Conley+Pitzl

= [|impact of online schooling] =

Virtual schools can be a solution to inequities in educational opportunities that exist due to factors such as geographical location, school size, demographics of income and race/ethnicity, budgeting constraints, and substandard teachers. Computer-based instruction is now offering students in low-income schools, rural areas, and small towns the same preparation for college courses and career demands previously available only to learners in well-funded urban and suburban population center schools. Thomas predicts that within the next three or four years, most high school students in the United States will take all or part of their courses from the Internet.

Over 85% of two-year and over 84% of four-year colleges in the United States were expected to offer online courseware in 2002 (CHEA, 1999). That this phenomenon has also influenced the K-12 classroom is suggested by the data depicted in Figure 1, which illustrates recent growth in Internet connectivity in public schools and classrooms.

The missions, visions, and purposes of virtual schools are as varied as their types. Many intend to offer high quality or rigorous instruction to all students regardless of location or school size. Some specifically target very rural populations. Some are designed to serve special learners, whether struggling or gifted. There are virtual schools that provide online college preparatory courses to enhance students' eligibility for admission to top-flight universities. Others have a mission to provide an opportunity to students who dropped out of high school before graduating. Some wish to serve as an alternative for learners whose needs, for whatever reasons, are not accommodated by a traditional classroom.

Over 90% offered regular core or elective courses. More than 72% offered remedial or makeup coursework. Better than 60% offered Advanced Placement (AP) courses.

[|pros of online ed] 450,000 children in the United States can sincerely sing this anti-school rhyme because they've abandoned traditional schools for online education.

The largest online school provider — K12, with 70,000 pupils in 25 states — reported that its fall 2010 enrollment was up 23.7% from 2009.

In the past decade, e-learning has spread into new terrain and thereby transformed its fly-by-night reputation. The vast majority of homeschoolers now use online curriculum. A number of charter schools have also adopted online programs, and some traditional schools are offering e-learning options as well. "In the last five years, online learning has become much more proven and mainstream," says Jeff Kwitowski, vice president of public relations for K12. "It's differentiated, engaging, and it really provides the ideal situation for many students." Research firm Ambient Insight predicts that some 10.5 million students in preschool through high school will take at least some online classes by 2014.

[|article w/ negatives on online school] Although **online** education has increased, it has not been without challenges. Teaching distance education is not the same as teaching in a face-to-face environment; administration of distance education programs requires different experience; and for students, learning in face-to-face environments is unlike learning **online**. Because of the growing demand for distance education and the unique experience it creates, it is important for **high schools** to know the benefits, pitfalls, and challenges of distance education and VHS. This article looks at particular formats of distance education in **highschools** and the benefits and challenges of each. It also provides suggestions for teaching **online** courses.

Distance learners come from a variety of backgrounds and range in age (WCET 2004). The students select distance education to suit their social and work commitments (Richards and Ridley 1999) and generally are people who, because of time, geography, financial considerations, family obligations, work requirements, or other constraints, choose not to attend a traditional classroom (WCET 2004). Distance education students also enjoy the flexibility of time and space. "Regardless of where they live, students have equal access to quality courses through the web. [At times] students have flexibility in when and where they take needed courses, and **schools** can expand their offerings" (Thomas 2000, 4). Other groups of students that prefer distance education are rural students, sick or hospitalized children, gifted children, traveling families, and students who have problems in regular classrooms (WCET 2004). With this amount of flexibility, it is unsurprising that a greater percentage of students with special needs enroll in distance education programs.

Distance education programs are an option in financially tight times. Julie Young, the director of the Florida Virtual **HighSchool**, observes, "With deepening budget cuts, brick-and-mortar **schools** will have to make every effort to find creative and cost-effective solutions to continue providing the same quality of educational opportunities for their students. Distance learning is one of these solutions" (Winograd 2002).

Distance learning, particularly **online** education, is becoming a norm in education as funding and geographies affect the delivery of educational lessons (Trivette and Kinsey 2002). In support, an analyst for a consulting group in education businesses says, "The virtual-**school** market is definitely expanding" (Arnone 2001, 32). The current teacher shortages and overcrowded facilities are driving secondary **schools** to handle their burgeoning student populations any way they can, including through **online** programs. Therefore, **high schools** contemplating distance education programs are headed in the right direction but will need to make adequate preparation before embarking on **online** learning. [|gender bias] <span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Children develop their own ideas about <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** at an early age, as evidenced by the clothes they wear, their dramatic play, their playground talk, and their <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classroom** work. For example, following a theme on "elections," a 3rd-grade boy made the following entry in his writing journal: "The United States has not had a woman president because girls get a different education." This simple statement is indicative of deeply rooted social beliefs perpetuating the unequal treatment of girls and boys in school. Teachers' biases, intentional or otherwise, also send clear and harmful messages that are very influential as children form beliefs in their own abilities. Children's perceptions of <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** roles are affected not only by overt forms of <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** bias, such as being told they can or cannot do a task because of their <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender**, but also by the "hidden curriculum"-the subtle lessons that children encounter every day through teachers' behaviors, feedback,<span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classroom** segregation, and instructional materials.

Teachers must learn to recognize and eliminate <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** bias, because it can limit students' ambitions and accomplishments (Sanders, 2003). This article will present a number of strategies that will help elementary teachers to reduce <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** stereotypes in <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classrooms**.

<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Teachers sometimes perpetuate male dominance in the <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classroom** when they (often unconsciously) make males the focus of instruction by giving them more frequent and meticulous attention (Sadker, 2000). The harmful effects of <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** bias and differential treatment on girls' self-esteem, self-confidence, and achievement have been the focus of numerous articles (Bauer, 2000; Sadker, 1999; Streitmatter, 1994; Wellhousen &amp; Yin, 1997). These inequities are so pronounced that the comment from the 3rd-grade boy in the opening paragraph may not be that far off the mark: Girls do experience school in qualitatively different ways than boys do.

ositronic emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans have captured <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** differences in memory, processing, learning styles, and styles of intelligences. Other investigations (Richardson, 1997; Streitmatter, 1994), however, conclude that <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** variations in cognition result from males' and females' different experiences, not from biological causes.

Some educators have addressed differential performance by advocating for <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** -separate instruction, especially in math and science classes, where boys typically outperform girls (Bowman, 2000). Some argue that a "girls only" school approach will not only disadvantage boys, but also will disrupt the <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** balance in student populations. A resulting majority-male <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classroom** could have negative effects on the girls who remain in that setting. These researchers further argue that attempts to make the <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**classroom** supposedly more nurturing for girls by emphasizing interpersonal relationships are misguided and would water down the curriculum. This "soft touch" approach, "wrapping calculus in a pink ribbon," assumes that girls and boys need different instructional surroundings to flourish (Lee, 1997). Some view this approach as part of an anti-male movement, bolstering girls' achievement at the expense of boys and making schools more equitable by eliminating masculine stereotypes, and "feminizing" boys (Sommers, 2000).

This view that girls and boys are cognitively different and should be treated differently or taught separately has led to some confusion about the relationship between <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** and teaching practices. Some have responded by saying that boys' emotional needs have been neglected and boys are now badly in need of attention (Kindlon &amp; Thompson, 2002; Sommers, 2000). [|differences of learning in diff genders] <span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">The findings showed that male students had significantly higher self-efficacy, performance goals, and physics understanding compared to females, which persisted throughout the course. Differential shifts were found in students 'meaningful learning approaches, with females tending to use less meaningful learning from beginning to end of the course; and males using more meaningful learning over this time period. For both males and females, self-efficacy significantly predicted physics understanding and course achievement. For females, higher reasoning ability was also a significant predictor of understanding and achievement; whereas for males, learning goals and rote learning were significant predictors, but in a negative direction. The findings reveal that different variables of learning and motivation may be important for females 'success in inquiry physics compared to males. Instructors should be cognizant of those needs in order to best help all students learn and achieve in college physics.

Self-efficacy represents students' beliefs in their own capability to be successful in a particular subject area or course (Bandura, 1995; Woolfolk, 2001). Students with high self-efficacy are also apt to attain higher achievement in a subject, whereas those with lower self-efficacy tend to be less successful. In inquiry-based, student-centered courses, students can better assess their strengths and weaknesses in the subject and assume control of their own learning (Shavelson & Bolus, 1982). It is posed that students in inquiry-based courses will show positive gains in their self-efficacy toward succeeding in that subject. In general, females tend to have lower self-efficacy in science than males. The <span class="hit" style="background-color: transparent; border-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">**gender** differences are relatively small in elementary grades but increase in later grades (Kahle & Meece, 1994). More information is needed on students' self-efficacy in science at the college level, and how self-efficacy may change after experiencing a structured inquiry physics course.

[|same sex classroom example] Supporters argue boys and girls learn differently, and that single-sex education can help both genders perform better. Critics compare it to the “separate but equal” segregation-era classrooms. At least 223 public schools across the country already offer some single-sex classrooms — up from four in 1998, said Leonard Sax, director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Sax predicts thousands more schools will join the movement once the Education finalizes new Title IX regulations first proposed in March 2004. Department officials have said their final regulations should be released this summer. Backers of single-sex classes point to research that shows the genders learn in different ways. At elementary school age, they say, girls’ vision and thought processes have developed to respond better to color and detail, while boys’ brains are more apt at processing motion and direction. “If you don’t understand those differences and you teach boys and girls as if they were the same, the end result is a kindergarten classroom where the boys tell you drawing is for girls and a middle school classroom where girls tell you computers are for boys,” said Sax, one of the nation’s leading proponents of single-sex education. “If you don’t understand gender differences, you end up furthering gender stereotypes.”

Sax said that as more same-sex schools crop up, data is beginning to show results. He and other proponents point to an elementary school in Deland, Fla., where fourth graders last year were randomly assigned to either a single-sex classroom or a co-ed one. In Woodward Elementary School’s co-ed classrooms, 57 percent of girls and 37 percent of boys passed a state writing test. In the single-sex classes, 75 percent of girls and 86 percent of boys passed.

There is greater confidence, greater enjoyment, greater interest,” said David Chadwell, lead teacher at The Two Academies at Dent, a pair of single-gender middle schools in Columbia, S.C. Said Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall: “This is a strategy designed to really turn around what is a failing environment for lots and lots of young people.” Hall and others in Atlanta say they like the results they’ve seen the past three years at Martin King, where more than 400 sixth and seventh-grade students are divided by gender. Travis Brown, whose boys’ math class was building the cardboard robots, said the system lets him gear his lessons specifically for an all-male class. “It gives me a chance to prepare especially for them,” Brown said. “I don’t expect them to sit still, so I know I’m going to have to have some hands-on stuff.”

Current federal rules allow single-sex schools, but only when a district creates a comparable single-sex school for the other gender. That restriction would disappear under the proposed changes. An overview of the proposed changes from the Education Department says that while discrimination against female students was widespread when the regulations were enacted in 1975, “the situation has changed dramatically.” Sax said hundreds of school districts have expressed interest in the concept but are waiting for final word from the federal. Currently, 32 states have public schools with at least some single-gender classrooms.

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