A teacher's guide to quality online learning in secondary education. 

While online learning is a growing trend and need, COVID-19 forced many teachers into online learning without adequate preparation. Many districts could not train faculty on online learning with limited resources, a short time frame, and without a useful metric for online learning. Our team has examined different standard metrics of quality online learning and developed a list of best practices secondary level (6-12) classroom teachers could quickly implement to ensure their new online course is of high quality.

Online learning is a growing trend in K-12 educational offerings, competing with traditional public and private schools, particularly in the secondary education system. Before 2019, 30 states had at least one full-time online learning offering, with several states experiencing competition between private, charter, and public offerings, particularly for high school students (Schroeder 2019).  However, in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 pushed this competition into a global necessity.  Due to COVID-19, more than 55 million school children under 18 were affected in the USA by the transition to fully online education (NCES 2019a; U.S. Census Bureau 2019; Cluver et al. 2020).  For some students and teachers, this occurred without clear guidelines on methodology to convert in-person classrooms to an online format.  Many secondary school districts did not have the time to buy specialized online curriculum and could not get their teachers adequately trained to deliver in a virtual classroom. School districts also struggled with mandates determining the structure of online and in-person offerings.  Before COVID-19, there were already difficulties in defining concepts of online education. While the terms distance learning and virtual learning are often synonymous in literature, designers working to implement blended learning, the mix between asynchronous learning elements combined with synchronous events, have struggled as there is no consistent guideline or model on how activities, events, or collaborations should occur between the various types of interactions (Fleck, 2012; Gemin & Paper, 2017; Harting & Erthal, 2005, Watson & Murin, 2012).  Without a framework to develop online course offerings, inconsistencies in offerings and challenges for parents and students were evident worldwide.  These issues continued through the 2020-2021 school year and have been one factor leading to inconsistent learning outcomes (Anderson, 2020; Garcia & Weiss, 2020).  

This study looks at two specific metrics used to devise quality online delivery of the curriculum. Both metrics have varied intended audiences and focus on multiple age groups. We focused on the creation of a set of best practices utilizing metrics that secondary school teachers can use to ensure their online course meets a high standard of quality.  

The study began by examining existing standards of quality to derive a set of best practices that a secondary education teacher could quickly implement to ensure quality for their online course. In addition, we examined course and teacher evaluation systems utilized for in-person teaching evaluation to create a baseline for evaluative measures currently experienced by educators. Using the National Standards of Quality (NSQOL) for Online Learning and the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Scorecard as our baseline, we began examining the intersections of the two sets of standards. The OLC Scorecard currently serves as a measure of quality for higher education institutions and has been adopted by several institutions. The NSQOL is a relatively new set of standards derived from the Quality Matters rubric for K-12th grade institutions. Quality Matters serves as a measure of quality for higher education online courses. These existing standards called for district-level implementation or an instructional designer/ed tech person to implement such as navigation protocols and system-level privacy expectations. These standards are outside of the control of a classroom teacher. Our new metric focuses on providing 6th - 12th grade teachers a set of streamlined standards, allowing us to refine best practices and standards in response to future research and educator feedback. Focusing on creating a set of best practices that a teacher could implement without having to go through extensive training, we began removing or modifying standards that would not be in the realm of control for a teacher. In addition, we decided that these metrics should align closely with traditional teacher evaluation systems and rubrics, maintaining a common vocabulary consistent with in-person education and online education. The two sets of standards share some commonalities between them but vary significantly in what they consider as elements representing successful criteria meeting. By evaluating both standards and considering them in the context of evaluations and best practices, we were able to derive our set of both pedagogical and technological best practices. These guidelines are developed to work alongside an educator’s formal evaluation rubrics and help ensure quality is maintained in the transition from traditional in-person learning to online education.  They are not intended for formal evaluation but provide a solid foundation for a teacher’s course development that would yield a more successful and high-quality learning experience.

We are looking at the two sets of standards and rubrics and discuss their similarities and intersections that helped us derive our set of best practices. These newly developed best practices will help secondary educators quickly check if they are adhering to the best standards in online education and help them become more versed in the online modality.

References: 

Anderson, Allison. (2020). COVID-19 outbreak highlights critical gaps in school emergency preparedness. The Brookings Institution. 

Fleck, J. (2012). Blended learning and learning communities: Opportunities and challenges. The Journal of Management Development, 31(4), 398-411. http://dx.doi.org.argo.library.okstate.edu/10.1108/02621711211219059

Garcia, E., & Weiss, E. (2020). COVID-19 and student performance, equity, and U.S. education policy. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved from https://www.epi.org/publication/the-consequences-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-for-education-performance-and-equity-in-the-united-states-what-can-we-learn-from-pre-pandemic-research-to-inform-relief-recovery-and-rebuilding/

Gemin, B., & Pape, L. (2017). Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, 2016. Evergreen Education Group.

Harting, K., & Erthal, M. J. (2005). History of distance learning. Information Technology, Learning, and Performance Journal, 23(1), 35-44. http://argo.library.okstate.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.argo.library.okstate.edu/docview/219815808?accountid=4117

Schroeder, B. (2019). Disrupting education.  The rise of K-12 online and the entrepreneurial opportunities. Forbes.

Watson, J., & Murin, A. (2012). Blended Learning in Rural Colorado: Status and Strategies for Expansion. http://hdl.handle.net/11629/co:21160_ed22b612012internet.pdf