Hybrid online courses

An e-School news article from earlier this year suggests that students in online courses "do better" than students in traditional courses within a post-secondary context. It goes on to say that students in "hybrid" courses, that is a course that offers some form of mix between online and in-classroom activity, do best of all.

It's probably too early to call these studies definitive, but there's a lot of focus on the increase in student engagement that online courses are thought to create. Higher student engagement = increased student success.

However, I wonder about the extent to which online and hybrid courses offer students more opportunities to reflect on their learning. In the past, I have been critical of the pacing of traditional classes. Often on-campus activities are stacked back-to-back, to maximize a students time. Within the k-12 system, it is an endless conveyor belt of activitiy, with students not gaining an opportunity to rest until often well into the evening. I would like to think that part of what we are seeing in hybrid courses is the ability of students to select times to engage in online school opportunities that also (perhaps subconsciously) provides them with a period of reflection.

Jane Addams and Student Engagement

I just finished reading an essay on Jane Addams, a pioneer of early 20th Century education, who was one of the first to pay attention to multi-cultural education. While her ideas have been quite influential in that regards, I also found it very interesting the way her ideas of socialized education speak to the general isolation that stems from education. Schools not only function to isolate students from their parental ethnic cultures, but also from the daily experiential cultures that their arents partake in, most notably work culture. Schools tend to provide students with a unique cultural environment that references nothing else in the lives of students except school. Addams charged that this kind of formalism prevented children from conceiving of proper ways to integrate themselves in the adult world. This also provides a unique perspective of many so-called "GenX'ers" from the 1990s who experienced significant personal distress when it came time to enter the "real world" after graduation. In fact,the 1990s saw many developments such as the "permanent student" and record increase in graduate school enrollments, the "Slacker Movement" which encouraged well-educated middle class youths to take up menial service sector jobs such as dishwashers and parking lot attendants. Even the media's fixation on something called "the quarter-life crisis", a noticable increase in the number of students who dramatically change careers a few years after graduation, underscores that even youths who made a career choice often felt it was the wrong one.

All of this points somewhat to the circular nature of contemporary schooling, although the situation has changed somewhat. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the school setting became increasingly self-referential. Students came to school and had few options to engage in activities that were not in some way related to school. The development and increasing proliferation of personal communication devices, along with access to Internet resources has given students more options and means to carry their non-school lives with them into school. Recent student engage surveys, such as those being conducted under the What Did You Do In School Today banner, are clearly demonstrating that students recognize the isolating and divorced nature of their current situation.

Discussion on Engagement and Collaborative Learning in Science

Engagement and Collaborative Learning

§ it doesn’t matter how we engage them (technology or other wise)
§ passion- if kids are not engaged, teacher has to drag students into class
§ connecting science to their world – avoid disconnects
§ guide students to make connections
§ high school teachers are not good at making connections; elementary teachers are capable ( I teach bio, not math)
§ need to structure more connections between disciplines (esp. in high school)
§ homeroom or teacher advisor connected to a student for entire high school career – need to create relationships between students and teachers
§ teachers struggle with technology because they become “techies”
§ “passion projects” – collaborative learning
§ Virtual dissections – started by one student; spread to entire class
§ Collaboration is good for teachers, too – need to plan for it
§ Creativity – technology assists when safety or other concerns get in the way – engages students
§ The question why? Always comes up – need to make connections
§ Allow students to investigate their own questions – passion . Teacher’s role is curriculum connection
§ Kids lack creative play. Teachers need to demonstrate
§ Rigidity of school and home restricts creativity
§ Okay for teachers to admit they don’t know. “let’s figure it out together” Models problem solving
§ Technology can allow collaboration (eg. D2L, blog): kids respond to one another’s work
§ Good old fashioned group work
§ Teachers collaborating is modelled for students
§ Collaborate with home environment (eg. D2L homework blog) opens avenues of communication
§ Engagement also includes field experience, virtual museums, teleconferencing, etc
§ Digital archives
§ More equity across classes through collaboration and engagement (key experiences)
§ Teachers are moving from solo planning and delivery to collaboration
§ Some teachers may struggle with sharing their “craft” with others
§ Essential experiences
§ Intellectually engaged as opposed to just academically engaged
§ Confidence is essential
§ Literacy, numeracy and social literacy to be engaged and collaborative
§ Teach to the central themes of their lives
§ If it is real and connected to their lives, they will be engaged
§ General world news – students need to be connected to the global situation – easily done through the internet or paper - science new bulletin board
§ Use teachable moments

§ Build better citizens, not just learners
§ “test crunch” - how is collaboration, engagement affected?
§ Citizenship participation
§ Leaving the classroom – don’t always rely on technology
§ Learning is not just the curriculum – social
§ Comfort: students need to be comfortable with each other to share and collaborate
§ Engagement and relevancy is in early childhood and adult learning
§ How do we know what is engaging and relevant to our kids
§ How do we connect that passion to curriculum
§ Pressure of content in program of studies
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