Progress slow for distance learning initiatives in First State schools

01/16/2015

In the fall of 2011, two schools in the Red Clay Consolidated School District took a giant step into the future, with the promise of much more to come.

Students at Alexis I. du Pont High School began taking courses taught by faculty at the Conrad Schools of Science, and vice versa. Construction of distance learning labs at both schools, each equipped with huge television monitors, an array of video cameras, whiteboards, computers and other high-tech equipment, made it all possible.

The plan at Red Clay was to build distance learning labs at each of its high schools, potentially expanding offerings at each school and providing a justification for offering challenging courses that might attract only half a classroom full of students at each school, something like Advanced Placement statistics, or the fourth year of a foreign language.

The initiative is now in its fourth year, but it’s not much farther along than when it started. A distance learning lab was opened for the fall semester at McKean High School, and Conrad and A.I. du Pont students can now take an Italian I course taught by a McKean teacher. But there’s still no distance learning lab at Dickinson High School or the Cab Calloway School of the Arts.

Those labs, which cost more than $50,000 each in 2011, will eventually be built, with Dickinson next in line. First, the money has to be raised, and that is being handled by the Red Clay Education Foundation, a nonprofit created to raise funds to cover desired items that can’t be paid for through traditional budget channels, a district spokeswoman said.

But the slower than anticipated expansion of distance learning in Red Clay does not diminish the accomplishment, officials say.

“Our teachers are more equipped to teach an online format in a more effective way,” says Mark T. Pruitt Jr., the principal at Conrad.

If students want the opportunity to take a class in bioscience without enrolling at science-oriented Conrad, distance learning makes that possible at A.I. du Pont, says Kevin Palladinetti, the school’s principal.

There’s a similar situation in the Cape Henlopen School District, where a videoconferencing initiative was also rolled out in 2011. A video hookup in the library at the Cape Henlopen High School enabled teachers to arrange “virtual field trips” to venues such as the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va., to enhance instruction on topics their classes were studying.

The equipment still gets used, but not as much as might have been anticipated when it was installed, says Lori Roe, the district’s instructional technology specialist. It’s not for lack of interest, she says. Rather, the march of technology has taken Cape Henlopen in a different direction.

Also, in August 2013, the state Department of Education awarded a $600,000 innovation grant to a consortium of four school districts to develop methods to transform how high school teachers teach and how their students learn. The multidistrict collaboration hinted at the possibility of students in New Castle County learning from teachers in Sussex.

There has been no significant progress on that front. “Distance learning is still on our road map. However, we have not begun distance learning across district lines,” says Lori Duerr, a Colonial School District administrator involved in the BRINC partnership. (The acronym stands for the participating districts: Brandywine, Indian River, New Castle County Vocational-Technical and Colonial.)

For all its allure, there are some limitations associated with distance learning. The most obvious involves scheduling. Most high schools have either a seven-period day or use a block schedule with four 90-minute periods on alternate days. So, if a school has one distance learning lab, it can only use it to offer seven or eight subjects per semester.

Further, the value in distance learning comes in offering courses not otherwise available at the school – a way of broadening the curriculum. That means offering electives, not required courses, and the state’s more stringent graduation requirements are reducing the number of periods students have available for electives, Pruitt says.

Finally, there’s the matter of synchronization. To schedule the classes, the bells have to ring at the same time at all participating schools, so they had to adjust longstanding routines in order to make these elective classes available to a small number of students. “Each school had to make concessions,” Palladinetti says.

“The whole building’s schedule is being driven by a special program that’s being used by less than one-half of one percent of your students,” Pruitt adds.

Cape Henlopen has similar issues in setting up videoconferencing with destinations for its virtual field trips, since availability must match up with class schedules, Roe says.

Such drawbacks aren’t bad, they’re just something to work around, Palladinetti says. At the start, for example, school staff realized that distance learning wouldn’t work well for teaching science subjects that had a heavy hands-on component. Even now, the schools keep discussing which electives will both appeal to sufficient numbers of students and be taught effectively from the distance learning lab.

The experience with distance learning has made her a better teacher, Prillaman says.

“One of the key things I’ve learned is integrating technology more into every aspect of the class,” she says. For example, in the first year she arranged to have notes and outlines printed out for students at both schools, but everything about the class is paperless. Students use computers to write reports and take tests, and Prillaman grades their work through the district’s classroom management system. Students use Google docs to collaborate on writing projects.

Prillaman now applies the skills she has developed through distance learning to the Advanced Placement psychology class she teaches at Conrad. “Everything I do for students in the distance learning course I do for them,” she says, mentioning grading papers and posting notes and assignments online.

Prillaman’s evolution as a teacher parallels, to some extent, the efforts underway in the BRINC project, where personnel in Brandywine, Indian River, New Castle Vo-Tech and Colonial are learning to use television monitors, iPads and other handheld devices to transform classroom instruction.

In large measure, Cape Henlopen High School has already made that leap, and that helps explain why videoconferencing isn’t used as much now as four years ago. The school district purchased iPads for every student, making online connections possible for every student within every classroom – with no distance learning lab or library required, Roe says.

In addition, she says, the district also invested in a service that essentially gives students online access to the textbooks they’re using, eliminating the need to lug a backpack full of heavy texts.

In a social studies class, for example, students can do online research of a court case, learn how the judicial system works and use the apps downloaded to the computer to demonstrate what they are learning. Unlike a traditional lecture setting, if students are doing their own research on a topic, they can access multiple sources of information and share their findings with their classmates as the topic is discussed.

“It makes learning more personalized,” Roe says, “so every learner can pursue their own interests and strengths.”

The growth of dual enrollment programming – taking a college class for credit while still in high school – can involve another technological advance that offers more flexibility than videoconferencing. While high school faculty who have the credentials to teach certain college courses often teach dual-enrollment classes, college faculty are used if the high school doesn’t have a qualified teacher. In those instances, the classes are sometimes taught online, often with the teacher recording lectures that are accessed online, along with outlines, links to required readings and quizzes.

That’s how students at Sussex Technical High School take the college-level psychology course offered through Widener University, says Mike Owens, director of extended learning at the Sussex County Vocational-Technical School District.

Students access the class in the school’s computer lab, where an “instructional coach” is on hand to handle any problems that might occur with the hardware and online connections, Owens says.

The advantage to such programming is that the course materials can be accessed 24-7, Owens says. This disadvantage is that students miss having direct contact with their teacher.

“It’s a different type of learning,” Owens says. “You have to pace yourself and stay up on your work, because your instructor is not facing you every day.”

Back in Red Clay, teacher Prillaman recognizes the importance of personal contact. She arranged her fall semester schedule at Conrad so she could offer “office hours” during her lunch period once a week at A.I. du Pont and McKean. And, when her students worked on a project related to restaurant management, she arranged for the entire class to meet in the café at McKean.

Even with its limitations, Red Clay anticipates greater use of its distance learning labs.

Eventually, two more schools will be involved. Faculty are using the labs for professional development programs. Pruitt hopes that Conrad students will be able to go to the lab to watch surgery in progress at Christiana Hospital. And Prillaman envisions classes being offered in the evening, if students were willing to return to school after hours.

The varied forms of technology used to deliver instruction are giving students a taste of what they will experience when they continue their education after high school, Roe says. “We’re giving them the opportunities to prepare for college and careers.”

By Larry Nagengast

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