Online education: Point/Counterpoint
Does online education promote real learning?
Education is more than coursework
By Jeanine S. Stewart
Stewart is vice president for academic affairs and a professor of psychology at Hollins University.
Online courses offered by regionally accredited institutions, like similar campus-based courses, connect satisfactory performance on term papers, exams or other assessments to the achievement of certain learning objectives. Therefore, students who successfully complete online courses do learn, according to commonly accepted standards.
We used to think of education as simply the result of the learning that occurs by undertaking a course of study at an educational institution. However, technological advances have made educational settings as varied as the needs and aspirations of the individual learners. Consequently, a paradigm shift has occurred and moved us away from the question, “Where does learning occur?” toward the more compelling query, “What constitutes an education?”
While learning might reasonably be defined as the meeting of certain objectives during a course of study, education is the sum total of the broad range of learning experiences (both formal and informal) that a person encounters over time. In a sense, an education is what’s left after learning occurs. An education provides the basic skills, foundational knowledge, habits of mind and insights that become ingrained features of one’s analytical style and work habits. Education is evident not only in the way we make a living, but also in the way we construct a life and the way we engage with our community.
The campus environment ought to provide a transformative educational experience that takes students far beyond the simple and sterile notion of meeting learning objectives via successful completion of each course. At the university level, significant intellectual maturation occurs while living and working alongside others who are exploring parallel issues. Students as well as faculty members challenge one another inside and outside of the classroom.
At Hollins University and other residential campuses, students, faculty and staff all form a community with traditions, norms, leaders, challenges and opportunities to test the assumptions that each person brings to the mix upon arrival. The formal learning of facts can certainly be replicated via online delivery of course material. However, the informal, transformative learning associated with complex interpersonal interaction among student learners and faculty experts in the campus environment cannot.
The process of constructing a life and a community while simultaneously facing and moving through demanding intellectual tasks moves campus-based students from meeting learning objectives toward the experience of education. Time alone turns children into adults, but education transforms the potential of adults and fuels the creation of innovators, leaders and confident contributors to society.
The campus environment may not be appropriate or desirable for every learner at every stage of life. However, there is no substitute for the educational outcomes that follow the immersive experience of campus-based higher education.
Online classes facilitate learning
By Daniel A. Wubah
Wubah is vice president for undergraduate education and deputy provost at Virginia Tech.
Efforts to facilitate learning in higher education can be enhanced by advances being made in our digital age. Access to computers and the Internet have allowed innovations in higher education, including the ability to offer some classes without physical meeting space constraints.
Virginia Tech began exploring this early on, offering its first distance learning classes in 1998. Since then, online learning has grown substantially to supplement the academic needs of students, with more options to fit their schedules and graduate on time. All of Tech’s academic departments are engaged in delivering or developing online courses.
In 1999, the university developed a strategic plan specifically for distance learning, recognizing its potential to expand learning opportunities in addition to the university’s thousands of face-to-face traditional courses. The plan led to the establishment of the Institute for Distance and Distributed Learning, which currently supports the advancement and success of distance learning by working with faculty to develop and deliver quality online courses. Evaluation and assessment are critical to make sure all of our courses — physical, online or even a hybrid of both — are resonating with our students and faculty. Recently, a new strategic plan has been developed for implementation in the next six years.
During the 2011-12 fiscal year, 18,442 undergraduate distance learning course enrollments and 5,914 graduate course enrollments occurred at Virginia Tech. Currently, 823 undergraduate and graduate courses are offered online, including 55 undergraduate core courses. Students can also participate in 38 graduate degree and certificate programs through distance learning. Of the graduating class of 2011, almost three-quarters took at least one distance learning course.
Distance learning serves as a valuable tool to give students access to courses, particularly popular core classes. Distance learning is also critical to attract and retain students, who expect the opportunity to take some courses online. Earlier this year, we surveyed past Virginia Tech students who did not complete their degree. Preliminary results show strong interest in a bachelor’s degree completion program, with all respondents indicating an online format would give them the best opportunity to complete their studies at Virginia Tech. Such survey results support the need to expand our distance learning profile to meet students’ needs.
Virginia Tech is required to expand access to affordable and high quality education to our citizens. Distance learning is one approach to meet this statute. Gov. Bob McDonnell’s “Top Jobs” Higher Education Opportunity Act committed Virginia to conferring more than 100,000 new college degrees for Virginia students by 2025, with an emphasis in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health care fields. Many of Tech’s most popular courses are in the STEM-H fields, and the ability to offer some courses online will give more students a chance to enroll and help meet this goal. Ultimately, online education can help keep costs down for students.
September 2, 2012 - 7:58 AM
Online education works. It’s not for everyone. But it works. I loved it when getting my Master’s Degree in education. I look forward to using it when I begin work on my PhD next year. It works.
Yes, online education does work. However, you have to be careful in choosing a school. Some online schools will give you the degree just for paying the tuition and employers know which schools those are.
Stewart’s argument is one that many brick and mortar businesses already lost. She wants to redefine education to exclude online learners. You can learn online but you can’t get an education? Sounds like a bit of denial that the education landscape is changing.
Any moron can lean a fact. Even a horse or dog can be taught to mimic on cue a response to a given stimulus.
If one considers an education to be the ability to respond on cue with a given fact, or other appropriate response, then yes, online learning is an “education”
If on the otherhand, one considers an education to be the ability to think, to form a response to solve a particular problem, instead of simply responding on a cue, then on line education is not really “education”.
When I was younger, we had brick and mortar classes for certifications within our chosen field, which also corresponded with recertification for those who had been in the field for some time. I found that I learned more from the comments, and questions raised by those being recertified than I did from the course itself. The real life experience they brought to the course made the rest of us THINK. They pointed out the fallacy that every speaker brings to a classroom – the fallacy that labratory conditions exist in the field, and the end result of any test that is not run by labratory conditions will be useless.
And the newbies brought something in as well, a new outlook, a new way of looking at old methods, questioning the status quo.
Our organization embraced online recertifications about 5 or 6 years ago, and the quality of the “education” is striking. Everyone can pass the online courses, everyone can give the proper response, but very, very few can solve a problem, come up with a solution, or think outside the parameters of the “education” they recieved on line.
Even in grade school, and later college, I learned as much from the people surrounding me in class as I did from the person “teaching” the course.
Those who embrace the new “online” education, and blast those who point out the limitations of such an education are lacking the meat of an education and declaring the gristle to be prime rib.
I believe Mr. Wubah and Ms. Stewart both raise interesting points. Mr. Wubah explained how distance learning is a tool that allows increased accessibility, particularly popular core classes. That is a common component of many higher education centers such as the Roanoke Higher Education Center. Many colleges offer a select sample of their degrees at higher education centers. The degree curricula often utilize similar or the same core courses. This access enables a potential student to complete core courses of a degree program either individually or as a cohort, and in a bricks and mortar classroom. Then, the students can complete their degree online through distance learning. This is critical for today’s students and working adults who seek higher education.
Distance learning also includes learning via satellite having the students gathered in a classroom and a professor at a remote location across the state or even in another state altogether. These professors use the exact same goals and objectives for each class as is accomplished in a standard bricks and mortar setting. As an adjunct professor at a local college, I do this with my own students. I have one syllabus for my classes. It normally does not matter whether the student is sitting in my classroom, or sitting in their own living room, they will do the same work. Student interaction is achieved through modern technology such as Skype and various other software programs that allow for real time, face to face, exposure. The end result is that a quality education is delivered to the students who seek it.
Ms. Stewart stated “the campus environment ought to provide a transformative educational experience that takes students far beyond the simple and sterile notion of meeting learning objectives via successful completion of each course.” That is an admiral goal. But is it actually accomplished? I have been to a few college campuses and I worry that some of our students spend far too much time on things other than academics.
I do agree with Ms. Stewart’s assumption that “students as well as faculty members challenge one another inside and outside of the classroom.” This to, can be accomplished through email, cell phone, Skype, etc. Just about every laptop, desktop, or tablet device has dual cameras, so a professor can see a student and a student can see and talk to their professor in real time.
I have completed an all online Associate’s degree, a hybrid Bachelor’s degree, an online Master’s degree, and most recently, a hybrid Doctoral degree through the Roanoke Higher Education Center. By far, the toughest, most rigorous degree was completed completely online. Online learning requires a student to work alone with little to no direct supervision. Above all else, a student has to be disciplined and motivated to keep up with the academic work load often while raising a family and holding down a job.
Ultimately, it is up to each individual to discover their own learning preference and seek the path to their education. All students are different and so are their learning styles. I strongly feel there is a need for both distance learning and brick and mortar colleges. Probably the most important factor to consider is the accreditation of the college or university. There are a high number of distance learning institutes that are not accredited. This causes many to doubt the legitimacy of distance education. The same holds true for bricks and mortar schools. Many have been exposed and shut down due to them not being accredited or worse, a diploma mill that will take your money and send you a bogus degree. The television show 60 Minutes did a story about one of these in California.
Bottom, find a learning style that suits you and go for it!
An online course may be a great way for someone who wants to learn a subject to do so. However, as soon as a grade is attached to the course, or the course becomes a required part of a degree program, then rampant cheating by those who just want the credential will wreck any hope of maintaining any notion of academic integrity. Don’t tell me about the technologies to prevent cheating — the cheaters are always a step ahead of them.
Mike wondered of the campus environment really provides a transformative experience as Ms. Stewart claims. It certainly did for me. I’m so glad I went to a residential college. I really can’t imagine getting the same education “online.”
In college, learning should be the center of a varied and robust life and the primary driver of personal growth. The question universities like UVa and VT should be asking is how to make that happen. In my opinion the best way is to push standards and expectations continually higher. More books / homework / exams / projects / essays / labs / research / scholarship with faculty members. Keep expecting more. Those unwilling to embrace learning as the core of their lives can go and get their degrees where the best that can be hoped is that “you get what you pay for.”
Mr. Wubah might indeed be correct about the direction thing are moving. He is the pragmatist. But to me Ms. Stewart’s world view rings more true. She is the idealist, and thank goodness there are still some of those left.
Stewart nails something crucial when she writes “At the university level, significant intellectual maturation occurs while living and working alongside others who are exploring parallel issues. Students as well as faculty members challenge one another inside and outside of the classroom.”
At the residential college I attended, I learned a lot from lectures, more from lecture-discussions, and more than I can say from 24/7 interactions with professors and other students.
Distance learning is a fine addition to the range of options. But: late-night discussions in the dorm lounge, one-on-one meetings with teachers in their offices, hands-on responsibility and challenges through campus organizations, the sense of being part of a community with a mission that really means something? That’s what shaped my mind and changed my life.
I know I was lucky to have the chance for all that. But that’s what I was–darn lucky. Let’s spread education far and wide, and let’s make sure as many of us as possible have the opportunity to spend time in a setting where it can go especially deep.
I have no experience with online education and learning pursuant to any degree or collegiate effort but I am literally astounded that anyone can think that there is no education or learning available online. There cannot be a place with more information, documentation, facts, statistics and learned research and discussion to be had on earth.
There are only two problems with online learning. Unmotivated students and scam educators. Both are a scourge. The Department of Education should have to evaluate and accredit online schools and courses such that the work, certification or degree actually means something when completed. Mankind has yet to find a better motivator for students than the low wage job that awaits them if they persist in lacking motivation.