EDTC 650, Teaching and Learning in K-12 Virtual Schools
​Virtual schooling (VS) has been around for over a decade and sounds like the old correspondence courses where you mail in an assignment and wait for the professor’s response, so to speak (Patrick, 2008). The virtual classroom extends or expands the traditional classroom because students, although left independently to complete assignments, the instructor is the facilitator or moderator of learning. For example, Davis & Niederhauser describes the role of the professor as facilitator where more interaction and involvement in monitoring and engaging the student and clarifying instructions, similar to F2F (p. 14) is needed. Davis & Niederhauser (2007) calls VS a mixture of online, distance and virtual classroom learning, which is what this learner has experienced. Personally, exposing students to online learning in the K-12 levels is needed because it will better prepare them for college and the work force and teach them to become more independent learners.