What if you were given the opportunity to teach in the perfect environment -- where spitballs don't fly, administrators leave you alone and disruptive and disobedient students don't exist?

There is such a place for teachers. It's the virtual classroom. While the teacher's role is the same, the method of teaching is different.

To succeed in the virtual classroom, teachers must adjust how they design courses, how they plan assignments, how they communicate with students and how they plan their days in general.

"It's a lot more work up front," says Teresa Hislop. She is an earth systems teacher for Electronic High School in Utah. Hislop taught in a traditional classroom for five years and made the move to EHS about four years ago.

"Since the classes are entirely self-paced [by the students], I have to think through the entire lesson and every possible student response, question or scenario," she says.

For her, planning on this level took about four months initially. Since earth systems is a lab class where students observe their world, Hislop considered what she wanted their final experiments to look like, what they should learn from the experiments, how she could get the students to that point and how much free reign she should give them to get there.

The course design needs to be organized and perfect, she says. "In the classroom, you have a plan, but then sometimes things change. You roll with it," Hislop says.

"You can't teach off the cuff," agrees cyber math teacher Jake Warkentin. He taught in a regular classroom for two years before joining Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC) three years ago.

"You have to have lessons done well in advance. They take a lot longer to prepare," he says. That's because you have to anticipate outcomes.

"In the classroom, you can wing it. You can show up and manage. There is no such thing as managing online if you're not prepared."

But virtual high schools often make concessions for teachers, Warkentin explains. Course design is viewed as the larger task. Depending on the school you work for, the design may already be implemented.

Most virtual high schools use an asynchronous model. That is, students pace themselves. They sign on to their computers when they have time to work, whether that's noon or midnight.

Teaching asynchronously is less efficient than the synchronous model, where everyone signs on at once. One-on-one teaching takes a lot of time, Warkentin says. "When a student asks a question, the other students don't hear it. So others might ask the same question."

Body language is also missing, Ralph Helder adds. Helder is principal of online programs at ADLC. Teachers use body language to "read" students.

But as virtual high schools tweak their learning models, some are adding more advanced communication tools.

The primary way of interacting is e-mail. Because words on paper don't carry intonations and expressions, e-mails are very easily misinterpreted, Warkentin says.

"You need to be courteous online, even though you don't see the face....There is a big difference between warm e-mail and cold e-mail," Hislop says. An extra 45 seconds used to word something sensitively can make a world of difference, she says.

While cyber teachers cite preparation as the biggest disadvantage, it also tops the advantages list. Once the course is planned from start to finish, you are free to concentrate on the students rather than the mechanics of the class. Hislop says she interacts more with students now than she did in the classroom.

Her grading is also of a better quality and quantity. "It's easier to type a paragraph in e-mail than to handwrite a paragraph," Hislop says. When teachers grade classroom papers, normally by hand, they may keep feedback to a minimum. That's because it's tiresome to write comments on 150 papers.

Once designed, "the course is almost self-perpetuating," Hislop adds. She says that she has revised the course very little in four years.

"Our textbook is the Internet, and science experiments are timeless," she says. Online data and scientific discoveries are updated automatically.

If there are changes to virtual classroom materials, you don't have to wait a week to get it back from the printer, or pay printing costs, as a teacher in a regular classroom would.

Another prime advantage for Hislop is that she hasn't experienced burnout. "The burnout with teachers is dealing with students that have no respect for teachers, for schools or for learning. Sometimes dealing with [an] administration who has lost the vision of teachers [is a burnout factor]."

Mark Love is a cyber economics teacher. He taught in a school for 20 years and started at Florida Virtual School in Orlando two years ago.

He agrees that, because of fewer hassles -- no commuting, faculty meetings or administrative tasks -- each hour he teaches is effectively used for teaching.

"I spend less hours teaching [than I did in the classroom], but I spend more time teaching," he explains. He says that by the time his wife, a traditional teacher, has reached her school, he has already taught for an hour. She's had to dress, drive, stop for coffee and converse with other teachers.

But unlike Hislop, Love believes the virtual style of teaching can put you at risk for burnout. "You and you alone have to decide when that bell rings. It's up to you to say, 'I'm done today; I'm walking away.' Burnout is common, if you're not organized."

Love spends about eight hours a day teaching. Hislop is online for an hour a day, answering e-mails and grading before her kids wake up. Both Hislop and Love work from their homes.

Warkentin maintains a regular eight-hour schedule, teaching from an office within the Alberta Distance Learning Centre.

Home as an office can be a drawback, Love says. He misses face-to-face interaction. "Every day from 7 to 3, I'm here alone."

When his wife and kids come home, they're beat. "They want to hide. I'm ready to interact," says Love.

Teaching online does take some special skills.

"They train us to go talk to people," Love adds. "Typically, it's seven days worth of training: first on the equipment, then...by a curriculum mentor person (for anyone who teaches economics, I'm the economics mentor), then by the tech support team. We're trained in course design, how to create lessons."

Hislop received no training. She started with no tech experience. She caught on using a word processing program to design her course and e-mail to communicate.

"I'm planning on taking an online course that will show you how to teach online," she says.

She also attended a few seminars on online teaching. "Most of the information reinforced what I discovered myself: It's important to be positive."

Warkentin receives a lot of in-service training. For example, principal Helder says 24 teachers took an instructional design course from the University of Calgary.

Warkentin, technologically adept, found that part easy. "But the learning curve can be high. We're forever incorporating new software. If you come in new, you have to learn 50 things right off the bat."

In terms of pay, the teachers say they don't feel cheated. For Love, the pay is the same as it was in the classroom.

Hislop earns about a fifth of what a traditional teacher makes. "And I don't get all the benefits. But I don't have the hassles, either," she adds.

None of the teachers interviewed believes virtual high schools will replace traditional ones. There is a great advantage to seeing people when you teach them, they say, but virtual high schools offer busy or rural students options.

Also, Hislop says virtual schools are geared toward the self-motivated, a small percentage of the total number of students.

"And technology is increasing at a rapid rate. Even if we believe we have the best methods now, which we don't believe, tomorrow there might be something to enhance what we're doing."

Net Sites

Distance Education at a Glance

A series of guides

http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html

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Distance Education Clearinghouse

Stay current on what's going on in distance education

http://www.uwex.edu/disted/index.html

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Distance Learning on the Net

Resources of special interest to K-12 teachers

http://www.hoyle.com/distance/k12.htm

 

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