Board of Ed Ignoring Danger in Rush to get High School Students Online

Ask any teacher and he will tell you every child learns in a slightly different way. I like to say this is due to the unique way each person is wired, which is why I leave it to professional educators to explain the science of learning. Let’s just say it does not take a PhD in education to understand that just because one student – or the majority of students, for that matter – finds success in a classroom environment where lectures, textbooks and repetition are the standard doesn’t mean all will.

Fortunately, we live in an age when technology can advance education in ways our grandparents could have never imagined. However, Iowans should be skeptical about the Iowa State Board of Education’s rush to expand a program that allows high school students to gain credit for online courses.

Online learning may be the newest, fastest growing educational paradigm, but not everything shiny and new proves to be effective. A little caution is prudent. Many of us remember the classrooms-without-walls schools built in the 1970’s that were supposed to stimulate teaching across classrooms. They turned out to be noisy places filled with distracted students and frustrated teachers. After spending millions of dollars retrofitting walls in buildings coast to coast, most of these environments do not exist today. Online courses, too, have shortcomings to be considered before they are adapted too widely.

I do not mean to diminish the important role online learning can play when it comes to meeting the needs of technologically savvy students. Online courses can provide students with more flexibility. Obviously, student success should be based on what is learned rather than how much time is spent in the classroom. But, academic rigor is all too often lost when a student participates in online classes. Many of these courses are more about completing assignments than helping students apply the subject in the constructive and meaningful way their counterparts in other educational environments are. Talk to students who have taken these courses and you come to understand online classes are more like checklists than they are comprehensive education.

I know a student who struggled with traditional high school Spanish. Yet, She was able to click off the online courses with little effort in a fraction of the time estimated in the course literature. She did not learn Spanish. She instead found a way to get credit in an unsupervised environment without mastering the subject. I recognize this example alone does not condemn online learning, but it illustrates why we should be skeptical about moving students out of the classroom and distancing them from the nurturing assistance of a teacher. Learning is a give and take that is hampered when educators and students separated by computer screens are both judged by the number of completed assignments as opposed to what the students learn.

Board of Education member Max Phillips summed up the Board’s concern about Iowa lagging behind other states when it comes to the number of high school students taking classes online. Phillips said, “Twenty-five other states have more students than we do in virtual learning. We need to learn, but we don’t need to go slow, because our students are already behind.”

Nope. Iowa should not chase Texas because the Lone Star State has more students enrolled online than Iowa does. Iowa needs to develop learning programs that help its students achieve. If another state is doing something to improve learning proficiency, Iowa should learn from it. Processing more students through an automated checklist is not worthy of emulation. Providing the best education for every student is, regardless of how they learn.

Online learning has many benefits especially when it comes to supplementing what is learned in a classroom under the guidance of a professionally trained teacher. However, there is a clear and present danger when Boards of Education rush to embrace a new educational theory like online learning because it is the hot new thing. Replacing the thoroughness of a comprehensive education with an all-too-automated online environment will do more harm than good.

The Iowa State Board of Education needs to focus more on results than expanding the number of students taking online courses for the sake of being in on a fad. Outsourcing learning in cyberspace holds certain risks for Iowa’s students. The Board needs to let teaching professionals drive the educational process by allowing them to utilize all the tools available. Regardless of how each of us is wired, teachers are the ones who are best able to guide students down the path of learning, whether in a classroom or with the aid of a computer. There is a difference between learning and giving students credit for jumping through online hoops.