CadetNet Virtual Learning Program

Meeting kids where they want to learn.

Chesapeake Bay Academy is proud to introduce our Virtual Learning Pilot Program. The program will be piloted in Fall 2024.

Students will have the opportunity to select from live classes on Zoom or in the Metaverse, as well as synchronous and asynchronous options.

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Implementing evidence-based virtual instruction for neurodiverse students 

Focuses on providing a comprehensive, individualized, education program for students with learning differences, CBA’s work focuses on implementing a forward-thinking, personalized education model based on learners’ specific needs with the goal to disseminate it widely across the profession of education, nationally and internationally. At present, the school has demonstrated stunning success in implementing its cutting-edge brick and mortar technology-assisted educational model. However, the potential to expand these offerings to meet the needs of students with highly transitory military backgrounds, as well as to those beyond the state of Virginia, holds immense possibilities to change the landscape of special education at large.

CBA Virtual Program Metaverse

The rationale for expanding to virtual modalities was further strengthened by the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The demonstrated learning losses caused by the pandemic are predicted to have life-long implications for the children who lived through them. At CBA we took on the challenges we faced during the pandemic and turned them into opportunities for students. At the same time, we worked to disseminate these practices by attending conferences and conducting classroom research to create a positive impact on the future of educational research and practice. We adopted several tools such as Vibe interfaces, Kubi robots, virtual reality, and gamified instruction that could create supportive online communities in our classrooms, where each child’s  voice, remote or in-person, was heard.  Now, in the post-pandemic era, we are embarking on a journey to conduct research on the use of these innovative tools. Creating an evidence-base to address the needs of students with learning differences through online and technology-assisted instruction has become the central focus of our scholarly and practice-oriented work at the school, and particularly its research arm, CERTI.

Addressing the Needs of Students with Learning Disabilities

CBA Virtual Program Metaverse

One of the major challenges of students who have struggled in school is a lack of motivation. There are times when students with learning disabilities, for a wide variety of reasons, are simply not up to going into a school building. Prior to the pandemic, CBA was in the preliminary stages of developing a virtual component for Upper School students to address this need. During the pandemic,  the development and implementation of a flexible hybrid/brick and mortar virtual model was accelerated. The responses from the students and parents were positive. CBA has now fully implemented a flexible learning model for  high school students allowing them to learn from home on days of their choosing. Classes are conducted using innovative tools such as Labster (to simulate practical science experiments), and ALEKS (Machine Learning for Math).

Impact of the Virtual Learning Model Beyond CBA

Through our existing brick and mortar offerings, and the proposed virtual programs, we plan to create supportive communities of students with learning differences, where  increasing numbers of individual student’s needs can be met. CBA students are cognitively capable but not always given the tools they need to succeed in traditional public schooling, where educators may not have the time or expertise necessary to address their specific learning differences.

At CBA, we believe students are enabled or disabled by the educational environments that serve them; which means that creating learning environments that serve the widest range of learning differences shows potential to support all students. We want to help our fellow educators establish such a model. We aim to create an audacious new vision of education that evolves beyond the industrialized model, making differentiated instruction for all learners the norm, whether virtual or in-person. The Flexible Virtual Learning Model developed at CBA will have widespread application for other school settings, becoming a research-supported evidence-base for other institutions to rely on, as well as a beacon of hope for students with learning differences across the U.S.

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