Break Out 4: Evaluating Online Teaching by Deb

Profile of an effective Online Teacher
Unconditional commitment to student success-go the distance
Training Teachers to teach Online
Whole different kind of teaching
Taking an Online Course
Teacher isn’t dispersing the content as in face-face
Do this before becoming a teacher online
Course Management System-what platform being used (includes chatroom, whiteboard, gradebook, exam/survey builder, email etc)
Training on the CMS
Bring in national trainers/college and repeat when new teachers are on board-ongoing
Online Teacher training course-6 week course-Cardinal Stritch 3 credit course-write this into grant application
Management of Online Learning Courses-2 3 week mols- contact Kiel school
Training on Specific Course
FLVS offers a course and mentor-engaging students is often the difficulty
Conferencing Tools
Need to train teachers on this for web conferencing
Web-based Supplementary Materials (subscriptions or licensing needed)
Like United Streaming, BrainPOP
Additional Training through FLVS

Ongoing monthly online teacher training sessions with 2 F2F meetings a year with pairing to mentor and one day tech training inservice

Several courses from Cardinal Stritch
Partner with Appleton-e school-are separate entities but shared efforts as in PD, mentor PPT and putting together an online teacher training minicourse (don’t share fiscal management)
Have to deal with intellectual property issues (who owns the course that is developed?)
Handout: Online evaluation sheet for online teacher (both self and supervisor evals)
Students have “pace charts” to help them stay on task
Transforms F2F learning-some teachers find they are better teachers in classroom as a result of hybrid experiences
Kiel school teachers
Everyone is like a first year teacher with ongoing training needed
All teachers have chosen to teach online
Give bonuses instead of raises
Online Teacher Evaluation mirrors job description and is given by supervisor-need to look at our contract language
Improving teachers is the goal
Virtual observation
Ways of engaging students, helping have success, positive feedback, quick response time, timely assessments
Are things current and what about parent/guidance correspondence
Make sure supervisor can access teacher/student archives
Teachers are to keep phone log, student participation encouraged, current syllabus and pace chart, progress report and participation in staff meetings/trainings, timely grading
Importance of Feedback
Can have a major impact-best tool for helping students learn
Encourage student reflection and help students understand how they can improve
Attendance
Teachers is required to contact students, parent, counselor-after 15 days, student is no longer a student
Make allowances for sickness or illness treatment
Elements of Effective Feedback
Professional, positive, specific, personal and encouraging
Delivery –written, verbal face to face
Orientation
F2F required with student and parent-exceptions are possible but rare
Lots less problems
Require all students to take online technology course
Adm needs to back teachers up
Effective Communication
Welcome phone call-follow-up if problems
Web conference
Weekly/monthly progress reports
SREB
Excellent resources

Tuesday Morning General Session by Janel

US Dept of Education- Impact of Virtual Schools and Online Learning (Tim Manger)
India and China- huge changes in economies and education
Foreign students- coming here for advanced degrees and then returning to their home countries
60% of new jobs will require post secondary education held by 1/3 of workers
Inside the Beltway, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, 21st Century Innovation- good books

The future is not found but made...

Chic Thompson Networking Activity
Eliminate the yes-buts during brainstorming
Identify the top five killer phrases that stifle online initiatives and defuse them with yes-and statements (can we do a test first, what will make this work, etc)

TONY ROBBINS
1. What do you want to acieve?- be specific
2. Why do you want to achieve it?- be passionate
3. How am I going to achieve it?- be bold
Figure out how to diffuse the killer phrases

The Experience Economy- Jim Gilmore

THREE BRAINSTORMING ACTIVITIES
1. Each Quarter Ask- What are the Ten Dumbest Things we do in...
2. What would we never do? (activities of opposites) What would we never do to help online students in online learning- what would we do to flip that
3. Borrow an idea... ie what can online educaiton learn about themselves from .... (reality TV shows)

26-63=1 (Switch one digit to make it correct) Power of creative thinking.

Lunch Keynote What A Great Idea by Janel

Charles Chip Thompson

Began working at Gortex- cultre of "yes and". Its trial and ERROR not trial and rightness.
Worked at Epcot where it was a culture of "yes but"

If you want to be innovative you need to be yes-and first and yes-but later (start curious then move to critical)

Key to solving a problem is asking why 5 times. Why is this a problem get a response, why is that a problem,response, why,response, etc. BECAUSE I SAID SO does not count as a response

Einstein- difficult problems cannot be solved with the same mode of thinking that created them.

Einstein- I have no special gift. I am just passionately curious.

Turn negatives into opportunities. How can the problem be fixed?

Ask- what would we never do? See where this leads when the answers are analyzed and pondered. Embrace the power of the opposite (creative destruction)

Human beings strive to achieve immortality
1. By having kids
2. By planting trees
3. By having ideas and acting on them.

Go forth and achieve immortality.

Break Out 4: How To Start a Virtual School by Janel

The Virtual Campus Rapid City, SD
Funding Issues
Teacher pay-based upon number of students in the class that pass the class and per credit, pay beased upon FTE or adjunct?
Marketing- need to advertise and figure out how to advertise what you are doing, brochures, frig magnets, pens, etc
Courses- create or purchase, must consider revision options
South Dakota islooking for teachers with SD licenses
Cultivating Successful students, asynchronous, exit surveys

Minnesota Virtual Academy Houston, MN
Very small school with limited resources including personell and their experiences. K12 is their curriculum provider that makes it work really really well. Highly recommend them.
SIS- Automated CumulativeFile
Extracurricular activities- destination imagination, knowledge bowl, spelling bees, etc

Kansas Virtual School
tapped into parent resources for regional locations where families get together
community enrichment package
coach and support parents
mothers group meets for dinner
building community to support parents and students
activities occuring across the state on a weekly basis
parents plan these activites

Other
Need an SIS that will work with the LMS to keep track of communication pieces

Breakout Session 3: Policy Making and Online Schools by Janel

Key Issues for Policy Making
Student assessment
Full time vs supplemental
Funding
Program accountability
Teaching/curriculum
Program models

They talked a lot about state level policy making so a lot of it does not apply, but the implications and areas that they are examiing will be very important in the development of our school.

Bell South and SREB hae a variety of resources for us to use

Be careful with much of the curiculum purchased outside of the states because they are centered around national rather than state standards, but if you want to sell your developed curriculum it is best to center it around national standards or at least be able to map them that way. However, the purchased curriculum should be reviewed against your specific state's standards.

Breakout #2: Virtual Schools and the School Library by Janel

Terence and Kathy Cavanaugh

Missions
Primary Purposes- SUPPORTING the CURRICULUM and promoting reading enjoyment.
Library is the most collaborative spot in the school- need to keep this up
Concerns that the library is being forgotten in terms of cost effectiveness
80% of books are purchased by 20% of the people: this is also true of teachers
20% of books are bought by 30% of the people, the other 50% don't buy books

Studies
Reading for enjoyment helps you move up in student achievement, skills improve every year

Student-Millennial Generation
Majority go to google but they realize that time is wasted

Other
Currently there are not many requirements for libraries and online schools
A lot of hybrid libraries are popping up
Subscriptions to online library associations (materials and librarian services, but most of these are not tied to gether) There are some gaps here

Good Links
netLibrary
ebrary
Questia
OverDrive- Digital Library Reserve
Bookshare.org
Accessible Book Collection.org

This presentation is more professors trying to describe thier research project than giving information. That is slightly disappointing. They only have about 8 responses so far. They do have a research presentation available on the webpage. Link below.

Presentation is available online Click here.

Break Out 1: Hybrid Models of Online Learning by Deb

Piloted to start-are a state virtual school for state of Georgia
Rural
Offering for both AP and regular classes
Offer to public/private/homeschool and open for state funding
What we found:
Many schools have needs in addition to what we had imagined
These schools want to serve their student but not in the “traditional” on line
All adjunct teachers
Students go to their own school but take the course online during that scheduled time
Latin is biggest course
Can provide for a class w/o a teacher
Students can float in whatever period they can go to the lab-the teacher in the lab class that period gives oversight and/or help
Student’s school provides supervision-every school has a facilitator in charge
School loses the FTE-follows the student so the VS gets the FTE for the online students
Have developed most of their own curriculum
Lot of teachers use Synchonized tools
None are selfpaced and have Friday due dates-most courses are specific lengths
Willing to collaborate
How to support a new online teacher? GA can use their curriculum and facilitate lessons on which teacher is not comfortable with yet
Blended learning is growing
Schools who get involved have to pay a seat fee and for online textbooks
Blended is mix of face and online (ex online during week for AP Bio and face labs on Fridays)
Have thought of putting all their content on the web (moodle)
Lots of schools just want to do better in AP-putting 8 AP reviews on line free to every student
Want to give student opportunity for a class they can’t take in any other way-more cost effective and really not in direct competition with schools or CESA’s, etc
Helping kids in some way meet college entrance requirements
Lets homebound students taken as many as they need free
Professional Development course offered-10 hour course (platform, policy, processes, etc) Has complete Q&A listed
If student is as FTE, it is during day, but if tuition, can do it anytime
Online all the time-flexible hours and all virtual
Obstacle: Missing computers at home-have expectations still to do all the coursework
Offer courses to all in a residential setting-set up a schedule for doing core
Offering course work to alternative schools
Medical homebound-this is a great resource –helps the student stay on task and doesn’t burden the of getting all the make-up stuff to that student
Special Ed homebound kids-schools do well financially as the virtual school is cheaper than what the school gets from state
Some schools allow students to come in on their schedule-student can do work anytime as long as meet due dates
Helps with extracurriculars as kids really involved can take classes anytime and can leave school early or come in late
Official class size is 20
Most teachers teach a regular 6 classes and then one class on line-some at home teachers
Paid by the student-AP-$250 per student enrolled
Low drop rate-if they drop after first 5 days, teacher gets to keep the money
******Have courses on math remediation UNITS! Check on that!! Will try this in the spring-Alg 1 and 2. District will just pay the cost of that course
Pay the teachers to develop an online class
Working with SRB for course quality
Have a demo class online to show parents on website
Registration format is their own design

Wrap-Up Session: Pre-Conference by Deb

Questions:
Pitfalls of student/course/other management integration-issues
What do we look for?
1. Look at what businesses are doing
2. Make a decision on a platform-if staff is trained on one kind, have to factor that in-don’t want to introduce too much additional stuff
3. Go standards base
4. Keep in confidentiality-keep student info inhouse
5. Look at Blackboard-can take our Sasi student info and upload to their management system
6. What is being shared?
7. Do we want more centralized or individualize instruction portals?
How do we feel about video and instructional methodology?
(video on demand, video webcasts, video conferencing) Is there power in integrating this into experience continuum?
Needs to include interaction and collaboration
Provide multi ways of learning
Enhances learning style opportunities
Must consider capabilities of students
Real time feedback is possible and valuable in virtual school
Video not used for lecture review but for illustrations/object lessons/ etc
Putting teacher lectures on line and calling it an online course is NOT what we are talking about!
Colleges are requesting AP classes have hands-on (ie science AP must be “wet lab”) –colleges backing off on this in order to give credit to virtual school courses

Roundatable Discussions by Deb

Roundtable I: Staff Recruitment (Kimbell)

Note: Look at Blackboard and they will train! Has all the classroom management stuff. Go on http://www.blackboard.com/

Negotiated contract to pay teachers-take an 18 week course and work it out for 12 weeks
Start a term every month
Teachers are now coming to them because of advertising-market, market, market for students, parents and teachers
Stamp a logo on everything-vendor at state conference
Started out of an alternative so teachers thought in a different way
Kids pop in and out (including expelled)
Own courses (c college hosts and trains-$5000 plus $60 for half credit-Kim does no tech support-e college does this)
Adjunct salaries-1200 for 12 months plus incentives ($90 for successful student completion
10-20 students limits in class
No provisions of laptops for staff or students
All content is canned-no prep needed for teachers
PE (aerobics using heart monitors for accountability) on line!!!
Requires a proxy test for each course-not mom/dad!
Students are granted credits and then they go back to Rapid City for diploma stuff
Some adults taking for graduation!
Teachers seeing the e-facilitator course as an a positive benefit for their future as educator
Teachers have to keep phone log of student contact weekly (buy phone cards)and students get to help evaluate

Roundtable 2: Special Education

Enroll fulltime students k-8 (only 500 students before going online-now up 800 in this program)
Reasons involved:
Competing in academic success
Competing beyond boundaries
How to follow through on IEP’s virtually-legal issues
How to select right students/parents-good communication on the frontend
Can’t reject, but can give good info and roles
Work with districts-teleconferences with IEP issues
Include communication issues in contract
Review current IEP and the role of virtual program is to enhance their success
Parents can go on line and experience sample lessons for the kids-include a grid as evaluation to help parent understand issues like least restrictive environment (home is often seen as least restrictive)
Part-time students are granted credits and work through own district
Can’t serve every special ed student in this program
Spend more time on frontend expectations-this is not an easy way out for students
Use “day in the life” of a student lesson to help parents understand what they are getting into-responsible adult has to be involved on daily basis-part of requirement
Do have face to face, group outings and testing
Groups-biggest=autistic, then younger speech and language and then behavioral
2 special ed teachers provide support in many ways and set up regular sessions with students to help parent be the best teacher for their own students
Provide computer but not connectivity
Writing is touch-online kids are doing as well as traditional school

Roundtable 3: Curriculum
Insight buys content from various vendors
Scenario based learning vs games
End-what do we want students to be experiencing?
How do we retain that student?
Have to have a pathway students can follow
Dual enrollment-look into seriously
Make sure content is portable (in xml)
Ask them what their business model-how do they maintain and adjust the curriculum content-can district adapt curriculum?
If looking at full-time students, find whole core content-if looking at part-time, the scope is different
Cheaper to buy the whole k-12 curriculum
Costs 100,000 to build a course unless instructional model is supplemented
Read clearly the contracts from the curriculum companies
Video content is helpful because of how kids are already learning
Look at models that include other modalities
Look at Branson Colorado
Lookk at student Portal opportunities

How to Start A Virtual School Session by Deb

Virtual School: How to Get Started

Session 1
Introduction:
Dave Glick- consults in starting online courses/schools

Keith:
Insight schools-build online public schools-fulltime with fulltime students-statewide operation-tuition free in state-bringing kids back into public schools in alternative way
Provide everything needed to start a virtual school (tech-staff, start-up dollars) -Their first school cost 2.5 million
Now working on creating a nationwide network
Talking about marketing:
Important because we will need to reach kids (who aren’t in school) and because of need to raise enrollments
It’s expensive and so we need to get numbers!
Talking about meeting student needs:
Fringe kids (gifted, need faster pace, teen parents, struggle in public schools, course access to AP, homeschool)
Think about mission and model of the school we are designing
Think about funding-tuition because of state funding
Reach through school officials-describing what we have to offer and asking them to identify kids OR reaching families individually/directly (how can people find us-need to be on web) Can buy lists to get access to names
Howard (school management and budgeting)
Not much help in people to help teach how to manage
Enrollment management is hardest challenging part because of being in a virtual environment
Set up an enrollment team and a separate management team (often size gets bogged down at 800 students)
THEN create an instruction team (need key subject area person-4- to make sure content is aligned, prepared, supplemented)
Student information system can help with core operations (how many kids with each teacher for ex)
Online teachers spend 75% on administrative function-getting academic data to determine what to do with students
Budget:
Look at daily items
Thinks we should lease curriculum-10%
65% of personnel costs
Recommend SREB (Southern Regional Educational Board cost guidelines report-look at this!
Bruce: (curriculum)
They will come back if doing a good job!
Good marketing, good technology, good curriculum being delivered

3 questions:
1. What will we offer?
May not be our choice-targeted group of students may dictate it
What does our customer base want? (Bruce can help answer this)
Do a needs assessment to determine the curriculum to offer-listen to Bruce’s session tomorrow on this

2. What will we look for when looking for the courses?
Range from textbook online and online video gaming and whole lot in between
Budget will be a factor in what we get for online content
Instruction model will be a factor (computer based or teacher based)
Consider the target audience (remediation or credit recovery, AP, etc)

3. How will we acquire the course? How to get it?
3 ways:
1. develop self
Do we have staff to do this? Not inexpensive and have to staff resources
2. purchase it-is content portable and can be used in a number of different tech systems and how can it be modified
3. lease it-how will upgrades be handled-look long term
Vito (Sysco System)
Think about –understand the business requirements!! How will it be used for the business? Staff and tech people have to talk from an instructional perspective to implement the infrastructure to meet the business outcomes
This is a huge lack to understand what the business outcomes are to be
Marriage of the instruction and technology
Have to understand the technology, the application with the business results
What he has learned:
Don’t build your own learning management system!
Can’t have one system to cover all-don’t try to build one! (CRM vs LMS requirements)
Scale the program and plan for growth-think of all the implications on video-end user will want grapics/video
Ex: Miss Education Initiative-have no plan but want to use telepresence (high definition conferencing) Have to make sure these can be balanced
Make sure that all stake holders have high level of awareness on what technology needs are required

Kay (staffing the virtual school and PD)
Need to grow both the teachers and students
Corner stone= “e-facilitator”online courses for teachers, best practices, tools for the courses so the teachers understand what the students will see-
PD is limited-Kay’s school wrote their own (NaCol is a good resource)
Have levels of PD (initial learning, best practices, creating courses)
Offer for college credit! This is incentive for teachers
Always changing even in the PD courses offered
Spend upfront time on training staff!!
Using course tools-driven by the platform used
If teacher is to be successful, they must use the tools well (threaded discussions, student participation, rubrics and evaluation
Teachers don’t understand and assume that students understand what they are saying-be very specific in teaching
Learn and grow is the pattern! This is how PD will be!
Attracting teachers-marketing is important for this
State lists all the schools/entities that provide online courses (what is asychrontist?)

George (k-12 with 37,000 students and growing) Policy stuff
Pitfalls: people like status quo and don’t like change
Online courses are the way world is going-we need to address it
Have a vision for what it looks like –postsecondary model
Do a field study (like a pilot program)-do research based student and see if it floats and define policy from that study results
Challenges for policy
Most teacher contracts aren’t ready for this
No option for noncontiguous hours
Who’s eligible?
Is training involved
Parent-student contact issues
Charter or not?
Administration issues
Can’t “see” how to evaluate and measure success
Testing? How is it going to be done?
Who is playing? How will kids know what is happening?
Technology plans
Extra curricular activities-how many classes on campus
If we don’t move on this, colleges will do this for us
Need to have supt as the champion of this!!
Changing K-12 (can’t think “this will pass!”)
Steering committee (need to have parent, student, union rep, dist office)
Must have teachers and administrators singing same song