Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I work in the evening teaching business and Human Resources courses at a local Community College. So many of the students prefer to take their classes on line via the Internet instead of driving to college, parking and burning gasoline. Who can blame them, less hassle, but I am against it.
I think if the course is all lecture then maybe in some cases the On Line course approach may work but the classes I teach are discussion, case study and role playing. Many students are uncomfortable with my approach because they prefer all communication be on line and not have to interact with anyone.
Have you noticed that many courses are now on line and this has further isolated students from each other.
I work in the evening teaching business and Human Resources courses at a local Community College. So many of the students prefer to take their classes on line via the Internet instead of driving to college, parking and burning gasoline. Who can blame them, less hassle, but I am against it.
I think if the course is all lecture then maybe in some cases the On Line course approach may work but the classes I teach are discussion, case study and role playing. Many students are uncomfortable with my approach because they prefer all communication be on line and not have to interact with anyone.
Have you noticed that many courses are now on line and this has further isolated students from each other.
Oh boy, do I have thoughts on this one!
First off, I think that if community colleges are going this way, they need to reduce tuition. I recently took Sociology online. I see zero use for the instructor. She didn't answer emails, she assigned reading and had us respond via essays on the "discussion board" but she never commented on anyone's answers, and there was nothing I learned from that course that I couldn't have learned by just buying the textbook. The tests and quizzes all came from the publisher's website. The instructor did create the mid term and final but there were errors in her test!? None of the students used the message board to interact. I know there is value in peer contact but personally, when I've taken classes online and in person, I never really communicated much with my classmates anyway. If I needed help I went to a tutor. I am beyond needing school for social reasons. So that aspect is irrelevant to me.
So for my Sociology class, yes I received credit for the course but in my experience the instructor's role was non-existent. I'd love to have that job!
Now, in another online course I took, the instructor tried a more traditional approach but this didn't work well with the online format. Her lectures were in Word and were posted weekly.... but some people don't communicate as well in written form as they do in person and it was a confusing experience overall.
I think that online courses can be great IF it's something you already understand and just need credit for. I hope that colleges don't start limiting the number of "real time" courses available though. I'm about to tackle my nightmare math problems and I will absolutely NEED in person instruction.
Online courses offer plenty of resources for students to interact with each other. In one online course we had a message board just like CD and we were graded on the amount of feedback we gave others.
Also we had a chatroom and a were able to send pms to each other.
I interacted more with my classmates in an online course then an in class course.
Daughter majored in interior design.
She took her fabrics course online. No choice.
HOW CAN YOU STUDY FABRICS ONLINE???
You need to see as well as feel fabrics, crumple them, see how they drape. She has no idea what "hand" means when it comes to fabric.
This major also included no business courses, although most interior designers are self-employed.
No estimating or cost instruction, although that's something most customers are concerned about.
Personally, I thought she would have gotten more out of a sewing course and business courses, but nobody's asking what I think.
Just that I pay the bill.
Online college is a joke. I took a class over winter break at a community college online and it was terrible. Its not real college.
Its worthless in my opinion. If I owned a business, I would rather have someone with just a HS diploma then from an online college like University of Phoenix. Cause I would at least know that they arent stupid enough to try to go to college online.
I've taken a couple of online classes, and really hated them, thought it was the college just trying to cut corners...All in all, I found it to be way inferior.
On the other hand, my sister makes her living designing online classes, and insists to me that they don't have to be terrible.
I think if the course is all lecture then maybe in some cases the On Line course approach may work but the classes I teach are discussion, case study and role playing. Many students are uncomfortable with my approach because they prefer all communication be on line and not have to interact with anyone.
If the online course is designed well, there are chatrooms and messageboards that students can be required to participate in at a given time. At least this way, students can communicate a bit more anonymously without worrying about being ridiculed for their thoughts. Besides in a B&M setting, there are some students who will never say a single word to you all semester.
Online courses do have it's place in a college curicculum, but this won't work for certain classes that require hands on activity, such as science labs or as someone else mentioned, interior design so a student can feel fabrics. The other problem is that not every instructor is adequately trained to teach online courses. The courses where the instructor does not interact with or communicate with a class would be an example of this (or they're just plain lazy and looking for a paycheck). Another problem is a lack of checks and balances to ensure the instructor is actually teaching (a quality assurance check in other words). Sadly, there are quite a few instructors who put up notes, powerpoints, and tests, and you never hear from them and they get away it semester after semester.
Quote:
The tests and quizzes all came from the publisher's website. The instructor did create the mid term and final but there were errors in her test!?
Online course packets come with publisher Test Gens. Guess what? Sometimes the publisher or instructor makes mistakes. It happens. Instructors can't always pick up every single little mistake. Hell, most textbooks have a few glaring mistakes, some of which are the same mistake edition after edition.
Quote:
Online college is a joke.
Depends on the college. There are some top tiered universities that have very difficult online courses. There are also some CCs that have good online courses also. Now University of Phoenix and other for profit colleges are a joke and honestly, how they're taken seriously in the real world are beyond me.
With gas prices skyrocketing and the number of full time working and/or other nontraditional students start wanting higher education, online courses will be the wave of the future.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
