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The Two Big Problems With Online College Courses

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-recess-and-nobody-judging-you-when-you-slack dept.

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.'"

8 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. fix the students by vswee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    they should teach students in secondary school to be more "highly motivated". would make the college experience much more rewarding.

  2. Nothing New Here... by Art+Challenor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Correspondence Courses", of which online is the latest incarnation, have always had these problems. Indeed, degrees obtained through this type of self-study are often very highly regarded, not just because you have the degree, but because you had the motivation and tenacity to complete the degree without all the traditional support structure of an bricks-and-mortar college.

  3. Failure rates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I teach history at a community college, both online and face to face, and I can attest to the failure rates for online classes. They're high. My failure rate for face to face classes is probably about 30% (I teach in a very low-income, low-literacy area, with most students speaking English as a second language) while it's around 50% for online classes. Many of those students do only maybe 30% of the assignments. Face to face students who aren't into it just stop coming, but online students keep doing a few things, but they won't just drop the class. It's really crazy. I have a quiz every week, and they have to contribute to online discussions every week, and there are a number of students who only do one or the other. I have a student who has been in my class for four semesters in a row. He's never done anything more than take a few quizzes, yet he keeps signing up for the class. If he was on financial aid it is likely pulled by now, yet he keeps taking the class. The article is definitely right, though, in that online is good for driven students. For others, I think it's a disaster.

  4. How do you teach motivation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I really want to learn something, I'm plenty motivated - I eat, breath and shit the subject.

    When I had to take a subject because somewhere someone dictated that one has to take that subject to be "well rounded", I did the bare minimum to get a decent grade and get it over with. Art History for example. The only way to get a good grade in it was to memorize paintings and artists that I forgot 3 days after the class ended.

    1. Re:How do you teach motivation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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).

    2. Re:How do you teach motivation? by hedwards · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  5. It's the teaching by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.)

  6. Fix the lecturer by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Interesting

    they should teach students in secondary school to be more "highly motivated". would make the college experience much more rewarding.

    Motivation is the responsibility of the lecturer, not the student. You can't teach someone to be more motivated. Forcing someone to "tough it out" when things are boring is counterproductive, it's not the way we learn.

    Motivation comes from two things: perceived value, and emotional content.

    Courses which focus on theory and the abstract aspects of a subject are going to seem boring and pointless, while courses which incorporate a mix of theory and practical application in a way that's perceived as valuable will be more interesting.

    So for example, an electronics course can focus on theory and problem solving - with long derivations at the start and the formula results at the end of each lecture. That would be boring, and requires a significant amount of "forced attention".

    That same course could focus on hands-on projects, showing students that they could build things which they could actually use. Once a circuit is working, *then* explain why it works - filling in the knowledge gaps after the student has basic familiarity. That would be interesting, and follow more naturally the way humans learn.

    That's perceived value; the other aspect is emotional content.

    Many lecturers present the information in a dry, matter-of-fact manner. This is also boring, and requires "forced attention".

    Some lecturers, however, have an infectious enthusiasm for the subject. They laugh, tell jokes and amusing stories, and generally have fun with the subject. The students enjoy the lecture and the learning isn't an ordeal.

    That's the emotional side of value. There are other types of emotional content, such as horror novels in literature, or the chemistry of explosives.

    Teach the professors about motivation. You'll get a lot more effect for your efforts.