Thing 19: Virtual Classrooms

As I read the requirements for this Thing, I thought back to a conversation I had this week with my principal at Eastern about how tentative the survival of my Model UN and History of Thought courses are right now.  The budget belt is really being tightened and I need a much larger number of kids to enroll in the courses.  One idea I had this weekend was to offer the course as a night course that meets once a week for three quarters of the school year for a half a credit.  Its a structure we had at Forest Hills Central when I was there.  Offering the course as a one-a-week night class would allow kids who are interested, but can't sign up because of prior course needs and commitments during the day to take the class.

Another option is to design the course to run online as a virtual classroom.  This would allow kids to complete assignments when it is more convenient for them to do the work.  For most it would be an overload class in addition to the 6 classes they take during the day.  The major components as structured now are:

• structure and function information about the United Nations and other international organizations
• world geography in the 20th century
• identify specific political, social, economic, and technological concepts and apply them to analyzing current world issues
• training in writing position papers and resolutions
• training in how to speak effectively and extemporaneously in public
• training in how to research information
• training in how negotiate and persuade small groups
• training in how to debate

These course activities are now done on a daily basis because the tradition over the last 8 years was to schedule it during the day to make it convenient for the instructor.  Many, but not all of these components could be part of a virtual course online.  Combining some face-to-face instruction, with screencasts and videos, and online research and writing requirement could be a possible solution to kids who have an interest but not the time during the day to take the course.
Are their potential pitfalls? Sure.  One of the goals of the course is to have students sign up to take it more than one year to build a talent pool that can compete well at Model UN conferences.  That means you would like some freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors to take the class.  It would mean a diverse course curriculum to match various grade levels, years of experience and skills with online materials and videos.  Other pitfalls include student access to technology primarily at home as well as access at school.
Time to design and digitalize the course is an issue.  Where to host the course needs to be considered.  Mentoring and monitoring students who you see infrequently is an issue.  However, for all the things you need to think about, this course just might work with an online curriculum.  The district just might go for it because they do want kids to have the experiences.
As someone who has been the Michigan Virtual mentor as both Central High and Eastern, the biggest determining factor for a student to succeed with an online course is self discipline.  Being smart or not being so smart is much less of a factor in my view than how much self discipline a student has. Do they have the emotional intelligence to stay on task, finish work on deadline and seek help when they have a problem.  Along with student emotional intelligence, do the kids have the positive support at home to help keep them motivated.