A New Curriculum for an Uncertain Future

Uncertainty is a keyword whenever the future is described. As educators, we must contribute to promote a feeling of ease among our youth in an uncertain world. Our students must be able to discover problems and face those that are ill-defined, to build innovative solutions, to analyze situations using non- traditional viewpoints and to happily and effectively respond to changing constraints. This work presents the curricular redesign process of Mexico's national university virtual high school. The program is aimed at building the fundamental cultural basis that is expected from this educational level. We expect its contents, structure and learning activities to constitute a two-year training for students to feel comfortable and be productive while facing uncertain environments. The redesign process involved a diagnosis, the definition of its design constraints and general structure, and the development of an educational social network to socialize and improve the syllabi, as well as an intelligent tutoring system that will support teachers’ work.

Online Teacher and On-Site Facilitator Perceptions of Parental Engagement at a Supplemental Virtual High School

Just as they have in face-to-face courses, parents will likely play an important role in lowering online student attrition rates, but more research is needed that identifies ways parents can engage in their students’ online learning. In this research we surveyed and interviewed 12 online teachers and 12 on-site facilitators regarding their experiences and perceptions of parental engagement. Guided by the Adolescent Community of Engagement framework, our analysis found that teachers and facilitators valued parents’ engagement when parents advised students on course enrollments, nurtured relationships and communication with and between students, monitored student progress, motivated students to engage in learning activities, organized and managed students’ learning time at home, and instructed students regarding study strategies and course content when able. Teachers and facilitators also identified obstacles that parents faced when attempting to engage in their children’s online learning as well as obstacles that teachers and facilitators encountered when they attempted to support parents.

AN INTERPRETATIVE MODEL OF KEY HEURISTICS THAT PROMOTE COLLABORATIVE DIALOGUE AMONG ONLINE LEARNERS

One of the more challenging aspects of teaching online is promoting content-focused, collaborative dialogue among students. How do we move discussants beyond initial brainstorming toward more focused, deepened dialogue that clearly supports a course’s instructional goals? Garrison and Anderson’s framework for communities of inquiry illuminates the critical interplay among social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence for learning in asynchronous, online courses. This paper describes aspects of teaching presence in Virtual High School™ classes: explicit teaching of how to engage in collaborative dialogue; collaborative activity designs and evaluation rubrics; and feedback that, supported by attention to maintaining social presence, helped to promote substantive, collaborative dialogue orcognitive presence.

Synchronous Teaching Techniques From the Perspective and Observation of Virtual High School Teachers

This article describes how there are specific tools and techniques used by teachers in synchronous-live-virtual classroom environments. Those items were investigated in this article. Data was collected from semi-structured, one-on-one interviews conducted with a purposeful sample of twelve identified “highly-qualified” teachers at a cyber charter school in Pennsylvania that administered mandatory online synchronous class sessions. Additional data was collected through observations of each participant in their recorded archived “synchronous live” class sessions. The results of the study detailed the use of tools and techniques in regard to engagement, assessment and classroom management.

Still Forgotten Teachers in K-12 Online Learning

Like many K-12 online learning programs, the Illinois Virtual High School (IVHS) began by utilizing vendor content to populate its online courses. In its fourth year, the IVHS began a concerted effort to design more of its own online course content internally. The aim of this chapter was to examine the support needed and application of tools used by IVHS course developers. The data consisted of a two-part, web-based survey and telephone interviews that were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inductive analysis. The results showed these developers had a strong desire to use interactive elements in their course as well as working in cooperative teams. Further, developers were opposed to using a forced template, but indicated a need for general structural guidance and additional professional development. Finally, developers recommended that subject matter teacher-developers and multimedia specialists be split into two separate roles, and these individuals work together as a part of a team. Further research should be conducted on the intended use of technology tools requested.