Do Online Schools Provide A Quality Education?

An anonymous reader asks: "I am attending an online college for the first time and I am starting to get a bad taste in my mouth about the amount of effort that some of my professors are putting forward in my courses. I feel like some of them are 'skating' and all I am paying for is a book, a posted syllabus, and a final exam. Have any of you been to an online school, and what where your experiences like? How did you feel about the quality of education you were getting?" Corrected the charset errors, that appeared in this article. Thanks to all who pointed this out.

"After the dot com 'boom' settled down a bit, and I was no longer required to work 80 hrs a week, I decided that after ten years of being absent I would go back to school and finish up that elusive CS degree. Well, after shopping around a bit I found a very good, well known, University that was offering the degree, online.

'Cool,' I thought, no classes, all on my schedule, save gas, and I could work at 2 am if I wanted. I thought I had found the perfect way to learn.

BUT, after just one semester, I am starting to have my doubts. I am sure this is the way to go in the future, but I'm not so sure that the schools has got all the kinks worked out and I am beginning to believe that the professors, and possible even the schools, see this as a way for them to teach a class with a minimal amount of effort and cost.

You basically have a public conference area (a web based discussion group for comments) that you, the other students, and the professors participate in. This works very well because your assignments are given out on a weekly basis and you have a whole week to post comments and complete your assignments. You are required to participate in the discussions and then post your answers to quizzes in a private portfolio where it is graded by the professor and then returned to you.

Most of the professors participate in the conference like you are in a real classroom; with student asking questions and the professor responding, though, it is not real time.

But some of the professors only want you to post to the public discussion groups and never have you post to the private portfolio, basically this means they don't have to do anything accept scan the conferences and give out more assignments. They don't have to look over your work and give you any feedback. I bet it takes less than an hour a week to do this. Also, this allows other students to see the answers and just repost them.

The only thing this person seems to be doing is sitting on his butt all week; telling the students to just follow the syllabus for reading; and occasionally surfing the discussions groups to see who is there. That sounds like a very good deal for them, but I am not getting much out of this.

I also feel that ALL of the professors are very behind-the-times when it comes to IT. Just today I had a professor tell me she would not allow me to post a PDF file to my portfolio because she was worried about getting a virus when she read it?!

A few questions come to mind: Is this a quality education? Should the professors be required to show what they have done because they don't have a real classroom to attend? How much effort should a professor put forth for an online class? This has always been an issue in a real classroom, but now we have a whole new twist. Shouldn't professors be required to be a little more techno savvy before they give a course like this? Shouldn't the schools be reevaluating the 'new teaching style' and making some adjustments?

I am so angry with the way the school has set this up I will probably return to a normal class environment here at a local college, at least I know the guy is going to show up!

Has anybody else been to an online college? What were your experiences?"

Comments

Is this your first college experience?

[czardonic]

I am starting to get a bad taste in my mouth about the amount of effort that some of my professors are putting forward in my courses. I feel like some of them are "skating" and all I am paying for is a book, a posted syllabus, and a final exam.

Sounds like they are providing a pretty darn authentic college experience.

Education is what you make of it.

I don't know

[_avs_007]

The wife is taking UnivOfPhoenix, and I think some of the classes are laid out rediculously. I think too much time is spent "doing" things, and no time is spent actually learning anything.

For example, they have these teams "collobarate" to write a paper. The team lead, gets to write the introduction, each person gets a specific section in the body, and another poor sap gets the conclusion. What a stupid way to write a paper. The team lead is on easy streat writing a one paragraph into, each person writes something so so so so specific, as to not learn/grasp anything, or even learn how to structure an essay, and the schmuch who got stuck with the conclusion, ends up spending hours trying to cohesively tie everything together. In the end, you wind up with a paper that is poorly written, has no logical flow, etc etc. I'm all for group projects, but it seems they like to work in groups for things that don't need to be worked on in groups, and don't work in groups for things that make sense to be worked on in groups, etc.

And all the communication is done by usenet newsgroups? This has got to be one of the poorest mediums for this type of work. I hear people complain how the servers are slow, don't update correctly, lose postings,etc. And people are having a hard time even tracking threads/converstations and such, cause people keep attaching to the wrong thread, etc...

Some of my EE classes in college were also distance learning classes, but we had cameras set up in the class, etc. Then again, I had a special prof. He didn't believe in note taking, cause he said every minute you spend writing notes, is another minute you aren't paying attention. So he had all the notes, guides, tables, etc all written before hand, and organized into a big fat binder, that you had to buy from the bookstore. That and he was very interactive, but now I'm getting off topic...

Anyways, for the money that UofPhoenix charges, I think its a big rip. I think they should've had pre-recorded and/or live lectures in real/windows media/name your favorite format, and you watch those, and the assignments are assigned there, etc. Use instant messaging for live chats/lab sessions/one-one etc etc. Hell, even use email threads for conversations or turning in assignments, using PGP or equivelent.

Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Re:I don't know

[stephanruby]

Next time, you may want to email this url to your collaborators.

http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow/computerbad.html

[How Computers Cause Bad Writing]

In the past seven years, I have edited the writing of a number of professionals--including instructional designers, engineers, management consultants, environmental planners, biologists, psychologists, Army officers, and journalists--who write with computers. Like most users of word processing, these are not "writers"--they are professionals whose work requires them to write. Few of these have ever heard of "the writing process," and few have had any formal training since freshman English 20 years ago. For them, like millions of others, writing by computer is largely a self-taught enterprise.

Although most of these professionals share the belief that computers help them write, they display specific writing problems that may actually be caused, or accentuated, by the fact that they write on computers.

There are two reasons why the writing problems of professionals may be important to teachers of writing. First, students that I have taught (graduate students in instructional development and education, juniors and seniors majoring in communication and journalism) show similar tendencies when they write on computers. Though student writers may not have enough experience to demonstrate all of them, they distinctly gravitate toward the writing problems described here.

Second, many students from writing classes will soon be surrounded by people who have largely taught themselves writing and word processing. These self-taught professionals will become your graduates' next writing instructors--and their bosses. Unless students bring with them enough experience to maintain and defend good writing habits--the kind that make them effective, productive writers--they may be swamped by the kind of writing habits and writing problems common among self-taught professionals.

I will describe the problems I have observed among "real world" users of word processing and suggest some strategies for working with future professionals while they are still your students. What I have to say will apply best to nonfiction writing that is amenable to strong focus and clear organization--functional writing of the kind required of professionals in many fields.

The Editing Trap [Substituting Writing for Thinking]

Computers seem to tempt people to substitute writing for thinking. When they write with a computer, instead of rethinking their drafts for purpose, audience, content, strategy, and effectiveness, most untrained writers just keep editing the words they first wrote down. I have seen reports go through as many as six versions without one important improvement in the thought. In such writing, I find sentences that have had their various parts revised four or five times on four or five different days. Instead of focusing, simplifying, and enlivening the prose, these writers tend to graft on additional phrases, till even the qualifiers are qualified and the whole, lengthening mess slows to a crawl.

Drawn in by the word processor's ability to facilitate small changes, such writers neglect the larger steps in writing. They compose when they need to be planning, edit when they need to be revising.

Problems in Collaboration by Computer

Computers encourage more collaborative writing, and they encourage the collaboration to be far more intense. Before computers, the usual form of collaboration consisted of dividing up the work so that different authors wrote different chapters; then they reviewed one another's work. Writing with computers, though, collaborators can enter into one another's work so readily and revise it so easily that, in effect, co-authors can mutually co-write each sentence.

This kind of collaborative writing can be difficult to read. No two writers have quite the same sense about punctuation, tone, rhythm, headings, sentence variation,

Re:University of Phoenix

[Geopoliticus]

I agree with you. I currently am attending, but plan on getting my MBA when I am finished at a local University... so I hope less attention is paid to my undergraduate education than my masters education.

Re:Waah

[HanzoSan]

You know, you make a good point.

It does depend on the class as well as the teacher, not the tools. My best teacher used online tools to teach, we used blackboard, she used the internet to assist with her lectures, and our assignments were posted on the internet.

This was best, first if you messed the lecture it means you'll have to put more effort into doing your required readings, if you make your lectures the exams are much easier.

When it comes to writing paper it requires you to do alot of research on your own and you'll need the computer to do it, however its guided research because the teacher tells you what you need to research.

Overall a teacher is supposed to be like aa coach or guide, they show you the right way to do something, then you go do it.

Sometimes they dont show you the right way, such as with writing papers, here you have to figure out yourself the right way and your graded on how well you do it.

Like I said a teacher is just a coach, they guide you, its your job to teach yourself using the materials they give you and the tools you have as your disposal.

As a former online instructor...

[jkinney3]

I have been a college Physics and Astronomy teacher for 10 years. I decided to look into the online schools as way of expanding my teaching coverage.

The entire process of "teaching" in that environment is only suitable for subjects that allow lots of "round table" style discussion. A liturature class where the plot motives are hashed out online in a forum would be a good example.

Math and science is next to impossible.

I would argue that the instructors are working in an unsuitable environment more than I would argue that the instructors are slack. It is a system that encourages a very hands off approach.

I would also argue that the degree obtained from those online schools is exactly what was purchased, a piece of paper. It has no academic merit. Like many private, for profit "schools", they exist to make money, not educated graduates. The one I was with even had incentives like those of a dot-com (stock options!).

In short, if you want an education that will move you ahead in life, go to the best traditional school in your interest area that you can get in.

If you want an impressive piece of paper that verifies you (or your parents) paid enough classes to qualify for a graduation ticket, go to a big name traditional private school.

If you want to wast several years online to "earn" a "diploma" doing the barest minimum for a big bucket of cash, go to an online school. It won't advance your career unless you dig ditches or hang off the back of a garbage truck (an completely horrid job that I am very gratefull that those people do. I always thank them when I'm out and the truck shows up.)

Re:Well said...

[Jack Greenbaum]

I had very few undergrad classes where there was actual classroom interaction with an actual professor and other students (like less than 5), because most had at least 50-75 students.

In my experience this isn't always the professors fault.

I spent waaaay to many years in school (now a decade past) on both sides of the podium, including a teaching award nomination from the faculty senate. The longer I was in school the more surprised I became at the lack of interaction from the undergrads. In most undergrad classes (those I taught, TA'd, or took for credit) 90% of the questions were asked by 1% of the students. Not surprisingly these were the A/A+ students.

Maybe it is just my personality, and that personality fits well with a University education, but if I have a question I ask regardless of the size of the class. That's what the front rows were made for. While some professors revel in making students squirm, and some are so shocked by even getting a question that it takes them a while to answer, the majority are very pleased to have interaction and quickly recognize who the questions are coming from. When an exam is graded (or a dispute arises on a TA graded exam) a professor is much more likely to give an interactive, engaged, student the benefit of the doubt.

So speak up in class!

BTW: Others have mentioned networking as an important part of a college education. It so happens that I am currently employed at a start-up founded by professors who I took classes from as an undergrad and graduate student. They knew me by the name on my resume even seven years after my grad degree because I was interactive in their classes. Keep that in mind when being shy about asking a question because you think it might be stupid, because your paycheck may some day come from that prof!

-- Jack

Lazy Professor may really be Busy Professor

[malfunct]

It might not be the professor thats the problem so much as the department being vastly understaffed. The professor was probably told at the beginning of the year "hey you have an online section of this class, it shouldn't be bad you can do it in your time between classes". Then the professor is left trying to figure out what will work as an online curriculum, teaching the students, grading papers, and not cut into his real life class. It sux.

So I'm saying the problem you see is probably fairly widespread and definitely real but will take a while to fix. The universities will need to put a priority on the online classes and hire staff that focuses on them. When that happens you will see better content/participation.

Re:A better way to write a group term paper

[hazem]

That can be a big waste of time. Suppose you have 6 people - you have now have six people writing complete papers. The whole point of group work is to learn how to distribute a work load so that as a group, you can get the work done with less individual effort.

What I find works well for group projects (papers, particularly) is to appoint a group "editor". They will actually do the writing. As a group, you all get together and determine the outline and form of the document, and what you want to accomplish. Then, divide up the portions of the outline and assign the specific research to each person - but keeping it lighter on the editor - they'll work harder in the end.

As research is completed, the parts are sent to everyone for review and comment - but these parts aren't fully written, but again, more like an outline.

Once everyone is happy with the content that will be included, the "editor" then takes the outlines of everything and writes the paper based on that. That draft then goes out to everyone and people comment, revise, correct, etc... but the writing is done through one person.

This way, everyone contributes to the work, and knows where it is going before they start. The paper has "one voice" and sounds coherent.

If you think of a product assembly process, it's stilly to have each person do every step of the process. It's better to have people focus on what they are good at - some at editing, some at researching, etc.

Re:University of Phoenix

[Pooua]

If that has been your college experience, then the institution you selected was quite weak. College is never about busy work but about teaching how to think about things. I am currently a PhD student and an instructor for classes and I never assign my students busy work. I assign problems that will make them think about how to apply the information they should have gathered from lecture to a problem.

Hurray for you, and I mean that. I've attended several conventional colleges, and it is not unusual for me to think I could do just as well buying the textbooks and hardware and learning on my own. Supposedly, the instructor in such classes is teaching me to think on my own. Fine; I can think on my own without going into hock to some school. This is particularly true of programming, which I am beginning to suspect is never actually taught anywhere, because everyone has theories about programming, but no one has any science. All that exists in the programming world are fads and baseless dogmatic assertions.