#VIRTUAL LEARNING HOW TO#

“One thing I like about virtual field trips, we are not bound by time,” Wright said. Virtual schools are also set up for students to easily participate in virtual field trips. “If it's a museum, it will be museums around the state.” “If it's a park day, we'll have 10 locations depending on where the students are,” Bouanani said.

For physical field trips, the school will often offer several meet-up locations to accommodate families who live in different parts of Arizona. Students who attend Miami Virtual Program Arizona participate in virtual and physical field trips. Myth: Field trips don’t occur in virtual learning So student opinion and voice feel valued in the online environment.” Teachers go the extra mile and get super creative to include everybody in that conversation. “Students are always eager to participate during live sessions. “If anything, students interact more with their online instructors and students in a live session,” Bouanani said. To be effective, synchronous virtual learning often requires interaction between the teacher and students and between each student and their classmates. “You're able to group students by abilities or project or what have you.” Virtual learning also allows students to be organized into different groups more efficiently. “Students have just as much if not more access to quality time with their teachers in a virtual environment,” Wright said. Myth: Online students have very limited interaction with their teachers “It's even part of their observations, their evaluations, that they're engaging students on a regular basis ,” she said. Wright said that at Stride, they spend a lot of time working with teachers and staff on creating effective synchronous interactions with students. In her school, there also are synchronous enrichment sessions for advanced and gifted students, and special education services with special education teachers, as well as synchronous services for English learners. “Online learning offers synchronous live sessions daily as well as open office hours, where students can come and get extra supports based on student data,” Bouanani said. Myth: Virtual learning is generally asynchronous Her children have attended dances, taken internships, joined clubs, and made lifelong friends. “So you're able to have that worldwide connection and that national connection.”īouanani said that as an online educator and as a parent whose children attend virtual school, she’s seen powerful social interactions firsthand. “You have some students, especially in small towns, they might have a particular area that they're so interested in, but not a lot of other kids in the neighborhood or in the local area have that interest,” Wright said. Virtual schools also enable students to form friendships that are not limited by geography.

#VIRTUAL LEARNING HOW TO#

“We have some things that can be purely social – they're going to meet at a local zoo, or they're going to meet in a Zoom room and they're going to see a guest speaker who's talking about how to get into gaming.” “The amount of socialization available in a virtual environment is a shock to most people,” Wright said. In the past, socialization in online classes was difficult but that has changed, and students in virtual schools will meet in person and gather for social events online. Myth: Students lose socialization when participating in a virtual learning environment This type of virtual school and curriculum can enhance fully online, blended, or even in-person learning. Wright added that a robust virtual learning environment should be designed to work with diverse learners and provide a continuum of support for students. “In virtual learning, the whole student and teacher experience is tailored to learning from home, so the platform, the interactive curriculum, teachers’ expectations for live instruction, everything is made for a virtual learning experience.” “Remote learning is trying to adapt a brick-and-mortar program and run it remotely,” Bouanani explained. Myth: Remote learning and virtual learning are the same