Running head: ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C.

HIGH SCHOOLS

Online Education in B.C. High Schools: Current Issues and Future Hopes
Tiffany Tseng
University of British Columbia

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

Online Education in B.C. High Schools: Current Issues and Future Hopes
Online education has been implemented for a long time in post-secondary institutions.
However, in the recent years, there has been a growth in the number of online courses available
to high school students. The flexibility of online courses makes them a very good option for
home-schoolers, students who live in rural areas, and those want to upgrade their marks (de La
Varre, 2010, p. 31). In the United States, approximately 75% of schools have fully online or
blended courses, and 69% of these students are enrolled at the high school level (Kim, Kim &
Karimi, 2012, p. 524). Here in Canada, LearnNowBC is a web portal for K-12 online learning in
British Columbia (LearnNowBC, 2013). There are over 900 grade 12 online courses currently
being offered by various school districts and independent schools here in B.C. (LearnNowBC,
2013). The B.C. Learning Network is another consortium of 40 school districts in the province
(B.C. Learning Network, 2013). There are over 60 online course offered, and teachers
collaborate to create a better online learning environment for students (B.C. Learning Network,
2013). I have been teaching online courses at a school district in B.C. for the past four years.
There has been a growth in the number of students taking my math and biology courses. While
online courses offer the flexibility of anytime, anyplace learning, there are several challenges
that teachers need to overcome in order to continuously improve the quality of online education.
These include the needs of an accurate perception of online learning, the importance of academic
integrity, and the re-evaluation of peer-to-peer interactions. To overcome these challenges, the
support of the community as well as the school district and administration is needed. There also
needs to be collaboration between online programs and students high schools. Finally, the
teacher needs to be creative when constructing the course to allow peer-to-peer interactions, and

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these interactions must be evaluated through the course for their effectiveness in promoting
students learning.
The first challenge in the current high school online education is the misconception of
students and parents towards online courses. From personal experiences, many students or
parents think online courses are easier than traditional face-to-face courses in schools. As
pointed out in Kim, Kim and Karimis article, there are numerous definitions and misconceptions
regarding online education (2012, p. 522). Students and parents may not know what actually are
required in online courses, and often register for online courses because they think these courses
are flexible (Kim et al., 2012, p.522). Unfortunately, students may find that online courses
require much more student participation, and also a high level of self-regulation (Kim et al., 2012,
p. 522). These students early perception of online courses influences their later attitudes
towards the courses (Kim et al., 2012, p. 522). There had been several occasions in which
students took my online courses because they did not experience success at their school. They
thought online courses were a way for them to obtain credits for the course and perhaps would
allow them to earn a better grade. Unfortunately, some of these students overlooked the fact that
online course require a high level of time management skills, and the willingness to seek for help
when encountering problems. Without these essential characteristics, it would be difficult for
these students to experience success with online courses. Online courses are different from
traditional courses but they are not necessarily harder or easier. It is a different type of
learning which will work for some students, while some other students may find it more difficult
and demanding. Thus public awareness at the student/parent level, as well as at the school and
community level must be enhanced.

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

A study by Roby, Ashe, Sigh & Clark found that online instructors often find online
course preparation demands more time than traditional instruction (2013, p. 30). If
administration does not acknowledge these demands, this could lead to instructors'
dissatisfaction (Roby et al., 2013, p.30). Therefore, in addiction to educating students and
parents regarding the demands of online courses, administration in schools needs to understand
the work behind online courses in order to provide the necessary support to teachers
There are several ways to educate parents, students, as well as the community about
online education. First, there needs to be a continuous communication between the teacher,
parents and students regarding the expectations and demands of online courses. A study by
Swan (2001) suggested that interactions between the instructor and the students significantly
improved students satisfaction and perception of online courses (as cited in Roby et al., 2013, p.
30). Secondly, a self-assessment questionnaire could be made available on the course or district
website. The availability of such a questionnaire helps to educate both students and parents of
the requirements needed for online courses, and help to give them an accurate perception of what
are required for success in online education. As pointed out in Huntes article, a self-assessment
questionnaire allows students to reflect their technological readiness, competency in online
communication, as well as time management skills (2012, p. 187). Thirdly, administrators in
online education should promote collaboration between online teachers and students high
schools (often referred to as students home schools). This collaboration helps teachers in local
high schools to learn about online courses. Workshops could be designed for counselors so they
can provide the necessary guidance and information when students are selecting their courses.
In one study, de la Varre, Keane and Irvin looked at facilitators in rural schools who
supported students online courses (2010). While there was an instructor for the online courses,

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

the facilitators were embedded in rural schools to provide support to students taking online
courses (de la Varre et al., 2010, p. 35). These facilitators supported students by helping them
with navigating the course website, giving students tips about online etiquette, and how to avoid
plagiarism (de la Varre et al., 2010, p. 37). The facilitators also communicated regularly with
online instructors to let them know about student issues (de la Varre et al., 2010. P. 37). This
model was proven to be helpful, and was a stepping stone to transform rural education (de la
Varre et al., 2010, p. 43). While there may be difficulties in implementing an exact model in
local B.C. high schools due to various constraints, there could be a teacher at each school
provides support to online courses. This teacher could be responsible for supervising online tests,
as well as helping online teachers to track and give necessary face-to-face l support to students
taking online courses. This allows students to have direct support at their school, and the
feedback from these facilitators would be very valuable to the online teachers.
The second challenge that many high school online courses face today is academic
integrity. In his article, Reimer stated that Internet plagiarism is increasing and 38% of
undergraduate students surveyed confessed that they had engaged in Internet plagiarism (as cited
in Jones, 2011, p. 141). When students submit assignments or complete tasks online, it is often
hard to validate that they are actually the ones who completed the assignment. Bunn, Claudeill
and Gropper defined two categories of cheating: planned and panic cheating (as cited in Grijalva,
2006, p. 181). Planned cheating involves making cheat sheets, plagiarizing a paper, and occurs
when the student knows that it is wrong (Grijalva, 2006, p. 181). On the other hand, panic
cheating is usually unplanned (Grijalva, 2006, p. 181). Grijalva suggested that due to the nature
of online courses, there are less opportunities for panic cheating since it usually happens in a
testing situation in a traditional class (2006, p. 184). Many people also claim that because

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

students and instructors are not interacting face-to-face in an online environment, there is more
cheating than traditional classes (Grijalva, 2006, p. 180).
Interestingly, McGee found that while people think there is more cheating in online
environments, there is little evidence to support that this is the case (2012, p. 2). While there
are various study results around cheating in the online environment, it cannot be denied that
cheating is something that both online and traditional teachers have to prevent. When students
are on the computer, it is easier for them to access a wealth of information and use that
information in a wrong way. Rimers research showed that the Internet gives students different
opportunities to engage in academic dishonesty even if it was not originally intended (as cited
in Jones, 2011, p. 142). Therefore, it is very important to stress the importance of academic
integrity in online courses. The ability to demonstrate academic integrity not only helps students
succeed in online courses, but is a skill that also helps students in their face-to-face courses.
To overcome the challenge of academic dishonesty, we should first teach students what is
academic integrity. Jones found that many students had difficulty identifying what was and was
not plagiarism (2011, p. 147). Therefore, at the beginning of a course, the instructor should
include an academic integrity policy (Jones, 2011, p. 147). This helps students to understand the
importance of academic honesty, and what exactly they should not be doing. Secondly, there are
also plagiarism detection softwares such as TurnItIn (Jones, 2011, p.148). Teachers can use
these softwares to monitor if the work submitted is indeed original. Kleiman also suggested
letting students know that their access of the course website is being tracked by the instructor
(2005, p. 15). This encourages students to visit the course website on a regularly basis (Kleiman,
2005, p.15). Furthermore, if the instructor is suspecting academic dishonesty, he or she can
always go into the course to find out the students access history. This helps to provide an

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

insight on whether or not the student is spending the necessary time to do the work. Thirdly, in
my own practice, when students write an exam, they always have to bring a piece of photo ID
and show it to the exam invigilator. Since online instructors may not know what students look
like, this helps to ensure that whoever is doing the test is the actual student. Fourthly, Chiesl
points out that many students cheat because of fear of failure, desire for better grade, pressure
from parents to do well, unclear instructional objects, and everyone else is doing it (as cited in
McGee 2012, p. 5). Thus to prevent cheating, an online course should be clearly organized to
help students understand the instructors expectations, and what students need to do in order to
obtain goal. If the instructor could provide adequate feedback and possible opportunities to
improve students mark (ex. redoing an assignment), this might help to ease students anxiety to
perform well. Jones believes that academic integrity is learned skill that faculty members can
teach and model (2011, p. 147). Therefore, educating students about the importance of
academic integrity helps to reduce academic dishonesty incidences in an online course.
The third challenge of online courses is the difficulty of promoting peer-to-peer
interactions and the importance in monitoring the effectiveness of these interactions. Many of
the online courses are asynchronous. Students register throughout the year, and progress at a
different pace. As stated by Kerr in her article, asynchronous learning communities becomes
much more challenging when working with students who enroll at different times throughout the
year (2009, p.2). In order to encourage and maintain student enrollment in an online course,
building a supportive learning community is very important (Kerr, 2009, p.3). However,
Hammond found that unless the online discussion posts are required, students often dont post on
a regular basis and eventually they will lose interesting the discussion altogether (as cited in Woo
and Reeves, 2008, p. 182). As a teacher of asynchronous online courses, I have tried to

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

implement discussion forums in my courses in the past few years. When discussion forum posts
were a required component of the course, students participated in these discussions. However, if
students were not required to post anything on the forum, many of them would not post questions
or respond to other students posts. This was a challenge partly due to the asynchronous nature
of the course. Even though I had placed student in groups according to their course registration
date, there was still a difference in pacing from student to student. Therefore, it was difficult to
have a whole class focusing on several questions on the discussion forum at a time, because they
were all at different points in the course.
Interestingly, there are mixed research results on the effectiveness of online discussions.
While discussion and online participation are an integral part of many online courses, Davies and
Graff found that increased participation in online discussions did not result in better grades (as
cited in Woo & Reeves, 2008, p. 180). In another study, Tallent-Runnets also found that
asynchronous communication in online courses fostered in-depth discussion, but these
discussions were not more than the face-to-face classes (as cited in Woo & Reeves, 2008, p.180).
Therefore, when an instructor implements online discussions in a course, it is important for these
to be designed strategically to promote critical thinking. The focus should not be on improving
students grades, but rather on allowing students to make connections between different concepts,
as well as making progressions in their thinking processes. Woo suggests that allowing students
to discuss in small groups, using a project-based learning approach, and a clear syllabus all help
online discussion in an educational contract (Woo, 2008, p. 184). Therefore, online discussion
forums are not just a measure of how much a student participates in a course. More care should
be taken to design the online discussion activities, as well as evaluating if there are noticeable
progressions in students thinking.

ONLINE EDUCATION IN B.C. HIGH SCHOOLS

Online communication often takes out the emotional and personal aspects of face-to-face
interactions; therefore it is very important for instructors to find different ways to compensate for
this loss. In Andresens study, he suggests that the instructors needs to find different ways to
express emotions and the passion for the subject (2009, p. 250). Collinson, Elbaum, Haavid &
Tinker suggest the use of emoticons to express emotions in online posts (as cited in Woo, 2008,
p.186). In her article, Kerr also makes several recommendations regarding asynchronous
discussions in an online course. These include providing training for educators in the important
of building community; choose meaningful activities and discussion topics; use effective
technology; provide opportunities for collaboration amongst students, and the use of peer
mentors (Kerr, 2009). In a continuous entry course where students are at different places, an
instructor could ask a student who started the course earlier to mentor a student who starts later.
Guidance could be provided on how to access course materials, and also on specific content
questions. Student mentors help new students to make a transition into the learning community
(Kerr, 2009, p. 11).

Another way to promote meaningful online interactions is to use

synchronous discussions to promote learning (Armstrong, 2012, p.4). In my own teaching, I

have used Blackboard Collaborate to host online office hours. This tool allows students to ask
and respond to each others questions, and provides an online environment for students to
interact synchronously with each other. Furthermore, I think this makes the whole online
experience more realistic, and solidifies the presence of the teacher, as well as other classmates.
While online course at the high school level have challenges in student/parent perception,
academic integrity, as well as promoting student-student interactions, many educators and
teachers in this field are constantly learning about new platforms and new tools to help students
learn. As we make advancements in the technological aspects on an online course, we should

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never forget that the goal of education is to empower students. Online education is another
option for students to be empowered, and for them to learn using a different course delivery
method. Online course are not necessarily better or worse than traditional face-to-face classes.
Some students may find the flexibility to be meaningful, while others may need to acquire some
time management skills as well as the willingness to regulate their own learning before taking an
online course. With the current research endeavors, and as teachers become more informed about
online education, it is very hopeful that online courses will continue to improve to provide a
meaningful education to students at the high school level.

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References

Andresen, M. A. (2009). Asynchronous Discussion Forums: Success Factors, Outcomes,

Assessments, and Limitations. Educational Technology & Society, 12(1), 249-257.

Armstrong, A., & Thornton, N. (2012). Incorporating Brookfield's Discussion Techniques

Synchronously into Asynchronous Online Courses. Quarterly Review of Distance
Education, 13(1), 1-9.

B.C. Learning Network (2013). Retrieved from http://bclearningnetwork.com/m2/

de la Varre, C., Keane, J., & Irvin, M. J. (2010). Enhancing online distance education in small
rural U.S. schools: A hybrid, learner-centered model. Journal of Asynchronous Learning
Networks, 15(4), 35-46.

Grijalva, T. C., Nowell, C., & Kerkvliet, J. (2006). Academic Honesty and Online Courses.
College Student Journal, 40(1), 180-185.

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Hunte, S. (2012). First time online learners' perceptions of support services provided. Turkish
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Jones, D. (n.d.). Academic dishonesty: Are more students cheating?. Business Communication
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Kerr, C. (2009). Creating Asynchronous Online Learning Communities. Ontario Action

Researcher, 10(2), 1-20.

Kim, P., Kim , F. H., & Karimi, A. (2012). Public online charter school students: Choices,
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Kleinman, S. (2005). Strategies for Encouraging Active Learning, Interaction, and Academic
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LearnNowBC. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.learnnowbc.ca/default.aspx

McGee, P. (2013). Supporting Academic Honesty in Online Courses. Journal Of Educators

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Roby, T., Ashe, S., Singh, N., & Clark, C. (2013). Shaping the online experience: How
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