Online learning means many different things at different schools. At the iSchool, we use the term to refer to courses where the content is delivered online only, and the teacher and student are not online at the same time. Each of our online courses is facilitated by an iSchool teacher, licensed in that content area, who designs the course, tracks student progress, and meets with students individually and in small groups when necessary. Our students spend about seven hours a week learning online at their own pace. Because of state regulations about awarding credit, these hours take place during the school day.

What does this look like inside our classrooms? Picture a traditional classroom with 34 students sitting in rows. Each student has a computer out on his/her desk and a notebook for taking notes. Each student is doing something different — some are watching a video of a teacher lecturing about the First Constitutional Convention (which students are pausing each time they take notes), some students are working on math problems, some are reading literature texts, and some are labeling the parts of a cell on a digital image.

We chose to incorporate online learning in our model for several important reasons:

1. Learning online is — and will continue to be — a reality for the world in which our students are growing up. Our students will be required to learn online during their college and graduate school experiences, as well as throughout their careers. If we are to prepare them to be successful in their future endeavors, we must prepare them to be successful online learners.
2. Learning to make sense of online texts and resources is a critical skill for our students’ academic success as well as their ability to be literate citizens of the 21st-century workplace and global community. Reading and analyzing online material requires development of the same skills that will facilitate their success with more traditional paper-and-pencil academic tasks and standardized tests. 
3. Online learning supports one important tenet of iSchool’s mission: to individualize our students’ high school experiences. Online learning enables students to progress through coursework at their own pace, to take courses when they are ready, and to more easily and readily have their learning presented in ways suited to their style and needs, through the use of audio and visual features.
4. Finally, online courses broaden the curricular options available for our students. As a small school, we are limited both in funds and personnel. By offering our students the opportunity to take coursework online, we can offer Advanced Placement and college-level courses in any area to our students. This means that our students can pursue in greater depths those subjects of interest to them. It also means that our students will enter college ahead in credits and graduation requirements, increasing the likelihood that they will be successful in and complete college in four years.

While the argument for incorporating online instruction into students’ high school experience is compelling and strong, online learning isn’t easy for the teacher or student. Our students often tell us it would be so much easier if someone would just lecture at them and tell them what to memorize. Indeed, it would be easier, but we don’t embrace online learning at the iSchool to make learning easier. Of course, online learning does not in and of itself make classes rigorous, but used correctly, online learning enables each student to work on the content on which he needs to work — providing a level of individualization that is just not possible in a classroom with even the most gifted or experienced teacher. 

At the iSchool we spend a great deal of time determining what kind of content is appropriate to put online, and what learning can best occur when directly facilitated by a teacher. What we’ve learned is that students do not need teachers to help them memorize low level content (e.g. that 2×2=4), but teachers are necessary to help students understand the reasons for (e.g. why 2×2=4) or the application (e.g. what we can do with this understanding) of this low-level content. Our students don’t spend less time in classrooms with teachers because of their online coursework; instead, time in classrooms focuses on developing students’ higher-order thinking skills (synthesis and application), rather than on drilling on content. We know that a computer will (likely) never be able to pass on the kinds of discussions, interaction, and skill development that can occur in the presence of a great teacher, but why waste our great teachers and valuable time on memorization and test prep?

As with any new instructional approach, we all have much to learn as we begin to implement it. Many of the concerns raised by GothamSchools’ readers are real and reflect the type of challenges teachers deal with every day, although they are not dissimilar to those faced by teachers in traditional classrooms. In fact, while students easily grasp the reasons and benefits of online learning, they experience much more difficulty adapting to the role of online learner. Online learning requires significantly more independence, self-discipline, and time management than has likely been required of students in their previous education and many of them struggle with this at first. During the past year, we have discovered several common factors that cause an iSchool student to struggle in their online classes:

• Students look at the timeline presented in the course, but do not abide by it, thinking there is no “class” to attend.
• Students think that they are invisible to the teacher and do not have to participate according to the guidelines.
• Students don’t use the available tools to track their progress and access help when required.
• Students forget that a real person is evaluating them, and may be tempted to turn in lower-quality work, use others’ work, or skip assignments altogether, thinking that nothing is “due.”
• Students forget that online classes also have homework and don’t spend the time required.

After noticing the pattern of these common struggles, we put in place several structures to support students as they develop their online learning skills: 

• Each online course has built-in hints and tips to provide immediate assistance when a student is “stuck.”
• Each online period has a proctor, who can assist students with technical issues, or provide general course help.
• Online course teachers are available during office hours for students who wish to “drop in”; teachers also regularly mandate students to attend special online support sessions during office hours.
• Students participated in tutorials at the beginning of the year with hints and strategies for online success; ninth-grade students spent additional time in class discussing online learning and strategies for success.
• Students reviewed expectations for online coursework in Advisory, and were asked to sign an online learning contract.

While we have figured a few things out, we still have much to learn about how to be more effective online instructors and learners. For the iSchool, the benefit of the new iZone is that we will now have a community of schools who are thinking of the inherent challenges (which are far outweighed by the benefits of online learning) and working together to come up with solutions. We will also be working together to develop the best online curricula that will provide a broader range of courses and a more personalized high school experience for New York City students. Having teachers from different schools work together on curricula and pilot them with students in a variety of contexts will allow us to more efficiently design curricula that are effective across the broad range of the city’s student populations. Working together, with systemic support for the development of more innovative learning experiences, will enable all of us to do a better job of preparing our students for college and the future.

For years, Vander Ark shaped the educational giving for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing grants the organization gave to cities that agreed to build small high schools. Now a partner at an education public affairs firm in California, Vander Ark has supported such causes as lifting New York State’s charter cap and bringing more and better technology into classrooms.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education confirmed that Vander Ark is behind the application for Bedford Preparatory Charter School, a small high school school that, if approved, would open in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn next school year.

An overview of Bedford Prep describes the school as being modeled on NYC iSchool, a small, selective high school that opened in Tribeca last fall as the first school in the city’s NYC21C initiative. Since then, the Department of Education has made plans to open eight more schools based on the iSchool model.

This fits neatly with Vander Ark’s vision of a high-tech school where students spend more time with computers than with paper and pens. A segment of the executive summary for Bedford Prep reads:

“Bedford Prep will be New York City’s first blended learning charter school … Bedford Prep students have the flexibility of enhancing their traditional classroom work with online course work in core subject areas. Students learn at their own pace online within a classroom monitored by staff which allows for differentiated instruction within a single classroom setting.”

The lead applicant for the school is Tamara Carpenter, a former lawyer for children in foster care and program officer for the Chicago school system.

According to the summary, Bedford Prep would open with a ninth grade class of 125 students and would eventually grow to house 500 students. Students would be admitted by lottery, but those who are considered “at-risk of academic failure” and those who live in district 13 would be given preference.

The executive summary also states that while the school’s founders would like to see it “permanently located in a DOE facility,” they are looking at private space as well. The document notes that nearby Boys and Girls High School has “shown especially disappointing results” on the Regents exams, and that many schools in the district have unused space.

Vander Ark and Carpenter did not respond to requests for comment.

The schools will be in the model of the NYCiSchool, a small, selective high school that opened in Tribeca last fall as the first school in the city’s NYC21C initiative. (The name refers to the “21st-century skills” that technology-infused schools teach.) Klein touted the iSchool at the small schools panel discussion he introduced last week, saying that the school provides an example of how technology can be used to ”tailor the instructional journey of the child to the child’s needs.”

In his column today, Klein writes that the iSchool is pioneering a new “technology ‘culture,’” one that more schools should emulate:

In the past three years, the New York City Department of Education has created a number of technologies that allow teachers, principals, and parents to better understand students’ strengths and weaknesses and create academic programs that are tailored to the students’ needs. …

For New York City, the next big change is to change our technology “culture,” so we begin using modern tools to rethink the way our schools and classrooms are organized to most effectively engage students and bolster their achievement.

An iSchool student, Angelica Modabber, wrote about getting accustomed to using technology in her classes on this site in December. And here’s a video about the iSchool produced by the city Department of Education:

Raquel: Returning to school after a 3-day weekend to sit in front of two flatscreen televisions and watch Obama’s inauguration was nothing short of amazing, because we were glued to something more than a television screen. We were glued into history.

We also created historical artifacts of our own. A school-wide assignment required each student to write a list of the topics we wanted to hear Obama address in his speech. As the speech progressed, we recorded what topics he actually covered. This way, we were able to document not only what we heard, but what it meant to us.

I predict that unlike many school assignments, we’ll remember this one as not just one more piece of paper. Instead, we will be able to use this assignment as a tool to evaluate whether Obama has kept his word to America, and to us.

Angelica: We are teenagers, a rowdy group to tame, especially when concentrated all in one room — and yet the sound of Barack Obama’s even voice, fierce and calm, muted us. Our chests were swelling with pride, the air filled with his deep, crystalline tone. He seemed to have complete, unconditional trust in us, an odd characteristic for a powerful ruler to have, but nonetheless an effective one, as it rendered us quiet. Silence had never come to us so easily, but our whispers faded as the television screen blared the beginning of Obama’s speech.

Barack Obama is an unbelievably persuasive person. During his speech, the authority in his sincere voice was firm yet humble, and did to us students what reprimanding, intimidating teachers rarely have the ability to do. We were listening, respectful, and nearly silent, with the exception of sporadic applause that often seemed necessary.

With his high standards and ideals, Obama’s sheer faith in us — as the future of America — is perhaps the part that struck me the most. So trusting and unquestioning of our potential, he convinced me to stop questioning it as well.

At the end of the speech, beneath my skin there was still that vague tingle lingering beneath my skin, like little ants racing into my fingertips. Teachers were teary-eyed, giving high-fives to each other and to us, the students. The excitement was so great that one teacher even forgot to collect the assignment!

Angelica, my classmate at the NYCiSchool, already explained how she adjusted to learning online, but you might still be wondering what it’s like to attend a school like ours on a day-to-day basis.

A day in the life of an online school involves more computer time and less teacher time.

The “commons” is the student lounge where we go to study, eat lunch or just relax. This room, filled with modern-style furniture and six plasma screen TVs, is where we first stop to catch our breath and exchange a few words with friends after traveling up five flights of stairs.

At 9:00 a.m. our principals come out of their cubicles to remind us that class is starting.

Each classroom here at the iSchool has two laptop carts filled with either HP Pavilions or Dells. The laptop-to-student ratio at the iSchool is 1:1; with each student having a laptop, we get much more work done. In each classroom, a student is assigned a specific computer. This arrangement lessens confusion and protects the laptops.

Even though the school is all about online learning, we don’t take all our classes online.

Each period may be devoted to a seminar class or an online course. In seminar classes, instead of going online, we review Regents questions with a teacher. We also have science labs that are not online. A student at the iSchool can have up to 3 online classes a day.

After staring at a computer screen for three hours, don’t students become restless?

The solution: the school has us switch classrooms every period.

The teacher in the classroom does not teach one subject, but monitors how students are progressing with their work. In an online course I may be working on Integrated Algebra while my neighbor is working on Global History. The teacher in the room may come around to each of us every few minutes to make sure we do not digress from our assigned work.

How do teachers feel about not having to teach a class? Christiana Pellicci, the Global History teacher at NYCiSchool, has this to say, “I would rather teach kids global than have them learn it online. I’m used to teaching and being the ‘center of attention’. I miss not having an actual class to teach. I’m content with this new avenue of learning, but I am not too ecstatic about not having to teach.”

Going to an online school is a big change in the way we learn, but it doesn’t really affect the rest of our lives. We go to a school like no other, yet we still make friends among our classmates, get into trouble, and occasionally decide not to do our homework. And when I sit in a classroom and see all the students focused on a computer screen it becomes clear that how we go about learning doesn’t change what we learn.

I’m Angelica Modabber, a freshman at NYCiSchool. Unlike most schools, the iSchool is very technology-based, and students take many online courses.  Visitors to the iSchool often question this initiative, since at many other schools, lessons are still taught with a chalkboard and a teacher at the front of the room. Here’s how I came to embrace this style of learning.

When first presented with the “moodle,” (the website on which the courses are found) I was asked to sign in to my personal account and enroll myself in all the classes I would be taking that quarter. Once enrolled, I had access to all the exams, information, questionnaire sheets, and overall assignments.  I was bewildered by all the links, texts, and videos the site possessed.  I shrugged off the confusion; after all, how difficult could it be to sit in a classroom and simply read all the passages and paste them to memory?

In reality, though, like the other students, I was blown away by all the music playlists, YouTube videos, and infinite other distractions. The possibilities were endless. Although the school had done its best to block these diversions, there was always a distracting website left unguarded.

In the beginning I was not fond of being both teacher and student simultaneously. It required more effort, patience, self-control and self-motivation. Not consistently having someone keep tabs on me was surprisingly unnerving; I had expected to thrive with this newfound freedom. After all, wasn’t this the independence I had always yearned for? However, I quickly discovered that my “freedom” was buried beneath layers and layer of responsibility – or in my case, procrastination.

Online courses were the most brutal confrontation with what was lacking in me as a good student. Being forced to teach myself, I became more aware of all my scholastic shortcomings. My faults were never as evident as when I first started out. I was always confused, had trouble following directions, could not focus on the task at hand, and expected to be hand-fed all the information. Crestfallen by these heart-breaking revelations, I desperately wanted to redeem myself.

I came to realize that, if used properly, the courses could help me achieve an unforeseen degree of control. Teaching myself was shockingly effective. I was finally being taught by someone who fully understood me. I gradually was picking up more skills as the year progressed: I learned to manage my time and pace myself, and my habit of constant postponement began to fade.

I had no one to blame for all my screw-ups other than myself. Rather than frightening me, this concept was actually thrilling. Having isolated all the variables leading to failure (i.e. lesson plans, teachers, etc.), I was left with only myself, and I had absolutely no intention other than to succeed.

While I was growing to love online learning, many of my peers were ready to break under the pressure, and blamed the courses for their own inadequacies. While I enjoy having to depend on no one but myself academically, others still had to come to terms with the idea. Perhaps when online courses are a more established way of learning, students won’t take so long to adjust. Individuals are always quick to judge what they are not used to; it’s human nature. Even I was in the same position at first.

I read a joke once that if we were to find someone who lived decades ago and place them in today’s world, they would be lost in the midst of all the new technology. Everything from transportation to entertainment has transformed. However, if they visited a school, they would have no trouble realizing where they were. Our schools have not kept up with the rest of society’s advancements. The iSchool hopes to change that, and in doing so, to create students who take learning into their own hands.

Front page of a lab on diffusion and osmosis.

An article by Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn at Edutopia paints a picture of computers providing modified activities to fit students’ different learning styles — one student learns a sentence in Mandarin by playing a game, another through a memorization activity:

Both students are learning to put together sentences that they’ll use in a conversation together in front of the rest of the class — some of whom are using the same learning tools as these two, but many of whom are learning Mandarin in other ways tailored to the way they learn.

But decades of computers-in-schools efforts haven’t led to this kind of transformation of teaching and learning, the article points out. Right now, the courses offered by the Florida Virtual School, a leader in on-line learning, don’t seem all that different from traditional courses — while assignments offer some choice to students, and lessons link to websites with additional content, I saw no evidence of the kind of learning-style-oriented instruction described in the Edutopia article. Another purveyor of on-line courses, Apex Learning, claims to differentiate instruction through multimedia, but the site doesn’t provide demonstration or description of how this works.

The solution is to implement innovative technology models “where the alternative is no class at all,” let them improve over time, and slowly build more widespread demand, say Christensen and Horn.

Where do they envision on-line learning filling gaps in educational offerings? Among “nonconsumers,” students in small schools that don’t offer advanced classes, who need to retake a course, or who seek a flexible schedule, they write. This sounds a lot like the Department of Education’s plan to allow high school students to complete graduation requirements on-line, pending a waiver of the state’s seat-time requirement. And the NYCiSchool, which opened this fall, promises college courses and 37 AP choices, thanks to on-line offerings, and hopes flexible scheduling will allow students to participate in internships and field experiences.

I see the promise for advanced students who can move through material faster on their own than in a traditional classroom, for students who want to graduate quickly and enter the workforce, and for some overage students, but I wonder how students who have struggled with academics would fare in on-line courses. Is there enough contact with a teacher to ensure that students stick with the class, manage their time, and complete assignments?

To address this problem, a Florida Virtual School demo shows that students must complete a timeline of when they will complete assignments for a course, depending on whether they wish to move at a regular or accelerated pace; this timeline is then treated as a contract between student and teacher. The learning management system also includes tools for on-line discussion.