Newsflash: eLearning Doesn’t Suck

It has taken me quite a long time to finally get this latest blog post together, and to muster enough courage to publish it live.  For the sake of my own mental health I needed to get this one out. I also need to preface, before everyone gets upset about the title, that I do NOT support mandatory eLearning.  I believe this is quite possibly the most ill-informed decision for education, by any Ontario government, ever. I despise the decisions, actions, and extreme cuts made by Doug Ford and Minister of Education, Stephen Lecce.  The decision to mandate any number of eLearning credits in order to earn the Ontario Secondary School Diploma is simply a wolf wrapped in sheep's clothing. The PR man attempts to sell this to us as a progressive, innovative embrace of technology that will equip students with the skills needed in the twenty-first century workplace.  The reality is that it is simply a double edged cost slashing sword (eLearning class size averages of 35 and fewer teachers, along with the privatization of education).

It’s quite challenging to stay positive and motivated, and happy, and feeling appreciated, when my livelihood is bashed on a daily basis.  eLearning is currently stoking the fight in education. Parents, students, educators, the media, unions, and opposition parties are all sharing their thoughts that eLearning is a substandard form of learning.  Just do a quick Twitter search with the hashtags #Onted, #eLearning, #OSSTF and you will quickly see the vitriol being thrown around towards eLearning in general.  Any post, any article, any study that shines a negative light on eLearning in any way, is shared and re-shared.

I have walked the picket line for four days, but have had to bite my tongue and keep my head down.  I hear the comments about eLearning and I see the signs. One picket sign on the line I walked on said “Meet your new Art teacher,” beside the image of a laptop computer - clearly a dig at the perceived effectiveness of eLearning.   Even though there likely wasn’t any attempt to offend me, or any other eLearning teacher, it is hard to not feel disheartened - I’m human. I continually feel as though I am being indirectly told that how I teach, and the work that I do, just isn’t as good as the “real” classroom teachers.   

The sign made me think about the two Art teachers at my eLearning school (The Virtual Learning Centre - TLDSB), and how amazing they are at what they do.  I thought about how they both have full timetables of Media Arts and Music (vocal and instrumental) because they make kids excited to take those courses online, and keep them coming back for more.  I think about all the ways they engage their learners in their live synchronous classes multiple times a week. I think about how hard they work to make the learning and experiences of their students as good, as effective, and as meaningful as any students sitting in a brick and mortar classroom.  I think about how our Music teacher has been invited to share his best practices with other educators at various conferences and with other school boards in the province. I think about how our Media Arts teacher has been selected as a subject matter expert over and over, and how she has written oodles of curriculum for the province. I’m glad they were walking on a different picket line that day.

Even though it is disheartening and tough to take, I get it.  Your personal impression regarding the effectiveness of eLearning is formed based on your own experiences with eLearning, or from what someone else tells you, or writes about.  The problem is that most eLearning really isn’t that great. There I said it, and yes, I believe it to be true. This is the eLearning that produces awful learning experiences.  This is the eLearning that has very poor retention rates and very high drop-out rates. This is the eLearning with limited opportunity for synchronous engagement and collaboration. This is the eLearning with limited student-to-student and student-to-teacher interaction.  This is the eLearning where a large number of adolescent learners fall through the cracks. This is the eLearning model that I tend to refer to as not much more than an online correspondence course. This is what many models of eLearning look like in the province, I believe:

• The school board assigns eLearning courses to teachers who already have a teaching timetable in a physical brick and mortar school.
• The teacher might have 2 sections of courses in the physical school, and one online in a semester, for example.
• The teacher has one period of the day assigned to the eLearning credit.
• The students registered in the course are scattered around the district and are likely students in other physical secondary schools.
• No synchronous live classes, little one-on-one synchronous communication, no engagement, no collaboration, no learner interaction.  This just can’t happen because none of the learners are available at the same time of the day.
• The teacher has a very limited and constrained amount of time to dedicate to their eLearning students.  
• Students often work through online content in isolation and submit course work, perhaps sending emails when requiring assistance. 

This typical model of eLearning does indeed create a wealth of challenges.  It creates a learning environment that is not motivating and there really should be no surprise that it produces high dropout rates, poor retention, and poor student success rates.  This isn’t because there isn’t a highly qualified teacher in place, but rather because a number of conditions, and processes, and pedagogical fundamentals are simply missing.

This isn’t the model of eLearning that I know, the model of eLearning that I love, that I wake up everyday excited to be a part of.  Well, most days, anyway. :) Teaching is very challenging, and messy, and tumultuous, and there will always be tough days. I have taught online since 2001, and have been a 100% full time eLearning teacher since 2003 - that’s 17 years of perfecting the most successful eLearning program in the province, and likely the country.  Our model of eLearning, one that has been massively successful, looks like this:

• Our eLearning program operates as a separate school.  We have our own Principal, office staff, support staff, guidance, etc. 
• Our teachers are full time 100% eLearning teachers.  We don’t teach part time in a physical school with a part time eLearning course added to our timetables.
• All of our staff are fully dedicated to eLearning and to our learners.  100% of our working day is dedicated to our eLearning program.
• We deliver synchronous live classes every single school day.  All classes are recorded.
• All of our Professional Development is focussed on improving student learning at our school, that is, it is all eLearning focussed.  A big focus has been on providing rich meaningful feedback to improve learning - Assessment For and As Learning.

This model of eLearning is successful because it emulates the learning experience in a typical brick and mortar classroom.  The eLearning model that most people are currently hating on, clearly does not. I do not want to regurgitate a previous blog post, but you can learn more about our very successful eLearning model here:
https://www.busedu.org/blog/for-those-of-you-that-think-elearning-is-not-engaging-and-supportive-that-is-not-my-experience

Some insight into the success of my learners for the recently completed semester 1:

• BOH4M - Grade 12 Business Leadership, Management Fundamentals (2 sections)
  • 52 students registered on September 3
  • 50 students finished the course, 50 students earned credit - 100% pass rate
  • Retention rate: 96% (50 of 52 students)
  • Dropout rate: 4% (2 of 52 students)
  • Note that the majority of students who drop courses, do so very early.  This is typically because they want a different course, change their mind, etc.

• BBI2O - Grade 10 Introduction to Business
  • 34 students registered on September 3
  • 31 students finished the course, 29 students earned credit - 94% pass rate
  • Retention rate: 91% (31 of 34 students)
  • Drop out rate: 9% (3 of 34 students)
  • Again, note that the majority of students who drop courses, do so very early.  This is typically because they want a different course, change their mind, etc.

 

• Some additional program insights that I could track:
  • I delivered 114 synchronous live classes at 75 minutes each.  I estimate my attendance to generally be between 50-80%, and sometimes higher. That means there is typically between 50-80% of students registered in a course, consistently attending and participating in live classes.  Note that all live classes are recorded. The large majority of students who do not, or cannot attend live, watch the recordings. I wish I could just share all of these recordings with the world so that everyone could see the active learning and inquiry taking shape.
  • I delivered 57 synchronous live help sessions at 75 minutes each.
  • I made 63 phone calls home and spoke with these parents/guardians in real time.
  • I had 107 email communications with individual parents at different times - most of the time these were related to overdue work, feedback of progress, etc.
  • I can’t quantify the number of one-on-one student email communications, but know it's quite substantial - this is an everyday workflow and it never ends.
  • For our students that mostly attend another physical secondary school, I often have to spend considerable time in communication with those stakeholders (guidance, student success, administrators, etc.).
  • I recorded 74 video announcements that were shared with students.  Just another way to engage, keep motivated, and remind about course responsibilities.

Every single teacher at my school will have similar numbers and experiences to share - every single one!  The typical reasons why students are not successful in our program are exactly the same reasons why a student typically isn’t successful in a brick and mortar setting - poor attendance, not completing work, lack of motivation, etc.  It isn’t because they are not actively engaged, are not collaborating, are not working on rich and authentic learning tasks, are not interacting with each other, or are not experiencing learning in the same way that brick and mortar students are.

The problem here and now is that the Ford Government will not replicate this model of eLearning.  It is too expensive and it won't save them any money.  It takes the same number of qualified and experienced teachers, and the same level of learner supports, as a regular brick and mortar, face-to-face classroom, in order to work, and work well.  Mr. Ford and Mr. Lecce are not interested in this model.  They would prefer to pump students through correspondence courses with as minimal teacher interaction and learner supports as possible.  They want a cheap eLearning model that creates economies of scale - increases class size, reduces teachers, and saves them money.  This is an attempt to simply grant credits as efficiently as possible, and has nothing to do with improving learning.

I hate this feeling that I need to write this blog post in an attempt to defend what I do for a living.  I also hate the feeling that if I do not get on the eLearning bashfest that I am going to be viewed as pro Ford and anti-union.  I hate walking this fine line between just keeping my mouth shut, ignoring the eLearning hate, and making the effort to really prop successful eLearning up.  It’s definitely very challenging to do when so many eLearning models are mediocre at best, and this is all that the general public knows.

At the end of the day, I can keep my head high and be proud knowing that I have been a part of helping thousands of students earn their OSSD in TLDSB.  I am proud to be a part of something truly amazing that has been built by the most talented and hardest working educators I know.  I appreciate the dedication and the day-to-day grind of each and every one of them.

I am proud to be a part of delivering an eLearning model that doesn’t suck.