Delta Schoolcraft Intermediate School District (DSISD) Connects Teachers and Students to Online Learning Opportunities

A young student in the Upper Peninsula struggles in the standard high school classroom. He is so frustrated he openly discusses dropping out of school until he is introduced to online learning.

Yvonne Mains, a language arts teacher at Bark River-Harris High School, says the student in this story was simply not benefiting from the standard classroom experience.

“This young man, who had both verbal and physical outbursts in the classroom, was transformed by the online learning experience,” Mains says. “He now meets me at the front door, and though it is 40 minutes prior to class time, he asks for the key to the computer lab so that he can begin working on his lessons. He (actually) prefers to finish his assignments prior to regular class time, so he can help other students who might be struggling with their online downloads.”

A second student, a senior, compelled to leave school due to her family’s move out of state, is able to complete her assignments online. This allows her to return to the area in the spring and graduate with her class.

Mains says that the online education program has a widespread positive affect on all of her students. Over the course of her initial online unit, with 32 students completing 84 assignments each, there were only three missing assignments for the entire unit.

“The bane of every high school teacher’s existence is homework that is not completed. Even more amazing (than the percent of assignments turned in) is the fact that the scheduled seven-week unit was completed in six,” Mains says. “Students, given the chance to work ahead, do just that.”

Enthused by the success of the program, Mains uses online learning to address scheduling problems for students dually enrolled in college courses. Twelve full-time students this year are taking an honors English class, meeting with Mains twice a week to discuss questions or concerns. Otherwise, all work and correspondence is completed online.

“This class is so successful, that I feel confident we will be offering several others in the future,” Mains says. “It affords students the flexibility they need for scheduling and provides them skills that they can use time and again. Online learning is here to stay, and the sooner students familiarize themselves with the medium, the better equipped they will be to succeed.”

Kathy Ryno, school nurse and member of the ISD’s Health Occupations Program, says online learning courses offer aspects of education not available through a typical classroom environment.

Ryno says she uses online lessons as assignments for her second year health occupations students. Each lesson is individually graded as if book chapters were used. She uses approximately 20 different stand-alone online health lessons, including current events, posters, writing assignments, and additional research materials to complete the lesson.

“As with any teaching method, there are students who enjoy the independent nature of my online curriculum and those who have difficulty focusing independently and completing assignments on time,” Ryno says.

The impetus for building capacity for online instruction at Delta-Schoolcraft ISD (DSISD) originally began with the question of how to provide instruction to students if schools were required to close for extended periods of time. The question was a valid one, in light of such concerns as the recent SARS virus scare, the potential for an avian influenza outbreak, or a similar disruptive occurrence.

After deciding that a need for online teaching and learning existed, the ISD settled on a free and downloadable Web-based course management system for creating online instruction. The software, named Moodle (www.moodle.org), offers hands-on professional development for educators to help them build the skills they need to create online lessons for students. The system meets the needs of the ISD on several levels, including cost, adaptability, and ease of use. The system has the flexibility to allow for the creation of highly interactive and complex lessons, as well as other less complex applications. The software can be adapted to the comfort level of the user. Some teachers have created and used Moodle lessons after only a day of training.

According to the DSISD participants involved with the online education program, the experiment is a huge success. Currently, about 180 educators are trained to use DSISD online and roughly 700 students are enrolled in one or more courses. Though not all DSISD teachers are Moodle users, those actively using the system find online instruction to be a valuable addition to their teaching repertoire. Based on activity logs of the system in use, hundreds and even thousands of hits are made to the online instruction program in a day—any day, even weekends. It seems to be popular with students.

For more information, contact: Tom Abramson, Science/General Education Consultant, Northwoods SMTC at Delta-Schoolcraft ISD, 2525 Third Avenue South, Escanaba, MI 49829; (906) 786-9300, ext. 110, tabramson@dsisd.k12.mi.us.

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