When you research online education, you are hit with a plethora of advertisements, university names, secondary school programs, and articles detailing the pros and cons of such an academic climate. Nevertheless, the classroom has always changed over the years, and now the location of the classroom is simply shifting. Competitive young dancers can complete schooling on their bedroom Macbook to provide more time for practice. Stay-at-home moms are capable of finishing their associate degrees while their toddler naps upstairs. It seems the possibilities are endless. Is something lost in the technological mix, though?
In this post, I am going to hone in on online classes at the collegiate level, a concept close to many University Park students’ hearts. For some, through Penn State’s World Campus, full degree requirements may be met online. Students can complete both undergraduate and graduate programs, such as a major in Health Policy Administration, or a Master’s Degree in Psychology of Leadership. Countless others only take select courses online during a traditional semester, such as a single Music Appreciation course, or a non-major requirement over the summer.
The demographic of online learners is reverse aging. According to a 2015 article from U.S. News & World Report, “Younger Students Increasingly Drawn to Online Learning, Study Finds”, enthusiasm for online programs is becoming younger. In three years, the percentage of online learners under the age of 25 has grown by almost ten percent. This change has likely only grown in the year and a half since the study. It was theorized that this is due to millennial familiarity with online courses in high school, and economic pressures of working while receiving an education. These courses vary greatly, with some requiring facetime via Skype, or visual lectures of professors themselves. Others are self guided through lessons and modules taken on the student’s own schedule through a given period of twelve or fifteen weeks. I think back to my own online driver’s education course and wonder if that is just how I would like to learn something as challenging as Biology.
My largest hesitation when considering the effectiveness of online courses has always been the educational outcomes that are difficult to measure. Beyond attaining knowledge through course material, I believe that education plays a crucial role in developing effective communication strategies and socialization between and among both academic peers and professors. If we only look at online powerpoints and complete worksheets digitally, are we achieving the same engagement with material (and each other) we would in a class setting?
During my senior year of high school, I completed a Capstone project for which I dabbled in the connection between technology, education, and psychology. I interviewed a local university professor who instructed both online and traditional classes. She related that the materials for her online courses were the same as those found in her other classes. She also noted that in her online courses, with weekly assignments due, the course was still somewhat structured and kept students on track. “How does it feel to never meet your students, though?” I pondered. She interestingly suggested that in some respects, she was able to better know her online students than those from the past, because they were more apt to vocalize their opinions in discussion posts behind a screen.
One scholarly article which I read, “Online Learning for the Left-Behind Generation”, in many ways challenged my thinking. It echoed my concerns in some respects, posing the questions of online educators like, “How can we show our [students] how to “walk the walk” if we may be limited to merely “talking the walk”?”. They admitted that for teaching at their college, the University of Central Arkansas, they were at first distressed by the change in medium.
A theme of the article, and online education in general, is a reliance on the student. Students must be driven to complete work on their own, as no professor is imposingly threatening to call upon them to answer a question. With this in mind, online education might not be for those seeking structure. The outcomes of these classes also largely included teamwork, as through discussion forums and projects, students still had to collaborate with others (just through their computers). In this sense, as the workforce becomes digital, these skills may be just as vital as public speaking in a large lecture hall. The Wake/Bunn article found: “students feel that effective online courses are a form of social practice or social media and feel these courses create the same of an increased level of social connectedness as a face-to-face class”. Woah. The digital generation has spoken.
Online Learning for the Left-Behind Generation by Donna Wake and Gary Bunn: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1083123.pdf