Traditional principals have suddenly become "virtual principals" who need support navigating this new landscape of online learning.

No Longer Left Out in Cyberspace: How to Empower Virtual School Leaders

The brick-and-mortar school archetype is fading as the pandemic persists. Traditional principals have suddenly become virtual principals who need support navigating this new landscape. Despite this shift to remote learning, virtual leadership discourse remains in the margins.

As the growth trajectory for online learning surges, how can we develop the influential virtual leaders we need now—and in the future? In the long term, school districts will need to invest in programs to prepare principals who address virtual leadership's unique challenges. However, in the short term, school leaders can turn to veteran cyber-school principals for guidance. In my study, Leading from a Distance: The Virtual School Principal as Instructional Leader, I outline four critical actions for effective and innovative virtual leadership.

“Virtual learning growth has outpaced the limited research on effective practices in virtual leadership; It is necessary to develop new resources to address the virtual school principal's unique needs.”

Establish New Paradigms for Measuring Student Achievement

Leaders must question standard practices and metrics used to define online learning success. First, they must ensure that their students understand how to succeed in a remote environment. Educators cannot assume that students have internalized best practices for online learning. Schools should offer an "introduction to online learning course" that covers best online learning practices. The course might include submitting and revising assignments, staying organized using digital calendars, communicating effectively through the school's online platform, finding contacts for technical assistance, and understanding daily work expectations. Put simply: schools must remove as many technical barriers as possible that prevent students' empowerment for learning. This pre-emptive step will ensure that teachers do not misdiagnose logistical challenges as academic ones.

Next, online leaders should work with teachers to establish quality standards for online courses. During my interviews with virtual principals, leaders shared that they have leveraged tools like the ISTE Standards for Educators, iNACOL's National Standards for Quality Online Courses, and Quality Matters rubrics to guide their staff in designing practical online courses. These models provide excellent roadmaps for educators who do not know where to begin.

Once leaders set the foundation for success in remote learning, they must develop a strategy to monitor student learning without relying solely on course completion as the measure. The National Education Policy Center's report on virtual school effectiveness reveals that course completion rates are dismal. To improve completion rates, principals I interviewed reported that they employ tracking and reporting course completion protocols. However, the propensity to track completion rates may distract well-meaning principals from focusing on rigorous teaching and learning.

Instead, online principals should capitalize on autonomous structures endemic to digital learning that do not re-inscribe teacher-directed pathways. For instance, principals could require students to set and achieve their weekly progress goals. This new metric moves the conversation to individual, learner-focused targets that will improve students' overall class success and develop self-agency.

Invest in the Professional Development of Online Educators

Historically, online principals have been dissatisfied with the quantity and quality of virtual educators' professional development opportunities. To address the gap, the virtual leaders I interviewed joined forces to offer professional learning opportunities to their teams through grassroots, "non-conference" type experiences; still, online teachers' needs remain largely unmet. Now is the time to allocate more resources to support district-run online programs. Local educational agencies, intermediate school districts, and national associations for curriculum and instruction should design affordable and accessible professional development programs to help their digital colleagues meet these unique challenges. As online schooling expands, superintendents and state-level leaders must right-size professional development budgets to reflect the proportion of online students they serve.

Consider Zero-Based Design for Online Teacher Evaluation Systems

Online principals expressed the need for teacher evaluation tools and processes that reflect online teaching's unique experience. The online leaders I interviewed attempted to revamp traditional evaluation rubrics and apply them to online contexts. They spent significant time revising standard frameworks and tools for their teams and grew frustrated with the lack of available models for assessing quality online instruction.

Revising a traditional teaching rubric may unintentionally exclude teaching standards specific to distance education pedagogy like transactional distance. It is the psychological space created when students and teachers are separated by time and space. Transactional distance requires that educators implement certain teaching and learning behaviors to reduce students' disconnected feelings. Practices to reduce transactional distance do not appear in traditional rubrics, yet online educators regularly wonder how to increase dialog, structure their courses, and promote learner autonomy. Online educators would benefit from participating in a zero-based design approach to capture online teaching's distinct features.

Increase Visibility in Virtual Learning Spaces

Online principals need to be actively present in learning communities. A few simple ways principals can increase their visibility are: engaging students during synchronous class sessions, hosting virtual town hall meetings, holding focus groups or assemblies on specific topics of interest to various student cohorts, and communicating more formally via live daily announcements. These techniques could help principals establish presence and investment in the virtual learning community.

Virtual learning growth in the United States has outpaced the limited research on effective practices in virtual leadership. It is time to move beyond brick-and-mortar leadership strategies and develop new resources to address the virtual school principal's unique needs. With remote learning options here to stay, novice virtual principals can increase their effectiveness with these four critical insights from veteran cyber-school leaders.

About the Author

Dr. Sarah Pazur is the Director of School Leadership for a network of public-school academies across Michigan. She is co-founder of FlexTech Education, a professional development organization specializing in project-based and competency-based learning, a Michigan Competency Consortium member, and a Deeper Learning Leadership Forum fellow with Envision Learning Partners. Dr. Pazur's writing has appeared in EdWeek, Ed Surge, Getting Smart, English Leadership Quarterly, and Hybrid Pedagogy. She is currently working on a book chapter on the role of poetry in educational leadership, which is part of a proposal under consideration at Teachers College Press.

References

Molnar, A., Miron, G., Elgeberi, N., Barbour, M.K., Huerta, L., Shafer, S.R., Rice, J.K. (2019). Virtual schools in the U.S. 2019. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/virtual-schools-annual-2019.

Moore, M. (1997). Theory of transactional distance. In D. Keegan (Ed.), Theoretical principle of distance education (pp. 22–38). New York: Routledge

Moore, M., & Kearsley, G. (2005). Distance education: A systems view of online learning. CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Pazur, S. (2019). Leading from a Distance: The Virtual School Principal as Instructional Leader (Doctoral dissertation) Oakland University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019. 22582703.

Young S. & Bruce M. A. (2011). Classroom community and student engagement in online courses. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 7(2), 219–230.

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) - Observatory of Educational Innovation.

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No Longer Left Out in Cyberspace: How to Empower Virtual School Leaders