High Schools, Part 2: Judi Day, and the Video-Linked Classroom

Judi Day at the beginnings of Fayette Co,'s VLC, 2002

       Judi Day taught mathematics at Lafayette High School, specifically upper level courses such as calculus, retiring several years ago. Two weeks ago (Wednesday, April 17, 2013) she succumbed to cancer. She was a first-rate teacher, and will be missed by those who knew her.
      Although my background is high school mathematics as well, my contact with Judi was never directly about that. I have been the coordinator of the Video-Linked Classroom program at Fayette County Schools for over 12 years, most of that program's existence. The VLC provides technology support for connecting high school classes together though videoconference hardware, providing the ability of one high school to serve classes for which they have no instructor, or insufficient class enrollment to justify providing one. Our district has provided a supplemental stipend for a teacher willing to teach remote students, and the technology office has provided the hardware and logistic support. All the "remote" school need supply is supervision and test proctoring. The idea is such a simple and elegant one, you would think the program would sell itself.

Remote students

       Back in 2002, a local high school had 5-6 students wanting to take Calc B/C (a second year calculus course at the high school level). With those counts there was no way to justify paying staff to offer the course, and the math department chair there asked for a video-link connection. It took a little schmoozing to get Judi on board, but she proved to be the perfect choice. She deeply cared about students no matter where they sat, was willing to become familiar with the small amount of technology required (mostly just a document camera), and, not incidentally, was unafraid of being on camera. She regularly stated that her best Calc II students were at the remote site, a remark that matched most of the research on this style of distance education -- after all, students taking a course through a videoconference link were doing so because the only other option was doing without. Those students tended to be quite motivated.
       Judi taught a least one video-linked class almost continuously over the last 8-9 years of her teaching career. She taught probably 1/3 to 1/2 of all the classes offered this way in our district. She was the program's rock star.
       The program is still active, and the teacher who took over and continues Judi's legacy, has been great. But all of the problems associated with high schools mentioned in my previous posting -- a tendency to be isolated, disconnected, overly self-aware -- have prevented this program from expanding. In the last few years, students and faculty have tended to view a video-linked classroom not as an opportunity, but as a school failure, and the results can poison the successes Judi enjoyed. All too often, the program is a last-ditch attempt to simply "get this staffing/course offering problem off my desk," with no support or enthusiasm for what it then attempts to accomplish.
       This matches similar problems for distance education in general. Although online learning continues to expand at an incredible pace, in all too many cases it is viewed as a way to solve program offering problems cheaply and easily. The result is a mash-up of badly-constructed courses, inattentive online teachers, and sky-high attrition rates. Rather than embracing online learning as a connected, information-rich opportunity, high schools view them as 4th and 5th choices, and their value is undermined even before the first assignment is due. Even negative course design characteristics (quirky teaching styles, bad pedagogy, low-level activities) become the fault of the delivery platform. The result is a huge chasm between a student's otherwise heavily connected personal life, state programs and initiatives looking to save money and embrace trends, and the high school leadership and faculty using (or avoiding) these services. The whole thing ends up being a huge self-fulfilling prophecy, often with high schools congratulating themselves on how well they've protected their students from the evils of low-performing distance learning opportunities.
       But in Judi's case, things were so much simpler. The instructional practice was "real time," the pedagogy was pretty traditional (close to "chalk and talk"), and year after year the program actually served students, providing great test scores. No technology can overcome bad teaching, nor does technology suppress great teaching. When that camera went on, there was a twinkle in Judi's eye, and the kids could see it at both end of the connection.
      We'll miss you, Judi...

What’s the matter with high schools?

       This, of course, is probably unfair as a lead to an editorial. High schools get that a lot -- for some reasons they own, and a bunch they don’t. Yes, they’re slow to respond to change. Yes, they often have bad failure/drop-out/low-performance/low-attendance data. Yes, their teachers often fail to reflect national standards.
       Of course, in our data-driven education world -- and in a political environment where a regional legislature with almost no education experience has more influence than a well-considered and published education researcher -- a lot of instructional practice is changing for some very bad reasons. Not only are we beating up on how well high schools are doing, we’re sending a bunch of mixed messages on what they are supposed to be doing in the first place! Do we really want all students to attend college? Do we really want all students in STEM programs? Do we really want our students to just do well on quantifiable high-stakes tests? Do we really want our education aimed solely at how to be a good college student/employee/citizen?
       The end result is that high school teachers and administrators often feel completely at a loss. The attention brings sanctions, reform initiatives, negative press, leadership changes, teacher accountability measures, more and more tests, and a host of other things intended to help, but, ultimately, end up just contributing to the piling-on. The end result is a collection of professionals who feel threatened and powerless.
       In the face of that, not surprisingly, the response is often to hunker down and circle the wagons. Principals do their best to make sure the school is the source of their reform and change. Teachers close their doors, narrow their focus, and attend to that which is in front of them. As a frequent observer and participant in programs at the high school level, I’ve seen this over and over and over again. Even high schools who are viewed in the district and community as high functioning often exhibit the same behaviors. (As a district tech resource teacher, the most telling response I get from school-based folks is "What are you doing here?")
       But is that "circled wagons" response effective, or is it dysfunctional?
       It can make one feel better – more empowered, more in control, more connected to the immediate school community who have, as their common mission, the correction of that bad image for, at least, their school. I won’t begin to comment on whether it might be effective as a general strategy, but I do worry about how it fits into all of the implications of 21^st Century teaching and learning. If a student has more information instantly available through his smart phone than a teacher learns in a lifetime, will closing doors help? If a student can take a course at the school across town, or online, or from freely-available MIT/Kahn Academy/HippoCampus instructional resources/course syllabi, does it make sense to insist that all learning opportunities come from the school he attends? If a student participates in an international learning community through social networking outside of school, does it make sense to restrict his contact in a classroom to the thirty students there? If there are hundreds of thousands of motivated, involved, attentive experts online, does it make sense to force only one teacher to provide that experience?
         There are lots of education observers who promote an extension of connections to learning experiences as a way of addressing education reform. One of the most interesting of them might be Logan LaPlante, who, as a 13-year-old, did a TEDx talk on “Hackschooling.” His experience, to say the least, is atypical – upper middle class family, parents who took him out of formal schools and allowed him to structure his own educational experiences. But he gets a lot of things right, including connected and integrated learning from a variety of sources.
       What’s the matter with high schools? It isn’t that they don’t care. It isn’t that they don’t have what it takes. It isn’t that they can’t change. In our super-connected world, my only fear is that, it’s because they aren’t listening.