What motivates a growing number of virtual-school students to forgo the traditional school structure and take their classes entirely online?

At the Virtual School Symposium hosted in mid-October in Phoenix by the North American Council for Online Learning, virtual-school students explained they like being able to progress at their own pace–and some said they appreciate being able to take classes not offered by their traditional, bricks-and-mortar school.

Roger Sanchez said he left his conventional California school because he wanted to study at his own pace while holding a job outside of school and focusing his attention on out-of-school topics that related to his college interests.

“I was looking for something different to fit my schedule, and the traditional system wasn’t making the cut,” said Sanchez, who is taking multiple Advanced Placement courses and plans to study computer science or graphic design in college.

“You can create your own schedule. … It’s not the same routine I’d have in the traditional system, and I can get more of what I want to do done,” he said.

Sanchez said an online school also lets him choose courses that a traditional school might not offer, such as courses that focus more on computer science and graphics.

“I’m really drawn by technology–that’s one of the main reasons I joined the school,” he said. “In the traditional system, [the] main problem is that classes [move] only as fast as the slowest student … so it doesn’t adapt to your own learning style and learning environment. It really slows you down if you want to get ahead.”

Sanchez is a senior at Insight School of California-Los Angeles, one of a national network of full-time, diploma-granting, public online high schools. The network is run by Insight Schools Inc., a subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc., which also operates the all-online University of Phoenix.

Insight Schools is part of a rapidly expanding market for online education that also includes companies such as Connections Academy, K12 Inc., EdisonLearning (formerly Edison Schools Inc.), and others. A study released during the Virtual School Symposium confirms that the total number of full-time virtual-school students in the United States is on the rise, “along with a continued increase in the number of new full-time programs.” (See “Report assesses K-12 online learning.”)

Education leaders would be wise to listen to what students such as Sanchez had to say, and consider ways they can build opportunities for self-paced learning and more freedom of choice into their own school offerings–or else risk losing a growing number of students to online schools that operate outside their domain.

Enrolling in a virtual school not only frees up time for students to pursue other interests, it also teaches them valuable time-management skills, said Geoffrey Wall, a Tempe, Ariz., senior who has been enrolled in Arizona Connections Academy for five years.

Five years ago, Wall was a competitive figure skater who found himself waking up at 4 a.m. each day to train for his sport and make it to school on time.

“It was becoming something of a problem,” he said. Wall’s mother looked into home-schooling her son but found few resources to help her. The family’s local school district offered no help or advice, either, he said, and finally Wall’s mother stumbled across a local newspaper article about Connections Academy.

Wall is no longer involved in competitive figure skating, but he found he enjoyed his classes with Connections Academy and reasoned that switching not only schools, but also learning styles, in the middle of his high school experience would not have been beneficial.

Now, Wall begins his mornings by logging onto Connections Academy and choosing a handful of lessons to complete.

“Depending on the day, I might have more or I might have less, and once I finish them, I’m free to do whatever I want,” he said. “If I have to take a day off, I might get on and do an extra day of work or fit in an extra lesson.”

Working so independently encourages the same type of time-management skills that college students need to be successful, he said. Managing classes, assignments, and social activities can be daunting, but Wall has a firm grasp on his routine.

“With a normal high school, everything is always scheduled for you,” he said. “With [online learning], you have to keep on top of things.”

Some people might wonder if Wall feels deprived of the typical social aspects of a bricks-and-mortar high school, but he says he does not.

“I’ve got friends from when I was attending traditional school, and friends through karate and [who] I meet from other activities, like camps,” he said.

Wall has even met his virtual classmates through organized field trips. He is able to collaborate with his classmates virtually through his computer, as well as chat with both teachers and peers on a regular basis.

Connections Academy students have access to guidance counselors to help them navigate the college application process. Adding a high school component to the company’s virtual offerings made it necessary to provide a robust guidance-counselor support staff, a company representative said.

Even virtual-school teachers at the symposium said they liked many of the freedoms that come with teaching in an online environment.

Not just students, but teachers, too, can become frustrated in a traditional school setting, because much of their time is devoted to tasks such as asking students for late passes or collecting various assignments, said Mishele Newkirk-Smith, a former classroom teacher in Washington state who is now a science teacher with Insight School of Washington.

“I’m not a disciplinarian now; I’m an educator,” she said, adding: “Online, there is more one-on-one education.”

“I have always looked for … alternative ways for students to learn. All students do not learn the same way–they are totally different,” said Deloris Brown, a former school principal who is currently principal of Insight School of South Carolina.

In a traditional classroom, educators can “try to think outside of the box, but you’re still faced with the one-size-fits-all model,” she said. “If we know that all students are different, then we have to do something different. This is going to be one of the major reform efforts that education will see.”

[via iCoast] by Laura Devaney

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