Teacher Conference - Part One

Every year I have Senior English students who want to avoid our school's Senior Project and, of those, many of those go to a virtual school. After they're gone, I have no idea what they're doing and what sort of English instruction they're receiving. I am ignorant no more.

Today I met online with my virtual school host teacher, who teaches the same grade level and much of the same curriculum that I do. As we met in her "virtual office" via Elluminate, she "walked" me through the front end of the course that the students see and interact with as well as the data screens she uses and sees from the teachers end.
Because it was a lot to digest and my notes were lengthy, I will be breaking up this meeting into two separate blogs. This first one will focus on my revelations about teaching a virtual high school class in general, both in terms of content specific issues and pedagogy.

As we began our meeting, something that immediately captured my interest was the fact that the students had many resources for researching college and tech training options, both general and specific. The students seemed to be encourage to look at college in a real way and make it a legitimate consideration regardless of their family's educational history or finances, whereas in my experiences with traditional schools (particularly in rural areas), some of the students don't have and have never had any plans to attend college or even imagined that they could. In my school generally those who are in Honors courses are on the "college track." It seems the virtual school, having all the students grouped into one curriculum (and has Honors work as an additional option), they've been able to avoid this negative, in my eyes, delineation.

In terms of day-to-day teaching issues, the teacher explained that when students interact and complete assignments that involving responding to each other, there are issues similar to that of of any high school classroom. She said the teacher has to make sure that all interactions are appropriate and aren't "rude." For example, she said that one student rather than submit his personal response to an assignment, he submitted a link to his MySpace page, which then linked to a pornography site! Now, this was a unique occurrence, but one can see how you have to maintain proper order and the sanctity of the learning in the "classroom," virtual or not. Along those same lines, she said academic integrity is also a regular issue. Like a traditional classroom, she said the teacher quickly learns a student's writing style and can tell when the work they submit is not their own.
Additionally, in order to maintain academic integrity and find out if a student really has done the work, every learning module (which is how the class is set up), has an oral component where the teacher can ask specific questions and ensure the student's learning was authentic ("If they can't answer simple questions, then you know they didn't do it," she said). For instance, the teacher shared that one particular student had submitted wonderful reading response journals for the novel A Perfect Storm, but during the oral component she asked him what role "Andrea Gale" played in the story. She said he responded that "she was really nice to all of the people and did a good job taking care of them." The Andrea Gale is not a character, however, but the name of a fishing boat where much of the story's action takes place. Obviously, this student was busted and he confessed.

In this particular virtual school, when the students are found to have cheated or plagiarized, she said that in some cases the teacher suspends the student from the course, just as a student might be suspended from a traditional school. Further, if students simply don't do the work they are withdrawn with a failing grade. As far is as student progress and tracking are concerned, she showed me a page the teacher has access to which features all of the active students names, phone numbers, grades, course progress and other relevant information. It also flags some of the data in red to show that either the student has not submitted assignments recently or if the teacher hasn't made contact with that student in a while. There are myriad tools available to the teacher for student tracking and record keeping that are more efficient than traditional schools, but I will address that more in depth in a later blog.

One particular aspect of the virtual classroom that I find extremely intriguing, and perhaps highly attractive to many teachers, is the fact that the curriculum and course materials are already designed. Because of this the teachers never submit a lesson plan. Instead their focus is more attuned to the student and their needs, being a mentor or coach for helping the student through the class and supplementing their learning wherever necessary. I think simply not having to spend so much time developing plans and learning activities frees up more time and energy to give to the student. Also, for those who believe more in the efficacy of the constructivist classroom, the set up of this particular virtual school would seem to be a good fit.

In all, I am trying to wade through all of the information I gleaned from my first online session with a virtual school English teacher, and what I've shared so far is just a smidgen. I am sure I will have much more to share soon, and more questions will quickly emerge. But I can say with confidence thus far that the virtual school, while I'm sure it does have its shortcomings, addresses many of the issues that are detractors in traditional schools, or at least deals with them effectively in most cases.
Unfortunately, because of the holiday weekend I was not able to watch the teacher interact with a student in an actual teaching session, however, she does have some of this work scheduled for Monday and I will be observing at that time.
My next blog will be part two of today's session, and will focus on issues related directly to English instruction in the virtual classroom and its unique elements. Check back tomorrow for that and thanks for reading.