pape-hutchison

Back **Management and Operations of Online Programs (Cascade F)** //Liz Pape, Virtual High School Global Consortium & Donna Hutchison, Connections Academy//

//Four roundtable discussion sessions and an expert panel will give participants the opportunity to discuss with experts in full-time and supplemental online programs the objectives, strategies, tactics, and promising practices around student support; teacher support and management; content quality and development; and program evaluation. This session will build upon the work of the iNACOL "Promising Practices in Online Learning: Management and Operations of Online Programs" publication.//

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Teacher quality What mentoring, support, and accountability processes are used in your teacher management operations Staff developer assigned to schools to support teachers F2F. Fully online and distance teachers are a challenge. Teachers that Develop online courses may be better prepared to teach the course. Online PRofessional learning communities help with experienced mentors Just in time PD course that explains how to modify course modules, Outsourced PD to a company especially when starting a new school. How many teachers does your program have, and are they primarily full-time or part-time? Most teachers are part time online How do you develop online teacher programs especially when it is so different than traditional teaching contracts? Consortium of schools use local teachers and share. Great F2F does not translate into great online. Confusion on meaning of terms. How does your program recruit new teachers? Need interview questions/programs that would help identify good online teachers? Would like iNACOL to have resource tools for selecting online teachers. PBS teacherline has good resources. Develop a online teacher prep course as a requirement prior to allowing teaching online. Some colleges have programs and schools have developed their own online teacher certification program. Having a teacher mentorship program. Are your teacher orientation and professional development programs meeting the needs of your faculty and goals of the program? Need to rewrite PD for teachers like tech tool development and a pedagogy in online teacher tools. PLCs also help support teacher PD. Course design sessions could improve courses and teaching. Training on the purposes of LMS, SIS, CMS. Does your program have teacher-student communication requirements and how is the effectiveness of the requirements measured? Need flexibility on interactions based o student performance. Administrator training on enforcing and supporting online teachers. Need tools to help administrators.

Student Support Is your student orientation process sufficient and well-executed? Improved by having an online module for students but need better parent orientation. Parent handbooks are available but parents do not read it. it would be great to have a simulated course for parents and students to walk through prior to enrollment. Successful Students walk new students through first lesson. Need videos for parents. Student orientation should examine what fears and needs students have even though kids don't like to talk about their fears. Needs of students are very different. Dependent, Independent, interdependent learners have varying needs. How are student progress and activity tracked, and who has access to that information? No magic dashboard for student, class, cohort, or school available. Somewhat dependent on LMS capabilities. Develop resources for parents in each class. Giving parents more access changes their role into a teaching partner. Home school parents want the curricula and choice - may not fit with state standards of seat time, scope, sequence and assessment for funding. Do your students receive robust technical support regardless of how they access their online courses? Access to help desk is especially inportant for parents. Some schools offer on online chat room specfic to tech support while the teacher offersncontent support. Big need for weekend and late hour support, but very expensive. Creating self help tools, videos, PDFs available online Have a site for walk ins and call-In. Volume of users drives how much off hour support - consortiums may help. How are you supporting students with physical or learning disabilities, ELL? Blended learning environments help with onsite support. Online is an option to extend time for F2F courses. It removes distractions for students. Online resources help focus attention. Audio with text, sheltered instructional strategies, diagnosing student reading levels prior to assigning course. Counseling/ mentors are very important.

Program Evaluation Is your program meeting its mission and goals, as well as the expectations of the stakeholders and the community? Evaluation is through student completion. Other areas we could use are student/parent surveys/ graduation rates- teacher survey. Running into issues with AYP. Issues with transient population. In California alternative schools can go with district graduation rate. In mission statement schools use words like “ return to the comprehensive HS” How are you meeting your mission or goals? Spectrum of on line to blended and as students start to move around this will present different challenges. Can other forms of student outcomes be considered? Pre and post tests- look at own program and look at a growth model. Develop growth model. Achieve a years worth of growth. At risk kids take electives later. Important to use an independent evaluator. Do we conduct an internal or external evaluation? · Forced by state so focus is on compliance. Does not drive improvement. (Oklahoma) o Advice is to use the iNACOL guidelines to help On line learning business has become so complex so fast!!!! Who are the decision makers in program evaluation?? EVALUATION Meeting goals and needs of stakeholders · Mission – Proposal in LA is a business plan model · Mission and goals a baseline of evaluation – they drive the process · Student outcomes measured – state assessments, in-house assessments, audit by external authority but not knowledgeable of online learning – private school process is very different than public schools and district process · If you are leaning on state assessment and yet you are to serve at-risk, what other evaluative tools can show a more complete picture of student outcomes. · Pre+Post-test to show growth in learning · Parent questionnaire – Teacher feedback – Lesson feedback using star system, reviewed by administrator –Gradebook feedback to parents with green yellow red face based upon attendance, participation and performance (mastery) · Testimonials that can be shared with visitors, legislators, · Program evaluation annually

** Content Quality & Learning Outcomes ** Roundtable 1: Q: Can your program develop your own content? à high quality, meets standards **//Variables://** How many courses do you have? How many are you adding? How are decision made? Course review process & schedule? Budget?

**__TOP ISSUES__**

**__FUNDING:__** · Upfront (high) costs for developing vs. purchase-as-needed (lower) costs (CO) · Funding is directly involved in course design à Title 2D (NY) · Consortium purchases (large group price breaks) **__TIMELINE__** · Immediate Need – we are not given much time between approval from district and launch of enrollment. à i.e. we don’t have time to develop our own courses (CA) · Time for “Vetting” courses – use iNACOL standards **__MEETING STANDARDS__** · State vs. national (common core) vs. iNACOL · Review / Refresh cycle (every 3 years in CO) · Look for rubrics for exemplary courses, have discussions with stakeholders · Made sure system had correlations to UC a-g **__QUALITY__** · Course design is critical · Have a “star rating” – students, teachers, parents can review a course / lesson (Connections Academy) · Full review every few years · Need //specialists// - courses are no longer easily built by a teacher in his/her spare time o Curriculum, video, animation, · Definition of “successful” course??? o Not just about course completion rates o “star rating” / satisfaction rating o Compare to results on state assessments o User surveys (students) o Demand/drops o Teacher feedback o Student performance

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