Innovator Rob Schwartz, a teacher at a blended learning magnet school, shares how design missions validate "the individual over the content" and give students the freedom to fail. A technology education teacher for nearly two decades, Rob Schwartz is in his first year at Sheridan Technical High School in Fort Lauderdale, FL, a blended-learning magnet school where he teaches an online technology course. In his previous position at Seminole Ridge High School in Palm Beach County, Schwartz created Brainbuffet, a classroom website, and oversaw students’ efforts to create a plugin to gamify the blogging platform WordPress. Now, students using WordPress can choose a screen name and an avatar and participate in digital design “missions.” THE Journal: How does the online aspect of your school function? Rob Schwartz: It’s an interesting format. The students attend the school, so they’re there physically, and it’s a 1-to-1 school so they all have their own laptops. But there are a couple of classes that they take that are delivered fully online, and I teach one of those. As they take my class they’re together in a classroom with a lab assistant. The idea is to help students become familiar with online learning. Our students graduate with both a high school degree and a two-year tech-centered degree from Sheridan Technical College. THE Journal: What have you learned from this experience? Schwartz: I love what technology does for us, but I’ve seen how critical it is to be in touch with the community that you’ve built at a school. I’m an online teacher, but I find myself going down there every couple of weeks to spend time with the kids, because I feel that it’s such a critical part of things. I used to believe that an online resource could replace a classroom, but now I’m beginning to think it only replaces the textbook. The classroom environment — especially if it’s a really collaborative, innovative, problem-solving focused environment — is so important. And it’s not impossible, but it’s much harder to create that culture online. THE Journal: What can online teachers do to enhance student engagement? Schwartz: I took a couple of online courses myself, and one thing I learned is not to just write things up and have the kids read; I’ll record a video. I trained in Adobe software (I’m an Adobe Education Leader) and I’ve created a lot of my own tutorials, because with the online classes I’ve taken, I can see when the professor is really excited about it, and that’s a lot more engaging for me. Nobody wants to engage with content; people want to engage with other people about content. When we learn, it’s a human experience. If we try to remove the humanity too much from it and turn it into just technology, we’re missing out on a really critical part of that experience of learning. My situation is different from a lot of online courses because the kids are there together in the classroom. So I’ll ask them to work with a partner, and have them bounce ideas off somebody and go through that whole problem-solving process — which to me is learning.
Rob Schwartz is an online high school teacher in Adobe, yet he has this to say about the benefits of physically sitting in a classroom with his students: "I love what technology does for us, but I"ve seen how critical it is to be in touch with the community that you"ve built at a school. I"m an online teacher, but I find myself going down there every couple of weeks to spend time with the kids, because I feel that it"s such a critical part of things. I used to believe that an online resource could replace a classroom, but now I"m beginning to think it only replaces the textbook. The classroom environment ...is so important...it"s much harder to create that culture online."