THE TOOLKIT

EVERY SECOND SUNDAY of the semester, Anabelle C. ’25 logs on to her computer for a Zoom meeting. No, Lakeside isn’t piloting Sunday School. Anabelle is enrolled in an online class for Medical Problem Solving, via the Global Online Academy.

Global Online Academy, or GOA for short, was the brainchild of former Head of School Bernie Noe. In spring 2011, Noe invited 15 other heads of school from around the world to Lakeside to figure out what an online school might possibly look like. At the end of three days, 11 of the heads agreed to each contribute $30,000 towards the project and, crucially, give academic credit for all GOA courses taken by their students. In just three months, representatives from the founding schools managed to create a curriculum, find teachers, and develop an online platform. GOA rolled out its first courses in the 2011-2012 school year.

Of course, there was the challenge of leadership: Who would become the academy’s director? After a nationwide search, Bernie Noe and his partners appointed Michael Nachbar, then serving as the assistant principal of Lake- side’s Middle School. He was, as Noe put it, “a wizard with technology.”

Under Nachbar’s leadership, GOA has undergone a dramatic expansion from its original catalog of a dozen offerings to well over 70 today, including hard-to-find courses such as Medical Problem Solving and Introduction to Blockchain and Cryptocurrency. Many of those courses have been designed and instructed by teachers from the original 11 schools, including, from Lakeside, Veronique Brau, Bob Lapsley, and Mary Ann Christy.

GOA’s close relationship with Lakeside proved instrumental at the end of the COVID-impacted 2020 school year, when it became apparent that many teachers were unequipped to navigate the rapidly digitized remote-learning environment. For 10 days in June, GOA instructors held “bootcamp” workshops with Lakeside teachers to improve the quality of their online instruction. The results were a remarkable success — in the fall of 2020, Lakeside students reported a healthy balance of synchronous and asynchronous work and felt they were, for the first time in months, connecting meaningfully with others in the school community.

Solidifying Lakeside’s practical and strategic expertise in such a dynamic educational landscape, Nachbar joined the school’s Board of Trustees that same year.

Today, GOA’s primary role at Lakeside is to provide a third step in students’ specialization. After taking general classes in biology and a popular elective such as Bioethics, for instance, a student passionate about the field might opt to take Social Psychology, a niche subject that doesn’t garner enough interest to be a full-fledged elective at Lakeside, but is available through GOA.

Anabelle’s interest in the medical field spurred her to take Medical Problem Solving I and II, two semester classes that extend the concepts of biology and logical reasoning to a real-world setting. She notes that the class requires self-motivation and a lot of independent work, with assignments due every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a virtual meeting every other Sunday during which students discuss their cases. She says the course feels different from a Lakeside class, in part because students have less direct interaction with their teachers and have to keep on top of their own schedules.

The GOA partnership serves an important academic role in the Lakeside community, providing a unique learning experience for students: highly advanced classes taken with instructors and peers from around the world.

— Rohan D. ’25