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 Florida, 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 problem is, we have so many people who are not connected to our communities and don't know where they can go if something goes wrong. it"s much harder to create that culture online."