Pedagogy without Borders: New Frontiers of Teaching and Technology

For years, educators have recognized the benefits of hands-on learning, successfully integrating active learning opportunities into physical classrooms. However, creating similar experiences in an online learning environment presents unique challenges. How can educators effectively engage students in hands-on learning when teaching through an asynchronous digital medium?
Virtual High School is a year-round, asynchronous online, private school inspected by the Ontario Ministry of Education (BSID #665681) that offers Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) credits to thousands of students around the world each year. It offers students the opportunity and flexibility to take a single credit, multiple credits, or their entire OSSD. The origins of VHS date back to the 1990s, when owner and principal, Stephen Baker wanted to supplement classroom learning with an online component. Over the years the school has grown and evolved to meet the needs of the student. Currently, VHS provides a full classroom environment with students learning through written text, videos, visual media, and interactive elements.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the demand for quality online education and reinforced VHS’s commitment to refining our approach to online teaching to meet the needs of the modern-day student. Over the last year we have been exploring how we can meet this need through creating active learning opportunities to develop a hands-on learning environment for our students. To achieve this, we have taken a project-based approach to learning in three of our newest courses: Mathematics of Data Management grade 12 course (MDM4U), Building the Entrepreneurial Mind-Set grade 9 business course (BEM1O), and our Green Industries and the Skilled Trades grade 10 technology course (THJ2O), with the outcomes of each course informing the development of the next.  To help support the project-based approach and teach many hands-on skills in an online environment, we have incorporated the use of videos, media, and interactive elements. 

As we have approached each new course, we have considered the feedback we have received from both our students and our teachers. Key learnings to date include only presenting small sections of the projects at key points throughout the course. This has been successful in making sure the students are working on the projects throughout the duration of the course and allows for ongoing meaningful feedback. Additionally, we ensure the theoretical information presented is far more focused to tailor all lessons directly to the projects. Finally, we strive to use media and interactive elements to promote positive student engagement.
Project based learning and its use in developing a hands-on learning environment for an asynchronous online classroom is something that we are continuing to develop. We will continue to monitor our existing project-based courses and use this information to inform our ongoing evolution.