e-Learning's Achilles Heel
by Gordon Freedman, Vice President, Education Strategy, Blackboard, Inc.

As I sat in the doctor’s office awaiting word on my injured Achilles tendon, a thought occurred to me. Education, and e-Learning in particular, suffers from an Achilles heel as well, and in an odd sort of way, both find themselves in a similar conundrum to mine.

When you take an anti-inflammatory drug for a specific issue, say the tendonitis in an Achilles tendon, the drug goes everywhere in your body, not just to where the problem is. As a result, the effects are diluted significantly in the area where you need it the most.

In education, we have the same problem with site-specific delivery. Some serious student site-specific problems include drop outs, school violence, the need for remediation and a gross lack of student engagement. In each scenario, young people with special needs or learning difficulties get what every other child gets. The end result is an approach that may not speak to a specific child in need of specific attention.

Schools are designed for teaching classes. But in many cases, classes today are aimed at reaching the students in the middle, thereby stranding students with difficulties and those in need of acceleration. No single reform can touch all these learners.  In that way, it’s just like anti-inflammatory drugs - we’re bathing all of education in the same agent. It works for some but ignores those left behind or bored beyond belief.   

Technology in the classroom was to be an answer, but like most reforms, it often manifests itself as a large fad without a clear purpose.  When schools were wired and computers were installed, people waited for miracles that did not materialize.  Like any physical building improvement, there were marginal gains with technology, but proficiency did not climb by merely installing technology and providing connectivity.

But when state-funded virtual schools arrived in a handful of states almost a decade ago, something interesting happened.  Site-specific delivery of education did occur in some cases with one-on-one solutions for educational ills affecting both single students and certain student classifications.  But, as an example, what was the difference between Michigan’s Virtual High School (www.mivhs.org), run from the state capitol, and other school districts in Michigan?

One answer may lay in the deliberate way that virtual schools develop courses with a team of pedagogical experts, subject matter experts and learning theory experts. Courses are first designed, built, tested and evaluated by use. Then they’re improved, many times over, with the aid of universities or outside professional developers.  Name a physical school where such a practice is not only commonplace, but as transparent and easily measured as in virtual classes. Secondly, teachers at virtual schools are state-qualified in the subject, trained in delivery and work hand-in-hand with mentors or counselors who know the virtual students personally.

There is a simple set of facts that has been empirically proven.  The more direct attention students are given, the better they do.  There is a corollary to this - the closer teachers are to the discipline or field in which they teach, the greater enthusiasm students feel toward that subject. Virtual education and hybrid education (a mix of computer use and some class attendance) focus attention and support on the online learners.

Whether it’s a student caught in a large class or rural district with no means to accelerate or a slow math learner who needs multiple exposures to lectures and learning exercises, the model works. But hybrid learning is not limited to students. Teachers can also be trained in a new subject or set of methods, or move toward becoming a school leader. 

So, if this site-specific agent is available for education, why isn’t it more popular?  A Berlin Wall still separates the modus operandi of traditional schooling from new methods in teaching and learning. Perhaps educators don’t have flexible hours or the ability to work from home offices. Or it’s hard for some teachers to understand that one student might excel in the classroom while another is better off in the computer lab. Or that students may be more likely to attend class when it’s offered as a mix of online and in person.

These activities are staples of the modern college campus, but remain as “other” in all but a small fraction of American schools.  But they are already happening at state-funded virtual schools and in forward-thinking districts like Fairfax County, VA,  Hacienda La Puenta, CA, and Broward County, FL, to name a few.  The scientific studies are yet to be published, but the satisfaction ratings, performance data and efficiency factors are in. What has yet to happen is something that a handful of us advocate - state-funded virtual schools leading the way toward “mainstreaming” virtual education and online learning for site-specific problems.

Imagine if adults all had to do the same thing with thirty people in a set of fixed room every day?  I get restless just thinking about it.  I can imagine how some students must feel, trapped in class and disconnected in an otherwise wired world. One day, I suspect, every student will have a full set of options for receiving and completing their work in the way that works best for him or her.

Blackboard’s Gordon Freedman is Vice President, Education Strategy. Freedman assists Blackboard clients in determining how to best use Blackboard products and services to advance their core mission and optimize technology-based programs.  He will be a regular columnist and contributor to Blackboard’s newsletters and white papers.