00:02.76

Sean Strathy 

Greetings and welcome to another exciting edition of the Tech in EdTech podcast. I'm your host, Sean Strathy. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Adam Reid, an educator of over 24 years and currently a teacher of CTE at the Anchorage School District at the AK Choice Virtual Learning Program in Alaska, teaching CTE fully online.

00:23.81

Sean Strathy 

Welcome, Adam.

00:25.27

Adam Reid

Welcome. Great to be here, Sean.

00:28.37

Sean Strathy 

And I was going to test out a new tagline in my intro there, and I wimped out on it. But what do you think of where we bridge the classroom and the cloud as a tagline for the Tech and EdTech podcast?

00:41.86

Adam Reid

I like it that it's where things are headed and they're already there. So, yeah, I think it's very fitting.

00:48.47

Sean Strathy 

We'll try it out next time. Can you share a brief overview of your teaching journey with us?

00:56

Adam Reid

Yeah, quick one. You know, like so many teachers, I kind of, especially in the CTE realm, didn't start out in that direction. Went to Creighton University, played four years of basketball there, was an environmental science major, moved to Alaska to start grad school, I had one year of eligibility left. So I played basketball in Alaska, started an environmental engineering grad school, and ended up as a kind of a side job. I was working at the Boys and Girls Club with youth in third to sixth grade.

And through my educational journey, again, not really wanting to be a teacher, but I found out, hey, my personality and everything fit great with kids. I really enjoyed working with them. Big side note, I come from my my mom was a teacher and in a unique situation where she actually taught at a prison. So, you know, teacher roots seem to run deep in family. So I headed that direction, ended up working at the high school level, as I found through subbing and working with kids that that fit my personality and my teaching style much better. So, with my experience in some other jobs that I had and with my degree, I ended up working at a CTE high school teaching horticulture science.

02:12.67

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. And thank you for that background. I think as you and I spoke about briefly the first time we met, you're not our typical guest for this podcast. You know, we usually have product leaders from edtech companies. But this is exactly why I'm excited to talk with you today, because you work on the front lines of the intersection of two trends that we're seeing in the market and a reinvigoration of CTE curriculum and increases in enrollments in, I would call them maybe non-traditional K-12 institutions and specifically in virtual learning. I think, you know, there's a lot of policies going on right now that are going to influence parents and children’s choice of where they send their kids to school, even if that's another brick and mortar school, a smaller, more specialized institution.

I'm kind of predicting that, especially with CTE courses, people are going to start sharing resources. And in order to do that, they're going to be doing so in virtual learning environments. So this is an exciting conversation for us. And I want to move on to your transition from teaching CTE in-person to an online program. So obviously the pandemic sparked most of the move, I think, for you. But what did you see as the biggest opportunities for students right away?

03:41.51

Adam Reid

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely a pandemic sparked, you know, our high school, we have eight comprehensive high schools in our district, and one central CTE school where I was at. Kids would come to our school half the day and go back to their other school for the other half of their day.

03:59.44

Adam Reid

Hard to teach horticulture, hard to teach carpentry online. Then in the pandemic, we weren't set up for a quick transition, hit some awesome stuff, and some teachers, phenomenal teachers from industry that, you know, the carpentry teacher making, making kits for students to go home and delivering the students, and they teamed up with other teachers. Some wonderful stuff was going on. For me, when I transitioned in but was we got basically got loaned out to the online program and and teaching it a variety of things.

I think some good things that came out of it were especially where more opportunities, more exposure for students, and more flexibility and in the learning opportunities that students and families have, different formats and at different locations where they can do that learning.

04:56.88

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. Your CTE classes in your district they have an impressive graduation rate. I think something like 97% of students taking at least two CTE classes graduate. What do you think goes into that? And why do you think the CTE programs have such a strong impact on graduation rates?

05:18.05

Adam Reid

Yeah, our school right now, we're in a transition for the last couple of years, we've been building to do more of an academy model. And based on some of that CTE data, where they have students take the two concentrators, their graduation rate in four years is much higher than those that don't. I think it's 82% in four years that don't, around 96, 97 for those that do take two CTE concentrators.

As a CTE teacher in our brick and mortar, we had that data seven, eight plus years ago, we were talking about this and how important it was. So to see it, you know, education, our district evolve into to recognizing that I want to create more opportunities for students, not only at our CTE high school, but expanding that, those opportunities into each and every high school where we see online working with that is even more opportunities for kids because the in education right now, it's hard to get people from industry into the classroom. At our CTE school, we had type M teachers, which is somebody coming from industry without your traditional teaching background and teaching that welding class, but they're only eligible to teach that welding class because that's their expertise.

It's getting harder and harder to bring people in from industry, where the pay is not there. You know they’re making way more, and the benefits aren't there. So, so they're staying, staying with industry. And when we do get a few in, they would transition back. So with online, we can not only expose students with those, some of those experts, because they are willing to help out in a different format and on their own time. So we can utilize those community resources to help enhance our online learning.

07:07.63

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? So are you bringing these? Are you asking them to like record videos on themselves, or are you bringing them into like your virtual classrooms? How does that? What does that look like?

07:18.68

Adam Reid

Yeah, for example, I've got a good friend of mine, just happen to be a friend of mine. One of the classes I have is forensic science, and he was the state ballistics expert in the state of Alaska. he was the one, you know, he was figuring out what gun matched to what bullet, and all that. I was able to utilize him with some videos, and you know, some Zoom sessions where he could come in and help our students. Just kind of see the real-world aspect of that. Other things that we can do. Again, we're it's evolving because as we have transitioned to more and more online CTE and our district is utilizing experts for their academy model, we're finding some limitations with the academy model in our brick and mortars, due to funding and teacher availability. So they've scaled that back a bit. And that's where online opportunities for CTE come in and to utilize some of those connections that they've already made.

08:19.94

Sean Strathy 

So I want to talk about your district made a decision, I think somewhat recently, where you narrowed the number of CTE courses down, focusing on depth rather than breadth. How did you guys decide what courses to keep, and how did offering fewer classes actually increase access for students?

08:42.36

Adam Reid

Yeah, you know that's a tough one. Us, as a program, we wanna offer more. Part of this transition that this district is going through with the academy model is they really wanna explore what they can offer in person before allowing us more CTE offerings. We had an initiative in our district right after COVID that was, I can't remember exactly what it was called, but it's basically, we had the curriculum company. It was wide open. Any student could take any class that we had access to that increased you know, my workload, which my prep's in the teacher world, but you know I'd have up to 50, 60 classes a semester. Some of those classes might have only had one or two, three students.

But as the philosophy was, we wanted you know the students to have access to anything. Pluses and minuses to that from the teacher standpoint and the student's standpoint. Student standpoint, Boy, you know I was in favor. I really want kids to have those opportunities.

But we also need to kind of focus it down to what's realistic and what we can support in our homeschools, as well as being online. So if there is a career path they want to go. One of the important things I feel in CTE is exposure, especially online, where kids can't get that in person, but we can provide that online. So our districts are using this right time right now to exactly prioritize which schools will have which academies and which what we want to provide online.

10:19.96

Sean Strathy 

Interesting. And I think, you know, a lot of our listeners who are on the edtech side of things and the curriculum side of curriculum development side of things, I think a lot of them are going through similar types of decisions.

10:32.20

Sean Strathy 

Right. Where do we invest in CTE?  What types of courses and career pathways can we invest in as a company and provide to these schools? Are you seeing any trends in specific, I guess, career pathways or courses that are gaining a lot of interest among students right now?

10:52.41

Adam Reid

Yeah, I think the great thing about CTE is it can be very localized with the needs that are for that community. You know, we have a big need in Alaska in natural resources, hospitality, and tourism, education, law enforcement, you know we're low on teachers. But what you know what can we do to provide and expose students in those areas? Health sciences, you know we we offer some health classes online, of course, digital learning courses as well, like you know, I'm looking at my class list now, you know I got artificial intelligence in the world, digital design, things like that, that that really lend themselves well in ah and a virtual environment, in an online asynchronous environment.

So, I think the beauty of CTE is we can customize it to fit not only the community needs, but student needs. And I think that's part of the increased graduation rates is that not only you find that interest that sparks the kids, but they can actually see beyond getting the credit, to graduate. It's more than just a yeah i need to check this box it's hey i can do this my forensic science class for example students go through that and and in the in the first one there's a crime scene that they set up in their house so they get some hands on and that just evolves that crime scene evolves as as the class progresses with with different components so of forensic science and they're like oh my gosh i had no idea that, you know, i love bugs. That's part of, part of, you know, forensics. Like, so the exposure, like, oh my gosh, this is so much more than I just saw on, on the, whatever XYZ show.

You know, as I was watching the crime, the True Crime, cause so many of them like, oh, I love this show and that, but there's, there's so many aspects of it that the students can see that, that future as they build to.

12:50.56

Sean Strathy 

Yeah, that's awesome. I want to take a quick pivot just for a second, because you mentioned something to me before, when we met the first time, about the Alaskan student population, that I don't know that a lot of our listeners will be all that familiar with some of the details there. Can you just tell us a little bit about your student population? Because it sounded pretty unique.

13:14.39

Adam Reid

Yeah, that's something whenever I travel out of state or talk to people out of state, they're shocked that how diverse the Anchorage School District is. I do believe some of the data was, I think we have three of the top four or five high schools in the nation in diversity.

Over a 100 languages are spoken in our district, and everybody's like, oh, you must have a lot of Alaska Native population. Yes, we do. There's languages there. But we have over 100 languages. We have students literally from all over the world. And you name it, I think I've had that language in my class over the years, especially when I was kind of at that central school and and online continues because you have students from all over the district.

So we're very diverse that way, very economically diverse, as most districts are as well. And I'll just kind of build on that a little bit with what the student population that we see taking virtual classes is is there's a variety of reasons why students are accessing the opportunities that we provide. Some of them, it's it's socioeconomic where they're working full time to help their family pay bills and they're taking they're they're doing high school online. because of that need others of means or they might be traveling. I had a student of marine biology class last year, and they were traveling in a sailboat. They’re a commercial fishing family that basically lived on a boat in the summertime, were on a sailboat in the wintertime, and he's doing marine biology while he's on a sailboat. And I'm like, you're winning. So you have that variety, and then you have the students that just want to explore new and different things.

14:54.53

Sean Strathy 

That's excellent. So coming back to CTE a little bit, and I think you touched upon this a little bit, so I'll ask this question in a slightly different way, but obviously these hands-on subjects, and you mentioned carpentry as an example, culinary arts could be another, can be difficult to replicate online. Maybe let me ask, what was the most challenging course to try to replicate online?

15:19.27

Adam Reid

Right now, you know, I think the one, and I haven't had this one. We have another teacher that's obviously more of an expert than I am, was cosmetology, was. It was a big one. I came from the my brick and mortar had Cosmo, an in-person cosmetology course with two instructors, and, talking to some of the teachers that had it online. There's some of the dynamics that you don't think about, like, yeah, you can, you know, we want our CTE classes to be more than click your way to credit. We want them to be hands-on. We want them to have a variety of assignments and different ways to submit lessons, and Cosmo, one of the tough parts was supplies for kids. You know, how does some of that, you know, you don't want the class to be a burden on the kids. So, you know, and then I see that I have culinary arts and on my load, and, you know, like, oh, I don't have this ingredient. I don't have that. And that's where, and hopefully we'll touch on this is with the online stuff, is the flexibility. Flexibility is key as a teacher and able to pivot, able to transition, able to find alternatives.

I was working with a student the other day, and he's like, I don't have this to run this experiment. I'm like, all right, let's, you know, alternatives, let's look at YouTube. You know, like I could find that experiment on YouTube where he doesn't have to buy supplies and do that. So there's some limitations there. But I think with that, the flexibility of our teaching staff is awesome in making accommodations for student needs.

16:55.71

Sean Strathy 

You just made me think of something that I don't know that I've thought about too much before. But, you know, we often think about CTE courses as very, you know, heavy emphasis on skill development, specialized skills. But some of these CTE courses require, you know, once you get into the career and into the field, require a lot of human interaction. And that's got that has to be something challenging to replicate in an online environment where, you know, if I'm going to be a hairdresser, like I have to be comfortable not just knowing how to cut hair, but how to really interact with clients.

17:32.51

Adam Reid

Yeah, and I think with a lot of these, you know, with my culinary arts online, it's, you know, students submitting videos, and that, like, can I taste the food? Unfortunately, no, but it looks really good. But I think I think so much even at the high school level, some of our, you know, expectations might be a little bit high for students coming out of CTE programs in that we're developing a finished product, even with an in-person CTE class.

The realistic is you're not. You're exposing students, you're giving them the basic skills so they can continue on and get a higher level of education, a higher level of training that they're going to need in the in the work workforce. You know, you look at Perkins a few years ago, Perkins funded, Carl Perkins federal program.

You know, part of it was that the program had to go towards a certificate. You know, we want that. That was big, we want certificates, we want certificates. So we became certificate mills and that has changed in Carl Perkins because I think industry realized, like this 18-year-old kid with his certificate in construction electricity, yeah, that's cute, but hey, let's we need to get some training because, you know, or good, you got a base. You're showing that interest. Now let's get you in that apprenticeship program. Now let's get you working with a journeyman. Let's take that base and move on with it. So you're opening doors with CTE. You're exposing students, and with the online variety, I think you can expose more students to more variety and trigger that interest that's going to, you know, lifelong learning. We all hear that over and over. Well, this is a way to do that. This is a way to encourage that. This is a way where students will go to some post-secondary education, whether it's a four-year school, a two-year school, an apprenticeship program, a trades training program, they're all great opportunities, and students, you know, are you as many options are out there, there's that type of student that need that. I you know worked with a student last night who's a senior. We're in our senior stretch right now. Seniors are stressing, parents are stressing, working with the students. He's like, I just need to, I want to get this class because I'm already working. I'm already heading in this direction. I'm like, dude, that's great. You're working. You're working. You're building decks all day long and working at your school at night. let's Let's work together to get where you need to be to graduate.

20:03.21

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. So one of the things that you mentioned was that you take student feedback very seriously. So you began conducting these courses online. It's been a few years now. Can you share with us how this has shaped or improved your course design? And is there any surprising insights that changed your approach?

20:25.63

Adam Reid

Yeah, some of that, you know, student feedback is so important, and in online classes, and you hope you get it sooner rather than later in your classes. You want to make that connection. Connections are key. Our staff, I'm going to kind of go off track just a little bit from your original question and hopefully circle back, but I think getting that, whether it's a Zoom contact, we do, our district uses Zoom.

So, we have Zoom, our teachers use Zoom office hours. So we wanna make that connection with that or that student early in the semester so we can, we're not scary. we're not we I have started teaching to teacher yesterday, and they were like, oh my gosh, you're you're an actual teacher. You're in our state. We thought you were out of state or an AI bot, or something like that. So making that personal connection, even in the online world, is super important. And that'll help that feedback loop where the student has questions. Because by the time I get at the end of the semester, yeah, it's important, it's vital, but it's stuff I could have dealt with a little bit earlier from that student. A couple of the biggies were, we're seeing a lot of lot of test anxiety, a lot of you know, just there's that social anxiety of students, and some of that feedback has to do with that. and And they're like, boy, i'm I'm glad I had a little extra time on this test.

I'm glad, maybe had another opportunity. And I think that's important to give students some time, some opportunities, because in your face-to-face setting, as a teacher or as a student, you can kind of read your teacher. And as a teacher, you can read your students a little bit better of where they need some help, what's going to be tested over, you know, and how that's going to work And an online, you don't know how in-depth those tests are. So it's important to give those kids a little freedom in that, a little more expanding opportunities. So that was something, and I write back to students. I'm like, yeah, I made this change in the class based on student feedback prior. So you can kind of thank your past students that said, oh, I wish I would had more time. I'm like, I can do that. It's a setting. So students are benefiting from that. Some of the surprises are the ones I love to see are like, gosh, I just took this class because I needed this credit. But wow, I really liked it. I really enjoyed it. And that's the exposure that that I'm talking about that, you know yeah, I took it because I needed a science credit or I needed another elective, and this one looked easy. It's like, oh my god, that sparks something in that student. And that's what it's all about.

22:57.94

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. Coming back to some of the technology that you guys use, I mean, before we even get to any specific technology, education is historically slow to adopt new tech. Why do you think the sector remains curious about or cautious about tools like AI, and what's been the response in your district to these types of emerging technologies?

23:23.84

Adam Reid

Yeah, that's, you know, I remember when I first started, there's a few, know, we were running plagiarism software on our classes and and, you know, our biggest were a few that were not AI and it's like so easy to spot because you'd see the same answers over and over and then you're like, AI, like, oh my gosh, I miss those old programs that you could see because AI is is so good these days. And like so many, I've watched podcasts on the conferences I've gone to, you know, just AI dominates. And as a program, we're we're a little bit, you know, separated from what the district does. and And we've, you know, like absolutely not. No, you know, our sort of our English teacher. like absolutely not. Zero. Don't use it to okay, how are you going to? How are you using it? Let me know. Let's work together. Let's come up with some. You know, what's the responsible use of it? When I and I'm running stuff through AI detectors and I talk with students, I zoom with them because sometimes AI detectors are wrong. And there's different ways that you go through. and It's like, what is the proper use? How districts react to that, how, whether it's policy or one of the conferences I recently went to, one something that really struck a chord was AI is, today is the worst it's ever going to be.

You know, every day it just keeps getting better and better. And it’s like, oh my gosh. Yeah. So, how do we implement that? There's some great teaching tools with it. There's the ability to end individualize instruction. You know, I run some AI programs that if I have a an IEP need, I need something at a different reading level for a student, I can make that adjustment for that individual student. So from the teaching standpoint, there's some great opportunities for us to better serve our students and at an individual level. As far as students' use of it, I think we're going to and from a curriculum development standpoint is how are we going to implement that? And it's it's ever changing. It's coming at us so fast that are the curriculum providers that we use, are they adapting to it as well?

Some of the you know, the things I've researched and looked at is. I've watched one little podcast on somebody, it's like, we're going back to pencil paper, you know, students are getting enough screen time on their own. They don't need so much in school. It's like, okay, I can see that valid point. What's the reality of our situation is the AI is advancing and in all aspects of life. it's and i think the key part in education is we're not only from a CTE standpoint is we're trying to provide opportunities for students to grow in a career field, but also I think we need to provide opportunities for students to grow in fields that aren't there yet. You know, how do we have the flexibility for students because we're really training them to think. We have to train them to think critically and and outside the box creatively because there's jobs that are going to be there in five years that aren't there today. And there's going to be jobs that are there today that are high demand that aren't going to be there in five years. So as that, the workforce is going to evolve exponentially in a different ways that we we can't, really probably predict accurately right now, but you know, we can, preparing our students for that is the challenge.

27:03.95

Sean Strathy 

You just touched upon so many great points. I think my question, didn't did you said you might have said before that you have one AI-focused class. I think what we're seeing in the market, and you just identified it as well as, you know, where there's an opportunity for maybe curriculum providers to provide more standardized educational content on this. It is ever changing. So it's something that would have to be iterated on and improved upon every six months to a year, right? Like, I mean, you can't let it be static. But, what would? If you could build your own AI course for your CTE program. What would that kind of look like? what would What would be some of the things that you would want students to come out of that knowing or being able to do?

27:56.08

Adam Reid

Wow, and you're asking a guy who had his head stuck in a dirt and in a horticulture class for 20 years. But, I think yeah this gosh just goes back to cell phones of that is digital literacy. So we've got to add AI literacy into that as we go here. So how do you, again, what's real, what's not, what's accurate? What can we? How do we use it properly? ethics, the ethics of it. you know, are students using it to do their work or improve their work?

You know for example, a student, I'm reviewing their Google Doc because it flagged 100% for AI And they said, oh, I didn't use AI. They're freaking out. And they said, Mr. Reid, I typed it and then I ran it through an AI program to improve it a little bit. And I looked at their Google Doc. I reviewed it. I could see, yep, they typed everything and then ran it through to clean it up. To me, that's a good use of AI. You're doing the learning. And you had technology help you refine it.

That's proper use. So, you know, in designing a course, that is something I would definitely talk about. And AI is so, I use such a minute part of it that that what's available is out there. I think, you know, gosh, unfortunately, and fortunately, the sky's the limit for it right now. And how to put that in a class would be a tough one, and that's a challenge for developers.

29:32.39

Sean Strathy 

I think you laid out a pretty fantastic outline right there, though. You know, we talked about digital literacy for over a decade, right? And now it's AI literacy. So, you know, thinking about ethical use of it, um what's how to identify it, how to use it properly to improve your work, not do your work for you. And those are all things that students can carry on into no matter what career are they career path they choose. So that was excellent. So let me let's change lanes a little bit here. So, overcoming adoption barriers. So schools need decision-maker support, budget approvals, and training programs to adopt new tech. What's your approach to convincing administrators or district leaders to invest in new ed tech tools, especially AI-driven solutions, but not necessarily limited limited to those?

30:26.94

Adam Reid

Yeah, that's a tough one. You know, as I mentioned before, we're looking at an Academy model for our district or transitioning to in the middle. Change is tough, and in education, it’s good, bad, and ugly; it takes a long time, you know. Teachers kind of joke that it you know takes 20 years for us to to you know get caught up with the times. And then a solar teacher like, oh, yeah, we've seen this program before, we've seen no, then we start to see the recycle of different things.

And I think as and know i look at my my administrator, he is is really good at supporting his staff with new innovations and looking at at new opportunities that we can utilize. He'll go to bat when we find something that we want, a product or a program that we want to use. And him and my other supervisor, they'll go to the district and and ask for it, see what we can do. That takes a lot of time and it's a lot of convincing because when you're at the virtual school, your needs are unique compared to your brick and mortar schools. So, it you know, and sometimes you're that side program, but you really need that support to get those innovations and those things that are needed to keep up with the direction that education is going. There's a lot of people, a lot of companies, a lot of, you know, very thoughtful people out there right now trying to do what's best for our students and we all are. And to convince the change and the change generally costs money. and And we all know that's that's a toughie right now in the world of education.

We see where some online and online opportunities can save some money and create opportunities at the same time for our students. So, you know, as far as developing and getting that investment in, it it does take some convincing as we're trying to convince to get us allowed to take get more CTE classes on the books. As far as professional development, I think you mentioned that in there, you know, I tell you what, it's pretty awesome, the professional development that you can get right now. I’m you know, I've gone to a few conferences the last few years and to network there with people in the industry and see what's going on around the country is very valuable. I was in an online PD yesterday with one of our edtech companies, and kind of got the same thing and in an hour long, quick format. I got to share what what I was doing, what we were doing, and and I learned what some others were doing. As I work, I can listen to podcasts. It's pretty awesome that I'm learning so much. Like, I was never much of a podcast person. I'm listening to these podcasts, I’m like, holy cow, these people are nailing it. you know This one, like, ah, that one, they don't quite get what the reality is of boots on the ground interacting with online students every single day. But there's people out there that are making great efforts. The professional development, the lifelong learning as a teacher, is pretty awesome right now because I can access it through technology anytime I want. And it's been beneficial, really re-energizing as a teacher to know what's going on out there and realize there's others doing this and there's people trying to improve everything is as we go. So, yeah.

33:59.06

Sean Strathy 

That's awesome. I'm going to do quick lightning round, few questions before we we wrap up. So um many listeners wonder which courses thrive in an online format. I think we kind of touched upon on this, but which CTE course has the most had the most unexpected success story when you transitioned it online?

34:19.75

Adam Reid

When I transitioned to online, holy cow, I had so many classes. That's tough. I'm going to kind of, I'm going to drop back that forensic science one, you know, as we get into that, because students are very interested in that one, and just in their personal life. So when they get to learn more of the details of it and what's going on with it and and the the variety of of subjects, but for lack of a better term, but the variety of of career field areas that apply was surprising to a lot of them. And that's that eye-opening part that their interest might not be, I can't work at at the body farm where they're studying the decomposition of dead bodies, but I love looking at DNA and I can sit and look at a microscope all day long. You know, like so, they find they can find a niche that works for them.

35:16.78

Sean Strathy 

Awesome. Not everything needs advanced software. What's one simple, possibly old school trick you still rely on to keep students engaged?

35:26.57

Adam Reid

I tell you what, a good, happy birthday. You know, there's little things like we look at our student information system and I can see their birthdays, but you wish them a happy birthday. You make that connection, even in an online format. Boy, you know, Alaska, most people fish or enjoy outdoor activities. That connection, whether you're in person or online, is vital to that learning process.

35:52.62

Sean Strathy 

Great answer. Scaling to 600 students demands efficient management. If you could pick only one digital tool to manage large online classes, what would it be?

36:03.53

Adam Reid

Wow. Yeah, I've ran the gamut from 600 to over 800 students in a semester. Luckily, they've scaled us back to about 250, which as our program has evolved, that's that's been a big change.

36:15.36

Sean Strathy 

Still a lot.

36:16.46

Adam Reid

It's still a lot, but I’ll tell you what, it seems it's pretty nice after carrying loads like that. I learned carrying lot of students. Well, technology was huge because I started with one laptop computer and now I have three screens in front of me, which was like eye-opening as a teacher, yeah as a kind of new to tech teacher, where you found 30 seconds equal hours if you could save some efficiencies. So, boy,

36:50.58

Sean Strathy 

So your multi-screen setup, that's the deal breaker.

36:52.63

Adam Reid

Yeah, i like I'm going to keep it simple. I'm going with the multi-screen set ah set-up.

36:58.03

Adam Reid

And but and going on with that, the communication aspect is tough with a lot of students and and and to make that connection. But even to communicate with the struggling student, you know, the efficiencies there that you can find. And it's something we didn't talk about with being an online teacher. It's good and bad. Sorry if for lightning round. It's becoming a thunderstorm. But, you know, the teacher availability. I work with a great staff and we are not available only from 8 AM to 3.30. We're available. We're doing Zoom hours um to fit students schedules, you know seven, eight, nine at night.

We have office hours. We're working with students on their time, on their schedule. And I think that's something very important to note with the online stuff is that accessibility that students have to teachers.

37:50.67

Sean Strathy 

Excellent. If you could leave district leaders, teachers, and ed tech developers with one final piece of advice on building successful online CTE programs, what would it be?

38:02.25

Adam Reid

For district leaders, don't be afraid, you know, expand. Practice what you preach, be an online learner, be open to it. As far as edtech developers, keep it coming because it's important. It's gonna play an ever and increasing role, what students do, the opportunities that they have. And bottom line, the podcast I was listening to this morning, we talked about outcomes and outcomes student outcomes, CTE and students envisioning their future leads to that great outcome, whether it be graduation rates or continuing on with with education at some level, some degree. But I think CTE, from my experience in person and online, fits that niche perfectly and will give the students that vision to continue on.

38:54.20

Sean Strathy 

Adam, this was awesome. Thank you so much for your time today.

38:57.83

Adam Reid

Thank you so much, Sean. It was great to meet with you and kind of nice to be the boots-on-the-ground teacher for you.

39:03.42

Sean Strathy 

Thanks so much.