e.g., assessment strategies).
• Indications that experienced online teachers were influential in transforming traditional learn-ing environments upon their re-turn to those settings.
• The availability of online courses to diversify the curriculum— courses that might not have been available otherwise.
• School districts that recognized the positive impact of online learning and began to implement the “kind of curriculum planning that is required” (p. 36) in the online staff-development courses that were offered to
online teachers.
Hughes et al. (2005) identified specific online learning features that increased communication opportu-nities for students who were less likely to speak up in traditional classroom settings and that facili-tated the development of closer re-lationships between an instructor and his or her students. Zucker (2005) also identified this situation as a positive learning feature by arguing that online student-to-stu-dent interaction is more equitable and more democratic than tradi-tional classroom discourse. Hughes et al. (2005) identified online learn-ing features that provide students with the ability to control their own learning by permitting review of new content and that facilitate greater
ently built into online learning in-structional design is the reflection or metacognitive time integrated in assignments.
Cavanaugh et al. (2005) identify immediate feedback, visual tools, virtual manipulatives, graphing tools, and computer applications that promote cognitive complexity as constructive features within online learning opportunities. They also note that online learning offers teachers the ability to electronically score tests and that this feature permits immediate feedback that can be used to inform instruction.
The study of Kleiman et al. (2005) illustrates that online mentorship programs can increase the quality and number of certified mathematics teachers, which holds great promise for states lacking certified teachers in various disci-plines. Finally, Ferdig et al. (2005) suggest that the student achieve-ment and understanding of algebra and geometry can be increased through the use of online simula-tions, a feature they argue is more difficult to implement within face-to-face classroom learning.
Kleiman et al. (2005) also found that more online teachers strongly agreed that ongoing staff develop-ment is beneficial and applicable to their teaching experience. Ferdig, DiPietro, and Papanastasiou (2005) point out that in order to create suc-cessful online programs and con-tent, “educating the educator in fa-cilitating online learning, [and] cre-ating instructionally and pedagogi-cally sound curricula” (p. 46) is nec-essary. Although none of the eight research studies speaks to the “model(s)” of staff development that should be embraced, teachers within these studies, in most cases, completed one or more online course, supporting an understand-ing of either/or pedagogical and
The study illustrates
that online mentorship
programs can
in-crease the quality and
number of certified
mathematics teachers,
which holds great
promise for states
lacking certified
teach-ers in various
disci-plines.
understanding and opportunities to connect the new information with previously learned content. Other features identified by Hughes et al. included the use of more open-ended questions, less constructivist teaching methodologies (e.g., lec-turing), more constructivist or stu-dent-centered learning approaches, and the flexibility to learn anytime/ anyplace. One of the strategies, identified by both Lowes (2005) and Hughes et al. (2005) that is
inher-Professional Development (continued)
Continued from page 1
technological methodologies and strategies necessary to become a successful online teacher.
The research studies also iden-tify factors that could improve staff development, including adding more technology training on how to use the materials and equipment; customizing staff development, de-pending on the teacher needs; add-ing more lab activities; includadd-ing staff development on test develop-ment; providing more understand-ing of how to use learnunderstand-ing manage-ment systems; and differentiating staff development for new and re-turning teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act requires that teachers be certified in their content areas; online staff development offers an alternative system supporting the delivery of the content-based courses needed to ensure that ev-ery child in American schools has a “highly qualified” teacher by the end of the 2005–06 school year. Spe-cific findings from these eight new studies provide new evidence for the efficacy and utility of online pro-fessional development as a poten-tially important strategy for achiev-ing this important national educa-tional objective.
The context of research on K– 12 online learning confirms that online learning is an emerging but rapidly growing phenomenon in K– 12 education. Although the re-search on K–12 online learning does offer some understanding of the promises and barriers of this approach, the findings are limited. In an effort to be responsive to the 20 or more states currently offering online learning programs or schools, further research is needed. Scientifically based research is nec-essary to identify the specific issues relating to discovery of the most effective combinations of media features, instructional methods, in-teraction, and collaboration to
ob-tain the greatest benefits for student achievement and satisfaction. The eight research studies within this synthesis provide baseline data that should serve as the framework for continued investigations into fea-tures and strategies of online learn-ing that demonstrate both promise and challenge.
Recommendations for Policy and Practice: Professional Development and Effective Online Teaching and Learning
All eight studies identify the situ-ated and effective preparation of “highly qualified” online teachers as a crucial element in the implemen-tation of effective online learning programs.
• State education agencies in all 50 states should work toward es-tablishing performance-based qualifications for online teachers and require that all teachers as-signed to online high school courses have appropriate sub-ject area teaching certification.
• State education agencies should work toward developing and en-forcing performance-based pro-fessional requirements for all online teachers.
• Completion of appropriate pro-fessional development experi-ences, based on professionally appropriate standards, should be required before any certified teacher is assigned duties as an online teacher.
• All newly qualified online teach-ers should be provided with mentoring by an experienced online teacher during their first online teaching assignments.
• The performance of online teachers should be periodically evaluated by supervisors or ad-ministrators who are themselves professionally prepared and ex-perienced online teachers.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the questions ad-dressed by K–12 online learning research reflect and foreshadow the most crucial questionsbeing asked today, in every part of the country where online courses and virtual schools are proliferating. Building and district-level educational lead-ers, school board memblead-ers, staff members in state boards of educa-tion, chief state school officers, members of state congressional delegations, the distinguished members of the U.S. House and Senate, and a small legion of dedi-cated public servants employed by the U.S. Department of Education are probably asking questions such as the following:
Will the growing national investment in K–12 online learning, particularly implementing and expanding the use of online high school courses, provide a basically sound, high-quality educational experience for online students? Or will this new investment in K–12 online learning be yet another waste of scarce national educational resources on today’s newest educational technologies that is destined to be abandoned in some virtual tomorrow?
We believe that the future of re-search examining online learning lies in the systematic and rigorous examination of students’ academic performance in contexts that invite measuring the impact of all those instructional and environmental variables that differentiate between the wide varieties of online learn-ing environments in use today.
Among the many outstanding questions about factors potentially impacting the effectiveness of online learning environments are three questions about the
tion of online teachers:
1. What are the characteristics of successful K–12 online teach-ers?
2. What are the most effective train-ing, mentoring and support sys-tems for online teachers? 3. Should online professional
de-velopment be required for the preparation and credentialing of online teachers?
If we continue to seek evidence-based answers for these and other important questions defining “best practice,” and systematically ac-count for the similarities and differ-ences between effective and inef-fective instructional practices, we will discover new ways to optimize learning in all instructional contexts and learning environments; both
traditional and online.
References
Cavanaugh, C., Bosnick, J., Hess, M., Scott, H., & Gillan, K. J. (2005).
Suc-ceeding at the gateway: Secondary algebra learning in the virtual school. Unpublished manuscript.
Ferdig, R. E., DiPietro, M., Papanastasiou, E. (2005). Teaching and learning in collaborative virtual high schools. Unpublished manu-script.
Kleiman, G., Carey, R., Bonifaz, A., Haistead, E., & O’Dwyer, L. (2005).
A study of the effectiveness of the Louisiana Algebra I Online Project. Unpublished manuscript.
Lowes, S. (2005). Online teaching and classroom change: The impact of virtual high school on its teachers and their schools. Unpublished manuscript.
Hughes, J., McLeod, S., Brown, R., Maeda, Y., & Choi, J. (2005). Staff development and student perception of the learning environment in virtual and traditional secondary schools. Unpublished manuscript.
Leu, D. J., Castek, J., Hartman, D. K., Coiro, J., Henry, L A. (2005). Evalu-ating the development of scientific knowledge and new forms of read-ing comprehension durread-ing online learning. Unpublished manuscript. Smith, R., Clark, T. & Blomeyer, R.
(No-vember, 2005) A Synthesis of New Research on K-12 Online Learning.
Naperville, IL: Learning Point Asso-ciates. Retrieved February 10, 2006, from www.ncrel.org/tech/synthesis/ synthesis.pdf
U.S. Department of Education. (2005b).
Toward a new golden age in Ameri-can education: How the Internet, the law and today’s students are revolu-tionizing expectations (National Edu-cation Technology Plan 2004). Re-trieved October 18, 2005, from www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/ technology/plan/2004/index.html Zucker, A. (2005). A study of student
interaction and collaboration in the virtual high school. Unpublished manuscript
clubs, art and photography compe-titions, even a “Science in the Kitchen” group. As part of a grow-ing national virtual school commu-nity, we have lots of options to choose from.
In addition to our virtual oppor-tunities to socialize, my kids and I take part in regular face-to-face field trips with other Connections Acad-emy families who live nearby (which in Idaho can mean “within a two-hour drive depending on the road conditions”!). These social and edu-cational events at Connections Academy schools are typically or-ganized by parent volunteers – 50-plus of them across 10 states at last count. Teachers, principals, and
ing works for students when the adults in their lives—their parents, teachers, and school leaders – are as thoughtful about students’ social development as they are about aca-demics. Are children educated in a home environment isolated? Not by any means, but it is the respon-sibility of the parents and the schools to make healthy peer inter-action a priority.
Socialization (continued)
Continued from page 2Carrie J. Ross is the parent of two students at INSPIRE Connections Academy in Idaho and also serves as Parent Coordinator for Connections Academy nationally. Valerie Chernek is Connections Academy Manager of Family Services.
administrators attend many of these field trips as we gather in small groups to get to know one another personally. Over the past few months, for example, INSPIRE families like mine have visited an art museum together and taken a trip to a local dam, all with children from grades K-9 in tow. Funny thing, we actually look forward to curious questions from the public when we are on these outings together!
Over time, I have come to real-ize that answering “the socialization question” isn’t just about defending my decision to go with a virtual school or whether or not socializa-tion occurs. It is an opportunity to help others see that virtual
school-Robert L. Blomeyer, Ph.D. is lead education technology researcher at Learning Point As-sociates. This article was excerpted from A Synthesis of New Research on K-12 Online Learning by Rosina D. Smith, Ph.D., Tom Clark, Ph.D., and Robert L. Blomeyer, Ph.D (Learning Point Associates, October 2005,
www.ncrel.org/tech/synthesis). Virtual School Report will publish additional excerpts in future editions. Learning Point Associates also published Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning in 2004 and 2005.
Professional Development (continued)
and trends:
• While many states still do not have significant and appropriate online education policies in place, there are now quite a few examples of good policies for states looking to develop their own. No one state has the perfect set of policies, but laws and rules from California, Washington, Florida, Kansas, and Minnesota, among others, provide a solid base for any state looking to address online education policy.
• Funding continues to be a pressing issue, with several states grappling with questions about what the funding level for online students should be, and what the cost of educating a student online is and should be.
• Policymakers in many states remain largely uninformed about online education issues and challenges. Online education programs have an important role to play in educating decision-makers and the general public about the issues and challenges that we face.
• Online education programs would benefit from sharing common metrics and best practices. At levels of both policy and practice there is a tendency to reinvent the wheel many times over across states. The growth and increasing influence of the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), a membership non-profit organization made up of many online education programs, is an optimistic sign.
In 2006 NACOL will play a role in coordinating Keeping Pace, and Connections Academy will be one of the organizations funding and guiding the research. In addition to reviewing and updating the issues listed above, we expect to consider some additional issues as well:
• Increased analysis of policies that are particularly enabling or restrictive of online education. We have seen both in state policies; interestingly, sometimes in the same state.
• Review of several significant lawsuits that have affected how state policies are implemented.
• Consideration of the evolving relationships between statewide programs, district-level programs, and online charter schools, in states that have these different levels of online programs.
The organizations funding and guiding Keeping Pace recognize that the rapidly evolving online world requires suitable policy mechanisms to ensure the sustainability and long-term viability of online educa-tion. We hope that Keeping Pace contributes to a well-informed and appropriate discussion of these issues.
John Watson is a researcher and consultant who authored
Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, 2004 and 2005, published by Learning Point Associates/NCREL (www.ncrel.org/ tech/pace2).
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