This has been one of those weeks where a million thoughts have been swirling in my head. For the first time this year I feel completely comfortable with where I am with my lesson plans for my online and f2f students. I am ready to go! This has brought an unusual calm to me that I have not felt in a very long time. Usually I call this feeling the calm before the storm because it seems like there is always something brewing on the horizon, but not this time.

One of the thoughts in my head has to do with online learning. I just wrapped up my second semester of online teaching. (My first attempt was a pilot summer school program 18 months ago.) Things did not go well to say the least. I had about ten students between my two classes. Only one passed. ONE! You read that correctly! One out of ten!!!!! It was not the class because one student ended up with a 98%. So then what went wrong?

1. Our online school was used as a “last resort” for students who were unsuccessful in a traditional setting.
2. It was my first attempt at creating a course in Moodle where I was not physically present to help direct students.
3. Everyone WAY overestimated the computer skills that our online students have. None of my students were willing or able to troubleshoot simple problems. (One of my students spent TWO DAYS trying to figure out where the edit button in the wiki went when he resized his screen. No kidding!!!)
4. Students were woefully unprepared for the work that they were asked to do.
5. The wrong “clientele” was enrolled for the first semester. It has finally become evident that not all students are cut out for online learning.

So what can I do better to help my online students succeed? I have made some MAJOR changes for second semester.

1. All assignments will be due on a specified date. I will no longer accept late work. Students have over a week to complete the lessons after they have been assigned. Once they are due they disappear from the class.
2. Students are required to check on Skype at least one every two weeks using their webcam. The selling point of these classes is that they are an interactive, hybrid model. I really think that by compelling students to interact with me it will help them. (We’ll see!)
3. I have incorporated reading quizzes for each reading section. Old school, I know, but we are a nation that cherishes testing. (Thanks for the legacy Mr. President!) It is also a way for me to make sure students are actually reading! They are quite easy if they student read the material.

I don’t think there is anything else I can do. I guess I can count myself amongst the ranks of the fortunate that my performance is not based on what my online students accomplish. At some point in time students must be held accountable for their actions. Students who skip school and do not complete their work will not pass.

It is late so I have time for just one more thought. Just before I started writing this blog tonight I commented on Karl Fisch’s post about collaboration. It is one of the best posts I have ever read. (Considering I have only been reading blogs for about a year that is not really saying much, but you get the point.) I think it will go a long way toward opening up some much needed dialog about the direction that we need to be headed in education.

His post reminded me about something that happened about a year ago at my school. My students were reading about the History of the West and the level of the book was a little ahead of where some of the students were. I had students work in small groups to help answer the questions over the reading. The next day the students came back to class and told me that they had asked their math teacher if they could work in small groups like they had done in my class the day before because it was sometimes easier to understand the explanation that their peers provided. She snapped back at them and told them that working out problems together was considered cheating!

There are times when individual assessment is appropriate, but there are times when group projects are appropriate as well. In my opinion, there is not a fine line between cheating and collaborating. They look nothing alike!

I get so discouraged when teachers dismiss the power of learning from others. It makes me question why they are in education to begin with! I still have so much to learn so I probably take much more from my PLN than I give back, but I still cannot imagine trying to teach without my support system in place. I am still not sure why so many educators are afraid to share their expertise. Could it be that teachers lack confidence in their work that they are afraid to be critiqued? Until recently teaching was a fairly isolated profession. I hope that is not the case!