Online practice improves teaching

ABCTE is finding that in order to improve their program they should have all of potential teachers teach an online lesson in their subject area. This would help reinforce the subject matter, help others that might be struggling with that subject matter and give teachers some experience with online teaching. Just as all teachers now have some experience with ELL, special needs and gifted students, they will all soon have to teach a virtual class.

Now it turns out there is some research that says this is the right path according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed story: Learning from Online. Researchers at Purdue University at Calumet believe that learning how to do distance education properly can make professors better at designing and administering their classroom-based courses. It really reinforces what they are working towards.

From the article:
“Since most professors have spent their lives holding forth from the front of a lecture hall, many have not had to engineer their lesson plans with the sort of rigor required of a well-designed online course, Buckenmeyer says.When teaching online, she says, “You have to pay more attention to the navigation of the course, the clarity of the course, the objectives of the course, the reason why you’re assigning activities and assessments, [and make] certain everything is perfectly clear to the students. In a face-to-face situation, you can get by with just coming in and not having prepared and winging a class session. You can’t do that online.”

Teaching in the virtual world not only does prepares teachers for hybrid schools of the future, but will make them better teachers in a brick and mortar classroom as well.

Online Education Expansion

Great new online education statisitcs from iNACOL just updated in time for the conference.

K-12 Online Learning and Virtual Schools Expanding Options

• K-12 online learning is a new field consisting of an estimated
  $300 million market, which is growing at an estimated annual
  pace of 30% annually.
• 45 of the 50 states, plus Washington D.C., have a state virtual
  school or online initiative, full-time online schools, or both
• 24 states, as well as Washington, DC, have statewide full-time
  online schools.
• Many virtual schools show annual growth rates between 20 and
  45%
• 35 states have state virtual schools or state-led online programs.
• As of January 2007, there were 173 virtual charter schools
  serving 92,235 students in 18 states.
• 57% of public secondary schools in the U.S. provide access to
  students for online learning.
• 72% of school districts with distance education programs
  planned to expand online offerings in the coming year.
• 14.2 million computers were available for classroom use in the
  nation’s schools as of the 2005-2006 school year. That works out
  to one computer for every four students.

Scholarity is looking forward to being down in Austin and getting more great information on the impact of virtual classes!

Virtual Charter Schools Held Back

NACSA held a pretty good conference here in Utah this week. A lot of talk about holding charter schools accountable including how to replicated great charter schools and close the weak. Virtual charters were a large part of the discussion since charter authorizers have to figure out ways to ensure that they can manage the growth in online learning.

That lead to some revelations on the insanity that in US charter laws. The first that obviously affects ABCTE teachers is that in some states there are requirements that all virtual teachers be state certified – sometimes at a higher percentage than in brick and mortar schools. The second is that seat time takes precedence over subject matter mastery for students.

Both are ridiculous. Online learning is supposed to fully leverage great talent regardless of geographic location. If a great physics teacher in Pennsylvania is available to inspire future scientists in Utah – they shouldn’t have to jump through hoops in all 50 states to become a teacher.

The real beauty of online learning is truly differentiated instruction. But in our system, if the student masters algebra in 3 months, they don’t get credit unless they sit in front an algebra course for 180 days.

Our laws need to help technology work to increase learning – not hold it back so that the adults can feel better.