Online and Distance Learning College Courses
A favorite professor of mine will be instructing an online / distance course over the summer. One of the reasons I love this professor is that she always asks feedback from students so she can make the class better each semester. In preparation for instructing her first online / distance learning class, she assembled a panel of students that have taken online / distance learning classes to get an idea of what would work best. As I gathered my thoughts for the panel, I realized there may be others that would like to know the pros and cons of taking online courses. I have taken seven online courses for college credit and 12 online courses for certification, 3 distance learning college courses as well so I think I have a pretty good idea of what is out there.
Pros:
+ Online courses that are taken at another college and transfered do not count toward/against your GPA. For me, this was a way to bypass a professor that graded unfairly. It is also a way to take courses that you are weak in without hurting your overall GPA.
+ Open book learning. You really learn a lot by researching your answers instead of trying to memorize a book. I have a difficult time memorizing vocabulary. When I want to know what a word means I look it up (and never forget it after that). Online courses allow you to research answers and in the end I learned more than I would have in the cram session most students do before quizes and tests.
+ No classes to try to fit into a schedule. No need to try to adjust your work schedule to fit in that odd class. No more 8am classes…
+ The assignments are more busywork than difficult. The hardest part of an online course is figuring out what the professor wants in an assignment. A note to online instructors: show examples for every assignment.
Cons:
- The college credit online / distance learning courses were not “at your own pace” as advertised. This is my major pet peeve about online/distance learning courses. They advertise “work at your own pace” but I have never taken an online / distance learning course that allows you to access the next module/chapter assignments early and there are due dates on everything. There were times wanted to go on vacation or I got really busy but I still had to get everything done within a very restricted schedule. I would have liked to be able to get ahead on assignments if I can and requested early access on every online / distance learning course I took but I was never accomodated.
I did not mind the deadlines as much as the restriction on how much I could do at once. Sometimes I was just in the mood to get things done and it would have been nice to finish the course in 6 weeks instead of 8 if I could. Another note to online / distance learning course instructors: Open the entire course from the start and allow students to get ahead.
- Some courses may be too difficult to attempt to do online or from a distance. I would not want to try calculus online or from a distance as it is a subject that needs real time interaction to learn conceptual and abstract ideas. I recommend courses that usually rely on memorization to assess learning such as history, psychology, business classes, economics, etc.
- Many students are not capable of following directions. If you cannot read and figure out the assignment, then online learning is not for you. The directions are sometimes abstract and require you to identify exactly what is required for the assignment. For example, every online class I took required the students to participate in class discussions by asking a question about the chapter and then responding to at least two other questions in the forum for each chapter. If that does not make sense to you, don’t take an online course.
I hope this helps others decide and get a better idea of what they are up against with online courses. Anyone else ever taken online college courses? How did it go? Anything I missed?
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2 comments June 24th, 2006
