FEATURE STORY
Hoosier Academy @ Muncie: Combining classroom instruction with online learning

By Amanda Junk

As a member of Ball State University’s charter school authorizing board for the past six years, Lynn Black has seen and heard a lot of charter school presentations. One thing that was evident to him was that many of them were very traditional in their design.

“The purpose behind charter schools is creating reform models for public education,” he said. “Those schools in those charters were trying some new things but still were very similar to what you would find in any other place.”

Hoosier Academy in Muncie, which opened its doors to students on Sept. 2, 2008, takes this concept of reform to a new level. By participating in a hybrid school model, direct teacher classroom instruction is combined with online learning, making the Muncie school and the other Hoosier Academy in Indianapolis, the only blended charter school district in the state.

Still Learning to Fly

From its start, the school has had to overcome its own set of challenges. Hoosier Academy was approved to be a virtual learning center two years ago with instructional support done entirely over the Internet. After Ball State University’s Office of Charter Schools granted its approval, state legislation went through that disallowed virtual schools, even though several hundred parents had already signed up for the school. The legislation was later rewritten to allow for virtual schools that weren’t state-funded.

Interest to expand the Muncie Learning Center, as it’s called, to 9th grade exists, but whether or not it’ll happen won’t be known until after the current state legislative session has closed, Black said. For now, most parents are considering taking their 8th graders to local high schools, some back to the home school environment and some to the Learning Center in Indianapolis — its charter allows the school to add a grade each year for next two years.

“With the funding as it is, we have to do more with less,” Black said. “The money we receive from the state for our students also has to go toward our lease, the materials that we purchase and personnel. In renovating schools [in Indianapolis and in Muncie] it’s still far less than a traditional public school.”

Black was hired for the job about six months before the school opened and had the majority of teachers hired and in training by early August. The Muncie school, which shares a building with St. Lawrence Elementary School, underwent cosmetic changes for the entire month prior to the school’s opening to students, so administrative planning and scheduling had to be arranged elsewhere — all was done in a span of six months.

“Every day, every week is a challenge because everything is new,” Black said. “There are no other schools like ours. The way we’re designed, there wasn’t anybody we could go to. We had no template, no plan to follow.”

Black asks teachers three questions each week, much in keeping with what he says the school wants its students to do:

“What’s going well? What’s not going well? How do we need to improve? This demonstrates what we want our kids to do: continuously improve.

“The expression I’ve been using from the very beginning is, ‘We’ve been building the plane while we’re flying it,’ because we’re continuing to make corrections in flight in what we do and how we do it,” Black said.

Use of Technology

To bridge the gap between at-home lessons and instruction at the Learning Center, Black said innovative use of technology is critical. Curriculum is based on the K12 model, and families are provided a computer, monitor, printer and Internet stipend as well as paper resources to encourage successful learning. Even with this technology, classrooms are still traditional.

Melissa DeWitt, a seventh and eighth grade teacher at the school, uses a SmartBoard to teach her class. In one lesson about cells, she had students read what was on the screen, then underlined key words from the slides. When something didn’t make sense to students, she reverted back to a white board to draw diagrams to emphasize key points and processes.

At home through Elluminate, an online conferencing system, DeWitt and other teachers at the Academy communicate with students using headphones to simulate the classroom learning environment during online office hours on days when they’re not at the Learning Center.

“It really is a partnership between the at-home and the center because everything builds on the previous day’s work,” DeWitt said.

Hoosier Academies’ teachers also interact with students and parents regularly through e-mails, online synchronous discussions, scheduled virtual and in-person school activities, and during off-site hours through online collaboration tools.

Laura Carnes, a fourth and fifth grade teacher, has a classroom of 22 students —and just as many co-teachers in the form of at-home learning coaches.

Carnes said she has a better line of communication with parents and students (she also supports fifth grade students in Indianapolis via the Internet) because of technology, referencing “K-mail,” a server-based e-mail that serves as a dedicated line of communication for school and school events. The school’s partner, K12, allows for a shared grade book and curriculum for parents and teachers on its website.

Carnes also plans periodic field trips for her Muncie and Indianapolis “virtual” students, such as a trip to the Eitljorg Museum. While she said the cutting-edge technology and tools have been mostly helpful in establishing academic relationships, she sometimes worries that she doesn’t have as personal arelationship with her students because she only sees them two days a week.

“You miss out on some of the relationships on some of the aspects of their lives. …Time is very precious

in the Learning Center so we don’t have time for class parties, but we’re doing something meaningful, so that’s worth it.”

DeWitt said she is actually much closer academically and personally to students than she was in traditional classroom. Instead of seeing 110 middle school children a day, she sees only 27.

“I know their strengths and weaknesses much better, and they feel more comfortable calling if they need help because we’re not so distant,” DeWitt said. “We’re accessible at any time.”

Overcoming Common Misperceptions

Black says now his challenge for the school is to help other people understand the hybrid school model — “that it can work, that it does work. I’ve seen it work.”

The two schools serve 459 students; some families travel 60 to 90 minutes one-way to attend one of the Learning Centers, according to marketing material provided by the school. Students attending the Indianapolis Learning Center come from 18 counties and 54 school districts across Central Indiana. Students attending the Muncie Learning Center are drawn from nine counties and 19 school districts across Northeast Indiana.

Part of what makes the model work is strong parental involvement. Parents are encouraged to attend “Hoosier Huddles,” support groups and information sessions about the school prior to enrolling students, where they learn about legislative and logistical issues involved with charter schools. The Learning Center also tries to place parents who live in the same region on similar tracks for carpooling and added support.

A common misperception about the school is that a majority of families are home schooled prior to attending, which Black says is not the case. The school is attractive to families that want a flexible schedule and whose lifestyle calls for them to be on the road with their children or who are highly engaged in club activities.

State legislation for charter schools stipulates that more than 50 percent of the curriculum be taught face to face in the classroom. But in today’s fast-paced society, Black says, learning can and should happen anywhere. Hoosier Academies requires first through eighth grade families to spend a minimum of nine

hours per week on off-site instruction; families are currently averaging 15 to 17 hours per week.
“What we’re trying to present to our kids [at the Learning Center] is learning takes place everywhere at all times of the day, not just Monday through Friday but Saturday and Sunday as well,” Black said.

“Learning shouldn’t take time off; you just have to be open to those learning opportunities.”

Amanda Junk is a junior at Marian College majoring in magazine journalism. She can be reached at junkama@gmail.com.