Punahou’s pursuit of excellence in online coursework opens up a world of learning that also benefits students in traditional classes, highlighting the meaningful exploration of teaching and learning that underscores the School’s online initiatives.

Academy Principal Kevin Conway describes Punahou’s efforts as a natural extension of the School’s use of educational technology through the One-to-One Laptop Program. Punahou offers online classes as a founding member of the Global Online Academy, a worldwide consortium of rigorous independent schools, and through its regular Academy course catalog. An initial cohort of six teachers pioneered Punahou’s efforts throughout the 2011 – 12 school year, highly motivated to bring instructional excellence to the online arena. Not only did they succeed, but they discovered that teaching online made them better classroom teachers as well.

From the beginning, Conway was excited by “the potential for this to push teachers just to think about good teaching. And actually all of our early results … show that it has. It’s really forced them to think in a very strategic, intentional way about where they want to go in their classroom, what is it they want to accomplish, and how they know they’ve accomplished that.” That same approach has extended “into their traditional classes and that’s exactly the goal we had.”

Hear more from Principal Conway, teachers and students, in this video produced through Punahou’s Institute for Teaching, Learning and Instructional Innovation. ITLII fosters great teaching and shares it with the world.