Convocation Speaker Stephen Baker Honorary Degree Recipient Monday, June 10, 2024, 3:00 p.m.
In the summer of 1987, the family made the difficult decision to leave Newfoundland and head to Ontario. Baker started teaching at a school for incarcerated young offenders and then spent three years in an alternative school where the idea of asynchronous education started to grow. After he returned to the traditional classroom in Goderich, his principal resisted replacing his 30-year-old class textbooks, so in 1995, Baker taught his senior biology class HTML so they could develop their own genetics unit on the fledgling internet. The Director of Education encouraged Baker to develop a complete online biology course and to work with colleague, John Smallwood, to develop an online Canadian Literature course. In 2000, Baker transitioned his two online courses into a private school – and Virtual High School was born. Following its successful inspection by the Ministry of Education, the school rapidly increased registration, allowing Baker to hire staff and to eventually leave the school board in 2005. Over the next 20 years, Baker and Smallwood worked alongside their growing staff to write more than 130 unique online courses for their school and 36 online courses for a large virtual school in the United States. Many online schools have embraced their original model for online courses. Today, the school’s courses include advanced multimedia and interactivity, but the original concepts of asynchronous learning, challenging educational content, teachers trained to teach online, and sensitive administration, have not changed. With over 90 000 registrations from Ontario, as well as other provinces and countries, the school is achieving Baker’s original vision of making quality education available to all potential students, while at the same time, empowering students to take charge of their own education.
Stephen Baker was born in February 1951 in Grand Falls, Newfoundland where his father, a WWII veteran, owned and operated a dry-cleaning plant while his mom was a secretary at the pulp-and- paper mill. Growing up, Baker spent his summers at their cabin in Point Leamington without electricity or responsibilities. He explored beaches and tidal pools, swam in the buoyant salt water with the jellyfish, boiled tasty blue mussels raked from the bottom, and rode his Newfoundland pony like his cowboy heroes. After Grade 11, he attended Memorial University of Newfoundland with a plan to study dentistry. However, he and his future wife, Patricia, decided to pursue teaching together. They were married in June 1974 and purchased an old sealing captain’s house in Wesleyville. Over the next 13 years, they were taught how to teach by the wonderful students from Bonavista Bay, while also having four children of their own. Baker spent his summers repairing his old house, starting a scuba diving business, and forming a Stamp Club, which still meets regularly.
323 rd Convocation 17
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