Virtual day data points to overall success
Student feedback on the two virtual days last week has been largely positive, based on the survey that students took during Pascack Period. Students generally agree that assignments were clearly presented, that the experience has helped prepare them for the future, and that the virtual days provided a change of pace.
As of now, there are no concrete plans to continue with virtual days.
“I’d like to see us engage with another virtual day at some point,” said Mr. Erik Gundersen, the Superintendent of Schools in the Pascack Valley Regional High School District. “Exactly when or with what format, I don’t know yet.”
The primary concern with these virtual days were the technological issues. On the first day, many students had problems connecting to the internet.
Administration began to see students having these issues around 9:30 a.m. The technology department investigated and, initially, thought the issue was with bandwidth, the rate at which data is transferred from a site to a computing device, at student homes. However, upon further investigation, Gundersen said, they found that about 20 percent of students had not downloaded a Google Chrome update. Students were told via their email and Twitter to download the update, and most issues cleared up.
There were also problems with uploading certain video files to Canvas, according to Mr. Paul Zeller, the Director of Instructional Technology in the school district.
“We are currently working with Canvas about that,” Zeller said. “I think the technology situation this time was better. I’m not happy with what happened but I would definitely say it was better than [two year ago].”
“I think we definitely ramped it up, not only from a workload perspective but from an engagement perspective,” Gundersen said.
As seen in the graph below, 38.2 percent of the 1,285 students thought that the amount of work they received was the equivalent of what they would get on a normal school day. 32.4 percent of students thought there was less work.
80.4 percent of students felt, as a whole, that assignments were clearly presented.
37 percent of the students said that they felt they were more engaged during the virtual days than they are on normal school days. 37.8 percent of students felt they were equally as engaged.
Most students thought the virtual experience would help them in the future with either college or in their careers. Students who disagreed that the virtual day would help them were in the minority.
“The number one reason we did this was for a change of pace,” Dr. Barry Bachenheimer, the Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment in the Pascack Valley High School District, said. Students overall agreed that this goal was achieved, with 44.9 percent of students in strong agreement.
“I was really pleased with the overall attitude,” Bachenheimer said. “Everyone came at this with an open mind.”
Teacher feedback was positive as well, according to Bachenheimer.
Gundersen said that, while student and teacher feedback was positive, parental feedback was much more mixed.
“We have to start to look at and dissect the comments from parents,” Gundersen said.
“I think this opens up entirely new opportunities, not just for students but also for teachers,” said Mr. Evo Popoff, the Chief Innovation and Intervention Officer from the State Department of Education and the Assistant Commissioner of the Division of Charter Schools, School Choice, Technology, Turnarounds, and Intervention. “The idea that instruction can happen some place outside the classroom, and untethering students from the classroom as a learning experience is something that I think will only continue to expand.”
Ms. Norah Peck, the Interim Executive Superintendent from the Bergen County Office of Education, felt that Pascack Valley has “transformed to meet emerging needs with the virtual day.
“The only constant in education is change,” Peck said. “ We must constantly adjust our practices to ensure that students are prepared to meet the challenges of college and career in the 21st Century.”
Two years ago, Pascack Valley had a virtual day in lieu of a snow day, receiving attention nationally for being the first to implement the idea of a “virtual day” in this area. However, that day did not end up counting as an official school day and it was riddled with negative feedback. In addition the email server that Pascack Valley was using at the time crashed, requiring an additional 6 servers to be made. The main points of criticism from the virtual days two years ago was that students received more work than on any other school day and that the different online platforms that teachers used made the day confusing.
“At the time, we thought we were giving teachers the freedom to figure out what works best for their curriculum,” Gundersen said. “What we learned is that we need to be thinking about what the students need.”
The Park Ridge School District conducted a virtual school day yesterday for the first time. Park Ridge is a K-12 school district. As a result, the middle school will be participating alongside the high school, grades 7-12, both using Schoology rather than Canvas. Students of that district will have all of their classes online in one day rather than spread out over two days. They released a promotional video on Youtube this past Friday.
Last year, Gundersen, Bachenheimer, and the superintendent of the Park Ridge School District, Dr. Robert Gamper, reached out to the state together in a joint letter about their planned virtual days.
“We knew that it was going to be a legitimate school day because it met the legal requirements of being a school day,” Gundersen said. “We didn’t necessarily need the Department of Education’s permission, but we wanted their support.”
“We encourage districts like Pascack Valley to take initiative and to explore different ways of engaging students,” said Popoff, “so from that perspective, we are very supportive of the work that is going on in the district.”
The virtual day from two years ago did not count as an official day of school because the state determined that if the facilities are closed, it doesn’t meet the definition of a school day. This year, school facilities were open.
“There a couple of bills that have been introduced,” Bachenheimer said. “Senator Cardinale’s office introduced a bill a year and a half ago to allow the State Department of Education to set up parameter but as far as I know it hasn’t even gotten out of committee.”
“I think that, inevitably, we’re going to see more districts engage with virtual learning,” Popoff said.
“Throughout the country, there are other states that are being very proactive with the idea of virtual days,” Gundersen said.
Both Gundersen and Bachenheimer have discussed virtual days with schools in other states. Bachenheimer has talked with schools out west and Gundersen has been contacted by several Departments of Education in other states to help “pilot the concept”.
Administration has speculated the use of virtual days during hotter summer days, when “you know that great learning is not taking place.”
“You could still bring teachers in,” Gundersen said. “They could find air conditioned places to work in, facilities would be open, students could still come in to work with teachers.”
As of now, Gundersen has no concrete plans about implementing more virtual days.