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The Two Big Problems With Online College Courses
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that while online college classes are already common, on the whole, the record is not encouraging because there are two big problems with online teaching. First, student attrition rates — around 90 percent for some huge online courses — appear to be a problem even in small-scale online courses when compared with traditional face-to-face classes. Second, courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed. Research has shown that community college students who enroll in online courses are significantly more likely to fail or withdraw than those in traditional classes, which means that they spend hard-earned tuition dollars and get nothing in return. Worse still, low-performing students who may be just barely hanging on in traditional classes tend to fall even further behind in online courses. 'Colleges need to improve online courses before they deploy them widely,' says the Times. 'Moreover, schools with high numbers of students needing remedial education should consider requiring at least some students to demonstrate success in traditional classes before allowing them to take online courses.' Interestingly, research found that students in hybrid classes — those that blended online instruction with a face-to-face component — performed as well academically as those in traditional classes. But hybrid courses are rare, and teaching professors how to manage them is costly and time-consuming. 'The online revolution offers intriguing opportunities for broadening access to education. But, so far, the evidence shows that poorly designed courses can seriously shortchange the most vulnerable students.'"
they should teach students in secondary school to be more "highly motivated". would make the college experience much more rewarding.
I've been taking online courses for two years(*), and my conclusion is: it's not the subject, it's the presentation.
I've come to the realization that college professors - even highly esteemed professors from highly esteemed universities - don't know much about the actual technique of teaching, nor of presentation.
Every course I've seen so far goes against the grain of how we learn, or has features which repel attention. Droning talk with hypnotic rhythm, no vocal variety, poor spacing and timing, and filled with pauses and disfluencies which put the student to sleep (Daphne Koller, Stanford). Tedious derivations with no initial apparent purpose and no apparent endpoint which go on and on, suddenly ending with simple result (Anant Agarwal, MIT). Pointless exercise and homework with no apparent relevance to the subject (Richard Buckland, UNSW). The list is endless.
People who give lectures for a living - public speakers, professional salesmen, life coaches, and so on - have this figured out. They *have* to, because their livelihood depends on it. Their presentation has to capture interest, have relevance, have value to the listener, and be easily understood.
College professors sing to a captive audience with no feedback. If students don't do well, it's because of the course content; or it's because the students are not "Stanford level" or whatever. Stanford is considered tough, but no one ever wonders whether it's because the quality of teaching is low. Colleges aren't rated highly when they can teach anyone, they are rated highly when they can only teach the top students.
The typical online course just videotapes a lecture and throws it up on the net with some homework and grading software. There is no rehearsal, no redoing of bloopers or flubs, nothing one would get in a professionally-made video. The homework is generally "one question per concept" and is often "get it right the first time". No room for experimentation, multiple practice, or exploration. No feedback or watching the professor run through an example.
They wonder why the attrition rate is so low, it's obvious.
It's because their methods are just bloody awful.
(Note: I've scored high 90's in each course so far. The material isn't that tough, if you've ever had a good professor you know how understanding is easy when well presented. Blaming the content or the student is a dodge - very little is difficult to understand if it is taught well.)
I'm a professor at a Texas law school. Taking certain classes can be a bitter pill for many to swallow despite interest in the material or field of law more generally, educator or method of teaching the material, or any other factor.
In response to the article, though. My school has an 80% class attendance requirement for students. Some students miss every class they can, and some professors (including myself) allow others to slide by with fewer than 80% for one reason or another. I have noticed that generally higher student attendance correlates with higher student grade, but in many cases requiring high attendance numbers can be burdensome to students and the correlation can go the opposite direction.
The problem, and this may hold for students in online classes also, is that many students are attempting to juggle competing yet equally-compelling responsibilities. Many of my students are >35 and have families with young children and/or are working in addition to taking classes. If they can demonstrate fulfillment of my criteria in class, I don't care how often they are there.
But for the younger students, who often aren't as mature and lack the life experience to deal with some of the pressures of a stressful environment like law school, and who aren't as driven or motivated to succeed as the older students, not attending means poor grades. These students rarely learn outside class, so class is where you must focus the efforts.
On the other hand, I have advocated for teaching a "life learning"-type course. I would love to teach metacognitive and metamemory strategies, encourage volunteerism and community activism, and similar life lesson-type materials--for credit! This may solve some of the maturity issues (because most people need time to develop these skills and passions).
Historically people like you would be allowed to flunk out of college so that the seats would be available for people who valued education.
The sort of specialization that we've seen in recent decades is a really big problem. Few problems of any size in the world are truly solvable with only one area of specialty. Economics, pollution, humanitarian crises, health care and such require that one be capable of working across specialties with people who have studied other things.
Those subjects you're complaining about are what makes it possible for people to do that. What's more, very few people these days will spend an entire career in one field and the more subjects you've been exposed to the more likely that you'll be able to adapt.
But, lastly and possibly most importantly, studying and thinking in different ways is good for your brain.