Virtual Schooling Annotated Bibliography Assignment



DiPietro, M. (2010). Virtual School Pedagogy: The Instructional Practices of K-12 Virtual School Teachers. Journal Of 
         Educational Computing Research, 42(3), 327-354.

     The author conducted an analysis of "successful" K-12 virtual educator practices, in an effort to shed more light on the teaching practices of online instructors.  The increase in popularity of online courses is described in the article, with the number of states offering online courses at this level doubling from 2007 to 2010.  The author identifies three general domains of teaching practice that can be examined within the context of online education: communication, pedagogic practices, and instructional design.  Data was collected from an private, not for profit virtual school that serviced school districts in the midwest United States.  Teachers were ranked as successful according to three criteria: experience, certification, and identification as "successful" by the administration of the agency.  Data was collected through interview processes, observation by the researcher, and sample content from the educator's actual courses.  The author recommends using a framework to guide educator practice in virtual schooling called the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Framework.  The author feels that the adoption of a framework would help inform educators around best practice in online education.

     This article was informative to me as someone who is familiar with educator practice but unfamiliar with virtual schooling.  Two points that I found especially interesting were the authors description of how rapidly this mode of education is growing in our county, a fact I was not aware of.  Secondly, the author notes that teachers in the online school he studied had no requirements for certification, no curriculum frameworks to follow, no "set standards, qualifications, or certifications" (DiPietro, 348).  With the growth of this mode of educating students K-12, I think establishing state regulations for online education that conform to the regulations for "face to face" school teachers is important.

     The author presents an unbiased examination of educator practice in online schooling in this article.  The research sets out to identify successful educators within a program, and extract data around what makes them more successful than their peers.  To that end, the author is successful.  The article describes the growing trend of online schooling as both an opportunity and a challenge with objectivity.  This was a helpful first article to choose, as it presents both the big picture of online education as well as important details around educator practice.

Currie, N. S. (2010). Virtual Counseling for Students Enrolled in Online Educational Programs. Educational 
          Considerations, 37(2), 22-26.

     This article addresses the need to provide counseling services to students through a virtual school model.  The author notes that the practice of providing counseling through models besides "face to face" is not new, and in fact originated in the form of letter writing before counselors began using the internet in 1995.  There is limited information on the methods virtual schools are using to provide counseling services.  The author describes the limitations, considerations, and need to provide this service to students as the use of virtual education increases.

     I work with students identified with emotional disabilities, so this article was particularly thought-provoking for me.  It seems that I am often in the situation where I have multiple students that need counseling support and not enough staff to fill that need.  Although this article focuses more on providing counseling solely through virtual schooling, I started thinking that a hybrid setup would be very useful to programs like mine at the middle school level and up.  One of the main benefits of virtual schooling is flexible access for students, and the idea of more flexible access to counselors for my students is intriguing.  I would like to explore this idea more.

     The article examines a growing need, with attention paid to issues such as privacy concerns.  It is presented in an unbiased fashion, and was definitely thought-provoking.  The author's assessment that virtual schooling is a rapidly growing phenomenon in our society is in agreement with the first article I read.

Repetto, J., Cavanaugh, C., Wayer, N., & Liu, F. (2010). Virtual Schools: Improving Outcomes for Students with 
          Disabilities. Quarterly Review Of Distance Education, 11(2), 91-104.

     This article reviews the research on the effectiveness of virtual schooling on increasing graduation rates and academic performance of students with disabilities.  The authors quote the five "C's," Connect, Climate, Control, Curriculum, and Caring Community.  The authors contend that virtual schooling aligns with these ideas, and is effective at closing achievement gaps.  The authors describe specific high schools that are using virtual schooling in a hybrid method and have increased retention.   As these models become more prevalent in our school systems, the authors believe educators should use this opportunity to shape virtual education to address the "C's" and increase retention for students with disabilities.

     This article describes the opportunity I addressed in my mind-mapping assignment, that students with disabilities (particularly emotional disabilities) could greatly benefit from a hybrid or total virtual schooling approach to education.  The information provided in this article supports the idea that retention increases for students with disabilities when they are given access to online education.  The article also cites research I have read previously regarding the long term benefits for students with disabilities who graduate versus the bleak outcomes for students who drop out. 

     This article is more one-sided, and seems to be presenting an argument for educators to take an opportunity to help students with disabilities rather than simply describing a situation or gathering data.  The information given by these authors is exciting to me as a special educator, as I am often frustrated by a model of traditional education that doesn't work well for many of my students.  I would very much like to see a hybrid component built into the core classes at my school.

Litke, C. (1998). Virtual Schooling at the Middle Grades: A Case Study. Journal Of Distance Education, 13(2), 33-50.

      This article describes a virtual school program that was set up at a middle school, and uses formal interviews to assess the program's successes and challenges.  Educators, students, and parents are interviewed, and the data is discussed separately for each.  The author then gives a large number of recommendations based on the findings from the three groups.  The author argues that despite the school studied being an "excellent candidate" for a virtual school model, a number of issues arouse around its implementation.  The author worries that other schools that may be less prepared for these programs would suffer from even greater complications.  

     This study was older than the others, but it specifically dealt with middle school, which is the grade level I teach.   I was also curious about what a research project like this one would conclude in 1998.  Interestingly, the challenges the author identifies are the same challenges regarding virtual schools we talk about today:  the limited socialization, organizational and motivational issues, etc..

     This article was opinionated by design, and was written (I think) to caution educators around taking virtual schooling practices and applying them to younger populations just because they worked for older students.  The author does state that more research should be done to determine the effectiveness of these programs and to help educators implement them successfully.