Benchmark StudyBest practices for implementing online learning in K-12 school districts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Key Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Types of Online Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Credit Recovery Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Online Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Full-Time Online Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Curriculum Provider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Number of Students Participating in Online Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Cost of Online Learning vs. Traditional Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Lessons Learned Implementing Online Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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INTRODUCTION

As an increasing number of schools and school districts adopt online learning as a way to boost gradu-ation rates, address multiple student populations, expand their course catalogs and personalize learn-ing, it’s important to understand the challenges and obstacles that educators face as they introduce new programs. Whether a school is implementing online learning for credit recovery, individual courses and/or full-time schooling, there are common implementation practices that should be examined and worked through to ensure the program’s success.

The survey, conducted by MDR’s EdNet Insight Service for K12 Inc., highlights the best practices and lessons learned in implementing online learning programs in K-12 schools. Creation and analysis of the survey was provided by K-12 Market Advisors. A survey was sent to district and school-level leaders in spring of 2012, specifically targeting superintendents, assistant superintendents, curriculum directors, principals and special education directors who had experience with implementing online learning, and over 220 responses were received.

Distribution of Survey Respondents by Role

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Type of Online Learning Programs

The survey results found that all respondents reported experience with an online credit recovery pro-gram, while 66% offer online courses, and 36 % offer a full-time online program. This survey employed a 7-point scale, where 1=not important and 7=extremely important.

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Respondents by District Enrollment and Location

Number of Enrolled Students Metro Status

Respondents to the survey were fairly evenly distributed by district size, with 35% of the respondents not indicating the size of their district or metro status. The largest percentage of respondents were from rural districts, followed by suburban and urban districts.

About MDR’s EdNet Insight

MDR is the leading U.S. provider of education marketing information and services. MDR’s EdNET Insight is the K-12 education industry’s premier information and consulting service, combining the proven power of research and analysis with recognized industry experts to deliver an insightful, comprehen-sive view of the trends and influences that are shaping the education market today—and tomorrow. For more information on EdNET Insight, go to http://www.schooldata.com/mdrednetinsight.asp.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There are some slight variations on success factors for the three types of online learning explored in this survey -- full-time online programs, online courses, and credit recovery. However, there are four implementation success factors that are cited as extremely important (rating of 6 or 7) for at least 80% of respondents across all three program types, as shown below.

• Reporting tools/ progress monitoring – Reporting and progress monitoring tools are critical to the success of an online learning program. Because there can be less face-to-face interaction in which a student could provide verbal or body language feedback of understanding, the progress monitoring tools to gauge student understanding become crucial for teachers to know how students are doing and if intervention is needed. Additionally, these tools produce immediate and specific feedback to guide personalized instruction.

• Availability of teachers to assist struggling students – Every student struggles with different topics in a course; therefore, it is extremely important to have a teacher available to assist so that the student does not become frustrated and disengaged. This finding reinforces that teachers continue to be a crit-ical component of the learning process, regardless of whether the online program is taught in a virtual or blended program.

• Instructors well trained in delivering online courses – Training is always crucial to the success of any program in schools, whether technology-based or not. “Instructors that are well trained in delivering online courses” is rated as extremely important.

• Offering rigorous and engaging curriculum – Survey respondents also identified rigorous and engaging curriculum as a key success factor for all three types of online learning programs. Engaging curriculum helps keep the student moving forward and focused, and well-designed curriculum also provides different methods of delivering content to accommodate different learning styles.

80% + } Implementation Factors Rated as Extremely Important

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Credit Recovery: Attributes That are Important for Success

KEY RESULTS

The survey focused on “attributes that are important for success” among the various types of online learning implementations: credit recovery, online courses, and full-time online schooling. The goal was to identify key best practices and “lessons learned” from educators who have experience in implement-ing online programs.

Types of online learning programs: 76% of respondent districts currently offer or have experience with an online credit recovery program. 66% offer/have experience with online courses and 36% offer/have experience with a full-time online program. 84% of 10,000+ districts offer online credit recovery as compared to 67% of small districts and 77% of medium-sized student districts. This difference may be due to the fact that larger districts, typically urban, have more transient populations with higher dropout rates that increase the need for online credit recovery programs.

Online Learning Programs by District Size

Credit recovery programs: Survey respondents were asked about various attributes for a successful credit recovery program. Respondents rated the most important attributes for success on a scale of 1 to 7, with more important attributes receiving higher ratings. A 6 or 7 rating is deemed extremely important. As shown in the table below, 96% of respondents rated “teachers being available to assist students in a timely manner when the students are struggling” as extremely important. “Tracking stu-dent progress/adequate reporting tools” is extremely important for 93% of respondents.

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Online Courses: The most important driver for successful implementation of online courses is “offer-ing rigorous and engaging curriculum.” 93% of respondents rate this attribute as extremely important. Next, 91% rate “well-trained instructors in delivering online courses” as extremely important. Three attributes were rated by 88% of respondents as important for success, including “teachers available to intervene,” “tracking and reporting student progress,” and “initial and ongoing assessments.”

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Online Courses: Attributes That are Important for Success

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Curriculum Provider: The vast majority of districts turn to outside vendors for curriculum for online credit recovery (88%), online courses (85%), and full-time online programs (82%) as detailed in the table below.

Curriculum Provider: By Program Type

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Full-time Online Programs: Attributes That are Important for Success

Full-time Online Programs: For full-time online programs, 97% of respondents cite “tracking student progress/ reporting tools” as extremely important for implementation success. “Teacher availability to intervene for struggling students” is also noted as extremely important for 97% of respondents.

District-level respondents do not perceive it is as important to have a dedicated administrator (63%), while respondents with other roles do perceive a dedicated administrator as important (88%). This difference may be due to the fact that those who work most closely with the online learning program better understand the positive impact on decision making and overall program effectiveness when a dedicated administrator is in place.

Number of students participating in online programs: The table below shows the number of stu-dents in each district participating in online credit recovery, online courses, and full-time online pro-grams.

Number of Students Participating in Online Learning Programs

Cost of online learning vs. traditional education: 66% of respondents with district level roles, or those most often making spending decisions, reported that online learning is less expensive or the same cost as traditional learning, with 22% reporting they do not know the cost of online learning.

Cost of Online Learning vs. Traditional Education - Administrator Responses

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ABOUT K12 FOR SCHOOLS AND DISTRICTS

K12 Inc. (NYSE: LRN), a technology-based education company, is the nation’s largest provider of propri-etary curriculum and online education programs for students in kindergarten through high school. Using 21st century tools to prepare 21st century students, K12 provides a new choice for students to learn in a flexible and innovative way, at an individ-ualized pace. K12 provides curricula and academic services to public and private schools and districts, traditional classrooms, blended school programs, and directly to families. K12 is accredited through AdvancED, the world’s largest education community.

For more than a decade, K12 has partnered with over 2,000 school districts in all 50 states to provide research-based online learning, including curricu-lum development, instruction, assessment, school management, and educator support.

For more information, call us at 866.912.8588or visit us at K12.com/educators.

LESSONS LEARNED IMPLEMENTING ONLINE LEARNING

Survey participants were asked an open-ended question regarding what they would do differently to develop or manage an online learning program. Based on those comments, several trends emerged:

• More Professional Development is needed. As is the case with any new program in schools, teacher training is critical to the program’s success.

• More student training is needed. Students need to understand the attendance and homework com-mitment and have clear guidelines on how to be successful in an online learning program.

• Better reporting tools are needed. Within the online learning system, the data should be updated in real-time and available in an easy-to-digest format for the teachers and mentors. Additionally, face-to-face teachers should have access to this data and/or the data should feed into other online systems used in the district so there is one place to find all the relevant data on a student.

Based on these survey results it is clear that schools and districts are still learning valuable lessons on how to be more effective in implementing online learning programs. Also, different types of online learning programs require a tailored implementation approach to be successful. K12 will continue to work to provide best practices and lessons learned in our efforts to help students and districts be suc-cessful.

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