Learning via Teleconference
March 11 , 2011 - A small group of students at Knightdale High School take an Advanced Placement (AP) Government class each morning. However, their teacher, Michael Miragliuolo, and the rest of their classmates are on the other side of the county in Cary at Green Hope High School.
This past fall, the Wake County Public School System received a grant from Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation to establish a special teleconferencing program between Green Hope High and Knightdale High. Distance education labs are now up and running at both schools.
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| Students at Knightdale High participate in an AP Government class being taught on the opposite side of the county at Green Hope High. |
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The funds were used to purchase and install cameras, microphones, television screens and the necessary technology to allow teleconferencing to take place between the two schools.
Even though they are separated by more than 25 miles, the students at Knightdale High said they are able to easily interact with their teacher and their fellow classmates at Green Hope High.
“It’s been really cool, because I feel like I’m actually a part of the classroom even though we are not really there,” said Knightdale student Trey Cooke. “We are really engaged in the learning environment. He’ll call on us, and when we raise our hands, he can see that we want to speak – it feels like we are in the classroom, but we are not actually there.”
The vision for the grant was to allow students at each campus to participate in advanced courses that are not offered on their respective campuses. For the students at Knightdale High, that meant having the chance to take AP Government this semester.
Melody Solomon, the social studies department chair at Knightdale High, said AP classes such as AP Government are offered based on the number of students interested in taking a particular class.
“It’s determined by student choice, and it was under-enrolled here at Knightdale, so we couldn’t offer it with the amount of students who had signed up for it,” she said. “So it’s a class we could have offered, but due to the small size, it’s perfect for this setting that we now have.”
The course is taught out of Miragliuolo’s classroom at Green Hope High. A flat screen television is mounted in the back of his room, so he can easily see his students at Knightdale along with the students who are sitting in his classroom at Green Hope.
“This is basically one of the few classes that they don’t have at Knightdale that we do, so now the students have this opportunity,” Miragliuolo said. “I think it’s great any time you can add additional classes, especially AP classes if you have motivated students who want to take them.”
In addition to providing opportunities to take more AP classes, the teleconferencing equipment is also helping to expand the horizons of students at both schools.
Rishi Simha, a senior at Green Hope High, said this partnership is benefitting students at both schools.
“To be able to have a class and a quality teacher like Coach is of upmost importance, so if they don’t have the class at Knightdale, it’s great for them to have it,” he said. “And for us here, it benefits us, because we get another perspective and different ideas because you learn a lot from different perspectives that opens your mind.”
Over at Knightdale High, Cooke agreed. “It’s neat, because we get to see what it’s like for other students in other schools,” he said.”They talk about current events in their school, so we learn about what Green Hope is doing, and we talk about what Knightdale is doing, so it just broadens your horizons as you get to see all the different stuff going on in the county. It’s just more perspectives to see.”
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| Michael Miraguliolo teaches AP Government at Green Hope High in Cary. |
While taking a class via teleconference may sound exciting, Solomon said that it does require quite a bit of self motivation and self discipline on the part of the students to be successful in this setting.
“I think it was an adjustment, because now they are in charge of their learning for the most part,” she said. “They have to make sure that they are on task. They are responsible for the reading. The teacher from Green Hope is not going to be there in their face talking to them about it all the time, so it’s definitely been an opportunity for them to step up and be more prepared for a college setting.”
Cooke said the experience has definitely helped to prepare him for life after high school.
“In college it’s going to be the same way,” he said. “When you take a big auditorium class, you have to do it yourself. There’s not going to be someone guiding you along the whole time. So it’s good to have the practice, and see what it’s going to be like.”
Miraguliolo said he has been impressed with how well his students at Knightdale High have adapted to taking a class via teleconference.
“I think there’s been great interaction,” he said. “I think everything is working out really well as far as the students and how much they are learning, and they are able to listen to other students discuss stuff. I’m trying to call on them a lot, so they feel like they are sitting in class. Occasionally you’ll have something where it would be nice if they could physically mix in with a group, but that’s really such a minor thing that I think the positives far outweigh the negatives.”
Teachers at both Knightdale and Green Hope said that plans are underway to expand the use of the teleconferencing technology at both schools. There has been some discussion about possibly offering AP Latin via teleconferencing next year and also partnering with area universities or museums to provide the students with even more educational opportunities.