At first glance, online college courses might seem like a great idea due to convenience, efficiency and communication that extends beyond the classroom.
However, an urgent question is posed with the increased usage of this method: Are students learning as much as they could?
Although it’s convenient to submit homework and read over study notes at your own pace at selected hours, the actual assignments and tests seem less-than-great at testing a student’s knowledge. Simply scanning over a textbook or notes and answering multiple choice questions with the information in your lap isn’t a real test of how much was retained.
Some students find online courses more difficult than regular classes despite the flexible hours of class time.
Mia Evans, a sophomore at EMU, said, “Online courses are too hard. They have more of a workload than a classroom course and less help from a teacher. They can’t explain it to you face-to-face and sometimes e-mails are not enough.”
Another disadvantage to online courses is a student-teacher relationship is harder to build. For students who are applying to graduate school, interviews or some jobs, references are a necessity to reach goals. If online correspondence is the most a student has with a teacher, a sparking recommendation isn’t possible.
Obviously, online courses aren’t all bad. When a teacher can think of creative ways for a student to display their knowledge, the constant presence of a textbook has little impact on the learning process. One method is assigning creative projects that incorporate lessons in a way multiple-choice tests don’t.
Online components of classroom courses seem like a happy medium. In this case, students still get face time with a teacher, but can access course materials at their own convenience. With this setup, students can still learn useful information without losing points for forgetting their homework at home.
Making it possible for students to access their assignments, syllabus and projects online is a great way for those with other obligations, such as a family or a job, to stay on top of their schoolwork. With this method, efficiency and convenience
don’t have to sacrifice learning.
The main objective of going to college should be to learn new material that will carry students through a career with more opportunities and better pay than they would have had without a degree. However, if a new employee lacks the skill set needed to complete the tasks at work, how would he or she keep the job? Employers need people who can offer something useful and beneficial to a company, not just another person to add to the payroll.
Overall, it seems students who want to pass a class and breeze through school would love online courses. For those who want to apply their knowledge to a career someday, this might not be the best option. Some students have incredible discipline and force themselves to memorize and apply material, but this is rare.
Online courses show exactly how far we’ve come with technology, but not how much further we might have to go to apply this to education in a useful way.
