Distance Education

I hope that this blog has opened your eyes to the benefits that online education can offer our students and our department. Why should we continue to struggle with issues that now have a solution?  I know it is hard to wrap your mind around students learning through a delivery method that you never had.  Change is hard, especially when you've been doing it for 25+ years.  However, change can also be positive.  Our students are relying on us to do what is best for them and online education is what's best for them.  Distance education offers different content delivery strategies that aren't available in the traditional classroom, such as microlectures.  Through these strategies we have the ability to reach more of our students and differentiate curriculum in a way that best meets our students ability and interests.  Learning isn't just about memorizing facts but rather learning how these skills are being used in areas that are interesting to our students...

  I ha ve worked hard to show you that online education is the best fit for our students.  I have even offered ideas on why online education would be better for us as educators.  Still not convinced?  I will prove it to you in this post.        Our school struggles to offer classes that are appropriate for students who don’t fit the cookie cutter high school succession. It is not because we don’t recognize what the students need but rather because it’s not possible to meet their needs in a traditional classroom setting. It just isn’t in the budget to hire a teacher to teach a Calculus 2 class to the four students ready to take that class. These students have to either go to a community college nearby to take this class or be forced to take a class they don’t need because they don’t have the proper transportation or funding to take the class elsewhere. “Others might want to take additional courses that don’t fit into their school day schedules, ...

     If you're still struggling to see how online education can benefit our students, I hope my next few posts will clarify that for you.  I also hope that these posts will show you that it's not just our students it will benefit.  Online education helps to alleviate issues that we face in the traditional classroom. We have been taught teaching strategies that are effective to use in a traditional classroom but we often hit a wall due to the time it takes to create those lessons or due to the lack of resources that we have available to us.  But with online education, that is no longer an issue....       Differentiation is a strategy that most effective teachers are already working on implementing in their classrooms. In education, differentiating means understanding each of your students’ differences well enough to plan instruction that reaches each of these diverse students’ needs. Classrooms are filled with students of different lea...

     Previously, I wrote about many of the different Learning Management Systems.  Today, I will be going over how to evaluate your course.  This will be your first experience creating an online classroom and here are some standards that can help you mold your class.      As educators, we are constantly working to perfect our craft. This could mean reflecting on how a lesson went or looking back at the year with the results of the final exam. We are constantly working to improve and become better educators. The same holds true for online education. “Evaluations can be conducted during the initial planning stages, when storyboards or scripts are ready, and after participants have completed the course” (Malamed). During the planning period, you may check to make sure there aren’t any gaps or missing content. For example, you may be teaching a lesson on quadratic functions and realize you forgot to include how to factor. Through the evaluation proc...

   In the previous posts, I've talked about effective strategies to communicate with our students using online education.  In this post, I will be offering more ideas on how we can build a social presence in the classroom in online education.        Dunlap and Lowenthal write that, “Contact between students and faculty in and outside of class is critical for student engagement because it influences student motivation and involvement” (pg. 130). Teachers are using learning management systems (LMS) to create a social presence outside of the classroom. “Learning has become learner centric, students want an active role in the learning process,” (Morrison, 2014). These LMS allow for students to interact with their teachers and peers and be actively involved in the learning process.      A Learning Management System is “a software that enables companies and educational institutions to create and manage lessons, courses, quizzes and ot...

     In my last post, I spoke a lot about how we are struggling to connect with the current generation: our students.  So how can you communicate effectively with your students in an online classroom How can you make online education work for you?  Hopefully this post helps to answer some of those questions...      There are many new ideas on how to teach and learn in the online environment. For example, microlectures, badges, video communication, and challenge-based learning have become very popular. One of the most promising online strategies for the mathematics classroom is utilizing microlectures. EDUCAUSE describes microlectures as, “a short recorded audio or video presentation on a single, tightly defined topic” (para 1.). In an online class, microlectures could be used to help introduce or demonstrate a skill. I know you might be wondering why you can't just post a picture of an article for your students to read or type out instructi...

     Growing up, education and learning was confined to the classroom you went to every day.  Knowledge came from the facts that your teachers would present to you and the words read out of a textbook. This is how you learned because this was the only option available to you. This generation is often referred to as “Digital Immigrants” (Prensky, 2012). This is a generation who did not grow up with technology, but rather adapted to the use of technology. On the other hand, the current generation, the “Digital Natives,” did not grow up this way. This generation has never known a life that didn’t have video games, internet, and computers. Access to information and knowledge did not come from just reading books and what their parents taught them. They had the opportunity to learn skills, such as shapes and colors from different apps found on an iPad. Prensky writes, “...it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed – and are different from o...

     It’s 7:20 am, the bell just rang and kids are scrambling in the door. “Ms. Lutsic can I have another bellwork sheet? I can’t find where I put it.” Kyle never knows where his bellwork sheet is, this is the 3rd copy you’ve given him this week. You’ve made it past bellwork and you begin the usual routine, notes to introduce the lesson and then individual practice. Students are dozing off and trying to sneak their phones and you start to wonder if there is a better way. Students are so attached to their phones, how can I make them that interested in a lesson? It’s time for individual practice. Students begin practicing the standard of the day. You walk over to Susan, like you do every day, and give her extra help because she still struggles with her multiplication tables, even though she is in a 9th-grade math class. By the time you get done helping Susan, Ali has already completed the assignment and there is still 15 minutes left of class. You really thought this lesson...