|
In President Sue’s absence, Past President Julie Pingston called our meeting to order at 12:29 – her first opportunity to ring the bell at an in-person meeting. A very appropriate invocation, focusing on educators and students alike, was given by Missy Lilje. John Dale Smith accompanied the club as we joined in singing “God Bless America”. Matthew McGaughey took charge of the microphone for the introduction of visiting Rotarians and guests. Nick Heriford introduced Tammy Willson, who was his guest as well as a visiting Rotarian from the Delta-Waverly Club. Katie Krick introduced Andi Earl, who recently became the Executive Director of Hospice of Lansing. No doubt she would have been introduced by John Person if he had been at today’s meeting. Past President Julie led the club as we recited the 4-Way Test. Yours truly informed the club that Pam Miklavcic’s surgery went very well and she is at home recovering. Otherwise, the health of the club is reported to be good. Apparently, Cathy Andrews, who has just returned from Florida, is longing for warmer weather – having provided the fact that Spring is only 44 days away as our first announcement! Past President Julie also told us about Rotarians who are doing great things. First, Chris Swope, best known as Lansing City Clerk, is assisting his husband as he moves his business, Bradley’s HG, to its new location in the former Old Town Marquee. This will allow for expanded offerings. Barb Whitney had a big week as the Lansing Art Gallery and Education Center moved to its new location in the former Knapp’s building. They now have storefront space and are ready for you to check them out! When a member brought up the city’s announcement of a new entertainment venue downtown, Past President Julie commented that there are many Rotarians who have been involved in this project. Ken Beachler introduced our special music, presented by Ryan Jordan, a senior at Haslett High School. Ryan pulled off a Rotary first by singing and playing the trombone. He is the son of missionaries who spent the first 7 or 8 years of his life in Siberia. At Haslett, he has had the male lead in two musicals. Ryan first treated us to a vocal performance, singing “Give a Man a Horse He Can Ride”, and followed that up with a beautiful selection for trombone. Both were accompanied by John Dale Smith. Past President Julie acknowledged Scott Watkins as our February Chair of the Month and introduced Nick Heriford as our Chair of the Day. Nick shared that our speaker, Jamey Fitzpatrick, is a huge Notre Dame fan and has a love of climbing. Perhaps his love of conquering mountains was key to tackling the quick shift in learning that was brought about by COVID and required a rapid expansion of Michigan Virtual’s resources. Jamey began his presentation by asking us a few questions: • How many of us had been to a chiropractor in the last 10 – 15 years. • How many have a relationship with someone that we first connected with through social media. • How many texts to communicate with family members. • How would we describe high school in one word. Many of us had positive responses to the first three questions. As for the last, our responses included boring, social and fun. Jamey explained that 70% of students think that high school is boring. When you consider that statistic with the fact that the national graduation rate is only about 80%, it is clear there is an education problem. Michigan Virtual has been providing online courses since 2000 to high school and middle school students. They also have provided professional development courses to over 750,000 individuals – teachers, administrators, bus drivers and anyone else who works in education. When those involved in education are asked to describe online learning, responses include innovative, equity strategy, not as good, differentiated instruction, impersonal, cost saving, privatize and job elimination – quite a range of opinions! When Jamey was in 9th grade, he suffered a back injury. His orthopedic surgeon recommended surgery, buy Jamey and his parents decided to put that off. After seeing an ad for a chiropractor, he made an appointment and after 3 months of treatment, his pain was eliminated. When he returned to the surgeon for a follow-up and reported the progress made with chiropractic, the surgeon stated that chiropractors were not medical professionals. Some have a similar view of virtual learning. It is important to note that virtual learning is not the same as emergency remote learning. COVID forced remote learning, but educators were not trained in virtual learning and struggled to map what they had been doing in person to a remote environment. Those things that work well face to face do not always translate well to a virtual environment. In 2006, Michigan recognized the importance of online learning and required that high school students needed to have an online learning experience to graduate. The requirement was not initially taken very seriously. It is important to understand that face to face learning is not the same experience for everyone. It should be noted that only a portion of learning should be online; students still need social interaction. Online environments provide infinite anonymity. For example, a teacher who inquires about the absence of a homework assignment through an online messaging system will get more honest answers to the questions, sometimes revealing home situations that are less than ideal. Different learners will respond differently to the two types of learning. Virtual leaning can certainly provide more opportunities to students who are learning in rural environments. Initial development of virtual content was primarily text based with some limited images. Connections were slow through dial-up modems, and some students had to connect via long distance calls. Infrastructure issues are greatly lessened today, but there are still areas where high-speed connections are a challenge. Virtual learning allows kids to be aggregated across several districts for economic reasons. This aggregation makes advanced learning available to kids who may not share an interest with any other students in their district. Education needs to be high tech and high touch. Many educators report that they get to know their virtual students better than the students they see face to face. Artificial intelligence is also finding its way into the classroom. AI can be used to automate the technical aspects of grading essays – things like punctuation and spelling – freeing up the teachers’ time for deeper discussions with the students regarding the content of their work. During the question-and-answer period, we learned that: • All Lansing school districts use Michigan Virtual to some extent • Tests are always proctored locally • Essays are automatically searched to make sure that the student has not plagiarized the content • The US is leading the world in online learning • Michigan was in the top ten for developing teachers, but no longer • We need to be prepping teachers for online learning • Michigan is in the top five for online learning • Online learning tends to be best suited for knowledge, not skill, although virtual reality may change that • Jamey can foresee a return to one room schoolhouses that utilize technology, where older students participate in the education of younger students • Regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – a group of students who live in varied communities will provide more varied answers to questions such as “What does _____ mean to you?” • Superintendents and principals have been signing up to teach with Michigan Virtual as an opportunity to from the best Past President Julie thanked Jamey for speaking to us and let him know that we would be donating to our Foundation in lieu of a speaker’s gift. Our meeting next week will be on the second floor of the Lansing Center with Patrick Anderson, CEO of Anderson Economic Group as our speaker. And with another ring of the bell, Past President Julie successfully ended her first in person meeting. Linda Lynch's email is: linda.j.lynch@gmail.com |
Patrick founded Anderson Economic Group in 1996, and currently serves as the company’s principal and chief executive officer.