Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey there friends, and welcome to Rew rewriting our Kids Education podcast. I am your host Michelle, person and friends. We are on a journey. We are rethinking, reexamining, and re-educating ourselves and our children. Virtual learning has received a lot of attention in the last year and a half. It's almost as if this approach to learning a period of thin air, but I can assure you that people have been navigating online learning for almost two decades now, far before the concept was shoved into the spotlight two years ago at the height of the pandemic. So what is virtual learning? Is it right for your family? We are going to dig into that topic today with our guest, associate professor and adjunct English instructor at Southern New Hampshire University, Megan Hall. Megan has been working in the virtual space for almost as long as it's been an educational option, and she's gonna share with us what she has learned. Former Stanford professor and founder, of course, a popular online education platform, Daphne Kohler, said that education can serve two goals for students, lucky enough to have access to great teachers. Blended learning can mean even better outcomes at a lower cost. And for the millions here and abroad who lack access to good in person education, online learning can open doors that would otherwise remain closed. Is virtual learning the platform of the future or is problematic to ever impact students in a positive and Oh yeah. Are woke.
Speaker 0 00:01:56 Hi Megan. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Hi. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to talk about this. Yes, yes. Ok. So before we dive deep into the conversation about virtual schools and classrooms, can you give our our audience a little bit of background about, um, how you came to be kind of a, an expert on this topic? Absolutely. So, um, when I first got out of school, I actually, um, started in working in Pre-K and I did, um, I taught preschool and I did the before and after school and, um, summer like enrichment programs mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then, um, at a certain point I was like, I, I gotta work with older students, <laugh>. So I went back to school, got my graduate degree, and I've been a college professor for 15 years. Um, and I'd had been teaching online for about nine or 10 years, so, uh, long before Covid <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 Right, right, right. Which is kinda when, uh, the uptick and interest in it exploded. But I basically got started because at the time, not now, but at, at the time, I was kind of one of the younger professors at my school. Um, and I just felt much more comfortable with technology. I had taken some online courses and so, um, my school had some training and took the training and got certified to teach online and, um, all of that kind of stuff. And, and now everybody's teaching online <laugh>. So funny to say that. Cause I remember. So my journey says online, first of all, I want parents to understand that online learning has been around for years. Uh, you know, at, at minimum I would venture to say, I remember, um, when I came out of undergrad and, um, I knew a friend of mine, and I'm like, she, while we were, I did a program taught Teach for America.
Speaker 0 00:03:45 Teach for America was a program where you, you, you did not go to school to be a teacher. You agreed to do a, um, a couple, a couple years in a a under-resourced school, and you have to take classes to learn how to be a teacher while you're teaching, um, so that you can, um, you know, adequately service your population and get your license and all of that. And I remember a friend of mine who was in that program with me simultaneously was, um, was getting her master's degree. And I remember saying to her, how in the world are you doing a, where do you find the time? How are you going in the class three days a week? And she's like, well, it's online. I'm like, what do you mean it's online? She's like, like, I go to class when I can fit it in.
Speaker 0 00:04:23 Like, it's like I just log in and I'm like, online, like, who, who's gonna get an online degree? That's, this was about in 2000. So I'm like, oh, nobody's gonna, that. That's be, nobody's gonna that piece of pay. Yeah. Fast forward 2D years. I also have a degree from an online institution and my masters, which allowed me to become a principal that I did a very good job with my online degree for, um, <laugh> for very, for for many years. And I, I did everything online in virtual classrooms. And so I just want parents to understand that yes, for most of our elementary age parents and our, um, and our high school aged kids, the, the onslaught of online education, virtual education came because of covid. We all got a crash course in, in, in virtual classrooms, um, you know, when the school shut down. But I need people to understand that this is not a new phenomenon and it's been going on successfully for a very long time.
Speaker 0 00:05:20 So why don't you to, to, to go from right off of that, tell us exactly what a virtual classroom is in your experience and what you've done. What is a virtual classroom? Yeah, it's, it's interesting because there are a lot of different types. Um, I'll kind of break those down. But essentially it's any learning environment where all or part of the learning takes place in a virtual space. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So for what you were talking about as you were speaking, Michelle, I was like, yes. I actually, so one of my first online courses, um, was a synchronous course in my undergrad years where we went into the classroom, but we had a screen in front of us and the professor was at a different college. Oh, wow. And then all of our assignments were online. Um, so that there are things like that, you know, that have been going on for a long time.
Speaker 0 00:06:13 But, um, typically for most schools we use what's called a learning management system. So that's an lms. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and that's where the course is kind of housed online. So think about like a website but private that you can only get to by entering, um, you know, you're, your information and that kind of thing. And they're, they're typically structured the same way. They have, you know, a homepage for each class that you're enrolled in, and, um, they have places where you can have, you know, online discussions, online assignments, that kind of thing. Um, but there are even within that, a number of different types. So synchronous classes meet in real time. Okay. Um, so kind of like we're doing now, <laugh>, some of them use something like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Some of them have, uh, a thing kind of built right into the learning management system where the instructor can see and talk to the students.
Speaker 0 00:07:18 So even though they're not in the same space, they're all able to interact in real time. Um, then we have asynchronous courses, and those are probably the ones that you took. And the ones that, that I took, for the most part, those are not in real time. So all of the materials are up online. The professor might, or the teacher might have office hours where they can be contacted, but for the most part, the student is doing the work, um, on their own, according to their own kind of personal schedule. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then what's really interesting to me too, um, is that we also have informal virtual classrooms as well. So these are kind of outside the school system. And what I've found is a lot of parents who homeschool use these situations for like enrichment purposes or tutoring. So it's things like, um, Emmy, teachable skills share, um, YouTube even.
Speaker 0 00:08:20 Um, and then there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then there are, um, things, um, that are called mos, um, <laugh>, which are massive open online courses. And, um, those are offered through places like Coursera where you can enroll and do the work asynchronously and earn, like a certificate can enroll and earn things like a certificate or you can just, you know, as an adult or typically like a high school kid, you can just go into that class if it's something you're interested in. So I know kids who do things like photography, graphic art, design, um, things like that. Yeah. So there's basically a ton of options. And it's funny, like I, I, I have, yes, I did asynchronous and my daughter is actually taking, as part of her high school experience, she takes some college courses, um, you know, right now. And she's been doing them primarily online.
Speaker 0 00:09:12 And I remember what I have noticed personally myself is a rise in the synchronous learning as opposed to the asynchronous. So it was just funny story. Like she was, she was upstairs one day and I'm like, you know, um, you know, calling her, uh, cause she was like, I'm working. She like, you know, she was like, I'm working mom. I'm, she basically said, mom, I'm about to go do, I'm about to, after I finished the dishes, I'm gonna go to work on my classwork or whatever. And I'm like, fine, whatever. To me that meant you're about to go to login discussion board, you know, write a post, whatever. So of course I go upstairs thinking that's what she's doing, and I like burst into a room and I'm like, Hey, the dishes blah. And she's like, mom. And she's like, it's like I told you I was about to go to go to class.
Speaker 0 00:09:57 I'm like, ok, so like, like you're doing is she's like, mom, and she turns the computer around and I'm like, oops, <laugh>, I'm <crosstalk>. I'm like, you know, so like I, she was literally in a class. Um, yeah. Cause in online learning meant you just logged in and you read some stuff and you typed some stuff and Yeah. That's not exactly how it always works. So Yeah, they're different. There are lots of different options. And I definitely made a fool outta myself and I feel very embarrassed in front of her whole class because they were there online with her embarrassed. Ill say too, a lot of students are confused about, you know, which type they're even enrolled in sometimes. And we also, um, a lot of schools have hybrid classes as well. Sometimes those are part synchronous and part asynchronous mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And sometimes the hybrid courses are part online and part in person.
Speaker 0 00:10:43 So the nice thing is that there's a lot of options, but navigating and figuring out which option is right for you, that can kind of be the difficult piece. And, and it's so funny that you say that, cause my next question was about like, there are parents who swear by virtual learning, they, they've tried it, they love it, and there are parents who like, are like, oh, this was not for us. And so I, I guess my next question is what are some limitations of the virtual classroom? And, and how can parents who, if we ever, God please help us know, have to do a situation where it's not an option mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, or you know, for whatever reason your, your child is in a situation where they have to do virtual, virtual learning. What are the limitations and how can parents try to, um, address some of those limitations so that their child can still be successful?
Speaker 0 00:11:30 Yeah, that's a great question. My, my number one, my biggest warning <laugh>, this is my number one tip, is from a, from a teacher's standpoint and looking at things like pedagogically, I think that the, the programs that are a hundred percent synchronous and, um, there are, I won't name them, but they're usually for K to 12 students, like kindergarten through, through, um, high school. If they're a hundred percent synchronous. It really causes a lot of problems from what I've seen. Because, you know, a lot of us during covid got zoom fatigue because we had meeting after meeting after meeting. Now I did it cause I teach <laugh>. So I had some like this and some asynchronous, and, um, I miss the in person, but, um, for me it wasn't, but my husband would be like, exhausted. You know, and that's just three hours of meetings. But you don't, I don't think it's, I don't think it's best practices to sit a kid in front of a computer for eight hours mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:12:33 And the problem is that a lot of those programs, parents sign up for them kind of not really realizing that because they're free. Um, because the program gets money, um, like school tax money, right. The way that if you were enrolled in public school, but then you have to have what's called equivalent seat time. So they have to be in front of the instructor for an equivalent number of hours. Yeah, no problem. So what I recommend, yeah. So what I recommend is that, um, if you're going to homeschool that you, um, or if you're even looking for like summer tutoring or, you know, looking into virtual classes that you think about getting something like a curriculum, um, or a homeschool co-op, and then you can use the virtual classroom as like an addition got. So I know a lot of parents, for example, one of my friends right now has a high schooler where they were doing curriculum with them, and all of that worked really well, uh, except for math <laugh>.
Speaker 0 00:13:36 Like he really needed more help with math, and his mom didn't feel really confident. Right. So she enrolled him in a math course. Um, I have another friend who, um, it's kind of the opposite situation. Her daughter is really far ahead in English, um, and history. So she can take just the virtual classes, um, for those where she's ahead of what the curriculum's giving her. Um, but screen fatigue is a real, is a real thing. I think some of the other disadvantages, um, if you, if you, if you leave in, you could hear my dog in the background <laugh>. Um, so sometimes distractions like that, um, while you're at home. But the synchronous, if you have a student who's involved in a lot of things, the synchronous could be a disadvantage because it's a set schedule. Um, there's on camera time. Um, when I teach synchronous classes, I, I talk to students ahead of time about the fact that, um, they have to have really good stable internet.
Speaker 0 00:14:43 And if you live in a rural area, you might not have that. Um, I, I, I have some issues with it myself. I'm kind of, um, despite the nerdy decor behind me, I'm, uh, in like a farmhouse. So the other thing in terms of like things for parents to know is that sometimes synchronous classes, um, I've seen some behavioral issues in those, meaning like the instructional break people out into groups. They can't be in every group all at the same time. Um, but is that any different from a regular classroom? Correct. Probably not. Um, uh, then with asynchronous, some of the disadvantages there are, there's less interaction and less direct support from faculty. So if you have a student who is struggling, um, you know, and they have a teacher who sets up a discussion board but doesn't really participate in it, um, or they, they kind of feel like they need the face to face time.
Speaker 0 00:15:41 They're not gonna get, you know, they're not gonna get that kind of support. Um, with hybrid classes, <laugh>, the, the disadvantage that some of my students say to a hybrid class is that they feel like it's the worst of both. Like, there's not enough face to face time. There's not enough flexibility. Um, but it really, um, depends on the, the student, you know, and those informal, the informal that I talked about before, there's really a lack of schedule. So I think those are really better for adult learners or really self-driven high schoolers. Like they're really passionate about a subject. Um, because there are really no interactions in a, in a MOOC class, um, you have no interactions and it's totally self-directed. So you could take a MOOC and do it in two weeks or do it in 12, um, just depending on how you, you know, how you feel like it, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:16:37 So yeah, the disadvantages are sometimes the opposite, you know, <laugh>, well, that, like, that's, that's perfect because my next question is like, so for all those bad things, for the fact that it, it, it, you know, synchronous doesn't allow for as much flexibility as you might think, and then the asynchronous doesn't give you that face time. And then there's the issues when you're trying to be synchronous and do a breakout room. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the internet connectivity, I can't, like, that was such a real thing for a lot of the families that I worked with, like parents were really trying. But it, your, your online learning experience is only going to be as good as your internet connection. And like you, um, for part of my time during the pandemic, I was the principal of a school that was in a rural area. And so some of the kids who live closer to town had strong internet connections.
Speaker 0 00:17:20 But some of our families who lived really far out, um, in this town, they were like, I don't know what to do. Like, I, we don't have the signal. My child is dying to interact. And, and, you know, and it was really, really hard. So those are all, I, those are all real things. Um, but then there are some good things, you know, there are some benefits. So what are some of the benefits of the virtual classroom? The, the biggest benefit really is the flexibility of time and location. Um, I've had people who, um, travel for work. I have one student who's a traveling nurse. Um, and she's able to do her homework and her assignments, whatever state she's in, um, wherever she happens to be. So she doesn't have to be in the brick and mortar building. I actually had a student, I feel bad cause I thought he was kinda baking it up.
Speaker 0 00:18:09 Um, I get some crazy stories from students sometimes, and he said this thing to me, um, I haven't been in class for the first two weeks because I'm training for the Olympics. And I was like, what are you on <laugh>? And it turned out that what I finally got in contact with him. Yes. He was actually training for the Olympics and we switched. We were, I was like, why would you sign up for an in person class? So we worked to get him switched into the virtual, and then he could just do all of his assignments and keep up in between that crazy, you know, five hour training that is. So I had a student who was in, who was, when we went with virtual, like she was still, she was, uh, her, she was an ice skater. Um, and her parents had a whole plan and their goal was to get this baby into their goal.
Speaker 0 00:18:56 Their sites were 2028 or, or, well, 2020 can't be 2020, I dunno, whatever it was. They had to, and they went, we lived in southern Ohio when they drove this baby every day to, um, um, um, Kentucky, ironically, that's where a great ice skating coaching is Kentucky. Yeah. Um, but they drove this baby every day to, to Kentucky because their, their goal, she wanted to try out for the Olympic trials. That was her goal. And, and being in school, just obviously like when you have a two hour commute there and a two hour commute back, and you're doing it three days a week, it just didn't work. She had to switch to a different program. So that flexibility is huge. So I've seen, yes, it really is. I also, a friend of mine, her daughter has a, a disability and before Covid, the disability was really keeping her out of school for long periods of time, and they were thinking about homeschooling, but this is a single mom, um, a a very young widow.
Speaker 0 00:19:53 And, um, they just couldn't, couldn't figure out a way to do it. And once Covid hit, her school offered some virtual options and it was so much better for her because she could just be at home and not have, you know, stress sometimes affects disability and the stress was making her, you know, her, her things kind of flare up. So it really worked better. Um, some of the other benefits of the synchronous is that students do get the face to face time. So if they want direct instruction, um, interaction with their peers, that kind of thing, um, you know, less, it's a little less writing to keep up with the asynchronous. People think it'll be easier, but it's a lot of writing a lot of times, um, and a lot of reading. So if they want the direct instruction and if that's kind of how they thrive, um, they can do really well with synchronous classroom.
Speaker 0 00:20:48 I've seen these work well for younger students or people who struggle with, you know, certain subjects. Like I kind of mentioned before, the asynchronous is a lot more flexible. Um, it's really the benefit there too, besides just time, is the, the ability for people to go at their own pace. So if you have a student who's really proficient in a subject or, um, they, or they need a little extra time, you can like work ahead or you can work with the instructor to kind of take extra time or just on your own, you know, you maybe have a week to do an assignment, um, as opposed to a synchronous where you might have an assignment like every two days or every three days. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So it can kinda work for people. Um, and the informal situations are really useful for extra help. Things like Khan Academy, they have self-paced, um, open classes for math.
Speaker 0 00:21:45 Um, the other, the other nice thing about a lot of these virtual classrooms is that there's a real push right now for something called oer, which is open educational resources. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, a lot of online classrooms will use open educational resources instead of traditional textbooks. So for parents who have college age kids, especially, you know, a lot of times K to 12 we're used to, you know, kids get a book in class, they're given one and they give back at the end of the year. And many students when they first come to college don't know how much textbooks are gonna cost. So you can check, because some schools don't have it and some classes don't have it. Um, for instance, like I teach a literature course right now, I'm, I'm going to be doing, um, women's memoir. None of those books are, those books are still copyrighted mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 0 00:22:39 So those, they have to buy. But for my introduction to literature class, we're looking at like older short stories, poems, plays, so they don't need to buy anything. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I have like a book that I give them that I've set up together, like class materials. Right. Pdf and I give it to them for free and that kinda thing. Um, so that's another benefit as well. Yeah. So the, the free materials as well, if that's something that teachers offer is another, another good benefits. Awesome. Well, do you have any suggestions or, uh, or tips or resources for parents who are, you know, considering exploring, uh, virtual schooling for their, for their little one type one? Yeah. Yeah. The first thing is to kind of to kid. And because some kids really want to do online learning and they really love it and they thrive in that environment.
Speaker 0 00:23:35 I know a couple kids where, um, I know one who has pretty severe adhd and the online learning is like, he's all about tech, right? It's like 12 and all about tech. So he loves being in the virtual classroom and interacting with some of the tools and, you know, um, some of the courses are gamified and that kind of thing. Um, I've known other students where they do just asynchronous and they feel really isolated. They feel like they're kind of learning on their own. Um, so it kind of depends on how your kid learn. My, I have one friend who has, one of her, one of her kids is in online learning and one is not mm-hmm. <affirmative> because that's just, you know, just how they, how they liked it. Um, another tip is to find out about the software. So the hardware and the software.
Speaker 0 00:24:29 What kind of internet do you connection, do you need? Um, what kind of learning environment do they have? And a good question to ask and just, most schools are set up this way, but just to double check, um, ask about privacy online and ask about ferpa. FERPA is the federal education, right to Privacy Act. And some classrooms, right? When Covid first hit, were looking for anything right, to be able to use anything to reach their students. And what ended up happening is that they were using things like Google Docs, um, but those are not really secure enough under the federal guidelines. So now Google has like, workspace for education fundamentals cause they've set that up. But, um, things like, like a MOOC or, um, online classes, they, some of them might not have those. So if you're worried about privacy, it's just something to kinda think about.
Speaker 0 00:25:27 Um, another question is just what works for your family? Do you, do you want something that's more flexible because you're going to be using it as a supplement for homeschool, or you're gonna be traveling a lot, um, maybe you decided to take a year in travel in an rv. I, I wouldn't with gas prices, but maybe other people have. Um, those kinda things. And, um, find out if you wanna do everything completely online or again, just supplement for certain courses. Um, maybe you're, you have a kid where they've gone beyond math further than, than what's available at their high school and they need an online calculus class. Um, or they, they already knew Spanish and they wanna take an advanced <laugh> Spanish course or AP Chemistry or whatever the class, whatever the class might be. Um, the, the fourth question is how much interaction and guidance do you want?
Speaker 0 00:26:29 Um, are your your kids' quick learners or do they want, um, more guidance? Do they want less? And the one, and this is of, if you're choosing, if you've figured out kinda what type of online virtual class you want, um, and you're looking for like maybe specific teachers or specific programs, I would ask about, um, how they, how they give material. So how they're presenting material and then how they're giving feedback. Because for me, for example, um, our learning management system has almost all the materials. I use oer, I give a lot of different types of things. So some journals and some discussion forums, sometimes peer review quizzes, those kind of things. I have a lot of audio visual materials, um, announcements every week to kind of keep them on track and a lot of feedback, right? So good course design. Um, but I know other people where they've taken an online class and there's like two tests.
Speaker 0 00:27:40 Everything is just text based. It's like a Word document that just has all the instructors notes. Um, there's a discussion board, but the instructor doesn't participate. Um, my husband just took a class where his assignments were all given a check, a check plus or check minus. And it wasn't until the last paper that he actually got feedback from the teacher and he was so frustrated. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I think all of those things are, are good questions to, good questions to ask. Those are my, those are my tips. I think that was a lot of information and I think that, that for parents who are trying to figure out and navigate, I think you gave them a lot to think about. Um, so Megan, I wanna thank you so much for being here with us today and kind of helping us understand like this new world of education and like whether or not it can work for your ki our kids and whether or not it's something to consider, um, it, it was eye opening.
Speaker 0 00:28:38 Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Michelle. I really appreciate it. No problem. So to recap, the pros of virtual learning include flexibility and learning tailored to the needs of the students. Some of the cons, rigidity, if you choose a 100% synchronous program and isolation, if you choose a 100% asynchronous program, only you and your child can determine which model works for your family. Thank you again to our guest, Megan Hall, and thank you for listening. Show notes and resources to the things we discussed are available on our website, www, just like me presents.com. Share this podcast with other parents and educators in your circle and be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you liked what you heard, leave us a review, reviews, help others discover our show and begin their a week. And remember, if our children can see it, they can.
