Bricks and mortar

the long version

"The rise of online learning is rapidly transforming how and what teachers teach, and even who-or what-teachers are. In the midst of these changes, the characteristics that have historically defined a high-quality education are easily lost. Not only content knowledge, but also ways of thinking and habits of mind are the hallmarks of the well-educated individual, and these latter qualities are not so easily acquired online. Or are they? This volume shows how a group of online-learning believers built the best high school in the world without laying a single brick: the Stanford Online High School (SOHS). By chronicling SOHS's distinctive approach to curriculum, gifted education, and school community over SOHS's first seven years, Bricks and Mortar makes the case that the dynamic use of technology and the best traditional methodologies in education are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. Indeed, while SOHS has redefined what is possible online, a great education is ultimately the product of an interactive community of teachers and students"-- "The rise of online learning has forced the educational world to engage in a good deal of soul searching. Technology is transforming how we are teaching, what we are teaching, and even who is teaching. It is easy to lose sight of the characteristics that have historically defined a high-quality education. While content knowledge may be readily attained online, less well established is how one engenders the ways of thinking and habits of mind that are the hallmarks of the well-educated individual. These are attributes best acquired in small seminar settings; settings that are too readily abandoned in the rush to move online. In this book, Scarborough and Ravaglia discuss the motivation, creation, and evolution of the Stanford Online High School during its initial seven years. In what some have described as the school's "use of twenty-first century technologies to deliver a twelfth century education", the SOHS has redefined what is possible in an online setting drawing on that format to set a modern standard for rigorous high-school education. While such phrases at first seem to belie the essence of the SOHS, Scarborough and Ravaglia offer the story of the school in support of the strongly contrarian position that dynamic use of technology in education is not exclusive of the best traditional methodologies. Along the way, they chronicle the school's distinctive approach to curriculum selection and design, gifted education and challenging high performing students, and the formation of a vibrant school community. In this we will find that while technology can enable great education, great education is ultimately a human endeavor in which community of teachers and students stand above all else"--