Over the last couple of years it
has proven to be increasingly difficult for children with needs to gain entry
into international schools and those that do get in, often find support
services very limited. As a group of
educational consultants based in Singapore, it was difficult to sit back and
watch this happen. “There just had to
be,” we thought, “a better way.”
In what started out to be a
“holding plan” until we could get a student into “proper schools” we decided to
try out this new world called “online schooling.” We connected with the K12 International
Academy, an accredited online private school program of K12.com, and together
worked to train our inclusion support staff to facilitate the K12 online
program in our learning center. As many
of the expatriate parents weren’t keen on leading a home-based online learning
program themselves, we knew that our staff working as “Learning Coaches” could
facilitate the K12 curriculum as a comprehensive, mainstream program until we
could get a “real” school to accept them.
What we have learned, however, is
that in the time we have implemented the K12 program with dozens of students,
it doesn’t get more “real” or more appropriate, for that matter, than this: Based on our experiences with the online
learning as an option for children with special needs, this type of educational
alternative may very well exceed the quality of instruction offered in the brick
and mortar, mainstream international schools.
We make this statement substantiated by the following grounds:
1. International Schools have Selective
Admissions: Mainstream international
schools often have discriminating admissions standards for children with learning
concerns. It is such a pervasive issue
that we often observe families concealing their child’s needs to get them
accepted. Alternatively they may also
try to enroll them in any school that will accept them while the other
sibling(s) attend their first school of choice.
The online program solves this issue whereby almost all children gain
admission and if siblings do attend other schools, the online program can
accommodate for any holiday schedule.
2. International Schools have Limited Learning
Support. Let’s face it…even if a
child does gain admission into a mainstream international school, very few of
them can consistently plan, deliver and maintain a model of individualized
programming that is at acceptable and appropriate levels. With online schooling, facilitated by trained
learning coaches in our learning center, student needs, learning styles,
behavioral trends and motivators are regularly accounted for. As knowledgeable educators who understand how
to interpret psychological assessments, our strong communication link between our
organization and K12 allows us to take on a team approach closely aligned to US
standards for children with special needs.
3. International Schools have Minimal
Differentiated Practices. Although
international schools can boast cultural diversity, very few of them cater for
the diversity in learning styles.
Differentiating instruction is pivotal in heterogeneous classrooms;
however, as many of these schools cater to the families of the “upper
management expat” there is a notion that the “average is above average” and, as
such, differentiation doesn’t seemed to be implemented as often and as
comprehensively as it should be. The supported
online learning model we have developed over the past couple of years with K12
has afforded a unique opportunity to truly differentiate for each and every
child according to their academic, social and emotional needs. Individualized programs are developed for the
child as opposed to fitting a child into a school’s “one size fits all”
curriculum.
Because students
can place into different grades without a child necessarily knowing the level
they are being instructed at, the K12 program has proven effective in designing
their learning plan on where they are academically, not where they should be
according to their age. What a
difference it makes when we teach to their instructional level instead of at
their frustration level! Good educators
know that when we teach above a student’s current level of performance,
learning is stalled and a child cannot progress. (Fountas &
Pinnell, 1996)
In addition, if our team
(Learning Coaches, K12, parents, therapists, etc.) believes instruction is too
easy or hard for a child, immediate adjustments can be made. Our collaboration with K12 allows us to also
make appropriate accommodations and modifications for children within the
program. One-to-one facilitation allows
for individualized learning, yet with more than a dozen children working on
their own K12 programs in our center at any given time, we can implement social
skills activities, common break/lunch times, morning meeting activities and
drama/PE classes, to name a few. These multi-aged groups make for incredibly
meaningful interactions between students.
4. The Transient Expat. As expatriate families are highly transient,
students often move from country to country, forced to start the process of
admissions, advocacy and programming all over again in the new international
school community. By taking advantage of
the mobile aspect of K12, the child can complete the curriculum from anywhere,
thus reducing the transition challenges that are associated with moving with a
child with learning needs.
5. The “Learning Support” label is removed.´
Unfortunately for students in the international school world, if a child requires assistance by their learning support
department, this label as a “Learning Support Child” follows him from school to
school, making it a continual challenge to be accepted and accommodated for in
each new location. Because K12 is an
accredited international school there is no label associated with enrolling in
such a program. Students aren’t
identified with the “learning support” tag in their transcripts and are in fact
able to prove just how successful they can be when they are taught in the ways
that they learn best.
We know that when a child is
accommodated for appropriately, she can achieve at or beyond what is expected
of her. When she is educated in a
caring, safe environment without the stigma of being “different” than everyone
else, anxiety is reduced and more learning can occur. Based on the achievements we are seeing first
hand, every day, kids are actually achieving more and at a quicker pace than if
they were educated in the brick and mortar international school. Kids learn more when they are taught from the
right starting point. Our students, who
previously in the mainstream were struggling to achieve close to the levels of
their peers, are now closing achievement gaps like never before. “When you let every student work at their own
pace you see students who take a little bit of extra time on one concept or
another, but once they get through that concept they just race ahead. And so the same kids that you thought were
slow 6 weeks ago you now would think were gifted. And we are seeing it over and over again and
it makes you really wonder how much all the labels really just are due to a
coincidence of time.” (Khan, 2011)
Because our model is a one–to-one
ratio, the child gets incredible attention and support, yet still with a focus
on independence and skill building. Take
Louis*, for example. As a 4th
grader, he struggled in his previous international school and upon moving to Singapore,
couldn’t get accepted anywhere. We
started him in the 3rd grade K12 program, allowing him to build a
foundation that he seemed to miss in his previous international school, likely
because his unsupported attention deficit kept him from focusing and
learning. In the short 8 months that
Louis was with us, he not only finished the third grade curriculum, but almost
completed the 4th grade program and gained admission in his new
location in a 5th grade, mainstream international school.
Children with learning needs who
are enrolled in an accredited online learning program, facilitated by coaches
knowledgeable about learning needs makes for a formula that may be far superior
to a mainstream, brick and mortar international school.
There is no doubt that online
learning is growing at tremendous rates and is the future of education. In fact, the children currently enrolled in
our “Learning Coach” program with the K12 curriculum are actually part of the
trail blazing phenomenon called online learning that is changing education as
we know it. How about that? The kids who are currently being excluded
from the mainstream may just be the ones who define a new mainstream because of
it.
*Name was changed for
confidentiality reasons
A shorter version of this article is published on www.expat-kids.com, a site I am a regular contributor on.
References:
Fountas,
I. & Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Understanding Guided Reading. In Guiding Readers
and Writers Grade 3-6:
Teaching Comprehension, Genre & Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Khan
Academy. (2011). Excerpts from speech . Retrieved October 2, 2011 from: http://www.khanacademy.org/video/salman-khan-talk-at-ted-2011--from-ted-com?playlist=Khan+Academy-Related+Talks+and+Interviews
