The rise of online learning is rapidly transforming how and what teachers teach, and even who—or what—teachers are. In the midst of these changes, the characteristics that have historically defined a high-quality education are easily lost. Not only content knowledge, but also ways of thinking and habits of mind are the hallmarks of the well-educated individual, and these latter qualities are not so easily acquired online. Or are they?

This volume shows how a group of online-learning believers built the best high school in the world without laying a single brick: the Stanford Online High School (SOHS). By chronicling SOHS’s distinctive approach to curriculum, gifted education, and school community over SOHS’s first seven years, Bricks and Mortar makes the case that the dynamic use of technology and the best traditional methodologies in education are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. Indeed, while SOHS has redefined what is possible online, a great education is ultimately the product of an interactive community of teachers and students.

Jeffrey Scarborough is director of curriculum at the Stanford Online High School (SOHS), was the first instructor at SOHS, and is responsible for the development of the SOHS core curriculum. Raymond Ravaglia is associate dean of Stanford University Pre-Collegiate Studies and the principal architect of SOHS.