inacol

The biggest takeaway from the Virtual Schools Symposium is that this is a growth industry with incredible opportunity - and that is really starting to attract significant private sector investment. But like any growth industry, there will be operators who will not create quality schools. This will be used by some to say that online learning does not work. Another problem with explosive growth will be the variation in schools. Because there have been no large scale studies of students in online learning, the variation in quality will dilute the overall positive effects.

These were the notes that I took from a brainstorming on virtual teacher quality

Teacher Quality in virtual teaching:

•Role has changed – from developer to implementer
•Brick and mortar quality does not equal great virtual teacher
•Have to meet federal standards if highly qualified in order
•Have to have a great interest in working in an online delivery system
•Well trained teachers still need mentor teachers