Final Reflections

Over the past 15 weeks, my skeptical, preconceived notions about online schooling have softened and  been replaced with a much more nuanced understanding of both the pitfalls and the many strengths of online schooling.  At the outset, I was highly skeptical that online schooling could come close to offering students the experience of f2f schooling and was suspicious of the intentions of the purveyors of online courses.  I felt that online schooling could not offer students the peer-to-peer interaction, rigorous content and rich educational experiences that f2f schooling can.

Boy was I wrong!  And, happily so!  Throughout this course, I have seen so many fantastic examples of rich, rewarding educational experiences that are offered in online courses.  I have seen the power of virtual labs to enrich the student's understanding of science.  I have seen great instructional design that requires student problem solving and critical thinking.  I have experienced the rich student interactions that can occur within a well-designed online course. 

While not all virtual courses are great models of online instructional design, neither are all f2f classrooms.  I think that the most valuable thing I have learned from this course is how much online schooling can contribute to improve the field of education in general.  It is a great area of experimentation, and it has produced some wonderful instructional tools and methods that can enhance f2f education.  Without a doubt, virtual education is worth exploring, supporting and researching.

Week 11 Reflection

While I know it was not based on the most rigorous research model, I found Haavind's exploration of methods that promote collaboration and discussion among online students to be extremely useful. It seems to me that most teachers are dipping their toes into the online learning pool by using web tools like blogs and wikis to continue communication beyond the school day. Research like this gives teachers valuable pointers and strategies to make the most of online communications whether in a fully online or hybrid classroom. Although all of the techniques Haavind observed may not work, it certainly gives teachers an idea of where to start and what to try. I think this is the real value of researching online education--what it can do for teachers where the rubber meets the road.

This week's readings did not change my views of online ed much. Rather, they reinforced much of what I observed last week about the challenges of researching education. Tough though it is, I believe even more so that this is research worth pursuing.

Week 10 Reflection

As a result of this week's work, I have learned much about how online schools stack up vis-a-vis their brick and mortar counterparts.  I was impressed by the significant evidence that refutes the common perception of online schooling as less rigorous and effective than f2f schooling.  Thinking back on my own perceptions of online education at the start of this course, I see how much I underestimated online ed.  I, like many others, assumed that there was little online ed could offer that would come close to matching the value of f2f teacher-student and student-student interactions.  After 10 weeks of looking at the range of online ed available, I now realize the lack of imagination I'd brought to the topic!

One final thing that I found particularly important in this week's research is the value of online ed as a means of testing and implementing on a vast scale the best educational practices out there.  While wholesale change of pedagogy in a school could take years before it yields results for students, change in an online setting could occur so much more quickly.  As a results, so many more students could reap the benefits of these best practices.

Week 9 Reflections

Of course every teacher constantly revises and tweaks the lessons that they teach, and after seeing everyone else's work, I want to tweak ours.  The one thing that I wish we had incorporated were more video clips, especially those from Hippocampus.  One of the groups included links to videos simply as an additional resource.  I think they could also make a great reteaching tool if students did not understand something after having read the online text.

Another idea that I would include in my revisions to our unit are more real world connections to our content.  I really like the many small ways in which several groups used real world examples as hooks for a unit or to demonstrate a concept during instruction.  I think it might be possible to build more real world connections in our unit by focusing just a little more on the  general enduring understandings about revolutions.  And, hello, current events suddenly became SO relevant to our unit!  They would be the perfect means of doing so.

Week 7 Reflection

I think my biggest concern in developing the curriculum unit is ensuring that I have meaningful student-student interaction.  My f2f classroom is a highly interactive, student-centered one, and I want to translate as much of that to my online 'classroom' as I can.  I think that my challenge is just figuring out how to structure these activities in a way that is effective and realistic, so that student would not be overwhelmed with mountain of conversation!

Week 6 Reflection

I made two significant changes to my Google spreadsheet entries this week, both dealing with Virtual Virginia.  Over the past few weeks, I have gained a much clearer picture of what a virtual classroom would truly look like.  There would be plentiful student-student interaction, and the students would move through the course content and learning process together as a community of learners.  Looking at last week's examples and reading this week's selections gave me a concrete picture of what student-student interaction should look like online.

I now clearly recognize that Virtual Virginia offers virtual courses, not virtual classrooms.  The students work through the courses independently and little, if any, student-student interaction occurs.  Previously, I mistook VVa's requirement that students meet  pacing benchmarks to mean that students were class-paced and somewhat working together.  Now, I am fairly certain that students are self-paced, just within the required benchmarks that VVa has put into place to ensure that students complete the courses.

My overall view of the schools has not changed much, just come more clearly into focus.  From the start, I was fairly certain that neither VVa nor the Texas Connections Academy were taking full advantage of all the benefits that online education could offer.  I now understand that they simply aren't following the virtual classroom model and that I personally tend to favor this approach.  I do, however, recognize that there are advantages and disadvantages of both models.  I can appreciate that there is a need for virtual courses, which VVa and TCA are both filling.  Now I wonder if there are enough schools filling the virtual classroom model, and enough parent and student knowledge about which to choose.

Week 5 Reflections

My TPI results reflect the way in which I realisitcally know that I teach, but not necessarily how I wish to teach.  As an Advanced Placement teacher nearly everything I do in my class revolves around preparing students for the AP test.  I believe that if I didn't teach the class in a way that best prepares students for the test, then I would doing them a disservice.  Students enroll in the class with the intention of taking an AP class that culminates in the AP test.  Consequently, most of what I do on a daily basis involves the transmission of knowledge as my TPI scores reflect.

However, philosophically I am very interested in equipping students with the skills they need to evaluate the world around them like a social scienctist would.  I want to instill in students the skills that they need to think for themselves.  I do try to acknowledge and work within each student's developmental zone--hence my higher score in the apprenticeship category.  Yet, I would like students to use these skills to greater social ends.  Thus, I was shocked at that social reform was my lowest scoring category.  It raised my awareness about how far I have drifted from my intial beliefs about education. 

For online teachers, I would suspect that their transmission and maybe their developmental scores would be higher when they reflected on their online teaching.  It seems to me that online teaching would be more centered on student mastery of the content and their increasing ability to apply the content.  I also think that the nurturing component of the teacher's survey would decrease.  Perhaps this is just me, but I think it would be much easier to disregard the feelings or emotional progress of a student who one never has to see in person.  I think that this behavior almost always be unconscious, so perhaps by bringing it into one's consciousnes, it could be combatted.

Week 4 Reflection

This week I saw in action one of the principles that we have read so much about--good online instructional design is largely good f2f instructional design.  When reading the INACOL standards, I was struck by how many of their recommendations apply to f2f instruction as well.  In reviewing the various examples, however, I did see that some practices that might work in a f2f setting just don't cut it online.  For example, a particularly dynamic instructor can deliver a fifteen- to twenty-minute lecture and maintain student engagement.  Yet, if that same lecture is simply transcribed and placed online, student engagement will wane much more quickly.  So, I suppose I now really see how it is more than just taking good instructional design and placing it online.  This is a lesson that I certainly will keep in mind as we design our online unit plans.


In reviewing the excellent examples of instructional design, I was inspired and impressed by what online schooling can offer.  Looking at, for instance, FVS's online history program (this amazing virtual game), I realize that online schooling can offer students learning opportunities that f2f instruction cannot.  I entered this course believing that online schooling would deprive students of certain opportunities and benefits associated with f2f schooling without realizing that online schooling had something to offer that f2f did not.  This week opened my eyes to the flaws in this assumption.

Week 3 Reflection

Online schools are much further along than expected, especially the for-profits.  Advocates of public schooling beware!

Week 2 Reflection

I want my child to be treated like a person and actually interact with lots of other persons.  Will being a virtual student render my child less of a person? 

Week 1 Reflections

I feel a little silly admitting this, but the biggest surprise for me this week was Christensen, Horn and Johnson's (2008) assertion that by 2019 approximately half of all high school courses will be online.  I suppose I just did not realize how rapidly online schooling was evolving and that it really was beginning to supplant so many f2f courses.  At my current school, online courses are present but not a huge presence.  I guess I had just never contemplated the idea that they would replace traditional classes.  And, now I feel so naive writing this!  However, I am quite happy that I am taking this course and started to really consider what online courses in my content area would look like. 

I think the biggest question I now have is, "What does teacher prep need to look like given this changing tide in education?"  Teacher preparation and professional development are special interests of mine, so this is a pretty typical question for me to jump to.  It does seem to be a hugely important question to address now, and teacher prep is so slow to adapt to changes that occur in our schools.  I worry that we could be headed straight for a major iceberg if we don't address this question now...or maybe yesterday!

About Me

Hi! My name is Melinda Sloan. I am a student in the In-Step Social Studies program. In-Step is a Masters program that meets only during the summer months and leads to an MA in Teaching of Social Studies. During the rest of the year, I teach AP US Government (12th grade) and World History II (10th grade) in a suburban school in Yorktown, VA. However, all of this is changing literally as I write! Due to my husband's work, I will be relocating to Houston, TX, where I am not yet sure what I'll be teaching. I have my BA in History from Rice University and have been teaching for nine years.

My informal observations of our school district's efforts at online schooling sparked my interest in this course. Currently, my division uses online schooling as a means of credit recovery for struggling students and enrichment for high-achieving students. My AP students who have taken some of these online courses have reported very mixed feelings about them; the school division reports remarkable success. This has made me curious about what makes such programs succeed or fail, particularly from the student's perspective.

I have taken one online course as part of my studies at TC. While I very much liked the format and idea of taking an online course, it was not a very pleasant experience. The professor often openly ridiculed and mocked students in the course. Perhaps these comments would not have stung so much if said face-to-face; but, in writing, they were harsh. It certainly was a powerful lesson in the importance of choosing one's words careful when they are the only impression one will make.