Why Distance Learning?

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, your hosts continue their conversation with Jered Borup — professor at George Mason University and one of the most-cited researchers in K-12 online learning — about what AI in education is actually doing to relationships, what social presence requires when "build a video lecture" can be done by a chatbot, and why teacher burnout is the real bottleneck the field doesn't want to talk about. Borup connects his earliest 2012 work on asynchronous video to his 2025 Open Praxis research on combining AI-generated text with human-created video, and argues that AI used to offload feedback erodes the very thing online learners need: the felt sense that the teacher is real and knows them.

Together, the hosts and Jered explore the conflation of social media, video games, and ed tech in the parental imagination after the pandemic; how to use AI without replacing the relational core of teaching; why one-on-one asynchronous video may build social presence more reliably than synchronous Zoom classes; the DLAC Phase 2 research agenda Borup co-authored with Michael Barbour and Kristen DeBruler; the mental-health gap between teachers and other professionals with comparable education; and Borup's one-line answer to the show's title question — that personalization and Universal Design for Learning are easier to do online than off.

This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Listen to Part 1 for the foundational ACE framework, the on-site mentor model, and the parent question.

Key Topics

• "Emergency remote learning" vs. real online learning — what parents are still confusing
• Social presence — old research, new tools (asynchronous video, AI-plus-human-video)
• The risk of offloading teacher feedback to AI
• Asynchronous one-on-one video as a relationship lever (vs. one-to-many Zoom)
• DLAC Research Agenda Phase 2 — what's keeping researchers up at night
• Teacher mental health and the AI strain on top of pandemic strain
• Authentic assessment and "we're too in love with the five-paragraph essay"
• Empathy as the core design move
• "Why distance learning?" — empowerment, personalization, UDL

Links & Resources

• Jered Borup's site: https://sites.google.com/site/jeredborup/
• ACE Framework on EdTech Books: https://edtechbooks.org/encyclopedia/academic_communities_of_engagement_ace_framework
• A Framework for Establishing Social Presence Through the Combination of AI-generated Text with Human-created Video (Open Praxis, 2025): https://openpraxis.org/articles/10.55982/openpraxis.17.1.769
• Harnessing the Power of Generative AI to Support ALL Learners (Borup, Evmenova & Shin, 2024): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380570253_Harnessing_the_Power_of_Generative_AI_to_Support_ALL_Learners
• DLAC Research Agenda Phase Two (Borup, Barbour & DeBruler, Sept 2025): https://www.deelac.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DLAC-Research-Agenda-Phase-2-Final-1052025.pdf
• Breaking Through the Screen: Practical Tips for Engaging Learners in the Online and Blended Classroom (Borup & Joan Kang Shin, National Geographic Learning): https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Through-Screen-Practical-classroom/dp/0357541855
• K-12 Blended Teaching open-source book series: https://edtechbooks.org/k12blended_series
• Jered's Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PGs7TacAAAAJ&hl=en
• Part 1 of this conversation: [LINK — add when published]

Guest Bio: Jered Borup

Jered Borup is a professor in the Division of Learning Technologies at George Mason University and co-coordinator of the Learning Technologies in Schools graduate program. His research, grounded in six years of junior-high history teaching, focuses on K-12 online and blended learning: the support communities that surround a learner, the parental role in online education, and how generative AI can extend personalized support to historically underserved students. He earned his Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University and has been recognized as one of the top 2% most-cited researchers in his field.

About the Hosts

Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered distance learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

Allyson Mitchell works with CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, to help educators implement high-quality live virtual learning experiences across grade levels. Discover more at CILC.org.

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, your hosts talk with Jered Borup — professor at George Mason University, co-creator of the Academic Communities of Engagement framework, and one of the most-cited researchers in K-12 online learning — about why student engagement isn't a property of the student or a skill the teacher unlocks, and why most online programs are leaving the work undone. Borup's framework distinguishes the course community (teachers, designers, mentors) from the personal community (parents, family, on-site adults) and argues engagement is what those two produce together. The assumption on the table: that "more parental involvement" is what fixes online learning — when in fact, untrained involvement, his research shows, can hurt about as often as it helps.

Together, the hosts and Jered explore the ACE framework's two communities, the on-site mentor model from Mountain Heights Academy and Michigan's mentor mandate, what it actually takes to teach a student how to learn online, the equity gap in who gets meaningful support, and where parents fit (and don't). Along the way: the Michigan administrator who tapped someone on the shoulder and said "you're now Sally's mentor," the parent with only a high-school diploma who turned out to be one of the 12 most successful mentors in the study, and the parent who confessed to Jered that she does her kid's online discussion-board posts because they're "busy work."

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

Key Topics

• The Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework
• Course community vs. personal community
• On-site mentors as the missing link in K-12 online learning
• Michigan's mentor mandate — and why fidelity varies by school
• Why "improved" parental engagement matters more than "more"
• Designing parent support: a trickle of just-in-time tips, not a class
• The equity gap in self-regulation and "how to learn online"

Links & Resources

• Jered Borup's site: https://sites.google.com/site/jeredborup/
• ACE Framework on EdTech Books: https://edtechbooks.org/encyclopedia/academic_communities_of_engagement_ace_framework
• Academic Communities of Engagement (Borup, Graham et al., ETR&D, 2020): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-020-09744-x
• Behind the Screen: Exploring Parental Roles in K-12 Online Education (Sandberg & Borup, Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 2025): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15391523.2024.2447729
• Parental Support Challenges for K-12 Student Online Engagement (Sandberg, Borup et al., Distance Education, 2024): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01587919.2024.2397481
• Michigan Virtual — Why Mentors Matter: A Conversation with Jered Borup: https://michiganvirtual.org/blog/why-mentors-matter-a-conversation-with-jered-borup/
• K–12 Blended Teaching (open-source book series): https://edtechbooks.org/k12blended_series
• Bobbi Sandberg episode (Why Distance Learning): [LINK — add when published]

Guest Bio: Jered Borup

Jered Borup is a professor in the Division of Learning Technologies at George Mason University and co-coordinator of the Learning Technologies in Schools graduate program. His research, grounded in six years of junior-high history teaching, focuses on K-12 online and blended learning: the support communities that surround a learner, the parental role in online education, and how generative AI can extend personalized support to historically underserved students. He earned his Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University and has been recognized as one of the top 2% most-cited researchers in his field.

About the Hosts

Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered distance learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

Allyson Mitchell works with CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, to help educators implement high-quality live virtual learning experiences across grade levels. Discover more at CILC.org.

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, Seth and Allyson speak with Bobbie Sandberg — an educational researcher who recently completed her PhD in instructional psychology and technology at BYU — about what's actually happening in the household when a K-12 student learns online, and why most programs aren't designed for the answer. Bobbie's research, grounded in Jered Borup's Academic Communities of Engagement framework, reframes engagement as a three-dimensional challenge — cognitive, behavioral, and affective — that K-12 students can't sustain alone. When the school is online, the support system shifts to whoever is home. And most programs haven't reckoned with what that means.

Together, Seth, Allyson, and Bobbie explore how parents naturally divide the labor of support, why more involvement isn't the same as better involvement, and what happens when families arrive at virtual school not by choice but because nothing else worked. Bobbie also shares what she's learned about the critical first weeks of enrollment, why explicit role invitations from programs make a surprisingly big difference, and the underrated power of affective engagement — including a story about refugee mothers whose aspirational storytelling did what tutoring couldn't.

Key topics discussed: 
- the three dimensions of student engagement and who owns each one
- why cognitive support from parents can actually backfire
- mooring factors and why families don't always "choose" online school
- the fire hose problem in onboarding; designing for autonomy instead of dependence
- why affective engagement might be the most underestimated variable in online learning.

Links & Resources:

• Bobbie's parent guide website: https://www.supportonlinelearning.com/parentguide.html
• Bobbie's parent assessment - HOPE survey: https://byu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7WdzYJPDpXve16K 
• "Behind the Screen: Exploring Parental Roles in K-12 Online Education" (Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 2024) - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15391523.2024.2447729
• "Parental Support Challenges for K-12 Student Online Engagement" (Distance Education, 2024) - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01587919.2024.2397481 
• "Choosing Virtual: Understanding the Forces that Drive Parents Toward Online K-12 Education" (Journal of School Choice, 2025) - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15582159.2025.2534005

Guest Bio: 
Bobbie Sandberg is an educational researcher who recently completed her PhD in instructional psychology and technology at Brigham Young University. Her work focuses on parental roles in K-12 online education, with published research on how families navigate school choice, how parents construct their support roles, and where programs most commonly fail to design for the home environment. She holds a BA in linguistics and a TESOL master's certification from BYU.

About the Hosts:
Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered distance learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/global-learning-live/

Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell work with CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, to help educators implement high-quality live virtual learning experiences across grade levels. Discover more at CILC.org.

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, your hosts talk with Dr. Helaine Marshall — retired professor of education at Long Island University Hudson and creator of SOFLA, the Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach — about the pedagogy most online courses never get around to designing, and what it costs when they don't. Drawing on five years of development work, Community of Inquiry theory, and her own linguistics teaching, Helaine walks through an eight-step cycle that treats synchronous virtual instruction as its own medium rather than a degraded version of in-person teaching. The reframe at the center of the conversation: online learning isn't a tool problem, it's a design problem — and empowerment isn't something teachers do to students, it's what happens when the conditions are built for it.

Together, the hosts and Helaine explore why most virtual classrooms default to lecture-over-Zoom, the eight-step SOFLA cycle that weaves asynchronous pre-work with structured synchronous sessions, the two steps that actually determine whether it succeeds (the SHAC share-out protocol and "preview and discovery"), the control issues that make teachers resist the model, and how SOFLA adapts across content areas — from linguistics to Boyle's Law — and age groups. They also work through Helaine's four E's framework — equity, enrichment, engagement, empowerment — and a single linguistic observation that reframes how to think about agency in virtual classrooms: empowerment is not a transitive verb.

Key Topics

• The eight-step SOFLA cycle: pre-work, sign-in, whole group application, breakouts, share-out, preview and discovery, assignment instructions, reflection
• Why pedagogy outlasts tech tools — and why most online teaching skips pedagogy entirely
• The SHAC protocol for accountable, substantive peer feedback
• "Preview and discovery" as the motivational hinge between lessons
• The four E's: equity, enrichment, engagement, empowerment
• P-P-R-R (patience, persistence, reflection, renewal) for teachers new to the model
• Adapting SOFLA across content areas, age groups, and even in-person classrooms

4. Links & Resources

• SOFLA® (book, forthcoming May 2026) — Helaine W. Marshall and Ilka Kostka, University of Michigan Press, Brief Instructional Guide Series: https://press.umich.edu/Books/S/SOFLA-R
• Helaine's SOFLA hub — overview, training team, and resources: https://malpeducation.com/sofla/
• Helaine's bio and full publication list — https://malpeducation.com/our-experts/helaine-w-marshall/
• "Fostering Teaching Presence through the Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach" — Marshall & Kostka, TESL-EJ, Vol. 24 (open access): https://tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume24/ej94/ej94int/
• Breaking New Ground for SLIFE: The Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm, 2nd ed. (2023) — Helaine's other signature framework (MALP), University of Michigan Press
• Meeting the Needs of SLIFE: A Guide for Educators, 2nd ed. — Marshall, DeCapua, and Tang, University of Michigan Press
• Perusall — the social annotation platform Helaine uses for pre-work: https://www.perusall.com/
• Flipped Learning Network — founded by Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams, referenced as the origin of flipped learning: https://flippedlearning.org/
• Community of Inquiry framework — Garrison, Anderson & Archer, the theoretical grounding for teaching presence: https://coi.athabascau.ca/
• CILC — Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration: https://cilc.org
• Banyan Global Learning — https://banyangloballearning.com/global-learning-live/

Guest Bio: Dr. Helaine W. Marshall

Dr. Helaine W. Marshall is the creator of two instructional frameworks — SOFLA (Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach) and MALP (Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm) — and currently serves as president of MALP, LLC, where she trains educators on both models. Her work centers on culturally responsive-sustaining education and online flipped learning, particularly for teachers working with language learners and students whose prior schooling has been disrupted. She is retired Professor of Education and Director of Language Education Programs at Long Island University – Hudson, has published three books with University of Michigan Press, and received the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award from New York State TESOL.

About the Hosts: 
Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators — building the kind of structured, human-centered distance learning the podcast explores. See https://banyangloballearning.com/

Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell work with CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, to help educators implement high-quality live virtual learning experiences across grade levels. Discover more at CILC.org.

This is the second of a two-part conversation with Michael Barbour, one of the most cited researchers in K-12 distance and online learning. Michael is assistant dean for academic innovation and integration at Touro University California, and has spent nearly three decades studying the design, delivery, and support of K-12 distance, online, and blended learning — as well as the policy and governance structures that shape it. If you haven't listened to part one yet, start there.

In this episode, we examine an assumption that surfaced repeatedly during the pandemic: that because distance learning has been around for decades, schools should have been ready. Michael has the data on why they weren't — and why, despite a global wake-up call, most still aren't. The numbers are striking: less than 10% of teacher preparation programs included any meaningful content on K-12 online learning even after COVID. And as Michael makes clear, the next disruption — whether pandemic, weather event, or political unrest — is not a question of if, but when.

From there, the conversation takes a surprising turn. Michael shares a counterintuitive research finding: students who had K-12 online learning experience actually performed worse as online learners at the university level — and he unpacks exactly why that happened and what it reveals about the difference between synchronous and asynchronous program design. He also walks through one of the most compelling real-world models of synchronous distance learning in K-12 — the Center for Distance Learning and Innovation in Newfoundland — and what it would actually take to replicate that kind of intentional design at scale.

"Every single one of your listeners, unless they plan on retiring in the next year or two, will likely experience another regional or global pandemic. And that's just on the pandemic side." — Michael Barbour

Topics covered:

• ~1:30 — Bridging policy, pedagogy, and technology: why hopes and prayers aren't a strategy
• ~3:20 — What the National Education Technology Plans have been saying since 1996
• ~4:20 — The teacher preparation gap: the numbers before, during, and after COVID
• ~7:20 — The history of pandemics and why every educator needs distance learning skills
• ~13:20 — A counterintuitive finding: why K-12 online experience made university online learners worse
• ~19:20 — Synchronous vs. asynchronous design and the CDLI model
• ~28:20 — Why distance learning matters for every educator, not just virtual school teachers

Links and resources:

• MichaelBarbour.com - all of Michael's research
• A Vision for K-12 Online and Blended Learning in Teacher Education — the teacher preparation work referenced in this episode
• Part 1 of this conversation is available now — start there if you haven't already.

1. Discover more virtual learning opportunities at CILC.org with hosts Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.
2. Seth Fleischauer's Banyan Global Learning combines live virtual field trips with international student collaborations for a unique K12 global learning experience. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/

This is the first of a two-part conversation with Michael Barbour, one of the most cited researchers in K-12 distance and online learning. Michael is assistant dean for academic innovation and integration at Touro University California, and has spent nearly three decades studying the design, delivery, and support of K-12 distance, online, and blended learning — as well as the policy and governance structures that shape it. His work has brought him before legislatures and policymakers around the world.

In this episode, we put a foundational assumption on the table: that research gives teachers answers. Michael makes a clear and generous case that it doesn't — and that both researchers and classroom teachers share responsibility for that misunderstanding. The distinction he draws between best practices and promising practices isn't semantic. It has real consequences for how leaders build cultures of evidence-informed decision-making, and how teachers are trained to engage with research in the first place.

From there, the conversation moves into some of the most persistent misconceptions in the field — including the idea that distance learning only works for certain types of students, and the often-overlooked role that local support plays in whether any online program succeeds or fails. Michael also challenges the assumption that face-to-face teachers have a natural engagement advantage over their online counterparts, and makes a compelling case for why the distance environment may actually offer more tools for meaningful connection — not fewer.

"The best that we can hope for in all honesty is that research might lead us to a promising practice as a starting point." — Michael Barbour

Topics covered:

• 00:00 — Michael's origin story in K-12 distance learning
• ~04:00 — Why teachers don't engage with research, and why researchers share the blame
• ~10:00 — Best practices vs. promising practices: why the distinction matters
• ~17:00 — Who distance learning actually works for
• ~21:00 — The role of local support in online program design
• ~24:00 — Engagement, belonging, and the myth of the visual cue
• ~30:00 — What "personalized learning" actually looks like in K-12 online contexts

Links and resources:

• DLAC Research Agenda Summary — referenced early in the conversation
• NEPC Newsletter: AI and Personalization in K-12 Online Learning — Michael's recent piece on what personalized learning actually means in practice
• Discover more virtual learning opportunities at CILC.org with hosts Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.
• Seth Fleischauer’s Banyan Global Learning combines live virtual field trips with international student collaborations for a unique K12 global learning experience.

About Our Guests

Dr. Brandon Ferderer is Head of Programming at Shared Studios and honors faculty at Arizona State University. A writer, performer, storyteller, and expert facilitator, Brandon holds a doctorate in intercultural communications from Arizona State University. His work spans private, education, and nonprofit sectors, harnessing communication technology to bridge cultural divides through dynamic educational and arts programs. His academic and creative works have been featured in Critical Studies in Media Communication and The Seventh Wave, and he has performed at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Phoenix Art Museum, the Moth Main Stage, and the Dixon Theater in New York City.

Ross Phillips is a social studies teacher at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire. Holding a master's degree in education from the University of New Hampshire, Ross is passionate about bringing the world into his classroom through live virtual connections. An avid world traveler who has explored Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Egypt, Italy, Iceland, and beyond, Ross uses real-world application to ignite students' curiosity for non-Western history, law, and geography.

What Is Shared Studios?

Shared Studios is best known for its immersive portals — repurposed shipping containers equipped with audiovisual technology that place users in a full-body, face-to-face conversation with someone in a similar container in one of 20–25 countries around the world. But at its core, Shared Studios is a network of people: trained facilitators and community members around the globe — from community activists to UN officials — brought together to create meaningful educational connections. Programming can be delivered through the immersive portal environment or via video conferencing.

Key Topics Discussed

Why immersive portals go beyond video conferencing Brandon explains that 65–75% of a message's meaning is communicated nonverbally. While video conferencing restored face-to-face visibility, it also introduced "Zoom fatigue" — the tendency to monitor how we appear to be connecting rather than actually connecting. The portal creates full-body presence and a sense of accountability to your conversational partner, which is essential for building genuine empathy.

The origin story of Shared Studios Founder Amar Bakshi originally built the portal concept to help his grandmother feel connected to her native Pakistan — imagining her sharing a chai in a café. The first portals debuted at a New York art gallery and in Tehran, Iran, where the profound emotional responses (women dancing freely behind closed doors, a young man coming out) revealed the technology's transformative potential.

How Ross uses the portal at Winnacunnet High School Ross has built years of relationships with curators in Mexico City, Kigali, and other sites. Students recognize facilitators by name, ask about their lives, and engage in deeply personal conversations — including discussions about the Rwandan genocide with survivors and their families, a topic directly tied to New Hampshire's state curriculum standards.

The role of the facilitator On-site facilitators like Ross help students acclimate to the unique, distraction-free environment of the portal. The shared studios curators on the other end are trained to handle sensitive or culturally awkward moments as teachable opportunities rather than offenses — creating a space where students can "trip up" and grow.

Reaching reluctant learners Rather than leading with heavy topics, Brandon and Ross recommend starting with common ground — video games, food, music, daily life. A memorable example: skeptical Arizona State students connected with young men in Herat, Afghanistan over football and video games, and ended up in a 45-minute conversation about U.S.-Afghan relations.

Preparing students for cross-cultural conversations Shared Studios uses "shared understandings" drawn from the Mejlis style of dialogue — an approach rooted in Arab cultures emphasizing equity in speaking time, active listening, and respectful engagement. Brandon also discusses the importance of teaching students the difference between cultural relativism and universalism before entering conversations.

Why distance learning matters Both guests emphasize that the problems facing the next generation — climate change, refugee crises, global poverty, genocide — are deeply interconnected and cannot be solved by any one nation or culture. Distance learning, especially in immersive forms, is how we build the global citizens equipped to meet those challenges together.

Quotable Moments

"Video conferencing has been really great for connecting us. It has not been so good at creating connection between us." — Dr. Brandon Ferderer

"I've never walked away from a connection being like, 'Well, that didn't go well.' There's always a nugget." — Ross Phillips

"We have to find ways to put young people into conversation with people who are different than them... distance learning is the way that we do that." — Dr. Brandon Ferderer

Resources & Links

• Shared Studios
• Winnacunnet High School
• Find all episode links and visuals at cilc.org/podcast

Host links:

1. Discover more virtual learning opportunities at CILC.org with hosts Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.
2. Seth Fleischauer’s Banyan Global Learning combines live virtual field trips with international student collaborations for a unique K12 global learning experience. See https://banyangloballearning.com/global-learning-live/

Enjoyed this episode? Tell a friend, follow the podcast, and leave us a review! Editing by Lucas Salazar.

After attending DLAC — the Digital Learning Annual Conference — founded by John Watson, one thing is clear: the digital learning community doesn’t retreat under constraints. It builds.

Yet, for some, the question persists:
Was distance learning just a pandemic stopgap? Or is it a durable part of education’s future?

In this episode, John Watson joins us to unpack what the field actually learned from 2020 — and what it didn’t.

One of the most persistent misconceptions, he argues, is the conflation of emergency remote instruction with purpose-built online learning. High-quality digital programs take months or years to design. What happened during the pandemic was an emergency pivot. Those are not interchangeable.

More importantly, this conversation reframes the debate entirely. The future isn’t “online versus in-person.” It’s about expanding options.

What We Explore

• Why online learning should be compared to real on-the-ground alternatives — not idealized versions of school.
• How digital access enables other opportunities (CTE pathways, dual enrollment, flexible schedules), not just online coursework.
• Why hybrid models are emerging as one of the most dynamic growth areas in K–12.
• What personalization actually means — beyond superficial choice menus.
• How AI may reshape agency, instruction, and lifelong learning in unpredictable ways.
• A powerful story of a student who moved from functional dropout status to graduate school through a hybrid pathway.

Throughout the conversation, a consistent theme emerges: Success should not be measured at the system level alone. It has to be measured at the level of individual students and the futures they’re building. Distance learning isn’t valuable because it’s digital. It’s valuable because it creates flexibility where rigidity used to exist.

A Shift in Perspective

Instead of asking whether distance learning has a future, perhaps the better question is:

How do we design systems where digital tools expand human possibility — rather than merely digitize existing constraints?

The schools represented at DLAC are not arguing for replacement models. They are building blended ecosystems that combine online coursework, face-to-face experiences, internships, community partnerships, and emerging technologies in ways that make school more adaptive.

Episode Links

• Learn more about DLAC and their year-round professional learning communities: https://www.deelac.com
• Explore additional episodes and resources: https://www.cilc.org/podcast

About the Hosts

Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning, which designs structured live virtual and global learning experiences that expand student connection across classrooms and continents.

Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell work with CILC to support educators in implementing high-quality digital learning experiences across grade levels.

🎧 Listen in for a grounded conversation about what’s hype, what’s durable, and why distance learning is less about modality — and more about access, design, and student futures.

Virtual learning didn’t start as a tech experiment. It started as a capacity and access solution.

In this conversation, Julie Young traces the early design logic behind Florida Virtual School—what problems it was built to solve in the mid-1990s, and what that origin story still reveals about rigor, relationships, student identity, and how to design learning systems that scale.

You’ll hear why the mission was never “deliver online,” but break the capacity ceiling—especially in places where schools couldn’t staff courses, couldn’t afford expansion, or literally didn’t have rooms to add sections.

Key Ideas and Moments

1) “Virtual delivery was the means, not the mission.”

Julie frames FLVS as a response to overcrowding, teacher shortages, and unequal course access—not a fascination with the internet.

2) The AP “try it with a safety net” design

An early innovation: students could attempt AP coursework while having a built-in path back without public shame, sometimes even with the same teacher—reducing fear of failure and expanding who even tries advanced courses.

3) Why some students “become a different person” online

Julie describes how virtual learning can enable students who were failing or labeled in traditional settings to succeed because:

• they can move faster or slower without an audience,
• teachers can give more individualized attention,
• relationships can be built deliberately,
• bullying/social status pressures are reduced.

4) Relationship-building as an operational system, not a vibe

Early FLVS practice emphasized front-loading relationship-building: extended calls, deep parent conversations, learning student voice through writing, and using that baseline for both instruction and academic integrity (in an era before tools like Turnitin).

5) The parent’s role: support pace, don’t replace the teacher

Julie is explicit that FLVS was designed with teachers responsible for learning, and parents as partners for pace, communication, and context—not as the primary instructor.

6) What online makes possible in K–12 ↔ college pathways

From ASU Prep Digital, Julie shares how online models remove “physical campus” and age-related barriers in dual enrollment—making authentic college coursework possible even for unusually accelerated middle school students.

7) Why she wrote the book now

Julie’s book aims to capture 30 years of policy, research, mistakes, and breakthroughs—the “drama and trauma” of building an industry that many newer educators only encountered through the distorted lens of 2020.

Who This Episode Is For

• Policy and system leaders shaping virtual/hybrid strategy
• District and school leaders designing scalable online programs
• Instructional designers and program operators trying to make relationships reliable at scale
• Anyone tired of pandemic-era assumptions substituting for real history

Links & References

• Julie Young Education - https://www.julieyoungeducation.com/
• Julie's new book Virtual Schools, Actual Learning: Digital Education in America (with Julie Peterson and Kay Johnson)
• Florida Virtual School - https://www.flvs.net/
• Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration - https://www.cilc.org/
• Learn more about Banyan Global Learning: https://www.banyangloballearning.com

How do you know if your virtual program is actually high quality—without reducing it to a checklist?

Dr. Chris Harrington returns to the podcast to share how he’s building the Virtual Learning Accelerator: a human-centered system that helps leaders assess program quality, translate results into priorities, and support teachers over time—without outsourcing professional judgment to AI.

What you’ll get from this episode

• A clear way to think about quality as a system, not a tool or a single role
• How standards-aligned self-assessment becomes useful instead of performative
• Practical guardrails for using AI to speed up improvement without distorting it
• A sustainable model for improving virtual programs year over year

Key moments

• 00:01–02:05 — Why the quality question matters now
• 02:20–07:30 — The Virtual Learning Accelerator: coaching, assessment, and PD as one system
• 09:46–14:45 — How the needs assessment works (14 standards, ~45–60 minutes, instant report)
• 15:45–18:45 — Why the AI launch was delayed: tightening rubrics and recommendations
• 21:03–26:40 — Turning scores into action: why coaching is the translation layer
• 28:30–36:10 — Supporting teachers at scale: micro-courses aligned to online teaching standards
• 37:00–40:10 — Revisiting “Why Distance Learning?”: the shift from access to quality

Links

• Virtual Learning Accelerator: digitallearningworks.org
• EmpowerED Research Institute: empoweredresearch.org
• National Standards for Quality Online Learning: nsqol.org

Host Links

1. Discover more virtual learning opportunities at CILC.org with hosts Tami Moehring and Allyson Mitchell.
2. Seth Fleischauer’s Banyan Global Learning combines live virtual field trips with international student collaborations for a unique K12 global learning experience. See https://banyangloballearning.com/global-learning-live/