A break... 150 day entry and exit system

Stage one: Analyze
"Every part's worth does not simply depend upon its role in its localized subsystem; it also depends upon its relationships with the rest of the parts, subsystems, and the entire system as well as its relationships with potential parts that are not yet (but could be) part of the system as well as the past history and relationships of the system!" (Ottenberg 1994)
The "Entry and Exit" system is a subsystem of the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School (SCCS). The Cyber School itself is a sub-system of the Saskatoon Catholic School System. This in turn is a sub-system of Saskatchewan Learning.
The following statements describe the mandate of Saskatchewan Learning:
"The mandate of the Department is to advance the social, economic and personal well-being of Saskatchewan people. This is accomplished through leadership and support programs from Early Childhood Development, through Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 12, to technical training and post-secondary education, and public library services. The Department provides responsive leadership to meet the learning and development needs of Saskatchewan children, youth and adults, and to meet the employment needs of the Provincial labour market. " (Saskatchewan Learning 2004)

The second level of the system is the Saskatoon Catholic Schools (SCS) and is described below:
"Saskatoon Catholic Schools has more than 15,000 students in five high schools, 34 elementary schools and two associate schools. The division employs approximately 1,550 teaching, service and support staff. The purpose of Saskatoon Catholic Schools is to assist parents and the local church community in the formation of students in heart, mind, body and spirit." (Etcheverry 2004)
Working with the Saskatoon Catholic Schools system (SCS) is the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School (SCCS) and it is described below:

"The World Wide Web continues to gain popularity as an instructional medium for high school students. Recognizing this, Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School offers cyber courses taught by teachers in our Catholic high schools. Cyber classes create an environment which will motive and inspire students to become knowledge builders. Through the use of technology and the internet, the student will inquire, encourage, discourse, collaborate and engage in active learning with their peers and their instructors." (Miller 2000)

The Exit and Entry is a sub-system used by the students with the SCCS. This sub-system replaced the normal semester system which is used within the SCS. The semester system was used by the SCCS for the first years of operation. The semester system divided the school year into two equal semesters. Each semester consists of between 90 and 100 hours of classroom instruction. The students attend the face to face classroom for an hour a day for approximately 100 school days. The flexibility of seven days a week, twenty four hours a day availability offer through the Cyber School did not match a system which was designed for an hour a day, 100 school day system.

"This simple fact, along with a number of specific replies, only serves to demonstrate once again that many of us are venturing into uncharted territory and we cannot attempt to use the new technologies in exactly the same ways we have used older methods of reaching our goals. Every new approach to any task brings both challenges and opportunities -- new possibilities as well as different limitations. Our task, first and foremost, must simply be to recognize this and act accordingly rather than attempting to force the new round peg into the old square hole." (Wade 2004)

The second reason the 150 day calendar system was devised was to solve the issue of low student success with the Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School students who started the courses after the semester had begun. The success rate of student who started their courses at the beginning of the school year or at the beginning of the second semester was 86%. (Climenhaga, 2004) These students were not the issue. However, the majority of our students were beginning their courses a week or longer into the semester. As shown in the diagram below, first semester began on August 26th and the largest registration spike is shown two weeks later. Second semester started Feb 2nd and largest registration spike is again shown two weeks later. Also what is shown in this diagram is that there was never any time during the year in which students were not registering for classes.
The students registering late had a disengagement rate of 40 percent, largely due to the student feeling of not being able to complete the course in the time allotted. A student who started the course online three weeks into a semester was still required to complete the course by the end of the semester. "This was setting the students up to fail." (Tunison 2001) By eliminating the end of the semester barrier, the main reason for students disengaging would be removed.

Stage two: Design
Based on this research we started to look at different approaches to course pacing.
"There are several course pacing options, including:
Course operates on one timetable with a set of beginning and end dates
Course is completely self-paced
Instructor makes a recommendation after specified trial period and invites/assigns students to join appropriate timetable for completing coursework.
Student picks a timetable at the beginning of the course and may be allowed one switch within prescribed time period." (Freedman, Darrow and Watson, 2002)
It was not so much the pacing of the courses, it was the beginning and end dates that were causing the disengagement. Or as stated by Freedman, Darrow and Watson (2002)
A lack of predictable patterns of timing for course entry" The result of the studies and research was a decision to attempt a 150 day system. It was known that even by changing the course pacing as stated by Grace and Smith (2001) where students are self-directed learners, there are still many issues that can present barriers to their success in flexible delivery. The 150 days system will at least remove the time barrier created by the semester system and give the students adequate time to complete the 100 hours of course material. Courses would still be based on the curriculum standard of 100 hours set forth by Saskatchewan Learning.
Stage three: Develop
A student could register at anytime of the year and would have 150 calendar days from that time to complete the course. One hundred and fifty calendar days is approximately the same number of days a standard school dual semester system gives for a student to finish a course. MacKinnon states "Education that is flexible, effective, responsive to learner needs, and sensitive to time, distance, and location-these characteristics are the important basic ingredients that distance education can offer schools interested in changing and improving their quality of education."
The 150 day system allows flexibility for the students by allowing them to register at any time of year. A student will be given 150 calendar days to complete the course. (This means weekends are included.) There will be no semesters recognized within this system. Each teacher in the Cyber School will teach 30 students at any given time. Once a course is filled, a waiting list will be created and when a spot opens, the next student will be placed into the course. Midterm grades will be submitted 75 days from the day the student started or the closest work day to that date. Final grades will be submitted 150 days from the day the student started or the closest work day to that date. The Cyber School teachers will not be working during the summer months of July and August. During this time no access by students will be allowed. Any students who register later in the school year and their 150 days would normally include time during July and August will have 60 days or a portion thereof added to their course. The 60 days or any portion thereof will be added to their active course time after the summer. The students will not be placed in the course or on the waiting list until they have finished the preparation course and get the email with their start date and welcome email to the Cyber School. The preparation course is a two to three hour course that explains the workings of the Cyber School. Each and every student is required to complete and show mastery within the preparation course to gain access to their requested courses. The Preparation course will not be counted in the 150 days.
Stage four: Implement
This was the stage of the process that caused the most problems. Once analyzing, design and development of the process was done, implementation needed to be done on three levels. The three levels are as follows:
Implementation from the students' point of view
Implementation from the teachers' point of view
Implementation from the home schools' point of view.
The implementation from the students' point of view was done via the communication tools that had already been developed for the Cyber School. Since the main method of dispersing information is the website, the result was a bold, strategically placed notice indicating the change in entry and exit into cyber school courses. This was then supported by a change in the registration process, highlighting the change to the entry and exit system as well as information sharing via the phone when interested students contacted the Cyber School.
The implementation for the teachers of the new system was the most difficult and problematic. To support the change for the semester to the 150 day system a couple of applications were developed. The standard calendar application which was used for the semester system to inform students where they should be in the course on any given day would not work for the 150 days systems because each student requires a personalized schedule. The application that was designed allowed the teachers to create a schedule that was based one day into the course. This in turn would allow a student to log into the application, enter their start date and it would generate a personalized schedule. The second application that was built was a tool that would assist in the tracking of students. It allows a teacher to keep track of students within the course, giving the teacher a calendar that contains information with all their students' progress through the course.
The problems that stemmed from the implementation of the system for teachers was the testing of new applications and is very well explained by Fullan (2002) "appreciate early difficulties of trying something new -- what I call the implementation dip. It is important to know, for example, that no matter how much pre-implementation preparation, the first six months or so of implementation will be bumpy;"
The implementation from the Home School's point of view resulted in some issues due to the lack of communication of the new system. Many of the issues that did arise came from students being involved in both the semester system as well as the 150 day system. Due to the fact the two systems do not match, important dates like honour roll calculation, university entrance marks, grad requirements, pre-requisites for in school courses were problematic because of the variation of end dates.
Stage five: Evaluation
Evaluation has been ongoing throughout the entire process of changing from the one system to the other as well as all level, home schools, administration, teachers, students and parents. The early evaluation has shown that the change has been the most positive to the least positive for students, parents, administration, home schools and teachers. Least positive for the teachers because of the amount of work necessary to implement the new system, lack of release time and hiccups in the new application needed for the system to be successful.

Conclusion
By following the steps, it allowed for a sound decision making process which justified the need for change through the analysis stage. The time needed to design a system, which would answer the problems, identified in the analysis stage. The development of a system using the outputs learned in the analysis and design stages. The implementation stage, although the weakest of the stages, gave a template to make the change happen. The evaluation stage still ongoing is starting to show the value of the change. The ISD process was a concrete approach to change and is best said by Fullan (2002) "the goal is not to innovate the most, but rather to innovate selectively with coherence; (2) it is not enough to have the best ideas, you must work through a process where others assess and come to find collective meaning and commitment to new ways;"

References
Climenhaga, S. (2004). [Data collected from current students in Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School] Unpublished raw data, Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School.
Freedman, G., Darrow, R., & Watson, J. (2002). University of California College Preparatory initiative & G. Lorenzo (Eds.), The California Virtual School Report: Vol. . A national survey of virtual education practice and policy with recommendations for the State of California (pp. 7,10,47,48,75). California: University of California.
Fullan, M. (2002, March). Principals as Leaders in a Culture of Change (Special issue) [Paper prepared for Educational Leadership]. Retrieved February 27, 2004, from http://www.michaelfullan.ca/
Grace, L. J., & Smith, P. J. (2001). Flexible delivery in the Australian vocation education and training sector: Barriers to success identified in case studies of four adult learners. [Special issue]. Distance Education, 22(2).
Keough, E. M., & McKinnon, N. C. (1995). J. M. Roberts (Ed.), Why the Information Highway: Vol. . Lessons from Open and Distance Learning. Toronto Ontario: Trifolium Books Inc. (Original work published 1995)
Miller, K.. Saskatoon Catholic Cyber School (2nd ed., Vol. 1) [Brochure]. Saskatoon: Mr. Print. (Original work published 2000)
Saskatchewan Learning (Ed.). (2004, February 15). Saskatchwan Learning website. Retrieved February 15, 2004, from http://dol.sasked.gov.sk.ca/
Tunison, S.. A study of instruction and community in a virtual high school. Unpublished manuscript, University of Saskatchewan.
Wade, A. (2004). Technology 3rd Question [What might the effect of technology be on interpersonal relationships and communication and the dynamics of the teaching and learning process?]. Retrieved March 9, 2004, from http://www.acpa.nche.edu/tech3.htm