District Administration - July/August 2012 - (Page 78)

cio District AvOiding tHe PitfAllS Of virtuAl ScHOOling room, but now we stay more closely to those pace charts,” Townley says. Thuman explains, “and there also were a lot of mistaken ideas of what online education should look like versus what it really would look like. We needed to get the correct information out. Looking back, we should have spent more time involving site administrators—principals and assistant principals—from each high school, as well as a counselor.” Thuman has made up for lost time by getting SOL included on the agenda of the monthly meeting of Scottsdale’s school administrators and by sending out a weekly electronic newsletter to them. “Online schooling is much more in the main vocabulary of the district now,” he points out. “It’s the same as nutritional services or special education.” SOL also has posted more information for parents on what to expect in their children’s online learning, from homework to the role of the teacher. Because SOL’s administrators have learned from the mistakes of the past year, the participating school counselors are now up to speed. Thuman notes, however, that if the district could afford it, he would hire a fulltime person in his office to interface with teachers also are assigned a mentor for that year, and they continue their studies through a series of webinars. All FLVS teachers follow another crucial step at the beginning of their courses. “One of the things we didn’t have in the very beginning was a welcome call from teachers to parents and students in which the teacher would tell them what to expect,” Townley says. FLVS has also made adjustments to the completion schedule of its courses, which, unlike those offered by VHS, do not have a set start and finish date each term. “In the beginning, our motto was ‘Anytime, any place, any path, any pace,’” Townley says. “We learned fairly quickly that we had to provide something to set the pace for students who were not moving along quickly enough. Now we have a pace chart in every single course.” The charts come in three varieties. Besides the standard pacing for courses, an advanced pace chart allows students to go at double speed if they can handle the load, and then there’s an extended pace chart for students who need more time to complete the course. “There’s still wiggle Lessons for Administrators In the Scottsdale (Ariz.) Unified School District, meanwhile, the administrators of Scottsdale Online Learning (SOL), which debuted in the summer of 2011, encountered an entirely different set of difficulties. During the 2011-2012 school year 1,500 students across the district took courses, but not without some initial difficulties, recalls Chris Thuman, SOL’s executive director. A single counselor at each of the district’s five high schools served as the coordinator for students enrolling in virtual courses, and this job sometimes got buried in the myriad other responsibilities of the counselors. As a result, the message did not get out clearly enough to prospective online students and parents about what to expect and what they needed to do, and there was widespread confusion about when courses would start, who was teaching them, how to register for them, and whether there even were online courses available. “There wasn’t buy-in at the site level,” How to Start Online Schooling 1. Seek out ideas. Those who have already implemented virtual schooling can offer plenty of suggestions on how to get an online learning program off the ground and keep it flying. 2. Invest in design. Spend time and resources up front on instructional and Web design to make sure that online courses deliver their content effectively. 3. Get competent teachers. Find teachers who are adept in areas such as promoting collaborative learning, pacing long-range student projects, and working individually with students. 4. Train. Provide the lead time to further train your chosen teachers in transferring the skills above into an online environment and in using Web 2.0 tools, from Blackboard to Google Docs. Develop and publish standards for evaluating teaching performance online. 5. Create pacing. Set a pace for students to finish work, including an advanced pace chart to allow them to go at double speed if they can handle it, and an extended pace chart for students who need more time. 6. Get buy-in. Get buy-in at your school, and involve administrators at the participating bricks-and-mortar school in the rollout of online courses. 7. Start small. Start small in your first year, with online pilots or a modest menu of courses. 8. Find a leader. Make sure to have someone dedicated to running the online learning program and focused on teacher performance and student outcomes. 78 July/August 2012 District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - July/August 2012

District Administration - July/August 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Research Center
Professional Opinion
Supervisor's Opinion
Crisis Response
Going Mobile
Gaming Gains Respect
A Running Start for ELLs
Paul Vallas for Sale
Unsung Heroes
CIO News
Avoiding the Pitfalls of Virtual Schooling
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Product Focus
Problem Solution

District Administration - July/August 2012