29.3: Secondary School Participation in Online Learning Environments

As we delve into the exploration of what comprises a quality online learning environment, we quickly discover that we are exploring what makes up a quality learning environment.

Overview of Online Learning in the Secondary Educational System

Between slaughtering aliens in Halo 2, downloading music to her iPod, updating her profile on myspace.com, and chatting with her friends online, a 17-year old grabs some information from the Web to enhance her essay on the role of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s wellknown tragedy about unfettered ambition. She takes one last scan of the essay and then emails the file to her instructor. It will be up to a week before she hears a response from her teacher about her writing. She simply moves on to her poetry unit, letting her copy of Macbeth fall behind her desk and into the realm of dust bunnies and unclaimed pencils. She will revisit Macbeth once more when the email from her instructor comes and she quickly scrolls to the bottom of the file to see her final mark on the assignment. With a grin, or a frown, at the result, she closes the file and picks up her poetry anthology. Macbeth is behind her and she is left to prowl the textual maze of poetry.

While much research and effort has been devoted to the creation, implementation, and deployment of distributed, virtual, and online learning at the tertiary level, less time has been devoted to the secondary education system, though in teenage bedrooms and at kitchen tables across the country those same students have taken up the technology with a vengeance.

In an attempt to understand the impact on the school systems of increasing teen digital usage, we take a look at the Canadian secondary school system as an example of the range of methods available for delivering content for online learning, and the challenges of delivering a meaningful educational experience to students with a huge scope of needs, experiences, and motivation.

“Learning takes place not in an institution, but in social networks and communities.” (Downes, 2006)

The real key to learning (whether online or not) is the students’ level of interaction with the content, the instructor, and their peers. Creating the opportunity for this varied interaction in an online environment is the greatest challenge for designers and teachers of online courses for secondary school students.

My discussions with online secondary school teachers from across Canada have revealed that there are four main categories of online learning environments in use in secondary education:

• Self-paced asynchronous: Students work through the material at their own pace and at times and places of their choosing.
• Paced asynchronous: Students work through the material at a pace set by teachers, but at times and places chosen by students themselves.
• Paced synchronous: Students work through material at a pace and at a time set by their teachers. This most closely mirrors a classroom situation and may include live video feeds of teachers in classrooms delivering lessons.
• A combination of both synchronous and asynchronous: Students are required to meet online at set times, but can also work independently at times of their choosing.

Each one of these methods has strengths in regards to pedagogical approaches and learning. For instance, asynchronous communication (e.g., using online discussion boards) often provides venues in which students engage in more meaningful discussion, because they have a greater chance to reflect on their contributions and have an equal opportunity to voice their thoughts (Murphy, Drabier & Epps, 1998). Synchronous communication can often be less teacher-dominated than in a face-to-face environment, and it provides a social presence and sense of community for the students (Walker, 2006).

Online secondary school instructors and those working to put such systems in place must be familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of their styles of delivery in order to anticipate the best ways to support student learning and engagement. Table \(\PageIndex{1}\) summarizes the benefits and challenges of each category.

In general, synchronous courses allow for increased interaction, particularly among peers, but they also decrease the flexibility of courses being offered. Synchronous courses reduce the control students have in regard to choosing the time and place to study and also impose more traditional time limits on student responses. Thus, synchronous courses may not take advantage of the greater opportunities for student reflection afforded by asynchronous courses. Understanding these differences can help teachers and administrators appreciate the differing challenges of each.

Table\(\PageIndex{1}\): Benefits and challenges of online education

Categories	Benefits	Challenges	Engagement with
			content	teachers	peers
Self-paced asynchronous	Student as independent learner has greatest control over time, place, and pace of studies.	The motivation needed is often lacking in adolescents. Delayed feedback from the instructor is often no longer relevant to the student. Students don’t have immediate access to teacher or peers.	significant	fair	slight to nonexistent
Paced asynchronous	Allows for more structure. Teacher dictates how much time should be spent in particular areas. Group work becomes possible. Student still controls time and place of studies. Teacher feedback often occurs more rapidly and thus may be more relevant.	Places restrictions on the pace of the program. Students who cannot keep up get left behind. Students must start the course at the same time. Students don’t have immediate access to teacher or peers	significant	fair to significant	slight to fair
Paced synchronous	Allows immediate interaction with teacher and peers. Teacher plays a much larger role. Feedback can be immediate as well as delayed.	Student choice of time, place, and pace is limited. Technology often plays a larger role.	fair to significant	fair to significant	fair to significant
Paced combination of both synchronous and asynchronous	Provides structure and flexibility. Harnesses more direct communication (real-time audio, video, or texting), and indirect communication (discussion boards, email, wikis) with teacher and peers.	Places restrictions on the pace of the program. Students who cannot keep the pace get left behind. Varied technology needs. Students must start the course at the same time	fair to significant	fair to significant	fair to significant

Canadian Examples

As discussed previously, secondary online learning has many different methods of delivery. An important factor affecting choice of method of delivery is the provincial or territorial approach to online learning. Even a technologically advanced country such as Canada shows wide variations as each province and territory deals with online learning in a way that is unique to its population and educational philosophy. These approaches can be viewed on a spectrum. For example, we have a market-based approach in British Columbia, which has individual school districts developing their own distributed learning programs. These can then be used to attract students from outside the school’s catchment area, and students are free to enroll in such institutions while concurrently enrolled in a brick-and-mortar school, while Nova Scotia and Alberta have adopted a more centralized approach.

British Columbia in Focus

Given that British Columbia has the most diversity and activity in terms of online learning, the province lends itself to closer observation. Online teachers in British Columbia overwhelmingly view teacher-to-student interaction, teacher feedback, troubleshooting, assessment, and questioning as all very important for student success, though they are split on the notion of whether peer-to-peer interaction is also important for success. We should note that this division stems from the type of learning environments in which students are working, where self-paced, asynchronous courses preclude peer-to-peer interaction due to the independent nature of the courses, even though most teachers value such interaction and try to create opportunities for it.

Given that British Columbia has the most diversity and activity in terms of online learning, the province lends itself to closer observation. Online teachers in British Columbia overwhelmingly view teacher-to-student interaction, teacher feedback, troubleshooting, assessment, and questioning as all very important for student success, though they are split on the notion of whether peer-to-peer interaction is also important for success. We should note that this division stems from the type of learning environments in which students are working, where self-paced, asynchronous courses preclude peer-to-peer interaction due to the independent nature of the courses, even though most teachers value such interaction and try to create opportunities for it.

The other reason for this division is more philosophical. Some teachers believe that you can learn the subject matter without peer-to-peer interaction, or that independent students do not value peer-to-peer interaction, so do not include interaction as part of their courses. Diaz and Cartnal (1999) found that independent learners were inclined to be less collaborative and dependent within online groups. This makes it difficult to ensure that the quality of content and teacher interaction is at a level that provides an engaging learning experience.

The challenges of achieving active student participation in an online course are myriad, but survey respondents in British Columbia felt that time commitments and increases in teacher workload were the two greatest challenges they faced. These challenges tie into Smith, Clark, and Blomeyer’s recommendation (2005) that professional development should be preparing “highly qualified” online teachers. This contradicts the notion that online teaching gives teachers more time and should be underlined when considering such programs.

Challenges of Adolescent Online Learners

As noted earlier, research into adolescent online learners lags behind research into adult online learners. The research on adult learners may not be applicable to adolescents because the populations differ, especially in regards to at-risk learners, and when online education is not elective, but a choice of last resort. After dealing with issues involving at-risk learners, we present perspectives on the future of online learning.

At-risk learners

In the Canadian secondary school system, online learning still resembles a poor cousin of face-to-face education. For example, the funding for programs such as distributed learning is based on fractions of full-time equivalencies (FTEs), which allows funding only as a portion of the face-to-face budgeting levels. Supplementary grants are available, but only under special circumstances (BC MOE, 2007). Thus, we find that the students at our door are often those for whom the traditional brick-and-mortar system is unsuccessful. Funk (2006) states that at-risk adult learners are more likely to take online courses, which seems to apply to secondary students as well.

Students who are unsuccessful in the traditional classroom are often the first students to look for alternative methods of education. As Donnelly (1987) writes, “Family problems, drug addictions, pregnancies and other problems prevent them from participating successfully in school. As they experience failure and fall behind their peers, school becomes a negative environment that reinforces their low self-esteem.” If these problems end up channelling such at-risk students into online learning, it may serve to hide the true potentials involved. As Smith, Clark, and Blomeyer (2005) suggest, additional preparation or counseling of first-time online students for the express purpose of supporting the success of students should be built into student support systems.

The future of online learning

Currently, a great deal of research has gone into student motivation, and it seems likely that online students may need a higher degree of motivation than their traditional counterparts, as the distance from the instructor allows them greater freedom than in a traditional classroom setting. Tied in with motivation is the need for explicit instruction on time management, planning, and strategizing. As online students are freed from the schedule and strict time requirements of brick-and-mortar classrooms, it is naïve to assume that those frameworks will be magically replaced by frameworks created by the student, with no guidance from the instructor or teacher.

Predictive assessment is another area that should be considered, especially to make clear the potential deficiencies that online students may have. We tend to shy away from predictive assessment in the present face-to-face classroom to avoid creating self-fulfilling prophecies, yet these assessments may act as gate-keeping mechanisms to help ensure success or identify specific needs on the part of students.

Conclusion

While online learning in the secondary school system may still suffer from a general impression that it is a second-choice option, the increasing number of students choosing to study in this manner and the range of options that exist across Canada indicate that online learning will continue as a viable alternative to brick-and-mortar schools. There is no single method to serve all students, but as we see more research being conducted, and best practices published, the quality of online learning will increase. We can hope that there will be a blending of traditional methods and online courses with the tools of online learning brought into the classroom to enrich the classroom environment, allowing students a much greater range of choice. In the next section, we examine the reification of that identity as it appears at the end of the education process through examining the concept of e-portfolios.