Why Distance Learning?

In this episode of Why Distance Learning, your hosts talk with Jered Borup — professor at George Mason University, co-creator of the Academic Communities of Engagement framework, and one of the most-cited researchers in K-12 online learning — about why student engagement isn't a property of the student or a skill the teacher unlocks, and why most online programs are leaving the work undone. Borup's framework distinguishes the course community (teachers, designers, mentors) from the personal community (parents, family, on-site adults) and argues engagement is what those two produce together. The assumption on the table: that "more parental involvement" is what fixes online learning — when in fact, untrained involvement, his research shows, can hurt about as often as it helps.

Together, the hosts and Jered explore the ACE framework's two communities, the on-site mentor model from Mountain Heights Academy and Michigan's mentor mandate, what it actually takes to teach a student how to learn online, the equity gap in who gets meaningful support, and where parents fit (and don't). Along the way: the Michigan administrator who tapped someone on the shoulder and said "you're now Sally's mentor," the parent with only a high-school diploma who turned out to be one of the 12 most successful mentors in the study, and the parent who confessed to Jered that she does her kid's online discussion-board posts because they're "busy work."

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation.

Key Topics
  • The Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) framework
  • Course community vs. personal community
  • On-site mentors as the missing link in K-12 online learning
  • Michigan's mentor mandate — and why fidelity varies by school
  • Why "improved" parental engagement matters more than "more"
  • Designing parent support: a trickle of just-in-time tips, not a class
  • The equity gap in self-regulation and "how to learn online"

Links & Resources

Guest Bio: Jered Borup
Jered Borup is a professor in the Division of Learning Technologies at George Mason University and co-coordinator of the Learning Technologies in Schools graduate program. His research, grounded in six years of junior-high history teaching, focuses on K-12 online and blended learning: the support communities that surround a learner, the parental role in online education, and how generative AI can extend personalized support to historically underserved students. He earned his Ph.D. in Instructional Psychology and Technology from Brigham Young University and has been recognized as one of the top 2% most-cited researchers in his field.

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://banyangloballearning.com/

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.

Creators and Guests

Host
Allyson Mitchell
SF
Host
Seth Fleischauer
TM
Host
Tami Moehring

What is Why Distance Learning??

Why Distance Learning? is a podcast about the decisions, design choices, and assumptions that determine whether live virtual learning becomes shallow and transactional—or meaningful, relational, and effective at scale.

The show is designed for education leaders, instructional designers, and system-level practitioners responsible for adopting, scaling, and sustaining virtual, hybrid, and online learning models. Each episode examines the structural conditions under which distance learning actually works—and the predictable reasons it fails when it doesn’t.

Through conversations with researchers, experienced practitioners, and field-shaping leaders, Why Distance Learning? translates research, field evidence, and lived experience into decision-relevant insight. Episodes surface real tradeoffs, near-failures, and hard-won lessons, equipping listeners with clear framing and language they can use to explain, defend, or redesign distance learning models in real organizational contexts.

Hosted by Seth Fleischauer of Banyan Global Learning, and Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moehring of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, the podcast challenges outdated narratives about distance learning and explores what becomes possible when live virtual education is designed intentionally, human-centered, and grounded in evidence.

# Jered Borup — Part 1

**[INTRO — recorded separately]** [00:00:00]

*Hello, and welcome to Why Distance Learning, the podcast for education leaders and practitioners who are making real decisions about how virtual learning gets designed, adopted, and sustained. I'm Seth Fleischauer, founder and president of Banyan Global Learning, and my cohosts are Allyson Mitchell and Tami Moerhing of the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. Every episode we try to surface at least one assumption worth questioning.*

*Our guest is Jered Borup — professor at George Mason University, co-creator of the Academic Communities of Engagement framework, and one of the most-cited researchers in K-12 online learning. His recent work surveyed 567 parents across eight K-12 online programs to understand what actually happens when families are positioned as engagement partners.*

*The assumption on the table today: that engagement is something a teacher produces, and that more parental involvement is what fixes online learning. Jered's work suggests engagement is a system outcome — something the course community and the personal community produce together — and that "more" parent involvement, when untrained, can hurt about as often as it helps.*

*This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. We'll spend this episode on the ACE framework, on-site mentors, and where parents actually fit.*

*This episode is brought to you by CILC, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration, connecting students to real experts through live virtual field trips and experiences — visit cilc.org to learn more. And by Banyan Global Learning, which brings K-12 classrooms face to face with global peers and expert facilitators through live, thematic international exchange programs — find them at banyangloballearning.com.*

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**Seth** [01:31] *(approx)*
Jered, welcome to the podcast.

**Jered** [01:33] *(approx)*
Thank you, happy to be here, Seth.

**Allyson** [01:33] *(approx)*
Yay, we're so happy to have you here. I'm excited to learn from you and all of your teaching experience in so many different realms because you taught in junior high school, you taught history for six years, and then you went back to get your PhD. You're now at George Mason and you're doing all this fun coordination for the learning technologies and school programs, and you get to do the Global Online Teacher Education Center.

So that sounds super fun. And I wonder what did you carry with you from the classroom into the research that's still shaping how you frame your questions that you dive into today?

**Jered** [02:14] *(approx)*
Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So as you mentioned, I taught ninth grade, but that doesn't really capture everything. Like I also taught summer school. I taught Saturday school. I coached basketball. I did tickets at volleyball games and you name it. If there was a $20 payment an hour or somewhere, I was going to do that thing. So as teachers, we're just kind of overwhelmed. There's so much to do. And we know that we cannot support students at the level they need by ourselves.

**Allyson** [02:22] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Allyson** [02:34] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Jered** [02:44] *(approx)*
And so I just, one thing I took away from that experience is that the importance of parents and really helping and also of other teachers and coordinating with other teachers and really forming a support community for students. And so I've tried to bring that into my research now.

**Seth** [03:03] *(approx)*
Yeah, I think that was the first lesson I learned as a teacher was seeing the correlation between invested parents and student ability and success. It's not a perfect correlation by any means, but it's a striking one. And when I get, when I feel questions from parents nowadays of like, you know, cause I'm there, I'm their resident educator friend, right? And they'll ask me like, you know, what about this? What about this? About, and I typically I tell them like,

**Allyson** [03:26] *(approx)*
You

**Seth** [03:32] *(approx)*
Dude, the fact that you're asking these questions means your kid's gonna be okay. Like, let's just start there, right? And I know that a lot of your research talks about these extra layers of support, right? You have an Academic Communities of Engagement framework that distinguishes the course community — teachers, designers, classmates — from the personal community — parents, on-site mentors, and the people in a student's life outside of school. And that's a role I want to talk about a little more about later.

The argument as I understand it is that engagement is what those two communities produce together, not something the course or the teacher produces alone. And my question is, A, is that a correct framing? B, what gap in the field were you and Charles Graham, who created this framework with you, what gap were you guys trying to fill when you developed it, and what did existing engagement research keep missing?

**Jered** [04:38] *(approx)*
Yeah, so one thing about engagement, and all educators use that term, engagement, all the time. It's like, the students were really engaged, or the students weren't engaged, how do I get students engaged? But rarely do we take the time to really define what that means. So the first thing that we did was we searched the literature and identified three dimensions of engagement. And that's affective or emotional engagement, behavioral engagement, and cognitive engagement.

Or what teachers would say is, we need to engage students' hearts, their heads, and their hands. So we kind of know that. But then how you do that varies a lot. And so we started with, what can teachers do? In an online environment, we were looking at online environments. And in an online environment, a teacher can do a lot, right? They can form relationships, despite what many people think, even in asynchronous environments. They can actually form closer relationships online than in person because of the nature of those communications, more one-on-one, things like that. But also, students can just not respond, or they can shut their computer and walk away. And teacher can't really do anything. They don't have eyes and ears outside of the online environment. And so one thing that we found is we started doing some research at a great cyber charter school in Utah.

**Allyson** [05:48] *(approx)*
Mm-hmm.

**Seth** [05:50] *(approx)*
you

**Jered** [06:06] *(approx)*
Now it's called Mountain Heights Academy and they just do a great job building relationships. And one thing that they did is not only did they give students a teacher, they gave the students an online mentor. They use an interesting name. They said shepherd. So they had like a shepherding program where it's, you kind of lead students where they need to go, make sure that they know how to learn online. They have an anchor adult that they can reach out to.

**Allyson** [06:19] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Jered** [06:33] *(approx)*
And that was really great too. But even that online shepherd or mentor, they were not with the learner. And so we learned really quickly that parents play a critical role in this too. And so just helping parents understand what their roles are, because oftentimes they don't know and they have to be taught and helped and supported in their roles as well. And one thing that we found is that if they were coming from a homeschool background,

**Allyson** [06:54] *(approx)*
Mm-hmm.

**Jered** [07:03] *(approx)*
they wanted to be a little too involved sometimes. They wanted a little too much control over what was going on. And if they were coming from an in-person environment, they weren't necessarily ready to take that step forward and offer all the support that they needed. So there was a big equity gap as far as support goes. And so we moved and we started looking at some research in Michigan. In Michigan...

**Seth** [07:06] *(approx)*
[laughs]

**Jered** [07:28] *(approx)*
they had online programs. This was supplemental programs, not a cyber charter, but supplemental. They were taking one or two courses online and the rest in person. And in that environment, these students were in a building. And when it was time for them to learn online, they would actually go to a brick and mortar classroom with a facilitator there. And then that facilitator was not the instructor, but was an expert at helping the learner learn how to learn online.

And so building those relationships, helping them develop those soft skills that they needed. And in those environments, we can see that the pass rates were really high. So if you look at pass rates overall in online learning, lower than in person generally. But when we actually customize the support for learners, the pass rate or the success rate goes way up. And so that's really what we've been trying to do with the ACE framework. And as you mentioned, we kind of divide this up into those individuals that have relationship with the learner because the learner is enrolled in the course, that's the course community. So that would be the teacher, the counselor, administrators, the mentors. Those are all working with the learner because that learner is enrolled in the course. But then there's also the learners bring community with them, and that's their personal community. And these are people that have relationship with the learner, not because they're enrolled in the course, but because they just know them, they love them, they oftentimes have had a relationship with them their whole lives, as is the case with parents and friends and things like that. And so those individuals can really play a critical part in supporting the learner as well.

**Seth** [09:13] *(approx)*
I want to zoom in on this mentor role because it's not a word we hear a lot in education. And you talk about the online mentor for students who are learning at home in this Michigan model. You were talking about actual on-site mentors where students are taking supplementary online courses from within the school building. And so there can be an actual physical adult in there. You mentioned teaching them how to learn online, developing soft skills.

Can we zoom in on that? How do you learn online? What are those skills and what is the mentor doing to help facilitate?

**Jered** [09:52] *(approx)*
Yeah. I mean, learners are drawn to online environments for lots of reasons, right? But one of them is they need flexibility and they just think, this is going to be great. I can learn whenever I want. This is going to be a little easy for me. And so they equate flexibility with ease. And that is not the case. And in fact, that added flexibility makes it harder. You need to exercise different skills in order to be successful in those environments.

**Allyson** [10:12] *(approx)*
Mm.

**Jered** [10:21] *(approx)*
It's very different from participating in even a synchronous Zoom class versus an asynchronous discussion board or discussion activity versus an in-person discussion or debate or something like that. And so they really need to develop more self-regulation, be able to motivate themselves. But then also, it's more active, less passive time. And especially in the asynchronous online environment, there's more communicating, writing emails. Students don't really know how to do that. So how do you communicate with a teacher online? How do you communicate with your peers online? If you're using text or if you're recording a video or any of these things, they have to be taught that. Also, depending on their program, they have flexible due dates.

And so not only the time of day that they study, but like when they get assignments done, can be flexible too. And so they have to learn how to set schedules and maintain schedules. And that can be a real challenge. They have to know how to use technology. In an in-person environment, you don't need to show students how to sit in a desk and open a book and things like that. But in an online environment, they have to be taught those skills. And if they don't receive that orientation and continued support throughout their experience, they can fail in a big way. So the technological part can't be understated — they really need to know how to use technology in a meaningful way.

**Allyson** [12:08] *(approx)*
I love that. I love the idea of meaningful use of technology. I mean, I think even when you work remotely, sometimes you have to teach yourself those deadlines. You have to have those skill sets as well. Just thinking as future-ready experiences, whether it's college or career out, right out of school, those skills come in handy in so many ways, more and more as we move into the future as well.

**Jered** [12:21] *(approx)*
Right.

**Allyson** [12:36] *(approx)*
And I really love hearing a lot about the mentor and the opportunity, the flexibility that comes — whether you're in school here in Philadelphia, actually there were just four students at the Philadelphia Boys Latin School that just were able to attain associates, I believe, and then still complete their courses in their traditional brick and mortar school. And it's just such an inspiring story and how that worked. There was a lot of community built around that from what I've been reading. And I just think it's really great work to be able to think about the holistic model. And I love that you brought in the synchronous experience too, because even in those settings, you have to get everyone comfortable in the virtual room. But I do think the idea of mentor, like what makes a mentor successful and what you've dove into in your research is really powerful. And one of the things in your studies with Stimson — I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly — of Michigan: you said there are 12 most successful mentors in Michigan and they've only had their high school diploma. And that Michigan requires every online student to be assigned a mentor. But you've also written that that mandate isn't being implemented with the same fidelity across schools.

So what does that combination — the idea of the role that can be filled extraordinarily, like really amazingly well, as you've written about and seen, with somebody without a specific type of teaching credential, but a state mandate alone doesn't make it happen — how does a leader respond to that? What should they think about investing in?

**Jered** [14:15] *(approx)*
Yeah, Michigan is a really interesting case because they passed legislation requiring that online learners receive a mentor at their brick and mortar school if they're supplemental online students. What we found though is sometimes the administrator would tap someone on the shoulder and say, hey, you are now the mentor for Sally and Johnny who are taking an online course. But they didn't know what that meant.

They had never had any involvement with online learning before. So they're like, OK, sure, I guess I'll do that. But then in practice, they weren't really supporting the learners. So we found this huge gap. I mean, some schools — we just looked at schools — and some of those schools had like a 90%, 95% success rate. And then other schools, it was much lower. So we wanted to know what was working. So we ended up pulling 12 of those, I think it was 12 of those schools, and identifying the mentors in those buildings and then speaking to them and trying to figure out, what are you doing that works? And as you mentioned, some of those mentors were certified teachers. One was an administrator, a vice principal. I think one worked in the office, like an admin. One was a parent that just had her high school diploma and she was amazing to me because she had a kid in the school. So she knew all the kids. And so she could motivate them in ways that other people couldn't. And so she didn't know the content. She wasn't the content expert. But she didn't have to be — she just knew, you know, "I know this kid. I'm gonna sit down with him, and I'm gonna rag on him a little bit for not turning in the assignment on time. Like, hey, what's going on here?"

**Allyson** [16:07] *(approx)*
Don't think I don't know your tricks.

**Jered** [16:10] *(approx)*
"Like you're better than this. Let's get it going. Yeah, I'm gonna call your parents if you don't get in gear" — you know, that type of thing. And it meant a lot. I mean, you saw the results. And not only that, it wasn't like they were talking to them in the hall. They gave them an assigned location and time to learn. And so they were in the room with other online learners, and so —

**Seth** [16:11] *(approx)*
Remember back in third grade when you, yeah.

**Jered** [16:38] *(approx)*
that mentor was saying, hey, it seems like you're really struggling with algebra one. So-and-so is doing great in that class. So why don't you sit next to her and maybe you can support each other? Or, you got a project coming up, that type of thing. And the other thing that they did was — the online teachers didn't always like this, by the way — but they would say, "you're struggling with math, why don't you go down the hall and talk with the math teacher?" But the online math teacher was like, "no, no, no, no, have them speak to me because I need to know what their misconceptions are." So there was some tension of what the mentors were doing and what the online teachers wanted them to do. But overall, I mean, the mentor was also the eyes and ears, boots on the ground. Like, "I know these kids, and when they weren't performing, then they could reach out to the online teacher and kind of loop them in and fill them in." Or even, like, "so-and-so has a football game this week and so probably gonna be a little late on that submission." So they just have a much better understanding of what's going on holistically than the online teacher could.

*[CUT — Allyson's rephrased question about whether Michigan's mentor mandate is unique.]*

**Jered** [17:54] *(approx)*
Not typical. Some programs require it. So some programs say, OK, you're going to enroll. Who's your learning coach or who's your success coach? Oftentimes, that's parents or it can be somebody else, but they kind of need to designate someone. Or districts will kind of mandate that. So for instance, I was over the summer observing credit recovery online learners.

**Allyson** [17:59] *(approx)*
Mm.

**Allyson** [18:04] *(approx)*
Mm.

**Jered** [18:22] *(approx)*
And it was the same model. They had to go get their seat time in, kind of go there during the summer and take the online classes with a certified teacher present, typically. But what's interesting about that model is the mentor didn't do much. They were certified teachers, but I taught summer school. I supervised Saturday school and all that. And what we observed, they were doing important things, but they weren't teaching algebra or science or things like that, because that was all in the content. So in that model, they were the content experts, but they weren't using that expertise. So oftentimes, like I said before,

**Allyson** [18:45] *(approx)*
really?

**Jered** [19:11] *(approx)*
it doesn't have to be a certified teacher. You can have someone that just knows how to build relationships and motivate and knows how online learning works. And then that can make a bigger difference than someone who knows all there is to know about the subject area but doesn't connect well with students.

**Seth** [19:33] *(approx)*
Yeah, you know, you're talking about content, you're talking about process, right? And it's interesting when the process is the content — or kind of has to be the content in order to be able to get to the actual content. I'm fascinated by this parent who was also a mentor in Michigan, because it crosses those two lines within your framework, right? You've got the school community and the parent community. Obviously this parent wasn't the parent of all the students she was mentoring, but —

**Jered** [19:41] *(approx)*
Mm-hmm.

**Allyson** [20:00] *(approx)*
[laughs]

**Seth** [20:00] *(approx)*
parents within a community can have that role depending on who they are — being like the flock of geese following them, having that role with multiple kids. But let's transition and talk about those parents. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we recorded with Bobbi Sandberg, a collaborator of yours, who you co-authored *Behind the Screen* and the Parental Support Challenges Survey with.

In her episode, Bobbi told us that when she started her research, she had assumed that the answer she was looking for was more parental involvement, but the data pushed her toward saying that we actually need *improved* parental involvement, not *increased* parental involvement. And she pointed to a study where parental cognitive support produced negative academic outcomes. And I think you hinted at that with some of the homeschool parents, maybe.

But I'm wondering, from your vantage point, does that match where the field is converging? And what does "improved" look like as a design principle a program could actually act upon?

**Jered** [21:11] *(approx)*
Yeah. Yeah, so, well, first of all, I'll just say my mom is my teacher. She taught English. And so I understand wearing those two hats at once can be really challenging for a lot of parents. And I didn't make it easy on my mom. So is all parental involvement good? No, it is not.

**Seth** [21:30] *(approx)*
[laughs]

**Allyson** [21:26] *(approx)*
[laughs]

**Jered** [21:39] *(approx)*
I remember interviewing one parent and the student, and I talked to the parents — like, "so how do you support your learner?" And she said, "well, sometimes they assign like busy work, and so I just do the busy work for them." And I was like, "what's the busy work?" And she said, "discussion boards, you know, things like that." So here —

**Seth** [22:00] *(approx)*
Nah!

**Allyson** [22:00] *(approx)*
Yeah, there's so many levels.

**Jered** [22:08] *(approx)*
let's think about that for a minute. So here we have a parent who is doing the work for the learner and interacting with children online. Like, this is not an ideal situation. So was that parent involved? Yes. Did we want that parent to be involved? No, not in that way. But they don't really know what to do. So I mean, I just got done helping my daughter with her Pinewood Derby car. Guess who did most of that Pinewood Derby?

**Seth** [22:37] *(approx)*
I mean, that is a nation full of dads.

**Allyson** [22:37] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Jered** [22:38] *(approx)*
It was me, right? She painted it. She made it look nice. But like I kind of had to do a lot of it. And so I think teaching parents to scaffold, but also fade that scaffolding away, is really important. And when they don't know something, don't try to do it. Like, direct the learner to the teacher. They don't have to be the teacher. So I think that's why sometimes you find that when they try to support their cognitive engagement, that can actually have negative effects. But they are great. I mean, depending on the relationship that they already have with the learner, having them also facilitate their online learning can amplify that relationship. So if it's a good relationship, great. If it's a bad relationship, it's a strained relationship, it can make it even worse.

So I interviewed another parent who — I said, "why is your learner online?" And she said, "well, the teachers at school didn't like them. And so they kept getting them in trouble. So now we're doing the online thing." And then she said, "but —" and I said, "how's it going online?" And she said, "awful. Like, you won't listen to me. I can't get them up

**Allyson** [24:04] *(approx)*
No!

**Jered** [24:06] *(approx)*
in the morning" and things like that. And I just can't get him to do anything. And so oftentimes parents think, "well, the online environment will make things better." And that's not how it works. Whatever inertia you currently have, or relationship you currently have, online learning is going to amplify or strain that even more. And so finding —

**Seth** [24:29] *(approx)*
Hmm.

**Jered** [24:31] *(approx)*
helping parents to know when online learning is good and what it's actually going to do and require can be a big challenge, because they have not done it. That's changing probably since the pandemic, but for the large part, they don't really know what online learning requires. And so advising them, helping them understand that, can be really —

**Allyson** [24:54] *(approx)*
Yeah, it's like they need a coach in a similar style to help them understand the skills that are expected in a sense of an online worker and student and learner. It's interesting and fun to think about that. I mean, kids come up — student projects are fun. Speaking as an educator, I love them. And when my daughter comes home and they're like, "I'm learning about ancient Egyptian culture," and I had

**Jered** [24:57] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Allyson** [25:21] *(approx)*
taught that for so long in a museum, I'm like, "oh my goodness, let me talk to you about all these things." I'm like, "wait, drawback. What did your teacher actually say?" Give her the books. Don't make the diorama, even though you really want to make the exhibit. Like those are fun things. So secretly, like while you're at school, I'll take my own little experience or I'll envision what I'd see. So it is interesting to think about that balance. And even when it comes to supporting like new math, sometimes having that

**Jered** [25:28] *(approx)*
Right.

**Seth** [25:28] *(approx)*
Make your own diorama.

**Allyson** [25:49] *(approx)*
understanding of what is the teacher seeking for them to succeed in the classroom is something parents — that coaching, or that opportunity to understand how to be balanced and involved. But Bobbi also laid out the parent-versus-teacher engagement split. She said there was a very clear split in the research. She said that parents were willing to take on behavioral engagement, and they were very apt to be joint in the role of the teacher on the affective experience, as she put it. But she said parents want nothing to do with the cognitive engagement if they can avoid it — which, especially if you have mentors involved, maybe that's good, not another cook in the kitchen, in some ways. But maybe there's some balance there. So does that line up with what you've experienced or come across in your studies? And what does that mean for how an online program should structure the help they can actually provide the parents — which also might help some on-site experiences too?

**Jered** [26:55] *(approx)*
Yeah, yeah. It's really subject-specific, right? I mean, some parents really nerd out about Egyptian history or whatever, and they're ready to go, whatever is needed. And they might even know more than the teacher in some ways, or know different things than the teacher. But in general, you're right, that they are not good teachers in that way, especially as the student ages up. But even now, as a parent myself,

**Allyson** [27:00] *(approx)*
Mm-hmm.

**Jered** [27:25] *(approx)*
I'm running into that. Like, my daughters are asking me to help with math, and I just — I'm past it now. Like, I cannot do it. And so providing parents with some tools of what they should do or some strategies can be really helpful. So for instance, right now, I pull out my phone and the ChatGPT app and I'm like, OK, let's do this.

**Allyson** [27:49] *(approx)*
Yes.

**Jered** [27:51] *(approx)*
Like, then I say, "you know, ChatGPT, explain this to my daughter, how you do this." And I took a photo and my daughter was like, "no, no, no, no. That's against the rules. We can't do that." And I'm kind of that parent — I was like, "really? Why?" And I also think of, I don't know if you've seen *The Incredibles*, where Dash goes to his dad and says, "you know, Dad, you're doing it wrong. That's not how she told us to do it." And he's like, "math is math. Like, what's wrong?"

**Allyson** [28:03] *(approx)*
Yeah.

**Seth** [28:00] *(approx)*
It's against the rules for her to use it, you know.

**Allyson** [28:03] *(approx)*
Yeah, maybe this will be so much faster.

**Jered** [28:20] *(approx)*
And so I experience that all the time. I need guidance as a parent of what to do. But I don't need a class. I don't have time to sit in the class and learn how to be a parent. I need really consumable just-in-time tips, a trickle, not a fire hose, of information on what would be helpful.

**Allyson** [28:48] *(approx)*
Mm-hmm.

**Jered** [28:48] *(approx)*
I think online programs, that's especially true. Like, having an orientation not only for the learner, but for the parents. And when they come in to get their laptop or whatever, that's a great opportunity also just to meet them, build relationships with the parents so that they feel like they have someone to turn to as well when they need that. And also there's parent organizations — just like in-person environments and some online programs, full-time online programs have parent organizations that can be really helpful too, and build a community amongst parents as well that might benefit from that.

**Seth** [29:24] *(approx)*
Man, I love that idea of a trickle of just-in-time tips for parents.

*[Conversation continues in Part 2.]*

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**[OUTRO]**

That's a wrap on Part 1 of our conversation with Jered Borup. Engagement isn't a property of the student or a skill the teacher unlocks — it's what happens when the course community and the personal community both do their parts. Michigan mandated mentors and still saw enormous variation in fidelity, which means the work is in the training and the orientation, not the mandate. Links to Jered's work on the ACE framework, his parent research, and the Mountain Heights mentor model are in the show notes. In Part 2, we go further on what social presence actually requires in an AI-saturated environment, what's at stake when we offload teacher feedback to AI, and the one move Jered says he'd put in front of any online school leader. Thanks for listening to Why Distance Learning, and we'll see you for Part 2.