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Matt Wilce discovers how ASIJ’s membership of Global Online

Academy is changing the way our high school students learn.

GlobalImagine that your class was made up of students from

some of the world’s leading independent schools, that your last assignment was a collaborative video essay and that

your teacher gave you feedback via Skype from another continent. That’s not the future, it’s the reality of class for some of ASIJ’s high schoolers taking courses through Global Online Academy (GOA). A consortium of 24 schools around the world, GOA offers challenging online courses in a wide variety of subject areas.

Students at ASIJ and other member schools such as Punaho School (HI), Sidwell Friends School (DC), The Dalton

Going

School (NY), Lakeside School (WA), King’s Academy (Jordan), International School of Bejing and Jakarta International School, can take courses in diverse subjects that range from bioethics and comparative government to urban studies and modern ethical dilemmas.

This fall, seniors Laura Kim, Nako Kobayashi and junior Hannah Cooper became the first ASIJ students to take courses through GOA. “Previously, to pursue math beyond the level of AP calculus, students had to enroll in an independent study course through a university program,” says Laura whose math class is taught by Aran Glancy from The Dalton School.

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“GOA offered me the opportunity to take a college-level multivariable calculus course in a ‘high school setting,’ albeit online.” Hannah is taking the medical problem solving class taught by Darcy Iams and Nan Keptura-Ching from Punaho School. “I want to be a surgeon and I thought this class would give me an introduction to what doctors do when solving medical cases,” she says. Each of the classes has students from between 10 and 12 different schools from multiple countries and states. “I chose the comparative government class as I am interested in studying political science in college, and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get an introduction to the type of thing I would be doing in college, and that it would prepare me well,” says Nako Kobayashi, who is is taking a class taught by Colleen Kyle from Lakeside School.

Taking an online class offers students many benefits, whether studying together with peers who attend different schools; having greater options available to allow them to delve further into a topic or to discover a passion; learning skills they will need for today’s global society; or just gaining flexibility in their academic schedules. “Over the past few years we’ve worked on integrating technology into our classroom instruction and we’d begun moving towards eLearning as a way to provide a broader set of learning opportunities for our students beyond our campus. GOA enables us to provide a rich set of rigorous, interdisciplinary course offerings in the context of a global classroom,” says Rick Weinland, high school principal.

“There are some aspects of teaching and learning that are done differently in a class that only meets online,” says Michael Nachbar, founder of GOA. “For example, teaching students how to manage their time is concentrated in an online class. Discussions always have 100% participation—

there are no wallflowers in an online course. Students also have time to gather their thoughts before sharing them. There’s also an added dimension to the work—students curate material from across the web that adds to what’s being discussed.”

“Though the bulk of the work consists of reading textbook chapters, watching video lectures, and completing the corresponding problem sets, recently there has been an influx of other types of projects. For example, we completed a group project that required determining a solution for how a tile maker could price his designs,” says Laura. “Not surprisingly, what I miss most in the digital classroom is daily contact with teachers and peers—it’s not easy to engage in the course when it feels as though I am doing it on my own. However, I do enjoy the sense of independence and responsibility the system offers. It is up to me to reach out to my teacher and to grasp the material, and I feel as though I am taking control of my own pursuit of the subject.”

“In medical problem solving, we work on solving medical cases. We are first given a summary of the hypothetical patient’s past medical history and some information about what has happened to them. Then we have to research possible diseases and problems that we think the patient has and from what we learn, diagnose the patient,” says Hannah. “It’s pretty easy for me to work with my classmates even though they are half way around the world. When we are assigned group projects my partners and I email back and forth to decide how we want to do the project. When we solve medical cases we usually Skype to diagnose the patient because it is much easier to communicate.” Sometimes scheduling can be challenge. “It is a bit difficult at times to coordinate Skype discussions and other types of discussions because of the time difference, but it’s really interesting to

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have students from different regions in my class,” says Nako. “We get different perspectives, which is particularly great for a comparative government class, because the students can share what they know about their own country’s political systems.”

Online classes also change the way that teachers teach. “One of our teachers says that because of the deliberateness involved in scheduled times to talk that she has more actual face-to-face time with her online students than she does with her classroom students and that sitting and talking for 20 minutes is something that doesn’t happen during the business of a typical school day,” says Nachbar.

As technology becomes ever more integrated into education, online learning is coming of age. The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), which ASIJ is a member of, estimates that 20% of its school’s students are currently taking online courses. Over 30% of American college students took at least one course online in 2010, according to the Sloan Survey on Online Education, which monitors student involvement in online higher education. “More and more of our information is delivered online and both teachers and students need to be skilled at using this medium for learning. Over 6 million American college students now take a course online and so I believe that GOA will play a part in helping prepare our students for their college experience,” says Ed Ladd, Head of School. “The response to GOA from college admissions offices has been positive,” says Nachbar. “We’re getting our materials out to the universities, on all of our member schools’ college profiles, and the consortium is getting global attention. Each of these strengthens how colleges view GOA and our

recognition continues to grow.”“There is no doubt that technology has changed the face

of education and will continue to challenge our practices and provide us with untold opportunities. One of the most profound ways, I believe, is the capacity for people to connect across traditional boundaries of time and space,” says Paul O’Neill, director of teaching and learning at ASIJ. “What GOA provides for our students and teachers is access to like-minded people, with whom we wouldn’t normally connect, coming together for a similar purpose. For our students, taking a course like bio-ethics or medical problem solving with a globally representative group of students will bring real-life, local and global perspectives into the online classroom.”

Member schools of GOA boast and impressive array of former students that include Bill Gates and Paul Allen (Lakeside), Barrack Obama (Punahou), Mitt Romney (Cranbrook), Anderson Cooper (Dalton), Gore Vidal and Nobel Prize-winner George Akerlof (Sidwell), Edwin Reischauer ‘27 and Sony CEO Kaz Hirai ’78 (ASIJ). Students at ASIJ will benefit from the innovative and stimulating educational opportunities we are developing with our partners in GOA. ASIJ is very excited to be part of this unique group of schools and the only member of GOA in Japan.

“Our school’s mission is developing compassionate, inquisitive learners prepared for global responsibility. By emphasizing innovative teaching, diverse course offerings, and a globally diverse classroom experience, GOA is very much in line with our school’s mission, vision, and values.” says Rick Weinland.

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