H Duderstadt, New Tech Maven

Have you ever wondered about the way you learn things.  When I was studying education for my MS, I was introduced to amazing test called the VARK test.  It’s a series of multiple choice questions like:

In this time of severe budget cuts, public schools are facing serious challenges in how to save money, not the least of which is determining which classes to cut.  As a public school teacher who taught Animation & Video Game Design for several years, I know first hand how the ever shrinking pool of money available is driving schools to drop those classes which are not considered necessities to their children being prepared for college or a career and may not have the enrollment numbers to justify them.   The classes eliminated can range from art, drama and music to career and technical education, to even the “gold standard” AP classes.

A huge problem with doing this is that many schools suffer from a severe lack in elective courses that students need to graduate.  By cutting back on the often limited number of courses that any student can take, schools risk an an increased dropout rate for those borderline students who often don’t qualify for AP classes or even more advanced pupils finding ever more difficult to get enough units to graduate.

One potential solution to this problem is to change the way we approach K-12 learning and how to offer a broad range of classes (both in terms of content and even methods of teaching) to a broad range of students at a variety of levels.  Traditionally, larger schools have benefited in their ability to offer a much larger number of classes on a broad range of subjects.  Where as a school like the one I currently teach for may be able to offer 4 years of Art, or Drama, or Music along with a dizzying array of AP classes and career and technical ed programs; small schools like the high school I attended (with a graduating class of 92) can only offer the core courses simply because there aren’t enough kids to fill the sections and so justify hiring a teacher and paying for the materials to teach the classes.  Of course, the budget crisis I mentioned earlier is now driving this problem up to larger schools as well.

The problem is that we still are limited by the idea that in order for a class to be available to a student, the school they attend must offer it.  Even if you take the approach that many ROP vocational programs take of having regional centers where kids can drive (or be bussed),  you are still limited by distance.  If the number of students, even in a region, who will sign up for a program is too few, the program cannot be justified.  The heart of the problem is that we still focus on PHYSICAL classes.   We need to open our minds to VIRTUAL ones.

Already, there are kids who take online courses in order to complete enough units to graduate or prepare for an AP test that will help them get into a college that looks at AP scores.  But, this number is still relatively small because school counselors and administrators often overlook online programs as a viable option.  Additionally, the students often are unaware and of them, and then, when they actually take  a class, fail because they are unfamiliar with just HOW to take an online class, get the most our of it, and get the best grade.

What if a public school suffering from severe budget cuts were to create several computer labs and staff them with student teachers in order to support online learning?   And, their counselors had a complete list of programs and had worked with the schools that operate them to schedule students regularly into them?

What I’m speaking of here is to take a modular approach to learning.  Instead of trying to offer everything in one school, a district, or county, or even state education department could  coordinate a broad range of online and blended (combining online learning with lab support) across dozens if not hundreds of schools.  Initially, you could utilize the multimedia of university, community college, and even private programs available.   But, a K-12 school that had a program that was particularly successful could could take that class online and offer it to schools across the region, state, or even nationally.  Students would benefit in that they would have an amazing array of classes available.

There are hurdles in schools actually developing their own online courses, not the least of which is state requirements that fund programs based on “seat time” or Average Daily Attendance (ADI).  In essence, unless there is a student in a seat for a particular number of hours, they will not help cover it’s cost.   The Florida Virtual School faced this problem.  State politicians succeeded in changing the requirements to RESULT BASED rather than TIME BASED.  So, as long as the students learned the required content, the cost was covered by the state.

Additionally, there are the technological and course development requirements for online learning.  But, one of the most powerful and popular online learning systems, Moodle, is FREE.  And, as professional instructional designers and those with online learning degrees struggle with the current economy, there are people out there who can help develop such programs.