I was originally going to write the synthesis, but after recording my final reflection for this week’s discussion board, I felt like many of the points would have been the same. Therefore, I decided to write a case study, which explores some of the issues that come up fairly regularly in the Indigenous school board that I work in. I think this case study could be a good addition to week 4, where the learning objectives are to “Assess the infrastructure available at the institution or organization in your scenario to support various delivery platforms” and “Select an appropriate delivery platform for your scenario and be able to rationalize your choices.”
Sophia teaches grade 11 English Language Arts in a remote, Indigenous community in Northern Canada. Her students’ attendance rate is extremely low, due to a variety of circumstances impacting their family and personal lives. When students do come to class, they are considerably behind on their work, have large learning gaps from precious school years and are at completely different levels within the course. Sophia has very little experience using educational technologies in her class, but she is willing to try anything that will help her students succeed. She tries to personalize the learning as much as possible so that each student receives the support they need, but this proves difficult to do when the students’ attendance is so unpredictable. In order to graduate, students must pass a provincial exam at the end of the school year. In Sophia’s experience, most students lack the knowledge for certain sections of the exam and end up failing. Currently, the only option is for students to retake the entire course the following school year. Students rarely have the motivation to do so and this results in high numbers of students giving up on their high school diploma.
The school board has similar issues across its various communities and they are ready to invest in anything that could help their high school students reach graduation. They have assembled a special team of employees from various departments to present a possible solution to the School Operations Committee within a time frame of two months. Once a final decision is made by the Committee, the special team will have eight months to put their plan into action and create any resources needed moving forward.
Keeping the context of this case study in mind, present a detailed solution for one of the questions below.
- Taking into consideration her limited experience, what technologies could Sophia integrate at the classroom level that would help her students stay on track, despite their sporadic and inconsistent attendance?
- What kind of solutions could the special team present to the School Operations Committee? Do you think a blended or online course, created at the School Board level, could help solve these issues?