I’ve done online education both as a student and as an instructor of adults. The truth is that it doesn’t come close to matching an in-person classroom experience.
As an instructor it is really hard for me to create engaging lessons even in person. I get a lot of blank stares and zoning out. That may be partly on me but I think it’s because a lot of students are just there because they’re required to be there. They aren’t interested in what I am teaching even if I’m excited about it. At least in the classroom I can give them gentle nudges to engage and there is some live interaction to encourage them.
If I have to teach the course online it is likely to be very hands-off. The general format is read some content, watch some videos, do some homework and maybe a quiz, and engage in some forced online interaction. At the place where I was learning, that interaction was one response to a prompt, posted on a student forum, and two responses to other students’ posts. Those posts had a mandatory minimum word count requirement to meet the grading requirement. There is sometimes interaction with the instructor on the forum if they are very motivated and aren’t too busy, but most instructors are adjuncts and probably have other work they are doing. Some are, like students, not motivated and are just there to do the minimum to get paid. Also, group projects are difficult to manage. There are no in-class labs, and in some situations an online simulation does not come even close to a hands-on learning experience.
We have done live online classes where I teach but we have very small class sizes and it tends to work better since we can encourage interaction with each student. This isn’t possible with larger classes and again, there is no social incentive if students are all sitting alone staring at their phones/tablets/laptops.
So from my experience online education tends to be isolating for students and not at all motivating. It is also a surprising amount of work for the instructors and does not tend to add value to the course.
I’ve done online education both as a student and as an instructor of adults. The truth is that it doesn’t come close to matching an in-person classroom experience.
As an instructor it is really hard for me to create engaging lessons even in person. I get a lot of blank stares and zoning out. That may be partly on me but I think it’s because a lot of students are just there because they’re required to be there. They aren’t interested in what I am teaching even if I’m excited about it. At least in the classroom I can give them gentle nudges to engage and there is some live interaction to encourage them.
If I have to teach the course online it is likely to be very hands-off. The general format is read some content, watch some videos, do some homework and maybe a quiz, and engage in some forced online interaction. At the place where I was learning, that interaction was one response to a prompt, posted on a student forum, and two responses to other students’ posts. Those posts had a mandatory minimum word count requirement to meet the grading requirement. There is sometimes interaction with the instructor on the forum if they are very motivated and aren’t too busy, but most instructors are adjuncts and probably have other work they are doing. Some are, like students, not motivated and are just there to do the minimum to get paid. Also, group projects are difficult to manage. There are no in-class labs, and in some situations an online simulation does not come even close to a hands-on learning experience.
We have done live online classes where I teach but we have very small class sizes and it tends to work better since we can encourage interaction with each student. This isn’t possible with larger classes and again, there is no social incentive if students are all sitting alone staring at their phones/tablets/laptops.
So from my experience online education tends to be isolating for students and not at all motivating. It is also a surprising amount of work for the instructors and does not tend to add value to the course.