Leadership Day 2012: Equipping Administrators To Better Understand K-12 Online Learning

Well, it is that time of year again. The time when my CASTLE colleague Scott McLeod posts an entry on his blog Calling all bloggers! – Leadership Day 2012.  There is no specific theme this year, there isn’t one most years if memory serves me correct.  But as usual, Scott provide a general overview of the purpose of today (i.e., blog about whatever you like related to effective school technology leadership), and then posts a serious of questions to get the juices flowing.

This year, I’ve chosen to focus on the question:

When it comes to P-12 technology leadership, where do we need new knowledge, understanding, training, or research?

And, as per the theme of this blog, I want to look at that question through the lens of K-12 online learning.

The easy answer to the question is simply to say K-12 online learning in general. At present, K-12 online learning is growing by leaps and bounds.  Legislators across the United States are buying into the rhetoric of lobbyist, corporations, and even professional associations pushing a neo-liberal agenda to make K-12 online learning easier and easier to implement and funded at the highest levels without much concern for whether it is effective or can provide a solution to any of the existing problems facing the public education system (or at least what’s left of it after the current neo-liberal assault).

The lobbyist, corporations, and professional associations point to studies that prove K-12 online learning works and use language like “K-12 online learning is better than face-to-face learning, and blended learning is even better!”  They fail to mention that those studies often contain selective samples for the online cohort, and rarely – almost never – include students enrolled in full-time programs (which is where the greatest push to “open up the K-12 online learning market” has occurred).  When challenged with research to the contrary, they claim that it is methodologically flawed and that Annual Yearly Progress or AYP is a flawed metric (never mind the fact that they find it a perfectly good metric to prove how traditional public schools are failing our students), and then point to studies that support their chosen point of view (ignoring the huge methodological flaws in that research).

Once the market has been opened, K-12 administrators are deluged with materials and pressure from the corporations to jump on the bandwagon for the good of their students, and it’ll help the school’s budget as well (not to mention the bottomline of the corporation).  So you get schools buying into products that there is little to no evidence that they actually work, in some cases being bilked in arrangements that turn out to be misleading in terms of the adherence to state guidelines (assuming any exist after the lobbyist, corporations, and professional associations are done with the legislator).

As we have seen time and again over the past two years the Republicans and a growing number of neo-liberal Democrats (and I am beginning to wondering if there is any other kind these days) have no interest in stopping the lobbyist, corporations, and professional associations from setting up regulatory regimes that allow them to rape and pillage the public education system.  They also aren’t interested in challenging the lies told and misleading use of existing literature from these groups.  So then it falls on the shoulders of administrators are the school and school district level.

We need to equip administrators will the knowledge to understand the research that is being presented to them when it comes to K-12 online learning.  To examine under what circumstances the research was conducted, and what are the methodological limitations because of that. For example, the methodological limitations of the student into K12, Inc.’s Arkansas Virtual Academy lead most who understand research to question the validity of any finding from the way in which the data was collected and analyzed.

We also need to provide our administrators with an understanding that K-12 online learning can work with any type of student, under any conditions.  However, not all forms of K-12 online learning work with all students in any condition.  For example, we’ve seen that full-time, district-based K-12 online learning programs seem to be having much more success than the full-time, state-wide K-12 online learning programs (i.e., the kind offered by most cyber charter companies). One of the reasons why is because they target a specific population of students and then design, deliver and support that program based on the needs of that population.  For all of their talk about personalized learning and individual instruction, the full-time, state-wide cyber charter schools offer one model for the way their courses are designed, delivered and supported – the only differentiation is how much material the student has to complete based on standardized exams at the beginning of each unit.

Finally, as a research community we need to do a better job of understanding the conditions under which K-12 online learning can be effective (to use Rick Ferdig’s language) or how we can effectively design, deliver and support K-12 online learning for different populations of students (to use my own language).

In case you are interesting, my previous contributions to Leadership Day include:

• 2009: Advice To An Administrator
• 2010 – Advice On Virtual Schooling
• 2011 – The McDonaldization Of Public Education

As well, two years ago I felt the need to post A Response To iNACOL’s “Leadership Day 2010: Online And Blended Learning”.  In case you’d wondering why I participate each year, I think Rick Schwier sums it up in his entry We’re small; the job is huge.

Leadership Day 2011 – The McDonaldization Of Public Education

Today marks the fifth Leadership Day 2011. For those unfamiliar, Leadership Day is a blogging activity that my CASTLE colleague Scott McLeod began.  He describes it as:

Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and again on this blog, most school administrators don’t know

• what it means to prepare students for the digital, global world in which we now live;
• how to recognize, evaluate, and facilitate effective technology usage by students and teachers;
• what appropriate technology support structures (e.g., budget, staffing, infrastructure, training) look like or how to implement them;
• how to utilize modern technologies to facilitate communication with internal and external stakeholders;
• the ways in which learning technologies can improve student learning outcomes;
• how to utilize technology systems to make their organizations more efficient and effective;
• and so on…

Administrators’ lack of knowledge is not entirely their fault. Many of them didn’t grow up with computers. Other than basic management or data analysis technologies, many are not using digital tools or online systems on a regular basis. Few have received training from their employers or their university preparation programs on how to use, think about, or be a leader regarding digital technologies.

I have had the opportunity to participate in the last two (see Leadership Day 2009: Advice To An Administrator and Leadership Day 2010 – Advice On Virtual Schooling), where I wrote a letter to administrators advising them on how to implement online learning in their schools in a smart way and where I wrote to administrators to not believe the hype from corporate-minded, educational reformers when it came to online learning.

This year Scott provided a series of prompts to get us thinking and it is one of these questions that I wish to briefly take up in this space today.

When it comes to K-12 technology leadership, where do we need new knowledge, understanding, training, or research?

You see, it was only in the last week or two that Ray Rose and I were discussing the merits of online teaching endorsements to state-based teacher certification, which lead to a conversation about what we thought teacher education should look like if it were to truly to prepare teachers for the demands of teaching in the twenty-first century.  One of the comments that Ray made during this discussion was that there was a need for a greater level of leadership within our schools on this front, and he challenged those of us in higher education to create a virtual school leadership program.  I invited Scott to join the discussion and while he agreed with the sentiment, he was less enthusiastic about this kind of university-based program for school leaders.  The conversation died down with my comment that I didn’t see why one or more universities couldn’t come together and partner on creating this kind of specialized initiative.

As I read this specific prompt that Scott provided, I was reminded of this conversation because of the reasons I would argue in a proposal for such a program.  Simply put, today’s school leaders do not have enough knowledge and training in being able to evaluate online and blended learning opportunities.

At present, the decision to use online or blended learning is often made because of economics or pressure from the competitive practices of for-profit companies as they begin to dominant the public education sphere.  Rarely are decisions to use online or blended learning made for strictly pedagogical reasons.  Even when those decisions have a hint of pedagogical rationale, the leadership of the school is often not in a position to fully understand the nuances in the design, delivery and support provided by different online and blended learning providers.  In much the same way that teaching students in a classroom using a single pedagogical strategy is likely to leave some students behind, online and blended learning that is designed, delivered and supported in a specific manner is also likely to leave some students behind.  As Rick Ferdig noted in his keynote to the 7th Annual Michigan Virtual University Online Learning Symposium in 2010, there are some courses that are better suited to online delivery than others and there are some topics that are better suited to online delivery than others.  During the keynote, he noted that research has shown that students in the online environment tend to do as well or better than their classroom counterparts in Algebra I, but not so much in Algebra II.  Rick argued that researchers should stop these simple comparisons and begin to ask questions about why this was the case.  Are there more independent resources for Algebra I that the students can find on their own than there are for Algebra II?  Are there significant differences in what is asked of the students in Algebra I than in Algebra II that make one more suited for online delivery?  Is the manner in which we have traditionally offered online learning just better suited to the objectives of Algebra I?  While Rick asked several additional questions, and even speculated on why this trend may have occurred, it underscored the basic point that in the same way there are many differences in classroom instruction, there are also many differences in the variety of online and blended learning opportunities that are available.

As I have stated in many venues, certain types of online learning tend to cater to one type of student, while other types of online learning seem to be better suited for other types of learners. For example, the traditional supplemental model of virtual schooling where students spend a portion of their school day unsupervised in a computer lab, learning resource center or distance education room where they complete one or more online courses and interact with a teacher primarily in an asynchronous fashion has been quite successful with the higher ability, self-directed, self-motivated students (the kinds of students that would generally enroll in the Advanced Placement, higher level mathematics and science, or foreign language courses).  By the same token, many schools have had success with creating a supervised computer lab where students complete credit recovery courses using a database-driven online learning program (i.e., the online Skinner box).  Many of those struggling students that find success with the database courses would not be able to manage their own learning in the traditional supplemental model.  Similarly, many of those higher performing students would be bored and unengaged in the database-driven courses.

But how much of this are school leaders actually aware of?  I know when I work with schools here in Michigan (both online and brick-and-mortar), with the exception of a couple of the online programs that have been doing this for a while, money is often the overriding factor in deciding what online learning program or vendor to use.  I realize that this is the overarching goal of the educational reform movement, to ensure that our public schools become free market entities and economics are the underlying driver for all decisions.  And this is fine, if all we want from our schools is to produce the same quality of students as the quality of food produced by McDonald’s.  Sure it is cheap and you know what you’re going to get because regardless of who is making your Big Mac it will come out roughly the same, but it is hardly considered fine dining.  The same is true of bottomline thinking when it comes to online and blended learning.

Without knowledgeable school leaders to make pedagogical-based decisions about the method and medium that instruction should be designed, delivered and supported, all we will be left with is the continued McDonaldization of public education.

Calling All Bloggers! – Leadership Day 2011

Since this is a slow blogging day (yesterday was also a slow blogging day), I figured that I should re-post this for one of my CASTLE blogging colleagues.

Since the past four have been so successful [last year we had 114 posts!], I am putting out a call for people to participate in Leadership Day 2011. To paraphrase what I said four years ago:

Many of our school leaders (principals, superintendents, central office administrators) need help when it comes to digital technologies. A lot of help, to be honest. As I’ve noted again and again on this blog… [continue reading]

I’ll be posting something on 05 August (as I have in 2009 and 2010)

2010 Edublog Awards – Time To Vote!

I saw this in my RSS Reader posted at Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant blog.

It’s time to vote for the 2010 Edublog Awards, the ‘Oscars of the education blogosphere.’ All votes are due by noon Eastern, December 14. Winners will be announced soon thereafter.

CASTLE nominees

CASTLE blogs – including this one - have been nominated in several categories:

• Best individual blog (Dangerously Irrelevant, School Finance 101)
• Best group blog (Connected Principals, LeaderTalk)
• Best new blog (Connected Principals)
• Most influential blog post (Dangerously Irrelevant: We can’t let educators off the hook)
• Best school administrator blog (Connected Principals, Dangerously Irrelevant) [this should be called ‘Best leadership blog’ instead]
• Best elearning / corporate education blog (Virtual School Meanderings)
• Best educational webinar series (Connected Principals)
  Best educational use of a social network (Connected Principals)
• Best use of a PLN (Connected Principals)
• Lifetime achievement (Scott McLeod)

There are scores of excellent sites from which to choose. Go check out the lists and vote for your favorites!

I have to be honest and say that I didn’t actually know I was nominated. Thanks to whomever submitted my name.

A Response To iNACOL’s “Leadership Day 2010: Online And Blended Learning”

The end of July was Leadership Day 2010, an annual event organized by my colleague and fellow CASTLE blogger, Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant.  Essentially, it is an event to “blog about whatever you like related to effective school technology leadership: successes, challenges, reflections, needs, wants, etc.”.

I accepted the challenge and posted my own entry entitled Leadership Day 2010 – Advice On Virtual Schooling. In Scott’s entry where he summarizes the event’s activities, Leadership Day 2010 – The final list!, he described it as “A letter from a K-12 online learning researcher to administrators advising them, ‘Don’t believe the hype!’”

One of the other things that I did notice from this final list was that I wasn’t the only one who blogged about K-12 online learning.  It seems the folks at iNACOL also posted an entry on the Next Gen Learning Challenge blog entitled Leadership Day 2010: Online And Blended Learning.  I wanted to take some time today to respond to that entry.

While I don’t disagree with most of the entry (in fact I generally agree or have no issue with everything up to the end of the bulleted list), there are a couple of points I wish to make.

Today, 20% of all college students in undergraduate or graduate school take an online course, while online courses are available to 2% of K-12 students.

I’m hoping that the 2% figure for K-12 is a typo.  According to Picciano and Seaman (2008):

1. Three quarters of the responding public school districts are offering online or blended
courses:

• 75% had one or more students enrolled in a fully online or blended course.
• 70% had one or more students enrolled in a fully online course.
• 41% had one or more students enrolled in a blended course

Additionally, Florida has legislated that all schools must provide online learning opportunities to their students, while Michigan, Alabama, and New Mexico all require some kind of online learning in order to graduate from high school (in the case of New Mexico it is actually an AP, honors, dual enrollment or distance learning course. Surely the combined schools in these four states equal more than 2% of the schools in the United States? And that would be assuming no K-12 online learning activity in the other 46 (and we know from Watson, Gemin, Ryan and Wicks (2009) that 41 of those remaining 46 states have significant K-12 online learning activity).

In K-12 education, online and blended courses are providing highly qualified teachers, advanced courses, core courses, remediation for dropout prevention…

Couldn’t I simply replace online and blended courses with classroom courses and the statement would be just as true?

In K-12 education, classroom courses are providing highly qualified teachers, advanced courses, core courses, remediation for dropout prevention…

The fact of the matter is that there are many schools that have highly qualified teachers and that offer advanced courses, core courses, and remediation for dropout prevention.  To make a statement like this implies that online and blended courses can do this, while traditional face-to-face classrooms can’t.

I should also note that one of the advantages that online and blend course have right now is their scale, the simple fact that they are in the minority.  It is a simple case of supply and demand really, if we were to fast forward twenty or thirty years and let’s pretend that Christensen, Horn and Johnson got it right and online and blended courses are the norm or “standard way of doing business” (essentially let’s imagine the percentage of online and blended vs. classroom learning that is occurring has flip flopped from today’s numbers).  Given that online and blended learning is now the majority delivery model, wouldn’t there be just as many bad teachers, poorly designed schools, etc.?  When you are in a minority position you have the luxury of being selective.  When you are in the majority position and simply trying to staff positions and accommodate learners, you take the best that is available.  Having ten well qualified candidates and only needing two is a very different position than having ten candidates of varying quality, but actually having twenty spots to fill.

The reality of the situation is that while online and blended learning may have the potential to do many wonderful things it is all in the execution.  The same is true of the classroom!  The traditional classroom does have the potential to do many wonderful things – it is responsible for my success and I’d imagine the success of most of the people reading this blog – it all depending on the execution of the individual(s) in the room.

…most students take classes online that are otherwise unavailable in their face-to-face environments.

I have to disagree with this.  At the 2007 Virtual School Symposium, iNACOL President Susan Patrick stated that the two courses with the highest enrollment of online students in the United States are Algebra I & Algebra II.  Given that almost every state requires at least one full year of mathematics in order to graduate, how many schools do you really believe aren’t offering Algebra I & Algebra II.  Further, Watson, Gemin and Ryan (2008) stated that the the largest growth in K–12 online learning enrollment is with full-time cyber charter schools.  These are not students who were taking classes online that were otherwise unavailable to them.  These are individuals that selected the online option for all of their schooling based on the school choice regime (some, including myself, would argue market choice and deschooling agenda).  Finally Watson, Gemin, Ryan and Wicks (2009) reported that there were 320,000 course enrollments in supplemental programs in 2008-09, but approximately 175,000 students enrolled in full-time programs (i.e. at least four classes or at least 700,000 course enrollments).

Leaders who provide these new opportunities for students will better prepare those students for continuing their education and the workforce as they are not only able to learn content and access high quality teachers through online learning, but they are gaining additional 21^st century skills by learning in this environment.

This is good rhetoric, but that’s pretty much where it ends.  I know iNACOL is big on these twenty-first century skills because of their involvement with the  Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, but the fact of the matter is that much of what is generally described as skills necessarily twenty-first century are largely nineteenth century skills that my grandfather possessed (see VSS2007 – Virtual Schools and 21st Century Skills and New Report from Partnership for 21st Century Skills for earlier discussions on this topic).

Concluding Thoughts:

This is actually a very good example of some of the mistake that proponents of K-12 online learning make when trying to make their case.  You see the problem here is that the rhetoric and empty language of the second half of the entry, drown out the good ideas presented in the first half.  Sure this kind of language may work with the lemmings out there, but anyone with a skeptical or critical eye will immediately dismiss this was more Bible thumping from the virtual schooling evangelicals.  And that’s a problem because there are some good ideas in the first half of the entry.

The belief that school leaders – and I would argue anyone involved in education – should be:

• Training to start and manage online learning programs and virtual schools (full online courses, hybrid/blended learning, online concurrent/dual enrollment models, dropout prevention, credit recovery and online remediation options, competency and performance-based models)
• Leadership training and the development of a blueprint for what is possible in innovative school models using online and blended learning
• Implementing Open Educational Resources and using digital content to supplement and enhance face-to-face and online learning
• Evaluating and supporting teachers in the online and blended environment

These are all great notions, and things that people in Colleges of Education (like myself) should be preparing the next generation of teachers and administrators for.  But unfortunately, by the time you get to the end of the entry much of this is lost.