Today I chose a topic dear to my heart, education.
I have a grave concern that one of the impacts of the corona virus will be the acceleration of a trend that I feel is destroying our system of education, not only here in the US, but worldwide.
I am referring to online education.
My position is not a popular one, but I hope you will take the time to hear me out as to why I feel classes taught in a classroom by a real live teacher are hands down a much better alternative than the online approach exploding in our primary and secondary school systems as well as in our colleges and universities.
I found an interesting article by an educator in India named Sudhanshu Sinhal who agrees with my position and he provides some valids points in support of tradional classroon teaching.
1. Promotes collaborative learning
Basically, classroom environment is essential to promote and stimulate collaborative learning. Collaborative learning increases a student’s self-awareness about how other students learn and enables them to learn more easily and effectively, transforming them into keen learners inside and outside the classroom.
2. Enhances critical thinking skills
It enhances students’ critical thinking skills. Teaching in a classroom gives students the opportunity to engage in live discussions in which they are forced to use their critical thinking skills to formulate opinions or arguments.
3. Improves social skills
Inside a classroom, students experience social interactions with peers and establish rapport with teachers. Helping children develop socially is an important aspect within the realm of their academic education.
4. Builds organizational skills
Classroom teaching teaches students how to develop organizational skills, beginning with the basics, such as arriving to school on time. In a live classroom, students are held accountable for being prepared to do school work, which includes having done their homework the night before, being ready for pop quizzes, turning in assignments by their due date and being prepared for in-class discussions. In effect, students learn how to organize their time, prioritize their assignments and get their homework done.
5. Keeps students stimulated
The physical presence of a teacher keeps students stimulated through interactive and interesting activities. This enables students to retain more from what they have learned during a session.
6. Teaching style can be modified according to the student’s issues
Teachers can modify their teaching style based on types of learners in their classroom i.e. classroom activities can help visual learner, interactions can help auditory learners, etc. Teachers can get a clear idea whether students are following what has been taught or they require further explanation. At the same time, students can get their doubts clarified immediately before moving ahead in a topic.
7. Develops important personality and career building skills
Classroom teaching develops conflict resolving skills, presentation skills when it comes to presenting their ideas confidently in front of peers, it also develops team spirit and teaches them to get along with those from different cultural backgrounds. Such experiences are valuable in shaping students’ communication and listening skills, as well as growing and maturing emotionally.
These points show that although India is moving towards online education in large numbers like the rest of the world, classroom teaching has certain plus points that online teaching simply cannot replace.
In my research I also found a great article written by a Mr. Seth Hughes on the website Owlcation
Owlcation is a great site created by educators and experts on topics related to education
In the article, Mr. Hughes states that online courses are becoming more and more popular. The ability to relax at home and use our own personal computers to obtain college credit is taking more and more students out of classrooms and putting them online.
Mr. Hughes seems to agree with my position as well and makes several good point in support of traditional classroom learning over online courses.
Lack of Interpersonal Skill Development
Online courses usually require no face to face interaction with classmates or teachers. Information on assignments is posted online and may be completed at leisure without having to attend class meetings.
While the leisure of this concept is nice, it takes away from the interpersonal skills that students need to acquire along with their education.
When in a classroom, students may be required to speak their mind. They may be required to give presentations or speeches. They will have to work in groups with all kinds of people with many differing viewpoints. Online courses require none of that.
Businesses often tell university faculty that they wish graduating students had more interpersonal skills. They say it is crucial to success in their careers. Traditional style learning teaches these things.
Now obviously if businesses are telling universities they wish these skills were more evident, there is room for improvement. Still, online courses are not the answer. If anything, online courses will only hurt a student’s ability to speak and interact with others in a way that will help them in their life and career.
When students are required to interact with classmates and professors, they gain confidence in their ability to speak and interact with others. It grants them the opportunity to learn how to carry themselves in a professional manner. Because online learning can’t do this, it’s value to a student is significantly lower.
Lack of Memory and Learning Development
Why do many students sign up for online courses? Well, one reason is of course the fact that they do not have to attend an actual class and can learn at home.
A more serious, unspoken reason however may be the fact that online learning does not require the student to study or memorize material in the way that traditional learning does.
Students taking a test or quiz online do not have to worry about a professor catching them cheating. Students have the ability to use a book and quickly look up answers online.
Even while many tests are timed and many professors don’t mind the use of a book on certain things, is this really the way a student should learn?
When someone does not have to study and memorize material, it does not embed in his or her long term memory the way it does when they do study it. This is a serious flaw with online courses. It does not promote memory development.
Students may not realize it while enrolled in a difficult course, but they will better appreciate the education they receive in the classroom if they are required to put in more effort in obtaining it.
A child does not learn how to spell by looking up words in a dictionary, he memorizes the words using flashcards or something similar. This is what enables him to actually learn.
Lack of Student Motivation
One problem with online classes is that all too often, they motivate us to get a degree, but not to learn.
Having debates and in class discussions with multiple professors who all have unique personalities motivates students to develop their own opinions. It motivates them to want to voice their opinions. If a student is scared to voice his or her opinion, the classroom is the place he will practice overcoming that fear, not online.
When students receive face to face verbal feedback and constructive criticism from their professors, it instills in them a motivation to not want to let their professors down. It is the relationships and bonds that are formed that give face to face learning an advantage over online learning.
Motivation is a skill that cannot be developed when students are allowed to complete task at their own leisure. They may get the work done, but this does not teach a student how to complete a task under the pressure of time.
During their careers, they will need to complete tasks in a certain amount of time on a whim when they are told. If a professor assigns a paper at the start of class and requires it be handed in at the end, that is good preparation for a career. Reading about a similar assignment online that is due in six days doesn’t teach this.
A recent seminar consisting of 85 companies was held in Ireland. Business leaders from these companies were asked which competencies they most wanted to see from graduates.
The two highest percentage answers chosen were teamwork and communication.”
Key skills you learn in the classroom.
Finally, and most important, the greatest argument I can make for traditional classroom learning is academic freedom.
Prior to the advent of online courses, teachers had tremendous academic freedom.
They chose the text to be used, wrote the lesson plans, and developed the testing methodology.
This being the case, it was fairly easy for school administrators to determine good teachers from bad. Who had mastered their subject material and who had not. Who was capable of delivering the lesson plans and had the ability to engage the students on a personal level and evaluate their progress.
Not so with online learning.
First comes the issue of choosing a text. As I said, it used to be up to the instructor. Not so with online learning. That decision is now made by the administration, in many cases without any input from the instructors.
Think about that. One of the last courses I taught was American History I. The required text started off by saying our country was founded by white, racist, slave holding imperialists.
Back when instructors had a say, they had the option of choosing another text. Not so with online learning.
The classes are all standardized and what the lesson plan says is what the instructor must teach.
In essence, the teachers have now become nothing more than facilitators when it comes to online learning.
Bear in mind, what is taught is what is tested. So regardless of what the instructor thinks, the students must learn what is presented online in the lesson plan.
Now here is the rub. What if the instructor decides he/she doesn’t agree with what is being taught or the way it is being presented?
They can make their feelings known to the administration, but in nearly every case the instructor is told, this is the way it will be done or you can look for a job elsewhere.
This is a huge problem. Book publishers have now jumped on board with the online learning craze and now cut huge contracts with schools and universities.
These contracts obligate the schools to use certain publishers exclusively. So, if the school wants to push a certain agenda, such as the benefits of socialism, climate change, revisionist history, etc, they work with the publisher to develop a text and online courses to address those issues.
Again, in most cases, faculty have little or no say in course development and once the course is rolled out, it becomes the standard that all students and instructors must follow.
Let me ask you listeners. Did you have a favorite teacher in grade school, high school, or college? What made them your favorite. I will bet you that what made them great can’t be found online.
How many of you talked to other students about the teachers and found out who were the good ones and who to avoid? That choice as well is gone with online learning.
Still don’t believe me?
I found one final article that supports what I just told you. It was written by Jonathan Rees, Professor of History at Colorado State University — Pueblo. He is co-author of Education Is Not an App: The Political Economy of University Teaching in the Internet Age.
As Professor Rees points out, no single individual can produce a filmed class for tens of thousands of people all by themselves. As a result, people other than the professor whose name is on the course end up having a disproportionate impact on how faculty operate their classes — certainly much more than they might in ordinary face-to-face classes.
For example, Karen Head, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, wrote about her online teaching experience for the Chronicle of Higher Education. At one point she noted, “Even with our team of 19, we still needed several other people to provide support.” This kind of intervention would simply not be economical or feasible if the instruction wasn’t occurring online in front of tens of thousands of students.
In ordinary face-to-face classes, an instructor can safely dismiss the advice of instructional designers and other consultants. When tens of thousands of dollars are needed just to get your course off the ground, faculty have to give up some control almost by definition.
Professors who resist this kind of interference with their instructional prerogatives risk having their courses get outflanked by online equivalents.
This has already happened at the University of Oklahoma where an online US history course that is co-branded with the History Channel offers the same credit available to people who take a similar course in Norman with living, breathing faculty members.
Unfortunately, as Jennifer Davis, a tenured professor in the History Department there, reported in the comments of the Chronicle blog post linked to the above article which announced this program, “This course was created with zero input from our department. From the little information I have gleaned from press reports, it fails to meet the basic requirements for a general education course.
There are no exams, very little reading, and a total [of] 6–10 pages in writing assignments.” Lose your students to these kinds of online programs, and your university may eventually have little use for you.
There are some things that need to remain the same as time goes on and societies evolve. Education is one of them. While there is an argument that online learning allows people to learn at their own pace, it is still not as valuable as the education obtained from a traditional style classroom.
My good friend and mentor, Dr. John Keeney once told me as we discussed the push for online learning, “The traditional system of students in a classroom with a teacher has worked for 2000 years. Why would we want to change that?”
Keep in mind, this system is only true if the teachers and professors are good at what they do and if the student is willing to learn. If not, then regardless of the method, nothing will be learned.
It just does not make sense to pay for online education when you gain more skill sets and knowledge with traditional style learning (which is typically less expensive).
Now, many people cannot attend regular class meetings and therefore must utilize online learning. This is the case much of the time with graduate degrees. But for the person who is able to choose online or traditional education courses, the decision should be clear.
A student must ask himself, “Am I going to college to develop life skills and learn, or to get a diploma?”
Unfortunately, with the current pressure on students to obtain a degree in order to get a job, many students are forced to put the diploma in front of the education.