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I really like the EPGY OHS program. My son tolerates being so busy because he likes the classmates and is learning a lot that he didn’t realize he didn’t know.  OHS parent

The core course Democracy, Freedom, and the Rule of Law meets at Stanford at 2 p.m., unless you are in New York City where it is 5 p.m. Of course, if you are in London it is 10 p.m., while in Seoul it is 5 a.m. the next day. From the energy of the students in the class, you would be hard pressed to tell what time of day it is or to know that these young people are scattered across the globe. And from listening to the familiarity expressed in the lively banter going on between students, you would not guess that most have never met face to face. You also would not guess, from the quality of the discussion, that they are not college students – though the cynics might suggest that it is precisely the lively pace of discussion that gives this fact away.

As you read this article, the first academic year of the sesquipedalian named Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) Online High School (OHS) at Stanford University will be completed. And 30 students and 10 faculty members will finally be catching their breath after a roller coaster first year.

EPGY OHS

The EPGY OHS (epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/) is a three-year, diploma granting, online independent high school for gifted students. The mission statement reads as follows: Through advanced technology, rigorous courses, and the resources of Stanford University, the Online High School affords gifted students everywhere an education ideally suited to their needs. The online school

• sets high expectations and challenges students to reach their potential.
• cultivates creativity, fosters analytical reason, and refines eristic skills.
• encourages students to pursue intellectual passions and engage in philosophical
        reflection.
• builds the foundation for success in future academic pursuits and in life itself.

It has been challenging to launch a high school designed for gifted students. The fact that the school is online, while important, has not been the focus. Decisions have been made for the sake of the pedagogical vision rather than for the sake of the technology. OHS is not an online school that happens to be for gifted students, but a school for gifted students that just happens to be online.

What drove us to create OHS? What decisions must be made when creating such a school? What should the student population look like? What course should be offered, and what should they be like? What makes the school different than other schools out there? What are some of the implications OHS has for gifted education in general?

Demographic of Initial Class

The initial OHS class consisted of 30 students, with 13 boys and 17 girls. Half of the students enrolled full-time in OHS, while the other half enrolled part-time.

Student age and anticipated graduation years were as follows:

Ages on first day of class

Expected year of graduation for entering class

Geographically, 23 of the students came from 12 states (Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington), while the other 7 students came from 5 other countries (Canada, Hong Kong, Korea, England, and Germany).

We purposely left vague our expectations concerning the age at which students enter the school, knowing that this would vary depending on a number of factors. We did not want to set clear requirements for age at graduation, other than making it clear that students should be finished with OHS by the time they are 18.

In designing the school we wanted to make sure that we would be able to accommodate the following types of students:

• 15-year-old sophomore looking for a rigorous academic program but unable to
        find one locally
• 13-year-old who has been accelerated across the board by one or more years and
        needs an academic program that allows further acceleration
• 13-year-old who is several years ahead in one subject area
        (e.g. mathematics/physics) but is otherwise a typical 8^th grader
• 17-year-old, happy with her current school but looking for advanced coursework
        in the humanities
• 16-year-old who has essentially completed high school but is not yet ready to enter
        college

The types of students described above are familiar to anyone who has worked with gifted students. They are also representatives of the types of young people who have traditionally taken courses from EPGY (epgy.stanford.edu/), a distance learning program through Stanford that has been in existence for years.

In the original design of OHS, we envisioned a three-year high school, expecting that entering students would have completed equivalent of a freshman year of high school; however, we found that this is not always realistic. While three years at the secondary school level may be sufficient for a high school diploma, additional years may be necessary if students are to be able to run ahead as far as they want without hitting a wall. In three years the accelerated 13-year-old may be in the position of the 16-year-old – that of having finished the courses necessary to graduate high school but not ready to head off to college.

In the case of such students and others listed above, the traditional class identifiers of sophomore, junior, and senior cease to be significant. Instead, we focus on the anticipated year of high school graduation, and even then we still need to distinguish between when graduation would first be possible and when it is expected.

Other distinctions that must be maintained are the type of admission and the type of student enrollment. While the 13-year-old accelerated in all subjects will be ready for admission to OHS, the 13-year-old accelerated in only one area, even though in a position to benefit from certain OHS courses, is not ready to be fully admitted as a student. Similarly, the 17-year-old who only wants to take particular courses, while perhaps qualified for full admission, may be interested in part-time enrollment. To address this, we have provided mechanisms whereby students can enroll on a part-time basis, either individually or through an institutional academic exchange program between OHS and their regular schools.

Core Courses and Characteristics

Because of the expected range of students’ abilities, ages, areas of interest, geographic diversity, and our desire to be as flexible as possible, we were concerned about losing coherence of the academic program. To address this, we established a common set of core courses with common features for all OHS students.

OHS Core Courses

The core courses provide students with content of unquestionable value that develops important academic skills in areas that have not already been studied.

We decided not to have objectives such as: “All OHS students will take AP Calculus” or All OHS students will take AP English” or “All students will study number theory and participate in mathematic competitions.” Instead, we developed a sequence of courses in philosophy, with a clear focus on critical reading, discussion, and argumentation. These courses provide students with both the skills required to be successful in any discipline and an analytical framework in which to integrate all subjects. The core consists of a three course sequence: History of Science and Culture; Democracy, Freedom, and Rule of Law; and Critical Reading and Argumentation.

This past year we began with Democracy, Freedom, and Rule of Law. Of the 30 students in OHS, 24 were enrolled in this course. While none of the students had any formal training in moral and political philosophy prior to entering the course, the level of discussion and the quality of written work were comparable to that of undergraduates at Stanford in the Introduction to Humanities sequence.

Common Course Characteristics

All courses offered at OHS have common characteristics that make them ideally suited for gifted students.

• College-style class schedule. A significant difference between high school and college is the amount of time that students spend in the classroom. While most high school students spend between 30-35 hours a week in class, most first year college students spend closer to 15-20 hours in class. The schedule at OHS follows the college model.
• Emphasis on critical reading, discussion, and argumentation. Not just in the core courses, but in all OHS seminar-style courses, emphasis is on fostering in students the ability to read closely, analyze arguments, and state positions clearly and forcefully.
• Enhanced mathematical content. The courses at OHS in sciences, mathematics, and social sciences have enhanced math content akin to what one would find in an undergraduate course at Stanford University.
• Individualization. One of the most frustrating things for gifted students is having their progress limited by the abilities of other students in the class. We address this in two ways. In directed study courses, where students work primarily independently, they are able to move as quickly as they wish. In seminar style courses, where pure self-pacing is not practical, accommodations are made by providing students with additional or more advanced material, and alternative discussion sections are pitched at a higher level.

Inside the Online Classroom

Most of the interaction between students in OHS takes place in the Online Classroom – an Internet conferencing environment in which students are able to communicate with each other in real time using voice, video, PowerPoint, Flash, and a shared whiteboard. All Online Classroom sessions are recorded and archived so that a student who is unable to attend a session live is still able to view it. A typical full-time OHS student spends approximately 10 hours a week in the Online Classroom. During the first year, approximately 2,000 hours of class sessions have been recorded and archived, including supplementary lectures.

The Online Classroom plays an important role in providing students with rich interaction on a regular schedule. Unlike many online programs in which students interact largely through stranded discussion groups and where much of the “class time” consists of students reading material on webpages or viewing prerecorded media, OHS brings students together in online classes with instructors on a regular basis. It is true that there are logistical obstacles to making this work, but they will diminish as the enrollment in OHS increases. As more sections are offered for each course, it will be increasingly easier for students to find times that work for them regardless of geographical locations or other commitments. We have been consistently impressed by the discussion sections, both in terms of the high level of academic discourse and the degree to which students have participated. While the core discussion is carried out in an orderly fashion on the audio channel, there is also a text chat window built into the software that allows for a second discussion. Furthermore, there is evidence from the behavior of students that some have other IM operating at the same time, giving a new twist on the age old phenomenon of passing notes in class.

The dynamics of the synchronous Online Classroom has another benefit which as been seldom mentioned in research on online learning – students remain active in a course by just showing up. In a purely asynchronous course the only way students demonstrate that they are in the course is by working on it. If you are not working, you are not noticed. For students with committed schedules and conflicting demands on their time, these courses become the easiest ones to sacrifice. A synchronous course is more like a traditional classroom. If you fail to show up your absence is noticed, but if you show up without having done the reading you may be able to bluff your way through and still learn something, often making up the reading later when completing the course assignments. This is not an endorsement of poor study habits, rather it is a recognition that the traditional classroom structure has mechanisms and safeguards against poor study habits and well established practices for addressing them. As a result, student course completion rates have always been significantly higher at EPGY in synchronous classes than they have been in purely asynchronous ones.

Outside the Online Classroom

OHS also provides students with opportunities to engage outside of class. Anyone who has ever attended a high school or college orientation has inevitably heard someone say, “Much of the learning that you will do at this institution occurs outside of the classroom, from interaction with your peers.” Many online programs fail to provide opportunities for this type of contact. This is the interchange that happens in the dorm room, the hallway while waiting for class to begin, or waiting for your parents to pick you up. Providing opportunities for social interaction is doubly important for OHS because, in addition to being an online school, it is a school for gifted students who may already feel isolated. Therefore, a central component of OHS consists of clubs and societies. OHS now has the type of clubs that one would expect: literary society, global affairs, student newspaper, as well as culinary society and Google Earth club. The groups have provided opportunities for students to get to know each other outside of class and form friendships that are an important part of school.

Off Campus (and On Campus)

While we have gone to great lengths to provide students with opportunities to pursue interests under the guidance of faculty, students in an online school also need to leave campus. Most of the students already have activities that consume their days. A number of students are serious musicians, nationally ranked athletes, or have highly booked schedules characteristic of many gifted young people. OHS students still want a place to “hang out” with their school friends. Rather than provide facilities within OHS, we have encouraged students to use available resources of the Internet to interact with each other.

This past year, some students traveled to Stanford University to come together on campus. The first occasion was for final examinations at the end of the semester in which six students including one from Asia, took their final exams on campus. The second gathering happened during spring break when a student local to the Stanford area hosted a number of social activities for those who could come to campus.

On Campus (Again)

While visiting with each other during vacation and finals weeks have provided ways for OHS students to connect in person, the OHS residential summer session provides a more intensive and regular opportunity for students to meet. The course of study for the 2007 summer session will focus on two areas: laboratory science and research seminars. Both of these courses will take full advantage of the resources of Stanford University.

In addition to these sessions, there will be a two-week campus orientation for new OHS students, providing opportunities to get to know each other and the instructors before school starts. The academic content during this session will be focused on essential study skills, particularly those required to succeed in an online learning environment. The course will be offered online for those unable to attend the orientation in person.

Observations and Ramifications

Another thing that stands out this year is the ease with which students adapted to being online for most of their courses. While three-quarters of the young people had previous online course experience, none came from a purely online situation. Yet, by the third week in the course, most had fallen into the natural rhythm. A number of OHS parents remarked that students formed faster friendships than they would have thought possible without face-to-face interaction.

Central to the mission of OHS is ensuring that gifted students anywhere are able to receive an education suited to their needs. OHS supports joint enrollment and exchange programs with traditional high schools. The goal of these programs is to encourage schools to consider participation in OHS as a simple and effective option for gifted students. Similarly, OHS encourages its young people to take courses elsewhere and to transfer credits. By doing this, they are able to craft academic programs suited to their interests. We want students to receive recognition for the advanced work they do in outside gifted programs and to be able to integrate this work in the structures of their high schools, especially when they are depending on those schools to give them diplomas.

OHS also provides a formal structure for those who have been homeschooled and need to solidify academic records before applying to college. Just over one-third of the current students in OHS are homeschoolers. For many of them, the transition to OHS has been relatively easy, as they have been used to working independently for long periods of time during the day. On the other hand, the structured assignments and expectations of OHS courses have required a certain amount of adjustment, as has the need to take examinations in a formal, externally proctored setting. Most students this first year made the adjustment well and are thriving within OHS.

Are highly gifted students, who have been accelerated in their education , better off entering college early? On one hand, a student who is ready to work at the university level is not fully served by having to remain in a traditional high school setting, with limited academic opportunities and peer groups. On the other hand, universities are generally not equipped to handle social and emotional needs of students much below the age of 18.

OHS offers these students a third choice – courses comparable in content and rigor to what is offered at Stanford University. Some courses, in fact, are offered to undergraduates during the summer. While the content and rigor are at high levels, the courses are taught by instructors who are experienced in working with younger gifted children. In addition, students work with other young people with similar abilities and intellectual histories. OHS is a school for gifted students, able to address both social and intellectual needs until it is time to move on to a university.