Education Commons^™

Cyber Collaboratory-Based Sustainable Design Education: A Pedagogical Framework, Kyoung-Yun Kim, Karl R. Haapala, Gül E. Okudan Kremer, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Educators from across the educational spectrum are faced with challenges in delivering curricula that address sustainability issues. This article introduces a cyber-based interactive e-learning platform, entitled the Sustainable Product Development Collaboratory, which is focused on addressing this need. This collaboratory aims to educate a wide spectrum of learners in the concepts of sustainable design and manufacturing by demonstrating the effects of product design on supply chain costs and environmental impacts. In this paper, we discuss the overall conceptual framework of this collaboratory along with pedagogical and instructional methodologies related to collaboratory-based sustainable design education. Finally, a sample learning module …

State Of The Nation: K-12 Online Learning In Canada, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

This is the 5th edition of the State of the Nation: K–12 Online Learning in Canada report. The purpose of this annual investigation is to describe the policies and regulations that govern K–12 distance education in each of the thirteen Canadian provinces and territories. The study is also designed to survey the level of K–12 distance education activity across the country.

Two Sides Of The Megalopolis: Educating For Sustainable Citizenship, Alexander Pope, Timothy Patterson

Education Faculty Publications

Despite widespread focus on literacy and math at the expense of other subjects, citizenship and environmental education have an important role in American public education. Citizenship and environmental education are broadly tasked with helping students develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to shepherd the body politic and natural world, respectively, into the future. For educators and administrators concerned with instructional efficiency, educational farm visits offer one means of pairing these two approaches into a unified learning experience. This paper presents findings from a qualitative case study analysis of two such programs, incorporating interviews with and observations of visiting students, …

O Colégio Da Bahia E O Ensino Superior: A Formação Da Elite Na American Portuguesa, 1572 A 1759 [The College Of Bahia And Higher Education: Educating The Elite In Portuguese America, 1572 A 1759], Karl M. Lorenz, Ariclê Vechia

Education Faculty Publications

An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the X Conference of the Iberoamerican Society on the History of Latin American Education, held in Salamanca, Spain in July 2012. The paper discusses the efforts of the Society of Jesus and the City Council of Salvador, the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia, to elevate the status of the College of Bahia to that of a university. It discusses the nature and the evolution of the studies of the College, noting the addition of advanced courses of study in philosophy and theology to the traditional study of the humanities. …

“Everybody Is Their Own Island”: Teacher Disconnection In A Virtual School, Abigail Hawkins, Charles R. Graham, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Virtual schooling is a recent phenomenon in K-12 online learning. As such, the roles of the online teachers are emerging and differ from those of the traditional classroom teacher. Using qualitative interviews of eight virtual high school teachers, this study explored teachers’ perceptions of their online teaching role. Teachers expressed a sense of disconnection from their students, the profession, and their peers as a result of limited interactions due to significant institutional barriers. Researchers discuss the implications of this disconnection as well as future avenues for research.

Teaching About Global Debt In Social Studies Classrooms, Anand Marri, Timothy Patterson, Scott Wylie

Education Faculty Publications

The article offers guidelines in teaching high school students about global debt in their social studies class in the U.S. It outlines various ways on how to infuse discussions about global debt into social studies classrooms which include connecting the topic of global debt on a student's personal finance, providing of instructional materials, and focusing on public policy dilemmas. The author suggests teaching students about global debt through student-centered pedagogy.

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Ipads In The Classroom, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Today, iPads and other tablet devices have become the next great device to have a purported impact on classroom teaching. The 2010-11 MACUL Grant I was awarded was designed to purchase one iPad and one iPod Touch (along with several accessories for both devices), and supplement that number with a loan of an additional four iPads and accessories from the College of Education at Wayne State University, to develop an iterative professional development for a small group of high school science teachers on using the iPad as a tool for technology integration.

It's Not That Tough: Students Speak About Their Online Learning Experiences, Michael Barbour, Angelene Mclaren, Lin Zhang

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 online learning is growing in Canada and elsewhere in the world. However, the vast majority of literature is focused on practitioners and not on systematic inquiry. Even the limited published research has largely excluded the perspectives of students engaged in virtual schooling. This study examines secondary student perceptions of components of virtual schooling that were beneficial and challenging. Students largely enjoyed their virtual school courses and found the synchronous classes, the technology, and the ability to control their own learning as positive aspects of their experience. Students also found the lack of a sense of community, working during their …

Teacher Evaluation Systems And Multi-Cultural Commonalities And Challenges: England, Mexico, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, And Turkey, Jacqueline P. Kelleher, Sandra Kase

Education Faculty Publications

Our hope is that policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens will focus on teacher evaluation (in the United States) as a way to ensure high quality teaching and to promote both professional development and reflective self assessment. We advocate for credible tools and appropriate preparation of evaluators conducting the assessment of teachers and school-based staff. Further, we argue for time - time allocation for school leaders to observe and evaluate in meaningful ways, followed by targeted, rich dialogue about practice and professional growth. District level policies will need to be developed and 17 implemented to ensure this exchange can occur right …

Virtual Learning In New Zealand: Achieving Maturity, Michael K. Barbour, Derek Wenmoth, Niki Davis

Education Faculty Publications

This proposal describes a study into the development of virtual learning in New Zealand, specifically the obstacles that e-learning clusters face or have faced in their journey to sustainability and maturity through the lens of the Learning Communities Online Handbook. Using a variety of data collection methods, the researchers identified three common barriers, including a lack of a coherent vision, difficulty in securing the necessary funding and resources, and a lack of collaboration and cooperation within and between clusters. Based on these findings, it is recommended that individual e-learning clusters develop specific strategies to encourage greater collaboration between clusters and …

Tracing International Differences In Online Learning Development: An Examination Of Government Policies In New Zealand, Allison Powell, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

In this article, we briefly define and operationalise the term e-learning as online learning. Then we provide a lengthy discussion of a series of reports from New Zealand that set an ambitious goal for developing secondary online learning. The examples and the policies pursued by New Zealand provide interesting models of how to develop primary and secondary online learning.

Review Of Overcoming The Governance Challenge In K-12 Online Learning, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Review by Michael K. Barbour.

Chubb, John E. Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2012.

This fifth and final paper in the Fordham Institute’s series examining digital learning policy is Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. The purpose of this report is to outline the steps required to move the governance of K-12 online learning from the local district level to the less restrictive state level and to create a free market for corporate innovation in K-12 online learning. Unfortunately, the report is based on an unsupported premise …

Narratives From The Online Frontier: A K-12 Student’S Experience In An Online Learning Environment, Michael K. Barbour, Jason Paul Siko, Jacinda Sumara, Kaye Simuel-Everage

Education Faculty Publications

Despite a large increase in the number of students enrolled in online courses, published research on student experiences in these environments is minimal. This article reports the narrative analysis of a series of interviews conducted with a female student at a brick-and-mortar school enrolled in a single virtual school course. Her narratives describe a student who often struggled with the content in her online course and was reluctant to interact with her online teacher. When she interacted with people online, it was using text, because she was shy and the hardware often did not work. Darlene’s experiences, likely typical of …

Are Virtual Schools More Cost-Effective Compared To Traditional, Brick-And-Mortar Schools?, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades, the growth of virtual schooling has been extensive. Virtual schooling is often described in terms of being either a supplemental or full-time program. Supplemental programs, generally associated with virtual schools, are those where a student is enrolled in a brick-and-mortar or traditional school with a physical location and the school allows the student to enroll in one or more online courses as a way to supplement their curricular offerings. This is common in schools with smaller student populations or in schools where the student demand does not warrant a wide range of elective courses. In …

Online Learning, Michael K. Barbour, Richard E. Ferdig

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 Online Learning has exponentially grown in the last 15 years. An estimated 1.2 million K-12 students took online classes last year; 45 states currently have some form of online learning at the state-level; and some states mandate some sort of online experience prior to high school graduation. Given its dramatic growth and ubiquity in K-12 schooling, it is critical that administrators learn more about K-12 schooling and the role it may play in their district or building. Unfortunately, there is not one single model of K-12 online schooling. Therefore, there is not one suggested set of recommendations, learnings, or …

Training Teachers For A Virtual School System: A Call To Action, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Online learning at the K-12 level is growing exponentially. Students learning in supplemental virtual schools and full-time cyber schools, using a variety of delivery models that include and sometimes combine independent, asynchronous, and synchronous instruction, in almost every state in the US. In some instances the knowledge, skills, and abilities required by teachers in this technology-mediated environment is consistent with what they learned about face-to-face teaching in their teacher education programs, while in many instances, the two are quite different. Presently the lack of empirical research into effective K-12 online teaching limits teacher education programs. However, teacher education programs still …

The Farnet Journey: Perceptions Of Māori Students Engaged In Secondary Online Learning, Carolyn Bennett, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

This case study investigated the perceptions of Māori students in the Virtual Learning Network of what constituted effective strategies for engaging them in online learning. In the FarNet cluster, about 63 students from the four secondary and five area schools access the VLN, and approximately 80 percent of those students are of Māori descent. Data collection included online surveys, semi-structured interviews, and observation of online classrooms. The data suggested there was a variety of delivery models experienced by students, most supported by the learning management system. Students identified a range of Web 2.0 strategies currently used by their e-teachers, and …

Odyssey Of The Mind: Social Networking In Cyberschool, Michael Barbour, Cory Plough

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 online learning and cyber charter schools have grown at a tremendous rate over the past decade. At the same time, these online programs have struggled to provide the social spaces where students can interact that K-12 schools are traditionally able to provide. Social networking presents a unique opportunity to provide these kinds of social interactions in an online environment. In this article, we trace the development and use of social networking at one cyber charter school to extend the space for online instruction and provide opportunities for social interaction that online schools are often unable to provide.

Student Perceptions And Preferences For Tertiary Online Courses: Does Prior High School Distance Learning Make A Difference?, Dale Kirby, Michael K. Barbour, Dennis B. Sharpe

Education Faculty Publications

University students who had completed at least one distance education course were surveyed during their first and fourth year of postsecondary studies. When controlled for those who had previous distance education experience in high school, it was found that self-regulatory learning behaviors, which are frequently linked to positive experiences and outcomes in online and distance education courses, were equally apparent in all of the participating students regardless of whether they had previously studied online. These findings suggest that high school students do not gain independent learning skills and attitudes in an online environment regardless of what stakeholders, administrators, teachers, parents, …

Virtual Schooling Through The Eyes Of An At-Risk Student: A Case Study, Michael Barbour, Jason Paul Siko

Education Faculty Publications

While much of the growth in the popularity of virtual schooling has involved at-risk students, little research exists on the experiences of these students in this largely independent setting. This paper describes a case study of an at-risk student in a rural school in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador who was enrolled in an online course as a means to graduate on time. Data from interviews and video observations were analyzed to reveal several themes. The student was good at prioritizing and understood what students needed to do to succeed in an online environment, yet he often did only …