Archives - January/February 2008

Their Pace, Their Style: The Advantages of Online Learning
Erik Amerikaner, Computer Applications Teacher,
Oak Park High School, Oak Park, California

Now more than ever, teachers are being called on to motivate their students to become inquisitive and active learners. Prompted by the landmark No Child Left Behind legislation, states are implementing stronger academic standards—and requiring high-stakes testing—to hold schools accountable.

In this highly diverse society, though, it is getting more and more difficult to close the learning gap. And classroom teachers are finding that in an age of high technology and entertainment on demand, traditional teaching methods are no longer as effective as they once were. Today's students, so familiar with fast-paced, interactive media, do not respond as well to gathering information passively from lectures or textbooks.

Simply put, a new millennium calls for new techniques.

Many schools are responding to these challenges by incorporating online learning programs into their classrooms. Computer-based lessons, with their colorful and interactive multimedia environments, have been shown to keep students engaged for longer periods of time. In addition:

• Online learning allows students to work at their own pace and comfort level. Instead of feeling left behind or held back by the rest of the class, each student can learn at a rate most beneficial to developing their own knowledge. (This can be of particular benefit to teaching remedial students or English Language Learners.)
• Online lessons provide immediate feedback. Learning happens fastest when students receive feedback on their work immediately and are given opportunities to apply the feedback to what they are learning. With traditional teaching methods, the soonest a teacher can hope to provide feedback is days or even weeks after an assignment is completed. Computers can close that gap.
• Online instruction is interactive. The best programs provide not only immediate feedback but also helpful hints as student work through new material. Such interactivity helps students clarify concepts that are sometimes missed in a passive lecture environment. Testing after each lesson ensures skill mastery.
• Online programs can support traditional materials and state learning standards. With its focus on key academic concepts, online instruction targets the concepts most essential to academic success, including those evaluated by high-stakes tests. Online programs can even provide built-in correlations to state and national proficiency tests. Teachers can track student skill mastery, using the actual test objectives used by their schools.
• Online learning gives teachers more time to teach. Online programs make it easy to update instructional materials and to track student progress, giving teachers more time to spend with individual students who need extra help. And students can access their lessons before, during, or after class, making such systems great as a supplement to classroom instruction, especially for students who need a little extra help getting up to speed.

With the stakes so high to reach students from every background and at every level, this is student-centered learning at its best!

Glencoe’s PassKey program is an easy-to-use, online program that helps students gain proficiency in reading, writing, math, science, and social studies. The program supports No Child Left Behind requirements by aligning technology with national and state academic standards to help improve student achievement. Developed by experienced teachers, the program contains hundreds of lessons that span five skill levels to challenge both beginning and advanced learners. Every lesson is skill-specific, focusing on precisely what students need to learn, and building on what they already know. Teachers can use this flexible online program to provide remediation, intervention, or enrichment to students in the computer lab, in the classroom, or even at home.

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Their Pace, Their Style: The Advantages of Online Learning

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