Trend and Data Analysis
Review of an Audit on Virtual Learning
Carolyn B. Snodgrass, M.Ed. Witt Salley, M.S. Ozarks Technical Community College
A Disturbing Article
A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail link to an article about K-12 online educational trends. The article dealt with the statewide availability of online courses for K-12 students and the associated anxieties and opportunities that Missouri school officials expressed. The e-mail linked to a news article that described new developments in the online classroom. A few days later, I received another e-mail from the same colleague about an online whiteboard program, Centra, that could enhance tutoring in our college’s Academic Achievement Center. Interested in the program, I decided to meet with the individual most familiar with this whiteboard software, the college’s Dean of Learning Resources. On his desk was a copy of the monthly magazine Technology & Learning.
As the instructor of an undergraduate teacher education course called Technology for Teachers, I thought to myself that a subscription to this magazine would be valuable. In my free time, I could keep updated on current events and issues in instructional technology as well as online pedagogical trends. Also, I could share the current information with my students. One particular article, “Virtual Learning Under the Microscope,” sparked my interest. The article claimed that the State Auditor’s Office of Colorado released a report that stated, “online students have higher dropout rates and perform much worse on state exams than their brink-and-mortar counterparts” (Virtual, 2007, p. 6).
The article spotlights serious claims that could create negative attention for the virtual classroom. The article goes further to suggest topics that need to be considered when comparing the virtual and traditional classrooms. According to Patrick (2007), president and CEO of the North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL), “Right now we’re not collecting enough dataÂ… Is the school evaluating students to see if they’re ready for online? Does it have to do with student support? Are teachers not trained?”(Virtual, 2007, p. 6)
As a proponent of the online classroom, I was disturbed by the article. Is it true that online students do worse on standardized testing? According to a report from the Sloan Consortium and Babson Survey Research Group, “Chief Academic Officers rated learning outcomes for online instruction as the same or superior to those for face-to-face instruction” (Allen & Seaman, 2006, p. 11).
This research reflects the belief that I had always carried. With the virtual classroom’s relative infancy of popularity, I could comprehend the attrition rate problem the article also addressed. On the other hand, I was disappointed to read in the Technology & Learning magazine that online students weren’t making the grade: “The percentage of online students scoring at or above their grade levels in math, reading, and writing was consistently lower than the State as a whole in 2004 through 2006″ (State of Colorado, 2006, p. 25).
To learn more, I tracked down Colorado’s audit of K-12 online education. I wanted to see for myself what the article had to say. What it did say was reassuring to me. In my opinion, Technology & Learning’s article was somewhat misleading. What seemed like a report that painted online learning as a poor educational choice turned out to be a report that justified the need for future attention to be paid to online education reform. The findings in Colorado’s audit acknowledged the online program’s dawning.
Colorado’s Study
Colorado’s study identified weaknesses in current K-12 online programs. It stated, “The department needs to dedicate resources and expertise toward overseeing online education” (State of Colorado, 2006, p. 6). With this statement, Colorado was able to make serious calls for online educational reform, such as the need for licensed and highly qualified teachers, oversight for student safety and security, increase in student documentation, identification of teaching and assessment roles, a structured complaint process, and the provision for guidance of learning centers.
Figures 1, 2, and 3 reflect Colorado’s findings. Statewide scores on these graphs represent scores obtained by traditional classroom pedagogy. First, I must say as a math and science specialist that the graphs, even though they illustrate significant concerns, can be misleading since the vertical scale does not reach 100 percent. If this were the case, wide gaps wouldn’t seem so evident.
Mathematics as a discipline has been slower to move into the online environment than other subjects, perhaps because “little or no research exists on the quality, nature, and impact of such asynchronous mathematical discourse” (Simonsen & Banfield, 2006, ¶ 2). However, it cannot be ignored that, in all three years and all three categories, Colorado’s test results in the online classroom scored consistently lower than those in the traditional classroom in reading, writing, and mathematics. Thus, one may conclude that there is a need for further investigation into the consistent differences.
Virtual Learning’s Condition
Online education remains underutilized and controversial, partly due to the overconfident notion that technology would prove itself without much need for documentation or research. Fadel and Lemke (2006) affirm, “The real potential of technology for improving learning remains largely untapped in schools today” (p. 2). Innovative educators are increasingly realizing that meeting the growing need for online pedagogical skills, documentation, and research is not an easy task: “Although technology has had a positive impact on education so far, more dedication to research, implementation, and development is needed for technology to realize its full potential as a teaching and learning tool” (Ascione, 2006, ¶ 2).
In conducting the research for this paper, I found it easy to find information about attrition rates and distance learning opinion surveys. It was quite difficult, however, to find data addressing state test scores for online students. Many reports give data of opinion surveys in school districts in which the programs are still in their primary stages.
Missouri’s Department of Secondary and Elementary Education reports educators as having similar concerns as those in Colorado. One Missouri non-online instructor stated in a survey, “Students may not be able to meet the same level expectation as is expected in the regular classroom; there may not be as much monitoring of the assessment of students” (Missouri Distance Learning Survey Report, 2004, p. 14).
Challenges for the Virtual Classroom
As state educational departments publish more data of student assessments, direction in the needs of online education can be more effectively addressed. Furthermore, it is important to consider that online and traditional classrooms currently are neither equally funded nor equally trained. The education and media communities must also recognize that current studies comparing traditional and online classes are looking at two educational approaches at different levels of maturity. Also, polarizing the differing classrooms gives a “static and limiting view… but [should be looked at] as elements that coexist and should be brought into balance as much as possible” (Tannen, 1998, p. 284).
Hargadon (2003), Assistant Professor of Technology Management at the University of California and author of How Breakthroughs Happen, describes the importance of building networks of professionals who together can build bridges of communication that bring educational innovation to light. Once early ideas are adopted, the real challenge is “to put in place the organizational capabilities to bridge distant worlds, in which lie potentially valuable resources, and to build the new worlds in which new combinations will thrive” (Hargadon, 2003, p. 205). Polarizing the two proven classroom types may actually hurt their individual effectiveness. As Einstein is quoted as having said, “combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought” (as cited in Hargadon, 2003, p. 77)
Educators cannot realistically resolve the low test scores and e-learning improvement issues quickly. Even though the public is overwhelmed by the fast pace at which technology is moving, “there are exciting new resources available to both young and older people for solving problems” (Cornish, 2004, p. 226 ). These resources include improving technology, accumulating knowledge, finding highly trained people, as well as harnessing global institutions and economic power. As Cornish (2004) tells us, “We have the power to create a civilization so vastly superior to the past that we have difficulty even imagining what it might be like” (p. 227).
After reading “Virtual Learning under the Microscope” in Teaching & Learning, I read the statement of concern to my Technology for Teachers class. Initially, the students collectively agreed that online classes could result in lower test scores. The students believed the very short article. When I posed the question, “Which one of the classroom designs, online or traditional classroom, has more experience, training, and funding,” it took a short moment of silence before someone spoke up, “I never thought of that” (personal communication, February 5, 2007). The Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary Education set aside $2.6 million from funds for virtual classrooms not earmarked for traditional classrooms (Sheffield, 2007). However, in 2006, Missouri “delivered 158 million new dollars to public schools” (Blunt, 2006, ¶ 9).
As K-12 virtual courses become increasingly popular, the issues of testing and success will become of increasing interest to public educators. The question of whether the online student will acquire commensurate education as the traditional classroom will be the ultimate focus of parents, teachers, and students alike. Misguided information and opinions that “the Pink Floyd song, ‘No more teachers, no more books,’ is becoming prophetic” (Sheffield, 2007, ¶ 2) complicate what Missouri online educators are struggling to overcome. Extensive scholarship, expert teachers, and highly reflective and transformative pedagogies characterize the virtual classroom, even at the K-12 level. Comparing one infant innovation to an established and tested giant is unreasonable.
It is of great importance that state educators and instructional leaders focus on the inevitable growth of technology in education. They must decide through inquisitive measures whether the virtual classroom can and will be effective. An irony in education is that the public has historically bemoaned the traditional classroom as having many weaknesses (Lowell, 2006). However, educators commonly try to make the online classroom to parallel the seated classroom as much as possible. Analysis of online education can only happen with direct testing, focus, and funding. Only once we have comparative research can we conclude whether virtual learning is as effective as the traditional classroom for the K-12 student.
References
Allen, E. & Seaman, J. (2006). Making the grade: Online education in the United States. Wellesley: Babson College.
Ascione, L. (2006, September). Study: Ed tech has proven effective: but more needs to be done for technology to reach its full potential. Retrieved February 10, 2007, from http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6600
Blunt, M. (2006). Missouri governor Matt Blunt: State of the state address. Retrieved February 24, 2007, from http://gov.missouri.gov/State_of_the_State_2006.htm
Cornish, E. (2004). Futuring: The exploration of the future. Bethesda: World Future Society.
Fadel, C., & Lemke, C. (2006). Technology in schools: What the research says. Cisco Systems: Metri Group.
Hargadon, A. (2003). How breakthroughs happen: The surprising truth about how companies innovate. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2004). Missouri Distance Learning Survey Report. Jefferson City, MO: Author.
Lowell, R. & Gallup, A. (2006). The 38th annual Phi Delta Kappa: Gallup poll of the public’s attitudes toward the public schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 88(1), 41-56.
Simonsen, L. & Banfield, J. (2006). Fostering mathematical discourse in online asynchronous discussions: An analysis of instructor interventions. The Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 25(1), 41-75.
Sheffield, S. (2007, January). Missouri prepares for K-12 online courses. KY3.com. Retrieved January 30, 2007, from http://www.ky3.com/news/5398871.html State of Colorado. (2006). Online Education Performance Audit November 2006. Denver: Author.
Tannen, D. (1998). The argument culture: Stopping America’s war of words. New York: Ballantine. Virtual learning under the microscope. (2007, January). Technology & Learning, 27(6), 6.