Sunday, December 7, 2014

Online Learning at a Local Middle School

I decided to write the blog post in order to solicit your help/input in relation to a group of middle school students that I just started working with. Just a disclaimer: I am not trying to bash the school, but am simply looking for input. Last week was my first week working with seventh and eighth graders from a K-8 public school with 80 students total. Due to the very small number of students, the seventh and eighth graders (there are only 12 of them) have, beginning this year, enrolled in an online middle-school Spanish course via the Virtual Learning Academy (Vlacs), which is an online charter school for New Hampshire middle and high school students. The students spend three 40-minute periods per week working towards the completion of their year-long Spanish course in the school’s computer lab. Although all students are enrolled in the same course and are more or less working at the same pace, they are expected to work individually and in some cases actually get in trouble for working together and/or sharing information.
The course was created and is currently organized by a teacher from the Holderness School in Plymouth, NH, who acts as the “teacher” and evaluates student work. The curriculum incorporates reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, making use of technology to do all student evaluation online. It is structured so that students read “lessons” related to different thematic units, and then complete a series of evaluations that test their comprehension of what they have reviewed. The “teacher” never actually “teaches,” but simply writes the lessons and creates course materials. Unlike many UNH courses that are taught online, the Vlacs course does not include any audio or video of the instructor; students are expected to learn the language simply by reading the lessons.
The school recently hired me to tutor the students three times a week, as students and parents had voiced strong frustrations with the online Spanish course. The students are accustomed to having “real teachers,” and so do not like having to learn online without being able to work directly with a live instructor. This past week I conferenced individually with the students to see how each is doing, and realized that their online course has been a complete disaster. Students generally do not understand the material, and simply fill in answers without actually retaining any language skills. They want to learn Spanish, but struggle immensely with online learning and the independence that it solicits. Beyond the students’ lack of personal motivation to make use of the online program, the course itself is not well structured. The lessons are extremely confusing, and assignments often do not relate to what students are learning. My SPAN 401 students would not be able to understand the lessons, let alone a group of seventh and eighth graders.

I am not entirely sure as to how I should approach the task of the working with these students, as it seems to me that the course itself is not appropriate for them. The school’s principal had envisioned that I work with students one-on-one, in order to answer questions and help them with things like pronunciation, but I’m not sure how effective this strategy will actually be given the fact that most students are completely lost. I am thinking of potentially working with small groups of students, in order to conserve time and target major issues (like verb conjugation), but am generally just overwhelmed by the task at hand. It is obviously not my job to fix the situation or teach the class, as I was hired simply to tutor the students, but I feel as though my work will be like simply putting a Band-Aid over a massive problem.         

5 comments:

  1. Wow. I can understand your uncertainty of how to approach this situation. As you said, it isn't your job to fix the poor classes that are planned for them, but at the same time, it is difficult to see a lesson that was planned so poorly. How long are your tutoring sessions with the students? If they aren't very long, maybe it would be a good idea to combine them together in small groups so that you can go over helpful lessons or learning tools for them. It is really unfortunate that the classes are so confusing and difficult for the students. At first, I was thinking that if they are accustomed to real teachers leading the class then they may just be having a hard time adjusting to online classes, but since you have seen the lessons, and they really are that confusing, that is likely making the students dread the class and not enjoy it.
    If I were you, I would work with each student individually at first and see what they have questions about (which might be a lot of material), and then maybe get small groups together so that you might be able to fulfill more of a teaching role than a tutoring role.

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    1. Jess - Thanks for the input. I meet with the students three times a week in forty-minute sessions. I think that small groups may work well because then I can work with more than one student at a time and address widespread comprehension issues. I have found that if I try to work with students individually, I end up devoting nearly all of my time to just one student and do not get to conference with all of them. I think that this way I can potentially re-explain difficult lessons and actually make some progress with the class as a whole. My big issue has been that students often do not come up with good questions on their own, and therefore I do not really know what they are struggling with until I ask them to try and complete the corresponding exercises. I think that they are just overwhelmed by the whole experience.

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  2. Another wow from me!! I cannot believe this. I don't think the principle knows what he/she is going. He/She should hire someone to design the course well first. I've heard a little bit about this school. How did they find you? Where did you get the information? As for your questions and concerns, I would do what Jess suggested: help each individual student as much as you can and try to get them motivated and wanted to continue to learn Spanish first. Those are potential kids and it's a shame that they have been putted/forced?? in this situation. Do you know who created those online Spanish courses? Why are they doing this?

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  3. Lina - The school principle emailed Avary looking to hire a Spanish graduate student,and Avary then put him in contact with us. The position was described as a tutoring job, and seemed pretty straightforward at the time. The original email stated that students needed supplemental tutoring to assist them with the completion of their online Spanish course. When I went to the school and spoke with the principle, I realized that things are a bit more complicated. At this point, the students and parents are not supportive of the online course, and frankly think it is a waste of time. The principle hired me, in part, to regain support for the program. He thinks that language learning is very important, and wants his students to have some exposure to Spanish. I do not think that he really understands how difficult it can be to truly learn a language online, especially in the case of middle school students. He noted that although he would like to hire a "real" teacher, the small number of students does not really allow him to do so. Jonathan Higgins from the Holderness School runs and designs the course, although he, in an email to me, admitted that there are some really serious issues with what is currently going on at the middle school with regards to their completion of the course.

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  4. I know Holderness well and I am surprised that this course is such a disaster, it has a wonderful reputation. Perhaps the professor is completely unfamiliar with the middle school level? If he is accustomed to teaching generally very privileged, motivated, older students did he design the class for the wrong audience? Either way, the principal of the school you are working for should have consulted a Spanish instructor first to evaluate the online course before enrolling his students.

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