Virtual Schooling Post-Post

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Looking back at my earlier blog post and considering what I read in the articles, there are a few things that- although not extremely surprising to me- were things that got me thinking about how much we really understand about virtual schooling.

The most unexpected thing I learned was from Barbour (2009).  He reveals that there are significant inadequacies in our understanding of the efficacy of virtual schooling, because many of the best-known studies (such as those of Marc Prensky) are methodologically flawed by small sample size or demographically predetermined by a prejudicial selection method.  Studies are also handicapped by their limitations in following the progress of all students; students who drop out of a course are often excluded from the data, and this artificially inflates graduation rates and final grades.  Barbour indicates that in the Florida Virtual School, between 25% and 50% of students dropped out of the course, which means that their scores do not figure into the final analysis.  Further, in Gemin & Pape’s 2016 Keeping Pace with K12 Online Learning report, it indicated that only 68.5% of students received a grade of D or higher, while the other 31.5% either failed or did not receive a final grade.  I didn’t have any preexisting assumptions about achievement or graduation rates for students of virtual schools, but this does cause me to regard claims on this subject with some skepticism.

I was intrigued to find that most students enrolled in virtual classes only take 1 or 2 at a time.  Their other classes are held at a traditional brick-and-mortar school.  In my earlier post I had assumed that if a student were enrolled in a “virtual school,” then she was a full-time student.  But I can see that this does not have to be the case.  For instance, Gemin & Pape’s virtual schooling report indicated that most students took an average of about 2 online classes (but it differs by state, with North Carolina at 3.18 enrollments per student and Iowa at only 1.13, with Michigan near the average at 1.69 enrollments per student).  This report also points out that many enrollments are for credit recovery, so these students may simply be taking a single virtual course in order to get credit and graduate.  They are not necessarily getting all of their schooling online.  Barbour also notes that in 2007 the most frequently enrolled virtual courses were Algebra I and Algebra II, classes that are often taken online as credit recovery opportunities.  This shifts my view of the virtually-schooled student as being supplemented by online learning, rather than having it supplant on-site education.

On a small note, I was a little confused by the relationship between “vendors,” “suppliers,” teachers, and schools in the 2016 report.  What was specifically surprising was that I kept stumbling upon phrases such as “The supplier, offering the online course and perhaps the teacher,” and “courses that include the online teacher,” and other such syntactically puzzling phraseology.  It seems like sometimes the vendor provides the teacher and sometimes not.  I even encountered the somehow startling statement that suppliers are “not responsible for a student’s academic activity and performance and are not authorized to do so.  As such, suppliers do not own the transcript of a student, administer state assessments, assign grade levels, or offer diplomas.”  I guess the vendors and suppliers are more just providing the materials, not doing what I would consider actual teaching.  I had never really thought about the nuanced relationship between these different actors in virtual schooling.

After reading through iNACOL’s Top Ten Myths about Virtual Schools, I don’t think I fell into any of these myths when describing what I thought virtual schooling was.  Maybe the closest I came to was myth 4: “Online students are isolated and therefore will be socially disadvantaged.”  I didn’t imply that students are isolated or social disadvantaged while taking virtual classes, but I did suggest that perhaps students with severe social anxiety may benefit from being away from the social politics and relational stresses inherent in a brick-and-mortar school.  Especially based on my experiences so far with IT6140 and IT6230, I would not agree with myth 3 anyway: “Online courses lack interaction.”  This is clearly a mischaracterization of virtual schooling promulgated by people who are probably ignorant of the experience.  I think the same thing about myth 7: “Online course [sic] are easier for students than regular courses.”  Anyone who has taken an online course can tell you that they are by no means easier than a traditional course.  Obviously they are different, but I don’t think that a course’s difficulty can be predicted based on whether it is virtual or traditional. 

Some of my thoughts from the earlier post were accurate.  I figured that a virtual class could involve synchronous and asynchronous work, and Barbour points out that this is true, although he suggests that often virtual educators are better at synchronous teaching, because it is more congruent with the style of teaching with which they are probably most familiar.  I also assumed that a good virtual class would have a variety of modes of learning, from group work, to individual assignments, to interactive resources and engaging digital media.  Although it doesn’t seem that this was heavily addressed in any of the sources, I think the glancing references made about virtual course quality support this view.

Barbour, M. K. (2009). Today's student and virtual schooling: The reality, the challenges, the promise.  Journal of Distance Learning, 13(1), 5-25.

Gemin, B., & Pape, L. (2017).  Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning: 2016 (13th ed.).  Durango, CO:  Evergreen Education Group.

iNACOL.  (no date).  “Top ten myths about virtual schools.”  North American Council for Online Learning.  www.nacol.org