Why Distance Learning?

In this episode of Why Distance Learning?, Seth, Allyson, and Tami continue their conversation with Dr. Mark Deschaine — Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Mississippi and editor of the Journal of Contemporary Research in Education — about what it actually means to individualize, differentiate, personalize, and build presence in online learning environments, and why treating those four things as synonyms has real consequences for practice. Deschaine frames the discussion through decades of research in special education policy, online learning design, and teacher preparation. Together, Seth, Allyson, Tami, and Mark explore the four distinct instructional frames — individualization, differentiation, personalization, and presence — unpacking each one's theoretical basis and what it requires from a teacher or program designer. Mark introduces a four-quadrant framework for educational decision-making — theoretical, legal, empirical, and practical — that grounds those choices in something more durable than intuition. Seth synthesizes the two frameworks into a single arc: differentiation creates the conditions, individualization targets the path, personalization restores the learner's agency, and presence is the measure of whether it worked. The conversation then turns structural: as tens of thousands of students leave traditional systems for homeschooling and micro schools, school districts lose not just enrollment revenue but their roles as the primary economic engines of rural communities. Mark traces how state variation in school choice policy, educational savings accounts, and the decentralization of federal funding are reshaping where families live — and what kinds of learning infrastructure those communities can sustain. The episode ends on a question Mark leaves deliberately open: does a community have the resilience to absorb this level of change? Key topics: Individualization, differentiation, personalization, and presence as four distinct instructional frames Four-quadrant decision-making: theoretical, legal, empirical, and practical How special education's IEP model illuminates what individualized learning actually requires Homeschooling growth and its impact on traditional school enrollment and funding School districts as community economic engines — and what happens when they shrink State variation in school choice, educational savings accounts, and online learning access Geographic equity gaps in who can access distance learning Links & Resources: "Framing Instructional Strategies as a Concept in K-12 Digital Learning" — Deschaine, Rice & Rose, ResearchGate, March 2026. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/402734231 "Providing Special Education Services in Fully Online Statewide Virtual Schools: A Policy Scan" — Deschaine et al., 2020. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340436252 National Standards for Quality Online Learning (NSQOL): https://nsqol.org/ Michigan Virtual: michiganvirtual.org The Reflective Practitioner — Donald Schön: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/donald-a-schon/the-reflective-practitioner/9780786725366/?lens=basic-books Guest Bio: Mark E. Deschaine, PhD Mark Deschaine is a Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Mississippi, where he prepares MA, EdS, EdD, and PhD candidates for school and district leadership roles and serves as editor of the Journal of Contemporary Research in Education. His research focuses on online learning policy, special education in virtual school settings, and differentiated instruction — grounded in a practitioner career spanning building-level principal, special education teacher, and paraprofessional. He is a Research Fellow at Michigan Virtual and a Leadership Team Member for the National Standards for Quality Online Learning. About the Hosts: Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and a host of Why Distance Learning, a podcast for education leaders and practitioners making real decisions about how virtual learning gets designed, adopted, and sustained. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring are co-hosts of Why Distance Learning and members of the team at CILC — the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration — which connects students to real experts through live virtual field trips and experiences. See https://cilc.org

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, Seth, Allyson, and Tami speak with Heather Gate — Executive Vice President of Digital Transformation at Connected Nation — about how the digital divide keeps changing shape, and why closing it takes more than laying cable. Together, Seth, Allyson, Tami, and Heather explore what "meaningful use" actually looks like — filling out a job application, setting up multi-factor authentication, helping a kid with homework — and why Heather argues the same access-versus-skills gap that shaped broadband adoption is now reopening around AI. They dig into how Connected Nation builds community-specific technology action plans (including a look at Bastrop County, Texas), the Teens Teach Tech program that pays teenagers to train their own neighbors and grandparents, and the idea of "digital compassion" as a companion to AI literacy. Heather also previews Connected Nation's attempt at a Guinness World Record: 25 straight hours of live digital skills training across six continents to mark the organization's 25th anniversary. She closes with one of the more memorable answers the show has gotten to its closing question, using a rural Kentucky classroom's remote-controlled telescope to make the case for what distance learning is really for. Key Topics: Meaningful use vs. broadband access The evolving definition of the digital divide The emerging "AI divide" Technology action plans and community readiness Teens Teach Tech program Digital compassion and AI safety Connected Nation's 25-hour Guinness World Record livestream Links & Resources: Connected Nation — https://connectednation.org 25 Hours. One Connected World. (Guinness World Record livestream, September 24–25) — https://connectednation.org/25-hours-one-connected-world Teens Teach Tech program — https://connectednation.org/programs/teens-teach-tech AI Literacy Resource Hub — https://connectednation.org/resources/ai-web-resources "Beyond Access" digital literacy report — https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beyond-access-new-report-explores-how-digital-literacy-impacts-economic-educational-and-health-outcomes-in-america-302390208.html Connected Nation's VP of Digital Inclusion named FCC Communications Equity and Diversity Council Chair — https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/connected-nations-vp-of-digital-inclusion-to-lead-fccs-communications-equity-and-diversity-council-as-chair-301404939.html The Divide (Light Reading podcast): Heather Gate on maps, grants, and the "future-proof" fallacy — https://www.lightreading.com/digital-divide/the-divide-connected-nation-s-heather-gate-on-maps-grants-and-the-future-proof-fallacy Guest Bio: Heather Gate Heather Gate is Executive Vice President of Digital Transformation at Connected Nation, where she has led digital inclusion strategy for nearly two decades, focusing on rural communities, minority populations, and other groups historically left behind by broadband access and digital skills gaps. She chairs the FCC's Communications Equity and Diversity Council and holds degrees in computer science and public administration from Kentucky State University. About the Hosts Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and a host of Why Distance Learning, a podcast for education leaders and practitioners making real decisions about how virtual learning gets designed, adopted, and sustained. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring are co-hosts of Why Distance Learning and members of the team at CILC — the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration — which connects students to real experts through live virtual field trips and experiences. See https://cilc.org

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, Seth talks with Dr. Mark Deschaine - Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Mississippi and editor of the Journal of Contemporary Research in Education - about what online teacher preparation actually requires, and why this moment of institutional disruption represents a structural opening for distance learning. Deschaine draws on three decades of work at the intersection of online learning policy, special education research, and K-12 practitioner experience. Together, Seth, Allyson and Mark explore why teacher preparation programs still treat online instruction as a digital extension of face-to-face teaching rather than its own discipline, and what the NSQOL standards actually get right (and why state adoption is uneven). They trace the structural roots of "à la carte education" — the pandemic-era shift in which parents bypassed school-provided content and found it wasn't that hard — and Mark argues it wasn't an anomaly but a preview. He walks through the three gojies — pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy — as a framework for understanding how learner agency changes across contexts, and makes the case that a heutagogical twelve-year-old with internet access could test out of their grade if the system would let them. The conversation builds toward a central claim: what traditional schooling sells isn't content, it's credential and trust — and right now, both are actively eroding through school choice legislation, educational savings accounts, and the dismantling of federal categorical funding. That erosion, Mark says, is where online learning's real opportunity lives. He closes with a preview of decentralized learning, soul-bound tokens as credentialing infrastructure, and the fourth "gogy" he's currently developing — agentagogy — a framework for learning with agentic AI he'll be presenting at AACTE. Key topics: Online teacher preparation as a distinct discipline (not technology added to traditional training) NSQOL standards: what they are, why states adopt them, and where they fall short À la carte education: the post-pandemic structural shift in family-school authority Pedagogy, andragogy, and heutagogy — the three frameworks for learner agency Credential and trust erosion in traditional schooling Decentralized learning and soul-bound tokens as credentialing alternatives Diffusion of Innovations: why the DLAC community matters Links & Resources: "Ala Carte Education: An Inevitable Outgrowth of COVID?" — Mark Deschaine, Academia Letters, January 2021. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348827105 "The Five Cs of Digital Curation: Supporting Twenty-First-Century Teaching and Learning" — Deschaine & Sharma, InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, 2015. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281641256 National Standards for Quality Online Learning (NSQOL): https://nsqol.org/ Michigan Virtual: michiganvirtual.org The Sources of a Science of Education — John Dewey, 1929. Available free at Project Gutenberg The Reflective Practitioner — Donald Schön https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/donald-a-schon/the-reflective-practitioner/9780786725366/?lens=basic-books Diffusion of Innovations — Everett Rogers https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Diffusion-of-Innovations-5th-Edition/Everett-M-Rogers/9780743222099 Journal of Contemporary Research in Education (JCRE): https://egrove.olemiss.edu/jcre/ Guest Bio: Mark E. Deschaine, PhD Mark Deschaine is a Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Mississippi, where he prepares MA, EdS, EdD, and PhD candidates for school and district leadership roles and serves as editor of the Journal of Contemporary Research in Education. His research focuses on online learning policy, special education in virtual school settings, and differentiated instruction — grounded in a practitioner career spanning building-level principal, special education teacher, and paraprofessional. He is a Research Fellow at Michigan Virtual and a Leadership Team Member for the National Standards for Quality Online Learning. About the Hosts: Seth Fleischauer is the founder and president of Banyan Global Learning and a host of Why Distance Learning. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual exchange programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators. Find Banyan at banyangloballearning.com. Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring are co-hosts of Why Distance Learning and part of the team at CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, which connects students to real experts through live virtual field trips and experiences. Find CILC at cilc.org. Why Distance Learning is available at whydistancelearning.transistor.fm.

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, Seth, Allyson, and Tami speak with Dr. Nichole Lemmon, Executive Director of Virtual Learning and Strategic Planning at Springfield Public Schools and founder of Launch Virtual Learning — about what it takes to run the only statewide K-12 virtual school in the country inside a public school district. Launch serves more than 400 Missouri districts and 23,000 students annually, with 85% of those students enrolled in just one or two courses at a time, a structure Nichole has maintained deliberately for fifteen years. Together, Seth, Allyson, Tami, and Nichole explore how Missouri's public education funding flows through virtual providers and why roughly $60 million of it is going to out-of-state for-profit companies. They get into the three reasons Launch outperforms the field on state assessments: Missouri-specific curriculum, class sizes that mirror what the state mandates for seated schools, and in-state testing. They talk about what drove the decision to add synchronous instruction after years of building async-first, and what it looked like when Nichole told the governor of Missouri she could put the entire state on her platform in 2020 - and then had to deliver on it. The conversation also covers how Launch now runs direct-to-consumer ad campaigns on Hulu targeting millennial women on Sunday evenings, and why a public school program decided it had to compete on marketing terms with the companies it's trying to outperform. Key Topics Public vs. for-profit virtual school funding in Missouri Course-access model and why 85% of Launch students take one or two classes Class size standards and how Launch mirrors seated school requirements Why Launch added synchronous instruction — and what wasn't working without it COVID-era overextension: saying yes to the governor and the two-year recovery Virtual special education and medically fragile learners Direct-to-consumer marketing for a public school program Links & Resources Launch Virtual Learning: https://launchvirtuallearning.com Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance (VLLA): https://virtuallearningalliance.org VLLA Accred accreditation program: https://accredved.org/ Digital Learning Collaborative (DLAC): https://www.digitallearningcollaborative.com KSMU: Launch Virtual Learning Serves Thousands (May 2025): https://www.ksmu.org/news/2025-05-21/launch-virtual-learning-serves-thousands-from-its-office-in-springfield Pulitzer Center — Cash and Consequences: For-Profit Online Education in Missouri (2021): https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/cash-and-consequences-profit-online-education-missouri Pew Charitable Trusts — Virtual Classrooms, Real-World Disparities (Nov 2025): https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/11/virtual-classrooms-real-world-disparities Guest Bio: Dr. Nichole Lemmon Dr. Nichole Lemmon is the Executive Director of Virtual Learning and Strategic Planning at Springfield Public Schools in Missouri, where she founded SPS Online in 2011 - now known as Launch Virtual Learning - and grew it into the only statewide K-12 virtual school in the country operating inside a public school district, serving more than 400 districts annually. She serves on the Executive Board of the Virtual Learning Leadership Alliance and as the Missouri State Affiliate for the Digital Learning Collaborative. Dr. Lemmon holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from Lindenwood University. About the Hosts Seth Fleischauer is the founder of Banyan Global Learning and a host of Why Distance Learning, a podcast for education leaders and practitioners making real decisions about how virtual learning gets designed, adopted, and sustained. Through Banyan, he designs live virtual programs that connect K-12 classrooms to global peers and expert facilitators. See https://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring are co-hosts of Why Distance Learning and members of the team at CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, which connects students to real experts through live virtual field trips and experiences. See https://cilc.org

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, Seth Fleischauer and Allyson Mitchell talk with Raymond Rose - President of Rose & Smith Associates and Public Policy Chair at the Texas Digital Learning Association- about what digital accessibility actually requires of educational institutions, and what it means to be out of compliance with an agreement you've already signed. Rose came to this work through civil rights enforcement, not ed tech, and it shows in how he frames the problem. For most institutions, the legal commitment to full accessibility is already on record. The question is whether anyone knows it. Together, the hosts and Raymond explore the Office of Civil Rights' operational definition of accessibility - same information, same interactions, same time frame - and why the "same time frame" clause changes what compliance actually looks like in practice. They work through the most common failures in online courses: PDFs that are images rather than readable text, missing alt text on graphics, videos without adequate captions, and data tables used for layout. Raymond explains why Universal Design for Learning is the right design framework for all learners - not just those with identified disabilities - and points to a simple test: 25% of males have some form of colorblindness, and roughly half your audience is already using closed captioning on their television. The episode also covers how to ask vendors for a VPAT before purchasing third-party tools, where automatic captioning still falls short, and what shifts when the students are K-12. The episode closes with Raymond making the case that most institutions are not deliberately ignoring accessibility - they just haven't been told they were already responsible for it. Key topics Digital accessibility as a civil rights obligation under Section 504 and ADA The OCR definition: same information, same interactions, same time frame Universal Design for Learning (UDL) — the three components and why it benefits all learners Common compliance failures: PDFs, alt text, captioning, color contrast, data tables How automatic captioning has improved and where it still falls short VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) and how to vet third-party vendors The 504 coordinator gap: most schools have never trained this role for the web context K-12 vs. higher ed: where the compliance pressure sits and why K-12 has been slower Links & Resources WAVE Accessibility Checker — free tool for identifying accessibility errors on any website. wave.webaim.org CAST — Universal Design for Learning — the national headquarters for UDL frameworks and resources. cast.org TxDLA Digital Accessibility Course — Texas Digital Learning Association's multi-session course on digital accessibility. txdla.org Quality Matters — standards and training for quality online course design. qualitymatters.org National Standards for Quality Online Programs — Aurora Institute. https://www.aurora-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/national-standards-for-quality-online-programs.pdf Rose, R. & Blomeyer, R. (2007). Access and Equity in Online Classes and Virtual Schools. iNACOL / Aurora Institute. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED509623.pdf Rose, R. (2014). Access and Equity for All Learners in Blended and Online Education. Aurora Institute (formerly iNACOL). aurora-institute.org Raymond Rose's blog — e-Learning Evangelist rmrose.blogspot.com Guest Bio: Raymond Rose Raymond Rose is President of Rose & Smith Associates and serves as Public Policy Chair and Digital Accessibility Liaison at the Texas Digital Learning Association (TxDLA). He co-directed the Virtual High School at the Concord Consortium - one of the first large-scale K-12 online programs in the country - and wrote the nation's first virtual school Special Education Policy. For two decades he has focused on digital accessibility as a civil rights obligation for K-12 and higher education, working with institutions, policymakers, and federal funders on what compliance actually requires. He was inducted into the TxDLA Hall of Fame in 2026. 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://www.banyangloballearning.com/programs/global-cohorts 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.