VSS2007 - Instructional Perspectives of Best Practices: Successful Strategies in Virtual School Courses

This was another session given by the University of Florida group, being led by Meredith Dipietro.

It was an interview study with teachers at the Michigan Virtual High School that looked at best practices for virtual school teaching. She used Elluminate Live as a means to conduct these interview. The data from those interviews were put into three categories:

1. general characteristics - such as personal and instructional
2. classroom management - such as monitoring behavour and communication
3. pedagogical strategies - such as making content meaningful, providing support, and assessing student knowledge

A second part of the study, or a follow-up from the initial study, was a survey that looked at what kinds of PD were needed or desired by the Michigan Virtual High School teachers. The survey had eight items, plus and other category - and the teachers chose based on a likert scale their level of interest in the specific PD topic. The most requested topic was "content-based technology integration" and the least requested topic was "content specific knowledge."

This was majority of the actual research presented in the session, and then two of the people from the Michigan Virtual High School gave their perspectives about the research and Meredith's findings.

Tags: VSS2007, NACOL, virtual school, cyber school, high school, education