Westview will be offering three more online courses to its students this fall: US History, World History, and Civics/Econ.
The courses will be asynchronous. US History and World History students will meet in person once a week, whereas seniors in Civics and Economics will have a completely online experience. Westview has already tried this asynchronous approach with two partially online courses, AP Computer Science, which meets four days a week, and ENS, which meets twice a week.
Online classes are already available through Poway Virtual Courses (PVCs), which are taught by teachers at other campuses. But US History teacher Bruce Steel, who is also head of the Westview Online Classes Committee, says that having online courses available at Westview is more convenient for students.
“The major difference [between PVCs and Westview courses is that] you’d be with a teacher here and you can go to their Wolverine Time, you can communicate with them instead of having to drive over to Del Norte or to Rancho Bernardo or wherever they’re holding the Poway virtual courses,” Steel said.
Already this semester, Chris Fousek has begun teaching an online Civics/Econ class. Fousek said there are plenty of benefits to taking courses online and that it is important for Westview to start offering more to keep students from opting for district offered online courses.
“All of the high schools are offering some online courses,” Fousek said. “We are actually behind on this. The trend is to create diverse and flexible environments in which learning can happen. Online courses and the flexibility that they offer in terms of scheduling for students, is one way that this can be accomplished. They have been offered at the district level for a while now, so if we do not offer them, then students will take them elsewhere.”
There are some existing apprehensions when it comes to conducting online learning. Fousek said that the biggest concern with online classes is the lack of in-person interaction between teachers and students.
“Discussions, both formal and informal, are just not the same online,” Fousek said. “Improvisational elements of discussion, such as hearing other students’ opinions, and practicing the skills of discussion, are the types of things that just don’t get worked on in an online course as much. Also, the reality is that when we are not in the classroom together, I don’t get to know students as well.”
However Fousek speaks more on the benefits and importance of online classes, specifically for Westview teachers and how they elicit job security.
“Our teachers’ jobs are protected each time we teach a section as opposed to giving it to a teacher at another school,” he said.