Parents of Online Charter School Students: Notable Practices
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This PPT will be presented at iNACOL's Virtual School Symposium 2013. It concerns a study of parents and guardians who were the learning coaches for their own children enrolled in a cyber charter school. The study revealed important behaviors and beliefs these coaches practiced and the challenges they faced. It concludes with opportunities to improve support for these educational facilitators.
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Parents of Online Charter School Students: Notable Practices
- 1. Parents of Online Charter School Students: Notable Practices and Support By: Lisa Hasler Waters, Ph.D. iNACOL, Blending and Online Learning Symposium, Orlando, FL: 2013
- 2. Background What do we know What I learned Notable Practices Challenges What can we do?
- 4. What do we know Parent Role Description Organizer Plan daily schedules, lessons, activities; collect materials Instructor Provide 1-1 instruction, tutor, share educational experiences, construct knowledge with student Motivator Motivate children to progress and persist through problems Manager Keep track of student progress, manage time, discipline, monitor
- 5. Encourage - Reinforce - Model - Instruct QuickTime™ and a decompressor are needed to see this picture. instruction academic outcomes
- 6. “I try to mirror them as much as possible” “We try to relate things they were learning with real life things” “It [learning] doesn’t have to be separated from daily life”
- 7. “It took some adjustment on my part”
- 8. “…first we’ll try online searches” “Teachers are the go-to person”
- 9. Learning permeates the day Learning is relevant Learning is not separated from daily life!
- 11. “It’s challenging wearing two hats”
- 13. “It’s frustrating when they (teachers) aren’t available ”
- 14. What can we do? Reduce & simplify administrative duties Provide student guidance and motivation strategies Differentiate training and support Embed teacher experts and go mobile
- 15. There is more we can do Study roles of teachers and learning coaches Investigate more deeply the quality of support they provide to their students Investigate student voices
Editor's Notes
- In my 15-minutes, I plan to give you just a brief overview of the research concerning parental involvement in children’s education, particularly as it relates to what we know about cyber charter schools. I will give you an overview of the research I conducted with a group of cyber charter school parents concerning: How they supported their children who were enrolled in a cyber charter what they believed their roles and responsibilities to be I will then describe some of the more notable practices they engaged in And finally, I will describe the challenges they faced and what we might to do better support them -- so that ultimately, they can Better facilitate their children’s academic outcomes.
- Background: Online charter schools, or cyber charters, are a unique blend of schooling that combines charter school and home school practices in which technology plays a central role in teaching and learning. 1. There are somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 students enrolled in full time, online charter schools in the U.S. in 2011 2. The schools typically employ teachers to support student learning, 3. However, many also rely heavily on the parent/guardian of the students enrolled to act as educational facilitators 4. Research says parental involvement in traditional schooling is instrumental to student success and recent studies have shown the same to be true of parents of virtual school (supplemental online students 5.However, we know very little about the parents/guardians of students in these online charter schools. Sometimes they are referred to as learning coaches. 6. Some have raised concerns that (1) they may not be certified to teacher or be qualified to take on this lofty role, (2) they may not be aware of the complexities associated with this role Problem: We need to better understand how learning coaches support their own students and what type of challenges they face so that we can help them to be more effective
- We know in general some of the roles they play (see table) One study, done by Klein, who looked at parents of children enrolled in full time cyber charter schools through out CA discovered that parents had a hard time describing what they did because each day was so different and each child’s needs were so different
- Behaviors But, what are the behaviors associated with how they actually support their students? Researchers, HDS says parents of traditional school students engage in 4 behaviors to support their children and these behaviors are linked to postiive student academic outcomes. There are just a very few handful of studies on the behaviors of parents whose children are enrolled in in supplementary virtual courses., I took a particularly close look at these v. school studies to at to discern what was going on with parents when they supported their students enrolled in non-traditional school settings. These studies have found that these parents also engaged in the 4 behaviors BUT there was some concerning evidence -- they found gaps between parental instructional support and student academic outcomes -- and they suggested That parents need age-appropriate intervention skills to better help their students
- What I learned: Because I wanted to look more deeply at what they did to support their students, but more importantly, how they did it. I studied a small group of parents and guardians whose students were enrolled full time in an online charter schools. I learned that yes, parents do in fact engage in the 4 behaviors that they traditional school parents did BUT looking deeply, I found that they did so in a way that reflected learner centric practices -- and that resonated with their family values On the screen you see quotes from the parents that captured some of these nurturing, learner centric practices If you can imagine, every step along the way, or throughout the day, the learning coaches were adjusting what and how they were supporting their students. INSTRUCT: Their goal always trying to keep the child engaged, on task and mastering the subject. So, for example, when they used the instructional tips included in the pre-packaged curriculum, they would pick and choose those methods they knew resonated with their children. They would sit next to their student or be close by so that they could step in whenthey saw the child struggling thru content, or when the child called them for help. REINFORCE: When they reinforced learning they did so in a way that was connected to the child’s daily life. They could do this when they took the child grocery shopping, hiking or during family dinners. And, they would interject questions throughout the child’s engagement with the content to make sure the student “got it.” ENCOURAGE: To instill family values throughout the learning, the coaches would focus their encouragement for the children on familial values -- for example, a family day at the beach for good learning, or arranging for a play date. MODELING: was another opportunity that parents used to instill family values in their children’s learning. For example, they would show the student how work came before play to exemplify perseverance.
- In addtion to the 4 behaviors found well researched, there were 2 other behaviors these parents practice - ADAPTING AND LEVERAGING: Adapting - is described as the behavior in which learning coaches adjusted their a) instructional strategies, b) the learning environments, c) daily schedules, and d) even their own beliefs Almost instinctually, learning coaches adapted the way they supported their children to “mirror” their children’s needs. For instance, a learning coach might recognize that her child was tired and lacked focus so Rather than pushing the child through the content, he could find ways to make the lesson more engaging for the child by having the child use manipulatives or by viewing a lesson demonstration online. For some coaches, this may have meant setting aside their own beliefs or comfort zones tof what they were used to teaching and learning being when they went to school, to practice a more flexible style of instructing. They also might have adapted the times of the day they did schooling or the places where schooling took place primarily always centered aroudn child’s needs, but at times, also to accomoadate faily scheduels.
- LEVERAGING: Leveraging - is described as the behavior in which learning coaches would access support materials from a variety of sources to meet their children’s learning needs -- often these included items from the Internet -- but their palette of resources might included teachers, technology, curriculum, family and others. You name, they sourced it if it was relevant and helpful to their students learning. And, because school walls did not bind the learning coaches, they could use resources according to those that best suited their children’ needs at a given time. For instance, to ensure that their children could build on their Social and collaboration skills, they might enroll them in after-school programs, service learning projects or team sports. Or, They might have turned to videos, songs or legos to help their children grasp a particular concept, or to bring it to life for them.
- They were able to create this rich learner centric environment because they were intimately aware of their child, his learning need, his learning style: Acute awareness of child need’s Adapt to suit child Leverage resource to make learning relevant [read quotes on screen]
- Challenges While they cited many benefits associated with this form of schooling their children, They also described a number of challenges they faced: Lack of time -- They talked about being overwhelmed with the amount of time required to prep lessons, grade papers, administer student tracking Left them with little time to engage in their own professional development if you will And, no time to communicate or engage with a community of practice to support their own development as learning coaches
- Complexities of the role, wearing 2 hats, being parent and teacher and switching between the 2 roles isn’t always smooth sailing For those who had more than one child - it was a challenge to attend to them in a timely manner - Or to fend off the constant interruption from the other children who needed help in the moment For those who had a child that struggled, they were challenged trying to find ways to help the child learn concepts - that is pedagogical methods. For those who a child was not motivated, they struggled trying to find methods to keep him on track and making progress - usually winding up in some form of disciplinary action
- Training was available for them concerning some of these topics (like how to motivate kids) but again, many did not have the time to set aside for training and moreover, They wanted just-in-time training. Some, who were experienced learning coaches, and/or had higher ed degress, felt that most of the training available to them was “remedial,” and did not cover The deeper teaching or pedagogical methods they were after. Others, were exhausted by the end of the day and did not want to “look at another computer screen” to take their online training or courses. But clearly, the limited research that is on hand has shown that training is needed to forge better links between parental instructional practices and student academic outcomes.
- 3 Lack of immediate access to experts (aka Teachers): They found They wanted clear, regular feedback from teachers, who they look to as their experts and their support This goes back to their belief that they were ultimately responsbile for their children’s academic outcomes and not the teacher -- They viewed the teacher as their support maybe almost like a consultant working for them, when they really needed them.
- To shore up these challenges, we need to: Reduce administrative tasks Provide easy access checks for mastery of content Simplify student tracking processes Provide tools for student management and guidance Provide best practices to motivate students Provide student incentives that resonate with student and learning coach Provide differentiated training and support to meet diverse needs of coaches Provide motivation for engaging in PD, such as certification and recognition Provide easy-to-access pedagogical strategies and instructional tools Provide embedded “teacher experts” advice Provide easy-to-access live chat features or instant messaging to reach teacher experts Provide mobile device access to teacher experts and advice
- We still do not know enough about learning coaches to evaluate the quality of their support. Moreover, the negative results emerging from academic comparisons between online charter and traditional school students may continue to call into question their qualifications and may put additional pressure on parents who educate their children in this public school environment. They may take on this role without fully understanding the complexities associated with educating children and may not be fully prepared to deal with these challenges. Of course, they know how to be parents, but teaching is another vocation. It requires schooling to learn not just subject matter, but importantly, to learn about how a child’s academic development should progress along an educational continuum to maximize his academic potential. If we are counting on these parents and guardians to play an important role educating their online charter school children, then it is imperative that we provide them with the type of support capable of leading to excellence in education.