Online School for Girls
Questions and Answers with Westover’s Head of School, Ann Pollina, about an exciting research venture in which Westover has become involved - the Online School for Girls.
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| Westover's Online School for Girls instructors include (standing, from left) Kate Seyboth and Heather Mannella. |
Q: What is the Online School for Girls, and why now?
The Online School for Girls (OSG) is a research and learning venture that arose from a group of schools that had done significant work in getting and keeping girls involved in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (STEM).
As you know, Westover, through our WISE program, was one of the earliest schools to react to the fact that women were not equally represented in the STEM fields. In the early 1980’s the vast majority of those studying and practicing in STEM fields were men; classroom strategies and math/science pedagogy were not designed with girls in mind. This created a “chilly climate” that discouraged young women from entry in those fields. We have worked hard in the last 30 years to make change. Westover was a pioneer in establishing classroom strategies leading to notable success for our students in mathematics, science, computer science and engineering. Educators who work in these areas note significant gains, but there is still work to do. Of greatest concern recently has been the field of emerging technology, particularly online or e-learning projects that had begun to crop up nationwide.
There are 173 virtual schools nationwide that enroll 92,000 students. 44 states offer online courses for credit, many funded by the states. This is of deep interest, because unequal access to these online courses would affect not just STEM fields for women, but would affect their equal access to virtually every academic area. Were girls once again going to be second class citizens in this market? Before web 2.0, the interactive web now available, it seemed so. The early version of the web (web 1.0) was just a delivery system; online learning was called “distance learning”, one of the great oxymorons of all time – distance is not an environment conducive to learning for anyone, especially for girls. But web 2.0 presented an opportunity for greater connection and collaboration, so individuals from four schools, Westover, Harpeth Hall in Nashville, Holton-Arms in Bethesda and Laurel in Cleveland began talking. Would it be possible to design online courses specifically with girls in mind? That conversation led to the creation of a consortium – the Online School for Girls (OSG). Individuals at these schools met and started asking questions: what would an online environment conducive to girls’ learning look like? What could we learn from strategies that worked in math and science classrooms? This fall we began alpha tests – two courses that would really examine the online landscape and ask critically if it had possibilities for girls education. Heather Mannella and Kate Seyboth have been deeply involved in this testing, and both are excited about the possibilities they see.
Q: Why is Westover Involved?
First and foremost, for Westover this is an opportunity once again to get girls' needs and learning styles front and center as we begin to develop e-learning strategies. It is a way to forward our mission as a leader in girls’ education. We have always said that Westover wanted to be the school that would not move on technology just because it is there; that we wanted to be the school that would work through how we could make use of technology to benefit girls. Being part of this online research allows us to use the strategies we have developed in our math and science classrooms - heavy use of collaborative work, connection of subject matter to other subjects and to the good of the world, use of writing skills, creative, hands-on classroom methods – through years of experience in all-girls settings and ask to what extent they could be used in electronic environments. It gives us a chance to shape how technology can be used with girls in mind, an opportunity to get girls in on the ground floor. That is one of the premises of the OSG. Web 2.0, our current web, is highly interactive, making collaborative projects, conversations, interactions not just possible, but easy. To be a pioneer in establishing e-learning for young women is exciting, and a place Westover should be.
Q: Are there other reasons for our work with the Online School for Girls?
There are two other reasons, one very practical, one altruistic, that should motivate us as a school.
The practical reason is this. Even a school as rich and deep in curricular offerings as Westover cannot offer everything. When we have a student who returns from an exchange term in Jordan who still wants to continue to study Arabic, we can't provide that. The on-line school can. When we have an exceedingly bright 10th or 11th grader who finishes Calc II at Westover, we want her to be able to study Calc III. This year we have three such students. Our options are 1) tell her Calc III is impossible to study at Westover 2) Hire someone to teach three students or, now, 3) Have someone, here or at one of our partner schools who will teach 15 such students at 8 different schools by doing it on line. And we will know the quality of the experience will be high, because the courses in the OSG will be monitored and approved by an education committee chaired by Westover's Science Department Head – great quality control externally, not to mention the oversight of Westover’s Academic Committee.
And lastly, the public purpose of this venture. If we want to make lasting change in our world, one of the surest ways of doing so is to improve the lot of women world wide. In turn, the surest way to help women is to educate them. Access to technology is becoming more and more widespread world-wide; the number of underserved women within our reach is ever increasing. The thought that we could bring some part of the privilege of a Westover education to, for example, the girls at our sister school in Rwanda, gives me chills. I think the OSG is a viable, important way to change the world by giving girls and women unheard of access to education. How transformative! How exciting!
Q: What are the next steps for Westover and the Online School for Girls?
Westover is committed, with the approval of the Board of Trustees, to the research currently going on. Internally, we have important questions to answer about how the courses from OSG could or should interface with our current curriculum. The Academic Committee will be taking a hard look at those questions in the term to come. There is no question that online courses will never replace the Westover experience – are there ways it might enrich it? Are there ways it might detract from it that we need to anticipate and prevent? Those are the in-house questions we will be addressing in the term to come.
Click here to link to Online School for Girls website.
