Comments on: Online Instructor Defends Quality of Online Education & Learning

By: TIna Jackson

TIna Jackson — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 03:38:27 +0000

Thanks for your response to these 5 things Matt! You’ve mentioned things that I’m sure many students have not thought about. The details really do make a difference!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:32:56 +0000

Of course, class size is very important! But if you look at the research, cheating usually ends up being reported as much in face-to-face courses as it is online. Research into quality, cheating, you name it – all come out even when comparing the two. How do you know that the student that turned in that paper on your desk was the actual one that wrote it? There have been some big stories in the news about students not only getting paid to write papers for others but also go to class and take notes.

In the end, the research also shows that you can’t improve HOW people learn – that has stayed the same for centuries. You can improve the affordances surrounding education that allows people access to learning that they didn’t have otherwise. You can give them other ways to learn that allows them to fully live up their potential, and many other affordances. If we force people to drive to classes, they will stop coming (and the numbers that were coming out right as online learning took off proved it – online courses are keeping my current university afloat right now as far as attendance numbers goes.

By: Karen Falgore

Karen Falgore — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 15:06:09 +0000

Thanks for this Matt. In the past, I think an online education has been used by some who expect it to be “easy” when it is far from it. I think that students in campus university settings also fail to reach out to their instructors where it could really help them.

I believe that overall the online education industry is changing and its students are changing as well. More universities are getting in on the industry and more serious students are taking these courses on. I think it will be interesting to see how it progresses in the next few years.

By: Zoe Bogart

Zoe Bogart — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:31:54 +0000

These are all good points to remember when taking online courses. Bottom line is we need to be responsible for ourselves and not expect others to do the work for us. The more we stay on top of the assignments and ahead of the game, the more we will learn and benefit from. It may be very hard and challenging at times, but it will be well worth it in the end.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:20:20 +0000

Class size matters!! As someone who created one the first online MBA programs in the US back in 1997, I can say that the amount of work required for one online student is equal to 2 ground based students. “Stuffing” the class is a time honored way of increasing school margins, at the expense of the student experience. Try having a text chat with 25 students at once! Even VOIP is clumsy at best. I agree with Matt’s overall assessment of online education however one item that was missed is we (faculty and administration) fail to hold students accountable for their learning style. Many students take online classes because they are convenient and/or are perceived to be easier. This implies that a students’ learning style has no impact in the process which would be wrong to think.

Assessment of online programs is extremely problematic. First, cheating is abundant in online programs, ranging from looking up answers in timed m/c exams, to full collaboration on exams by multiple students. Even when you give essays or cases, there are so many websites that savy students go to to get a “sample” paper on a topic, or even a case study already prepared, requiring little if any modifications.

Group work might seem appropriate if that is indeed a learning outcome but you cannot use group data for assurance of learning objectives because you are typically grading the group rather then the individual.

I would support traditional exams where you have students come to the school or supervised learning center and take real exams – not exams that students can look up answer and google whatever you give them. That is not assessing what they know – it measures mroe what they can look up!

I have come full circle from online back to ground based education. It is less convenient, more costly but in the end, I think there is a better case made for quality control.

Lastly, when you get down to the basics, faculty do two things at a university – they create knowledge through their research and they validate knowledge. It is this last responsibility where many online (and ground) programs fall short.