REPORT: October, 1998
Evaluation of the Virtual High School After One Year of Operation
SRI Project 7289
Robert Kozma, Andy Zucker,Carlos Espinoza
with assitance from:
    Vicki Young and Kathy Valdes

The Virtual High School (VHS) is a consortium of high schools that offer network-based courses taught by consortium teachers for students in consortium schools. Each school contributes at least one teacher, who teaches a VHS course in place of teaching a section of a regular course at the school. The school also provides a site coordinator who handles administrative matters and supervises local students enrolled in VHS courses. The VHS teachers, with the help of experts, design and offer NetCourses over the Internet. Each school in the cooperative can enroll 20 students in these NetCourses for each section of a teacher's time (i.e., one netcourse) that it contributes to the pool. The quality of the course offerings is controlled, in part, by requiring each VHS teacher to successfully complete a graduate-level NetCourse on the design and development of network-based courses. The NetCourse for teachers is intended to provide participants with exposure to appropriate educational strategies and technologies.

Funding for the Virtual High School comes primarily from a 5-year Technology Challenge Grant awarded to Hudson Public Schools in October 1996 by the U.S. Department of Education. The Concord Consortium, a nonprofit educational research and development organization, assisted with the design and implementation of the project. School year 1996-97 was a start-up year for VHS; classes for students were first offered by VHS during the 1997-98 school year.

During school year 1997-98, the Virtual High School offered 29 Internet-based, credit-bearing courses to about 500 students in 27 schools located in 10 states. The VHS evaluation was designed and is being carried out by the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International, under contract to Hudson Public Schools. This report, which evaluates the first year of the project's implementation, is based on surveys of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as case studies of five participating schools.

Progress toward Meeting Key Goals

The Virtual High School had a successful first year and has made progress toward reaching each of seven key goals established for the project. Major findings for each goal are as follows:

Successful First-Year Implementation

• Despite a rocky start, the VHS project was implemented as planned in its first year. Although teachers felt that they were not able to implement their courses as planned during the first term, they felt that they were able to do so during the second term. A majority of coordinators, principals, and superintendents agreed that the program was implemented as planned for the 1997-98 school year.
• Large majorities of students, teachers, coordinators, principals, and superintendents expressed overall satisfaction with the project.
• Large majorities of teachers, coordinators, principals, and superintendents said that the project cost more than anticipated but that the additional investment of resources was justified and acceptable and they would spend these resources again, knowing now what was required.

Participants Benefited

• Participation in the project resulted in many benefits to teachers, students, and schools. Teachers acquired new technological skills, new pedagogical and assessment skills, and new content knowledge. They had access to new technology and to technical, subject matter, and curricular experts. They collaborated with other teachers from around the country. Students also acquired new technological skills and had access to new technology.
• The most pronounced benefit of the program was that schools were able to offer, teachers were able to teach, and students were able to take courses that would not have been available otherwise. A majority of coordinators, principals, and superintendents said that their teachers were able to teach courses that they would not have been able to teach otherwise. All of the coordinators, principals, and superintendents said that because of VHS, their students were able to take courses that they would not have been able to take otherwise. A large majority of the students said that their course was available to them only through the VHS program, and most listed this fact as a reason for their participation. Finally, large majorities of coordinators, principals, and superintendents said that these courses were important ones.

High-Quality Courses

• Large majorities of students, teachers, and coordinators, and all of the principals and superintendents were satisfied with the quality of VHS courses. A large majority of teachers also said that they were satisfied with the challenge and rigor of their VHS courses.

Advantages of Virtual Courses Compared with Traditional Courses

• Although teachers used a variety of pedagogical approaches to involve students (such as cooperative learning, inquiry-based projects, and performance-based assessment), they used these no more often than they did in their regular courses. The exception was the use of student-generated reports, which teachers used more often in VHS courses than in their regular courses.
• Although teachers collaborated more often with other teachers in their VHS courses than in their regular courses, they collaborated with parents less often in VHS courses. They rarely collaborated with corporate staff, scientists, college students, or seniors in teaching either their VHS courses or their regular courses.
• A majority of students felt that their teachers communicated with them regularly, and a majority of teachers were satisfied with the extent of their communication with students, but teachers were significantly less satisfied with communication with students in their VHS courses than in their regular courses. A majority of coordinators also felt that their VHS students interacted less often with both teachers and other students in VHS courses than in regular courses.
• A large majority of students felt that they learned a substantial amount in their VHS courses. A large majority of teachers were satisfied with the extent that students were able to grasp concepts in their VHS courses and the extent to which they improved their attitude about the subject matter. A large majority were also satisfied with the amount students learned, but significantly less so than they were for students in their regular courses. A majority of coordinators said that their students learned about the same in VHS courses as in regular courses.

A Model for Network Courses

• General levels of satisfaction expressed by teachers, coordinators, principals, and superintendents suggest that VHS is a sustainable model. Most principals and superintendents said they would continue in the project even if there were no outside funds to support their participation.

Equitable Benefits

• Participating schools are representative of schools across the country in the amount of funds spent per pupil and on demographic indicators.
• In contrast, VHS students were not representative of the student body within participating schools. A majority of coordinators said that VHS students did not come from the full range of socioeconomic backgrounds present in their schools but came from relatively affluent backgrounds. A large majority said that VHS students had above-average or exceptional academic backgrounds and were college bound.

High-Quality Professional Development for VHS Teachers

• Most of the VHS teachers responded positively about the Teachers Learning Conference (TLC), a graduate-level NetCourse that constitutes the primary teacher professional development activity of the project. A majority of the teachers felt that the TLC was effective in preparing them to plan and implement a VHS course. Similarly, most felt that the course was effective in preparing them to use technology in their teaching. The coordinators agreed; a very large percentage of them felt that teachers were effective in their use of computers and networking in teaching.

Key Issues

The experience of the VHS project during its first year of operation suggests that there are a number of important issues to focus on during the coming years:

• Course quality. Currently, administrators assume that VHS courses are of high quality, but ultimately it is likely that VHS will need additional procedures to help assure this quality in some way. The VHS staff may need to establish standard criteria and/or procedures for reviewing the quality of course offerings. This documentation can be used, in turn, by participating school districts to aid them in satisfying state and local course quality requirements.
• Pedagogy in VHS courses. Students and teachers were satisfied with the amount of communication in VHS courses, and they reported that students learned as a result of their VHS course participation. However, they reported that both communication and learning were higher in their regular courses. Additional research is needed to examine the most effective patterns of communication within VHS courses and to document directly the impact of the VHS experience on student learning.
• The power of networked technology. Currently, VHS teachers are using the power of networked computers to collaborate with other teachers, content experts, curriculum experts, and technical experts. However, this collaboration with outside resources has not yet been extended to students. New applications of the technology need to be explored and used that can increase the impact of the project and support educational reform.
• The range of students served. The current VHS curriculum is dominated by advanced courses that cater to students who are successful, independent, and college bound. Although this is an important service for those who are participating in the program, this focus limits the impact of the project to a narrow, homogeneous range of students. By creating and offering additional models of course offerings and instructional arrangements, VHS could significantly increase the diversity of its student body and broaden its impact.
• Sustainability and scaling up. The VHS program requires more time and resources than were expected by teachers and administrators. Even though administrators feel that these additional expenses are justified, there are limitations on the extent to which participating schools will continue after external funding is discontinued. VHS staff need to explore ways of reducing costs and increasing impact to assure sustainability and scalability of the project. Of particular concern are the added expense of the site coordinator and the relatively low enrollment in VHS courses.