OUR VOICE: Online courses: It's been nice knowing you, Instructors
Issue date: 3/24/10 Section: Opinion
In new online university courses, students can take a class without a whiteboard, a desk or even a room. In these classes the required resources teach the student, and in many cases the student never even meets their instructor.
The rise of Internet classroom technology is leaving the future of higher education undeniably overcast. These online courses disconnect instructors from their classes and eliminate the educational relationships they are building with their students.
As more and more of our courses move online, it is simple to see that our education system is changing but hard to see what we are giving up. When courses are online, the foremost drawback is that no longer is it necessary for students to meet or talk to anyone.
Every student has taken a class with an instructor, be it in college or otherwise, who has engaged the students to take a genuine interest in their subject that goes beyond the classroom. This is called education, and it involves more than an online forum for responding to reading assignments.
In online courses, the instructor is mostly involved in preparing materials and grading assignments rather than talking to students, answering their questions in person and getting to know them.
It's an easy way out. The satisfaction for both instructor and student of taking the high road-learning in a classroom-comes from getting to know one another. One of the most important parts of my education here at UMD is the relationships I am building with my classmates and instructors. But as we move to more online courses, will students and instructors even meet?
I am writing to ask instructors to create lesson plans that engage students in the classroom, because without that online courses will continue to turn academia even more solitary and independent than it already is.
Good lectures can save the classroom.
I encourage instructors to ask students to raise their hands and speak up. The best learning I have done was in classes where the lecture was not a lecture, but more of a conversation, where the students interact with one another as well as the instructor.
Every subject is interesting; it is up to the instructor to show us why, in person.
Utilizing technology in the classroom can provide a powerful learning supplement to any course. But in the online classroom, it is reversed. The instructor supplements the technology, and the technology is nothing more than an impersonal vehicle for inhibiting free thought and creativity.
I will not take an online course, and I support others who do the same.
-Scott Schmidley
The rise of Internet classroom technology is leaving the future of higher education undeniably overcast. These online courses disconnect instructors from their classes and eliminate the educational relationships they are building with their students.
As more and more of our courses move online, it is simple to see that our education system is changing but hard to see what we are giving up. When courses are online, the foremost drawback is that no longer is it necessary for students to meet or talk to anyone.
Every student has taken a class with an instructor, be it in college or otherwise, who has engaged the students to take a genuine interest in their subject that goes beyond the classroom. This is called education, and it involves more than an online forum for responding to reading assignments.
In online courses, the instructor is mostly involved in preparing materials and grading assignments rather than talking to students, answering their questions in person and getting to know them.
It's an easy way out. The satisfaction for both instructor and student of taking the high road-learning in a classroom-comes from getting to know one another. One of the most important parts of my education here at UMD is the relationships I am building with my classmates and instructors. But as we move to more online courses, will students and instructors even meet?
I am writing to ask instructors to create lesson plans that engage students in the classroom, because without that online courses will continue to turn academia even more solitary and independent than it already is.
Good lectures can save the classroom.
I encourage instructors to ask students to raise their hands and speak up. The best learning I have done was in classes where the lecture was not a lecture, but more of a conversation, where the students interact with one another as well as the instructor.
Every subject is interesting; it is up to the instructor to show us why, in person.
Utilizing technology in the classroom can provide a powerful learning supplement to any course. But in the online classroom, it is reversed. The instructor supplements the technology, and the technology is nothing more than an impersonal vehicle for inhibiting free thought and creativity.
I will not take an online course, and I support others who do the same.
-Scott Schmidley
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Diane Gregory
posted 3/24/10 @ 6:50 PM CST
Hi Scott,
I regret you have not taken an online class. I know some faculty who feel this way. However, I have a much more positive view of online learning than you do. (Continued…)
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