Starting with the home schoolers

Tomorrow marks my first day with a group of about 20 online Spanish high school (and academically mature middle school) students.  They range from 6th to 12th grade.  I could never imagine having a group in a traditional classroom setting where I have such a wide age range of students.  But in an online format, this is going to work!  Because online learning is so individualized, each student who is capable of learning the content can do so, if they put forth the effort.  Age is not going to be that big of a factor.  I can push more advanced students to go further in their language while allowing the ones who are just trying to grasp the basic objectives of the course to meet those goals.

I believe this will be a positive learning experience for these students for several reasons.  First, there is a sense of anonymity when students are in a class together online.  They don't even have to share their ages with classmates if they don't want to.  This anonymity often causes higher confidence levels in shy or insecure students.  Not to say that younger students always have to feel more insecure than older students, but it would be natural if they do.  Being behind the computer screen can provide a huge ego boost.

Second... there will be little-to-no chance for tomfoolery, mischief or bullying in my classroom.  Cases of multiple siblings in a class sharing a web conference session may be different, but at least I don't have to discipline them! (And I do have a couple of sibling pairs taking the class.)

And third, these are home school students.  They tend to be some of the most mature, well-behaved, focused, polite students in our country.  Coming from a public high school teaching setting, I look forward to this change, this voraciousness about learning, this desire for knowledge.  When talking to a mom about whether or not her 6th grade son could handle this course, I asked her to tell me a little bit about him as a student.  When I learned that he has already studied Hebrew to translate the Old Testament from it's original language, I knew that this is a kid that will probably teach me a thing or two!  I expect him to do very well in Spanish.

I can't wait to see how this is going to work out... I anticipate it will be GREAT!