Reflection on “When it is not Bricks and Mortar”

Sunday, July 14, 2013 10:26am- originally posted on MOC website

Most people have now heard of Salman Kahn and the story of the Khan Academy. Some statistics about the Khan Academy I love are -

• There are now over 1,000,000 subscribers.  
• The YouTube channel has had more than 268 million total views.
• There is a video library with over 4100 videos in various topic areas
• Over 244 million lessons have been delivered.
• As of July 2013, there are 448 practice exercises, mainly in mathematics.
• As of February 2013, over one billion problems have been answered on the site.

(Source – Wikipedia) 

The Kahn Academy has achieved all this since 2006 (only 7 years ago)  and has had enormous flow on effect to some of our fundamental concepts about access to education including  flipped classroom and opening advanced mathematics to students who had hitherto thought it impossible.

They have achieved all this with less than 50 employees- and many of these are not teachers

My experience at Virtual High School (VHS) reminded me of these statistics! Virtual High School was begun by Stephen Baker and literally operated out of his home basement until three years ago. VHS now has

• Over 5,500 students studying from one subject to a full load.
• Students are currently enrolled from all over North America, Singapore, New Caledonia, Europe, a boat in the Irish Sea – in fact the whole world.
• Has over 60 accredited subjects including a complete suite for Year 12 –our SACE equivalent (pre-tertiary entry)

They do all this with just over 100 people. (MOC has 150 for 1500 students). The curriculum writers and administration staff are less than 25 and they work in the “school building” in Bayfield, Ontario Canada.

Virtual High School-the schoolhouse- Bayfield, Ontario, Canada.

The teachers are not there! They are all over Ontario, Canada and even other parts of the world – they work from their “homes”. As all the courses are totally on-line the teachers can be anywhere as are the students. Time zones do not matter nor does it matter at what time of the day or night you want to work!

Virtual High is a fantastic real world example of Asynchronous Learning, This is the student-centered teaching method that uses online learning resources to facilitate information sharing outside the constraints of time and place. Some features are

• From the moment a student enrols they can begin their course- usually within 15 minutes.
• The course content is all on-line- it is as engaging and multi–media as they can make it. Stephen and the team talk about all courses being organic and  constantly being improved.
• There are no textbooks
• There are no timelines for the students except the course must be finished within 18 months from enrolment.
• The teachers communicate with each individual in their “class” of students via email, drop box, Skype, video or sound bytes.
• All communication from students must be responded to within 24 hours and all student work marked and returned usually before 3 days and definitely before 5 days.
• There is a focus by the teachers on assessment for learning (formative feedback) with thier students.Students are encouraged to keep undertaking formative assessment pieces (generated by the computer) until they and their teachers believe they are ready to take assessment of learning – the summative final assessments. Teachers provide detailed written feedback on the formative work.
• Students from mainstream schools may also enrol to take “make up courses - summer school" to successfully complete courses they may not have passed through their face to face experience.
• At the end of each course students must also complete a self assessment and provide feedback on the course and the teacher support. As such VHS  gets amazing quantitative feedback.

VHS is a leading edge example of how the world of education is changing at a rapid rate- the enrolment growth and satisfaction of students and their families demonstrates that many young people want to do it in their own time and own space! Students comment that rather than a decrease in relationships they feel an increase as their contact with teachers and the administrators is personalized for them.

Will VHS type environments replace all schools – I think not. However they have much to teach us, just as the success of the Khan Academy does. The possibility of asynchronous learning to complement the bricks and mortar experience is one we should explore at MOC as our mission is to continually improve the learning outcomes of our students.

Principal Stephen Baker with Lynne Symons