What We Wish Everyone Knew About Online Learning

LCEC is a collaborative of eight school districts that partner to offer a full-time online program for elementary and middle school students and to provide a networked community for developing, offering, and sharing grade 9-12 courses. Meaghan Barber is the Director of Low Country Virtual, and Cindy Ambrose is the Executive Director at Low Country Education Consortium.

Have you ever had a moment where you just wanted to wave a magic wand and impart wisdom and knowledge to a mass audience for ease of conversation, comprehension, and widespread understanding? We have.   

There have been many moments in our careers when we wanted to impart those epiphany-type moments to others. (Think of the long-ago commercials where individuals slapped themselves on the forehead and said, I could have had a V-8!).

We have frequently had these moments when discussing the benefits of online learning in an effort to dispel misconceptions and misunderstandings. While many more individuals post-pandemic are aware of online learning, we still encounter the need to shout from the rooftops the many benefits and advantages.  An experience during the summer of 2023 caused us to reflect deeply and refine our commentary on why online learning is a powerful tool.

Low Country Education Consortium (LCEC) launched its first course for our district partners for high school credit—Personal Finance. We designed and developed this course in response to South Carolina mandating Personal Finance as a half-unit graduation requirement beginning with the school year 2024’s freshmen class. This past summer, we offered it to a small group of rising ninth graders in our partner districts.

This is not our first rodeo. All of our staff have years of experience in the online learning arena.  We have all worked in online programs in other districts and states, but this course offering caused us to pause, reflect, and celebrate what we know about online learning, learning theory, and student success.

Early in our careers, we examined David Berliner’s work on using instructional time, Vygotsky's theory of learning, and volumes of research on student engagement.  In those early days, we defined engagement in our organization as students actively doing something with content that is at the appropriate level, with a high degree of success, and with support and feedback along the way. We considered this as our “sweet spot” for learning.

Flash forward to the summer of 2023, and we realize that any time educators can hear directly from students and families brings fresh insights and epiphanies. At the conclusion of the Personal Finance course, we sought input from the students and their families. We talked to those who completed the course, and we also talked to those who did not. Our takeaways from this course offering caused us to reflect deeply on our beliefs regarding learning theory. It reaffirmed why we believe that online learning is a powerful strategy for positive student outcomes.  Below, we share our key takeaways. As you read these reflections, consider whether you can make any connections to your beliefs regarding learning theory.

Lessons Learned and/or Reaffirmed

Students who had never experienced an online course were often not accustomed to the amount of work required. Not every student who started the summer journey with us completed it.  Most of the students completed it - of which we were very proud! 

For many of these students, this was their first attempt at an online course. Some students were dropped at their request and sometimes at our request. Students who asked us to withdraw often said, “I would rather take this in a face-to-face setting.” When probing into that comment a bit, we learned that this statement often meant they preferred sitting in a class and having the content delivered to them vs. digging into the content in the learning management system themselves. We did notice a definite difference in the students who had already had some online experience prior to enrolling in this course. These students understood the purpose of the synchronous sessions and the teacher's role as a facilitator.  

Parents can truly be partners. We heard from parents that the option to sign up as a parent observer was one that they appreciated. These parents enjoyed monitoring their student’s progress and seeing the curriculum and lessons in the learning management system.  One parent told us during a phone call, “I do not want my student to drop this course.  As a family, we are learning a lot that we did not know!” 

It was evident that the use of a learning management system and parent observer account was not something that all parents had experienced prior to their students enrolling in this course.  Our parents liked these tools!

Students may not be accustomed to the emphasis on mastery. Many students were not accustomed to having the opportunity to redo work to demonstrate mastery. In this course, we allowed the students multiple attempts to demonstrate concept mastery. The teacher repeatedly reminded some students not to settle for the first grade they earned if they were unsatisfied with it. Student learning is the goal of an online course, and an initial grade is not the final destination. Parents appreciated this! 

Students who have never experienced online learning may not be accustomed to the level of communication that online providers often have with families. We hosted an open house for families, and the teacher did a welcome call to each family before the course's opening or during the first few days. We monitored the students' grades weekly, and emails and phone calls were made to students who were not progressing adequately. We also made phone calls to the families of those who excelled! Course announcements, welcome calls, introductory videos, office hours, emails, and during-the-course phone calls provided ample opportunities to connect with families.

Learning Theory—The Sweet Spot

Of all of our lessons learned, the reaffirmation of what we hold true about student learning is the sweetest.  The “sweet spot” for learning is authentic student engagement. A well-designed course engages students in the content, with the student owning the work and the teacher serving as a facilitator of the learning. The student engages in appropriate, aligned content with a high degree of success (opportunities for relearning and redoing) and receives feedback along the way.

Our philosophy for the “sweet spot” for learning aligns with what high-quality online learning is. How does online learning align with your personal learning philosophies and what you perceive as the “sweet spot”? What do you wish everyone knew?  We would love to hear from you! 

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