To Be or Not To Be: Online
New York Times article The Trouble with Online College addresses the pros and cons of online classes being offered to college students. This is a topic I find particularly interesting due to my personal experience with the matter in both High School and College. As a high school student I enjoyed the freedom of online classes offered, and the flexibility I was given to learn at my own pace, however many students find this aspect of online classes challenging. As the article suggests, many students do not stay enrolled in online classes or are ill prepared to transfer to another form of education. “Is there a solution to the problems with online classes? Should we continue to offer courses online?” These are the kinds of questions professors and institutions are asking themselves when looking at continuing to offer online courses.
When looking at solutions for online schools we must also take a look at what challenges students are facing in their learning atmosphere. Low retention rates are one of the main challenges student encounter while enrolled in online colleges and this is primarily caused by the lack of interpersonal relationships built between fellow students and professors. Since the students aren’t interacting with the professors or other students they don’t feel obligated to commit to the work or offer their best efforts in each assignment. There is no one there to let down other than themselves, and without outside forces pushing them it is easy for the student to fall behind and even drop out. One proposition to cope with this problem is to offer other forms of social interactions. If your only option is online, start a chat group or exchange phone numbers, that way the students are held accountable and have someone to lean on when they feel discouraged or unfocused. Instead of feeling like no one will notice their absence the student will feel more connected to others. As a student enrolled in a cyber charter high school, Commonwealth Connections Academy, I found it difficult to connect to others, but the school made an effort to connect students through clubs and regionalized gatherings for picnics. It is important for the school to take the initiative if they want to improve retention and success of its students. Classes like my Chemistry class saw significant improvements because students were able to support each other through difficult material.
Connecting with the professor is another challenge; one that is up to the professor. It is their responsibility to reach out to the student and create a relationship with the students. During my experiences it was much easier for the professor of my U.S. History course which was a hybrid course (partially online and partially in a traditional classroom) to do this than it was for professors of courses offered solely online. The online professors have to spend more time and put in more effort to reach out to its students through phone calls, emails, and other forms of communication. In a hybrid class the professor has the opportunity to see the student face to face at least a few times, and that kind of interaction cannot be replicated.
When thinking about whether or not to maintain the online courses or to terminate them, it is important to weigh the benefits compared to what you lose. It is an agreed on idea, that highly motivated students benefit from online courses but what about everyone else who is average or even below? The article says “low-performing who may be just barely hanging on in traditional classes tend to fall even farther behind in online courses.” (Trouble). There may be a way to keep these students on board though. They are considered “low-performing” but that could quite easily be from lack of good teaching, outside distractions, or a whole list of other factors. How can we be sure that these are not students who were going to drop out despite the kind of classes they enroll in.
The questions mentioned above cannot be answered simply and will require years of research, trial and error, and experimental classes. There may not be a substitute to traditional classes similar to how there is no substitute for face-to-face conversations. While online classes can be extremely helpful, there are some better suited for traditional classroom experiences. Science courses are extremely hard online because of the lack of hands-on experience you receive through a computer screen. Foreign Languages are also challenging since you cannot converse with another person and according to most professors that is an extremely important part of learning a language. So if the question is “Should we continue to offer online courses?” my answer is yes but modified, so that professors and students alike benefit from the experience.
Savannah Damon 