As Hurricane Earl approaches the Outer Banks of North Carolina this weekend, I am reminded of how important blended class services are for students who need academic continuity in times of crisis. While many of the schools on the outer banks of North Carolina will close for some days ahead due to the impending storms, NCVPS students in the Outer Banks will still have a variety of ways to access their course materials in a multitude of service settings. Class schedules and numbers will not be a factor this weekend and into next week, because the virtual environment of NCVPS can be there to provide online courses, support, mobile monitoring, and school from anywhere the evacuation route takes them. Yet, when the storm surge subsides, a crisis of class schedules and lack of class services will still exist in many schools across the nation.
Why can’t we be like Singapore who actually practices taking a week off of face-to-face school to provide e-learning services? It is truly a shame we have to wait for a time of environmental crisis to provide class services the way they need to be. Thus, I think it is important to learn from these times, not just to deploy a model of academic continuity when hurricanes and healthcare catastrophes happen, but to actually use the lessons learned during these events to fuel a class services transformation to replace our existing structure of class schedules and grade cohort models of teaching and learning.
Areas of the United States like southern Louisiana have learned that you have to do a needs assessment of technology on all families for times of disaster (Katrina). Is it not plausible that a phone dialer system with polling, text services, and/or a good old fashioned return post card system could not be established to determine the “true” amount of technology in the hands of students and parents in your systems instead of guess work on the digital divide? In fact, I don’t see the issue in many school systems as a digital divide; rather I see it as a “participation gap” widened and/or narrowed by leadership. Once a system has the data on student access, all types of learning plans can be engaged to mitigate class schedule conflicts and increase class service.
Students can be texted review materials with links to web browsers. Parents can access wifi in car rider lines to allow for extra study time, and/or school buses can be converted to mobile internet labs. All of these options allow for student services before class schedules are even an issue. Teachers can be assigned flex schedule to support students on twitter, mobile devices, and car rider question and answer sessions before transportation to morning tutoring periods even becomes a fiscal issue.
During times of disaster, many schools become shelters. Parents check email. They use phone systems, and they have access to reading materials and food. Yet, schools opening the doors as community centers after hours to access virtual academies, virtual study halls, and e-tutoring sessions is often tabled due to lack of staff and/or resources. This is why schedules like “0” periods for coaches to supervise large media center labs are catching on in innovative schools. Who cares if the class size of that session is 100 kids in the media center all working within a blended infrastructure of school and home use devices? The coach supervises the network and potential violations and the students are logged on to a strand of virtual teachers that are on school grounds and/or are serving students from their homes due to having first period planning to transition to school after their e-learning time has been provided to students.
Moreover, school improvement teams often create slide schedules to support remediation and/or enhancement options. Why not take this a step further and create slide days of attendance based on student and parent needs with blended learning? One day at school learning with a teacher; one day at home being supported by one. With the right needs assessment of a community and/or the development of a new school magnet to serve such a population, blended learning services would continue to make the class schedule issue a moot point as students could truly learn anytime, anywhere.
Many schools enjoy strong parental support, with parent organizations fundraising for new gardens, uniforms, or field trips. Yet, PTA groups could also be fundraising for wifi hot spots. They could establish rotations for parents to provide e-tutoring monitoring to peer tutor groups at night online, so that students can share materials and parents can help with issues like cyberbullying and/or sexting. The technology is always neutral. Rather, the appropriate use of it lies in the understanding of the context to which the technology is being applied.
Many best practices have emerged in North Carolina during times of school closings due to weather, such as using teacher assistants, paraprofessional, and/or volunteers to flex their schedules from 6 a.m. to 1p.m. and/or 2p.m. to 7p.m. to support e-learning on campus and/or offsite while students are working.
In fact, one of the first policies we passed at NCVPS with the North Carolina State Board of Education allowed students to receive seat time credit for e-learing. This is significant in that local boards of education now have the authority to allow a student to touch base with their calculus teacher in the a.m. at school; drive to Chick-fil-A for work; play soccer that night; and finish their e-learning courses at home after the game. Yet, many leaders are still stuck in the paradigm of the face-to-face school day.
If I were a seated principal again, I’d send home a letter to parents and students wanting to take advantage of such a virtual magnet opportunity within my own school. I’d have students create e-learning clubs that meet briefly during homeroom to outline problems, success etc. for an advisor who reports them back to a counselor and/or assistant principal who checks with the e-learning provider to ensure success. I’d have an early adopter teacher teach one class during the first 70 minutes of a 90-minute block and support e-learning students the last 20. This class could be in similar disciplines, for example integrating an 8th grade course to a 9th grade credit course. I’d create a face-to-face Saturday academy or off-site time for e-learning students to check in and out. Moreover, I’d flex teachers schedules for e-office hours twice a week for middle or high school students to receive more support for parents and themselves.
The keys for leaders are always who you will assign and for what ends to monitor and support blended learning. To ensure equity I’d hold lotteries, target grant funds, rent out computers and/or devices to students so all could have access to blended learning services. In short, I’d close the participation gap and eliminate what I consider to be a crisis of class schedules and cohorts and not one of class services. The technology is already here, is our political will?
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