Virtual Schools have been in existence for at least a decade. There are virtual K-12 schools in about 35 states, with a total enrollment of 375,000 students. These students are taking all their classes online. California, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Oklahoma have over 175,000 of these students. Florida has virtual schools aligned with each of its 67 counties.
Virtual schools are not new and have been serving students with unique situations that make attending face-to-face schools difficult. They may be actors, dancers, musicians on tour/location, competitive athletes, or have parents who fit into these categories or are in the military.
They may have special health-related situations that preclude traditional schedules or locations for schooling or need additional flexibility. They may be special needs or gifted, needing specialized instruction not available in their local schools.
These schools have learned the hard way that teachers need different teaching methods, curriculum, and feedback to engage and develop the learning in their students.
Importantly, these schools that have been around the early 2000s have addressed the technology issue. They have solved the typical technology problems. The teachers spend their time teaching rather than solving connectivity, operating systems, hardware malfunctions, and unstable software problems. The schools train students, teachers, and parents to deal with the easy stuff.
Two education-technology vendors dominate this market today: Pearson and K12.com Inc. They provide technical infrastructure, pedagogy, and training for teachers in this environment.
The curriculum in each of these virtual schools meets state standards and provides accreditation through Cognia and other accreditation bodies. They have been moderately successful in some locations and have not done as well in others.
With the pandemic declaration in March of 2020, public and private schools quickly transitioned to online educational delivery. They became virtual, almost overnight. There was some basic training for the teachers, mostly in Zoom, Google Classrooms, and other technology. For school IT, it meant rolling out laptops, tablets, and wi-fi hotspots to all students.
The results in the Spring term were not good. We are still waiting to find out what the learning deficit will be. General satisfaction with local schools dropped from 68% to 49% receiving high marks. The drop in perceptions for local schools was mirrored in private and charter schools as well. There were many estimates of students falling as much as a year behind in their education.
The decline’s reasons have much to do with the teaching methods used or not used in this abrupt transition. One limited study identified four factors that directly relate to learning effectiveness:
- Active learning — engaging students in collaboration, discussion, and presentations
- Communications — setting clear academic standards, providing timely feedback, and being responsive
- Pedagogical Efficacy — instructional material tailored to online learning, and motivating students
- Classroom Management — competent instructors, skilled at managing disruptions, and technology that works for all students and teachers
The results of the study were dramatic. The Virtual Schools significantly outperformed the suddenly online bricks-and-mortar schools. Their performance enveloped all learning effectiveness factors.
It might be easy to conclude that virtual schools are better than the newly online schools, but that would be jumping the gun. It would be better to ask whether the virtual schools’ success can be transferred to the bricks-and-mortar schools when they operate online.
It is also worth asking if the virtual schools can learn from the brick-and-mortar schools and improve through more creative uses of the technologies they already employ. Can the virtual schools create a collaborative environment for the physically separate classmates? How do you take a virtual class on a “field trip” to a museum, or bakery, or dairy?
Realizing success in brick-and-mortar schools in the online environment will require three accomplishments. They will need a supportive and functioning technology infrastructure. They will need a pedagogy and curriculum tailored to the online environment. The principals and teachers will need training to develop the skills required to operate effectively in the online classroom.
The technology must be well designed and operate flawlessly from the cloud servers to the teachers and students located remotely. For some, this means standardizing on a single set of technology, like PCs, Macs, iPads, or other hardware. It means a single Learning Management System that works across the various technologies.
The technical and application architecture must align with the curriculum and teaching methods. Too many teachers and parents were forced to become tech support in the early days of the pandemic. Well-designed and operated technology significantly reduces that burden.
The pedagogy that worked (or failed) in the face-to-face classroom can lead to distracted and unmotivated students. Ultimately it can result in reduced student learning. Vendors like Pearson and K12.org and associations like International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) have developed course material and teacher training to introduce the new pedagogical techniques that lead to success in the online world.
Project and Challenge based learning is taking hold in many schools, and needs to be extended to the virtual world. These are potentially a huge help, but not without school leadership sponsoring the needed teacher training and education. The abrupt shift to online did not provide this support in many schools, leading to reduced educational effectiveness.
ISTE has an impressive array of Standards-Based Learning courses designed for the face-to-face classroom experience that are adaptable to the online world. They involve active learning, communication, motivation, and classroom management that could be adapted to deliver effective online classes.
The curricula in virtual schools are highly varied, reflecting the need at the time of their formation. In North Carolina, NCVS, a statewide resource for virtual education, acts as a shared supplemental resource for schools that do not have resident teaching of specialized courses (languages, Advanced Placement, or Arts ).
In Florida, the schools are tied to county school systems and range from a broad selection of core and supplemental courses in Palm Beach and Alachua Counties to limited offerings in other counties. The Miami Virtual School appears to have one all-Spanish language school.
Surely, not all virtual schools are as successful as the top performers. But they have learned how to operate more effectively in the online world, and that learning needs to be transferred to their peers from the bricks-and-mortar world. The question is how to do this. There was some intensive instruction in some school districts during the summer of 2020. More needs to be done.
Virtual schools represented less than 1% of students in the US before March 2020. Then practically all schools were virtual overnight. Yet, they are examples of innovation that can lead to more effective learning in schools forced to become virtual.
In the states where virtual schools have a significant scale (California, Pennsylvania, and Florida) they could share their success with their bricks-and-mortar peers. In states without virtual schools, or where they lack scale, virtual schools should become innovation centers to seed new methods to other schools.
Our population has shifted from cities to suburbs and suburbs to exurbs and rural communities due to the Pandemic. Schools in some areas will be challenged to educate a suddenly larger population. Virtual schools may provide one of the answers.
About The Prometheus Endeavor
Our mission is to apply our knowledge and management experience to further the IT and Digital Endeavors of society, its institutions, and businesses. The Prometheus Endeavor does not do consulting or represent vendors. For over 30 years, members have advised and managed some of the most successful deployments of IT.
Ben, Your article confirms my belief that virtual learning has an important role to play in the pos-pandemic world. I’d like to make two comments. First, social skills development is a key component of in-class learning provides? How does virtual learning address that need? Second, I would add family support to the learning effectiveness factor you mention. That, I’m convinced, es essential and unfortunately missing from many households in America.
Excellent article!
Gonzalo