Online Course
InstitutiU.U.S.s in the US Should Move Course Online
The life of human beings is full of dynamics and uncertainties. People tend to live without knowing fully about the future. There are global issues as well as natural calamities that never alarm while coming. This global crisis includes, disease outbreaks, inflations in the economy, conflicts and violence including civil wars as well as natural calamities such as floods, drought amongst others. Due to these global crises, the normal life of human beings is affected profoundly. The effects might be more advanced to the extent of leading to a lockdown either of cities, states or even continents. One of the sectors that are greatly influenced by the global crisis is the education sector. United States of America is not in the exemption of the profound effect of the worldwide crisis on the education sector. In times of pandemics such outbreak of a virus, colleges tend to close all their operations as a measure of preventing the spread of the disease. This means that students will go home no without normally clearing with the semester. However, the effect of pandemics on education can be controlled using online courses. Kevin Carey, an editor with the New York Times and a director of education policy program at New America, talks of mass migration to online clasUU.Ss in the US. He says that, COVID-19 forced everyone to migrate to online classes that nobody planned UU.Sr in the US. Therefore, due to unplanned pandemics, every instUU.S.tion in the U.S should have at least every course partly online, if not entirely.
Technological innovations in the 21st century are numerous. However, in the education sector, the growth of online learning is translated to technological growth in the sector. According to Dr. Hope Kentnor, who is an e-Learning Strategist and Consultant and also the founder, eDevLaw, online learning is a form of distance education that make use of computers as well as the internet as the primary mechanism of delivering learning resources to learners with at least 80 percent of the content provided online (28). This is a form of learning where both the students and the educators doesn’t meet physically. Therefore, E-Learning depends on information technology to accommodate the learning process. According to Marija Buselic who is full Professor, Department of Economics and Tourism Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, online learning is a field of education that aims at teaching methodologies as well as technology to deliver instruction on an individual basis to learners that are physically absent in a traditional learning setting such as a classroom (24). Therefore, distance learning is a mode of learning where the source of information such as a teacher and learners are separated mostly by distance and time. The history of online learning can be traced back to more than three decades. Online education began in the year 1989 with the University of Phoenix, where they used CompuServe to the first consumer online service. Two years later, upon discovery of the world wide web, the University of Phoenix became the first institution to offer online education using the internet. Ever since the use on online platforms has grown significantly in line with the technological advancements, by 2011, 65 percent of the institutiU.U.S.s in the US were using online learning to deliver content to the student. Therefore, online learning is not the only growU.U.S.g in the US but also playing a significant role compared to the traditional classroom learning.
A significant reason as to why online learning is better compared to traditional classroom learning is due to its importance during a time of global crisis, such as an outbreak of a dangerous virus. During an outbreak of a virus or a disease that is communicable or even air-born, the mitigations to curb the epidemics tend to affect the learning process, especially in the physical classroom learning. According to Lori Uscher-Pines a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and the research quality assurance manager for RAND Social and Economic Wellbeing alongside other authors, during an outbreak of growing influenza pandemic, there is community mitigation that is kept in place to control the disease. Amongst these measures includes social distancing as well as avoidance of public areas, including schools. Therefore, the students are forced to vacate the school premises with or without the completion of their studies. Consequently, the education process of the majority of the students is haltered. In March 2020, all learning institutions closed their operations following the advanced spread of the coronavirus. According to Carey, “Colleges have also adopted so-called learning management systems, virtual platforms that help faculty interact with students on campus and off” (Carey). This shows that colleges not oU.U.S.y in the US but also the parts of the world are now turning into the usage of online learning. This approach of education is not limited to space and time. Students from the institutions that are offering online courses are lucky since they will have to finish with their studies no matter the health condition around the globe. However, this is not the case with face to face mode of learning. According to a study that was led by Amy Gonzales, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Information Technologies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, more than 20 percent of the studeU.U.S.s in the US have no access to online learning. This means that they will depend on the traditional classroom learning for them to continue with their studies.
InstitutiU.U.S.s in the US should as well embrace offering online courses due to its convenience not only to the students but also to the educators and the school at large. Online learning provides both the students and the educators the flexibility of learning from any place. According to Antonio Sergio Torres Penedo who is a professor of the Graduate Program in Administration (PPGA) at the University Federal de Uberlandia UFU, Faculty of Business and Management, “many students look for distance education courses just because they cannot or do not want to expose themselves to the rigidity required in physical classroom courses” (147). In this, the flexibility offered in online learning is configured as the most significant merit to the students. This helps the students to continue with their online courses while doing other things. If the institutiU.U.S.s in the US will embrace online learning, they will be able to reach out to the majority of the students who would wish to learn but lack time or fear the complexity of the traditional classroom learning. Online learning is as well accessible from any place different from the traditional classroom learning that requires one to be present in class. According Buselic, “online learning is its convenience because many of the technologies are easily accessible from home. Many forms of distance learning provide students the opportunity to participate whenever they wish, on an individual basis” (25). Therefore, one can continue with their classes regardless of the place. Thus, migrating to online couU.U.S.e in the US will be of more significant impact to students who cannot access the physical classroom learning. Students will be able to carry on their studies based on their schedule, which means that one can engage in other activities while studying, which is an impossibility with traditional classroom learning.
Migrating to online learning will as welU.U.S.help the US universities to reach out to the number of learners. In his TED presentation, Peter Norvig who is a leading American computer scientist, expert on artificial intelligence and the Director of Research at Google Inc says that, while he was teaching with Sebastian Thrun on artificial intelligence at Stanford 175 students attended the class in person while over 100,000 via an interactive webcast (Norvig). Clearly, online learning is far much beyond traditional classroom learning in terms of the population of students reached out. The ultimate purpose of education is to convey knowledge from one person to another. Education is key in eradicating poverty and all countries worldwide are on the move to control illiteracy. Therefore, the target should be reaching to as many students as possible. However, with the old classroom learning, the population reached is very small compared to online learning. Therefore, to help the growth of literacy, not in the US but also in other parts of the world, US institutions of education should embrace online learning. Further, online learning is also affordable compared to the traditional classroom. Online learning is not only accessible to the students but also the institutions. According to Antonio et al, institutions of learnings can use less resources to reach out to thousands of audience or students. This is due to the large population reached out via online learning (150). For instance, if all the institutiU.U.S.s in the US will have their courses online, a single instructor can be used to reach out to the number of learners at a go. This will help the institutions to cut the cost incurred not only in physical resources used but also in human power. However, this is not the case with traditional classroom learning, where the institution needs to invest per classroom. Further, online learning cuts cost to the students as well, thus helping many students to access education. Although the tuition fees in online learning are almost the same with that in classroom learning, there are no other expenses such as commuting as well as housing which are inevitable in traditional learning.
Although online learning is beneficial to institutions as well the society as a whole, it still misses an essential aspect of education in their article on the online education and its effective practice, Dr. Anna Q. Sun is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Educational Services and Leadership in the College of Education at Rowan University and Dr. Xiufang Chen Associate Professor of Language and Literacy Education in the College of Education the same university says eight pedagogical practices that they considered to be highly effective in practice in the education sector. These practices include fostering relationships, timeliness, engagement, communications, technology, organization, expectations, as well as high flexibility. They assert that online learning doesn’t meet all these requirements, especially on upholding a better relationship between the educators and the learners. As a result, the bond between the teacher and the students is weak, which makes it challenging to evaluate the student (Sun et al. 166). Further, the student lacks immediate feedback from the educator. This has weakened not only the bond but also the quality of the education offered through online platforms. Students learning through online platforms also lack motivation and engagement that is very common with traditional classroom learning. Therefore, moving to online classes will destroy the already built relationship between the teacher and the students. It is also argued that online learning leads to failure as compared to classroom learning. In his news article, Online schools ‘worse than traditional teachers’ on BBC News, Sean Coughlan, a journalist and author for more than ten years, says that online learning is worse as it leads to failure compared to classroom learning. He writes about a study that was carried out at the University of Washington, Stanford University, and the Mathematica policy research group. According to this study, online students fall far behind their counterparts in traditional classroom learning (Coughlan). Therefore, moving courses to online clasU.U.S.s in the US will increase failure in the academic performance of the students.
Conclusively, online learning is the measure of technological growth in the education sector. Through the online platforms, institutions of lU.U.S.rning in the US have continued with their syllabus even in a time like this of COVID-19. Not only in this pandemic that edU.U.S.ation in the US has served through online platforms but also in the other epidemics in history. Further, due to the affordability of online learning, significant number of students are now studying online. It has as well enabled thousands of people to continue working while studying. Furthermore, online learning is convenient since one can access it from any place at any time. The institutions are able to access to many students using less resources. This is cost-effective to the schools. However, online learning leads to failure of students. The possible causes of this failure is lack of immediate feedback in online learning. Further, weaker bond between teachers and the students is common in online learning. Nonetheless, the substantial impact of distance learning in the education sector is evident and remarkable. Therefore, it would be prudent for every instUU.S.tion in the U.S to have at least every course partly online, if not entirely.
Works Cited
Antonio Sergio Torres Penedo, De Oliveira, Mayra Martins Santana and Vinícius Silva Pereira. “Distance education: advantages and disadvantages of the point of view of education and society.” Dialogia 29 (2018): 139-152.
Buselic Marija. “Distance Learning–concepts and contributions.” Oeconomica Jadertina 2.1 (2012): 23-34.
Carey, Kevin. “Everybody Ready for the Big Migration to Online College? Actually, No.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/upshot/coronavirus-online-college-classes-unprepared.html.
Coughlan, Sean. “Online Schools Worse than Traditional Teachers.” BBC News, BBC, 4 Nov. 2015, www.bbc.com/news/business-34671952.
Gonzales, Amy L., Jessica McCrory Calarco, and Teresa Lynch. “Technology problems and student achievement gaps: A validation and extension of the technical maintenance construct.” Communication Research (2018): 0093650218796366
Kentnor, Hope E. “Distance education and the evolution of online learning in the United States.” Curriculum and Teaching Dialogue 17.1 (2015): 21-34.
Norvig Peter. (The 100,000-student classroom [Video]. (2012, June). TED. https://youtu.be/tYclUdcsdeo
Sun, Anna, and Xiufang Chen. “Online education and its effective practice: A research review.” Journal of Information Technology Education 15 (2016).