When it comes to online learning in a K-12 setting there are going to be a number of pluses and minuses to deal with. There are going to be a number on how to’s to figure out. Then if this is going to help and hurt students in your district since it could be pulling students from your district and have them going to a neighboring district for either type of class delivery, online or face to face. These are things an administrator is going to have to research before make the commitment to online learning.
When it comes to online learning some students will excel at this type of delivery model. These students are the ones that can work on their own, plan, are self driven, and can stay focused on the course. If a students has these type of soft skills they should be able to handle a self guided online course. If a student is missing any of these skills then they are going to have to learn them and demonstrate them before they are allowed to take an online course. If students can demonstrate that they have mastered these soft skills then online learning would be good for them.
One thing an administrator has to think about is staffing in both their building and in their online courses. If a district sets up online learning courses how is it going to affect the buildings FTE’s. Will staff cuts have to be done if students are working from home? What would be the case load for the facilitator? Most union contracts have a set number of students per teacher, so is an online teacher going to have the same number of students or can they have more, maybe double or triple the contract amount. If the later is possible and with the district money being so tight it make perfect sense to cut staff for online learning. The district is going to save by only having 1 teacher as opposed to three. Then less money will be spent on running a classroom and cleaning a classroom, which means cutting the support staff as well, meaning more savings. So from an administrations standpoint online learning will make more money available to be used on other things.
I think offering online learning is going to happen in each district, as it should, but it is not going to be a replacement for face to face learning. It is going to be a tool in a district's toolbox which can be used to help support education. These are just some of my thoughts, what are some of yours?
I agree that it will simply be a tool in the toolbox. I also believe that in order to truly differentiate for all students, that is the only way to accomplish it. On the business end, there is a lot more to it than I think any of us truly understand.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree. Online learning will benefit a variety of students, but it should be seen as a differentiation strategy as opposed to a main pedagogy.
DeleteSo true, there is a lot that we truly do not understand about what will work the best for our students. We have to just keep trying and using different tools to make a difference in all of our kids.
ReplyDeleteGerald,
DeleteI am an absolute advocate for online learning. Before my experience in this course, I did have a idea what the advantages of online learning had. But, not to the extent that I have today. Taking this course has definitely helped me become more insightful and I also believe that online learning is a good cost saver; and benefits the students and schools collectively.