Let's talk schools: finding the right fit

Last year, we made the decision to enroll my three boys in a public online charter school that has been around for 20 years. This decision was for several reasons:

1. Safety during the year of COVID

2. As the mom, I needed to know where they’d be each day, without changes every 8-weeks if something changed at school.

3. Since their city public school was going to be virtual anyway, we wanted a virtual option that challenged our boys (my 4th graders at the time were complaining of being bored) and allowed them to work at their own level.

This turned out to be a great decision for us, as my two 4th graders took gifted and talented language arts, as well as skipped 4th grade math altogether and took a year of 5th grade math. My 6th grader also took gifted and talented language arts and completed 6th grade and 7th grade math in one year.

As I watched the two interviews with Dr. Charles Reigeluth, I am recognizing our educational difficulties for what they are. My boys (especially my 10-year-old twins) were forced into a system (public school) that was squandering their intelligence and talent, as Reigeluth indicated “We should allow students to move on as soon as they achieve mastery – we’re squandering a lot of our top talent by holding them back for the rest of the class. They should be allowed to move on as soon as they’ve mastered it” (Talking Reinventing Public Schools, 5:18).

I know that the online public charter is not the systemic change that Reigeluth is talking about, but it has really helped my boys to be “self-directed life-long learners” (Why systemic change is important). It has proven to be customized (as much as a system subject to Indiana standards can be) and student self-directed. It has allowed my boys to take math, for example, at a year ahead of their grade, and is one of the main reasons why they are continuing this year, for their 5th grade year, in the virtual school environment – the public brick and mortar school that they attended previously (which is K-6) seemed perplexed on how to incorporate my 5th graders into the 6th grade math class and didn’t understand what to do, in spite of their transcripts clearly saying they received 98% in Math 5A and 5B, and their state tests indicated they tested far above expected level.

This type of school has worked well for my twins since they are very self-motivated, can work

together if needed because they are at similar levels throughout their subject knowledge and are task oriented. I loved what Dr. Reigeluth said as the new role for teachers as the “guide on the side rather than the sage on the stage” (Talking Reinventing Public Schools, 7:01) because this is a great correlation to how the teachers in the online school teach. Instead of needing to be in front of the screen for 6 hours so teachers can see them, my boys

have one live lesson a day (2 at most) and none on Fridays. Each subject has a live lesson for one hour, and their homeroom teacher has a check-in, in small groups of 4-5 every other week. This is where they interact with the teacher, do some fun games to learn, and interact with their peers. Other than that, they are self-directed. (And if they get done with all their work before noon, then there's more time to play!)

This school is also very “project” based. They have high weight assignments called “Portfolios” that are due periodically in each course after 1-2 units. The teachers support the students and motivate the students to get these projects done. This type of school has also changed how I interact with my kids. I have more of a hand in their education. I know what they’re learning, I can watch their live lessons (if I want, which I don’t). I communicate with the teachers and students are encouraged, even at a young age, to advocate for themselves with their teachers in regard to work. Lastly, while working at their own pace, they can skip multiple exercises if they’ve mastered a skill (i.e. math problems or grammar exercises) as the online system provides numerous and repetitive reviews of the same concept, from videos, to worksheets and interactive question/answer pods. My kids do a lot of the interactive exercises, from watching videos, reading stories and the interactive questions and skip worksheets or excessive reading when they’ve mastered the topic.

I know that this is not the Paradigm shift that Reigeluth refers to…there are still grade levels (K-12), there are still grades given and tests given, but there are pieces of what he’s talking about implemented in this type of virtual, self-paced, teacher as a “guide on the side” school, and I’m glad we’ve found our fit for our 10-year-olds these two school years.

Resources

Driscoll, M. P. (2000). Gagné’s theory of instruction. Ch. 10 in Psychology of Learning for

Instruction, 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 341-372.

Green, Tim. “Talking Reinventing Public Schools with Dr. Charles Reigeluth.” YouTube, YouTube, 15 Jan. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrT_s0Lk_WM.

Merrill, M. David. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology

Research & Development 50(3), 43-59.

Rajan Sockman, Beth. “Charles Reigeluth: Why Systemic Change Is Important.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Apr. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVFiwRMywqM.

Reigeluth, C. M. (1999). The elaboration theory: Guidance for scope and sequence

decisions. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional Design Theories and Models: A NewParadigm of Instructional Theory (pp. 425-453). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.