It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that education is not a “one size fits all” endeavor, online or elsewhere. This bit about learning styles, however, did surprise me:
“Correlations between learning styles and success in distance education have shown to be inconclusive,” Strickland1Shawna L. Strickland, clinical assistant professor in the University of Missouri School of Health Professions said. “However, one common theme reappears: the successful traits of a distance learner are similar to the successful traits of an adult learner in traditional educational settings.”
The article claims that there’s “a mere 30 percent of distance learners actually completing their courses.” It goes on to mention that “Distance learning allows the learner to overcome traditional barriers to learning such as location, disabilities, time constraints and familial obligations,” but I’m wondering how much they really paid attention to the fact that those of us who enroll in online classes are often those who have the most barriers to staying in school? I take such courses because of physical disabilities, but I’ve still had to drop my classes repeatedly because of illness. There are still deadlines, and in fact, some online courses are “compressed,” making deadlines even more important.
Strickland also mentions “the lack of institutional support and isolation involved in the nature of online courses.” I’m not sure what kind of support is missing, compared to face-to-face classes, but maybe that’s because I’ve never sought out any “institutional support.” Does she mean tutoring?
At one point, though, Strickland refers to “introverted personalities” and “shy individuals” as (apparently) being synonymous, and not getting involved in the typical classroom setting. That’s a pet peeve of mine. Introverts are not necessarily shy! We’re self-contained, and most of us usually put more weight on our own valuations than those of others, so we aren’t as vulnerable to peer pressure. I miss good classroom discussions, as I’ve never seen any online class that has managed to provoke anything close. But then, I didn’t experience any good discussions in face-to-face classes at DeVry, and very, very few at SPSU. In fact, I heard more than a few of my fellow students at SPSU complaining about non-traditional students, in particular, wanting to “talk too much” in class. They clearly wanted less discussion, not more!
Quotes from “Researcher Finds Not Everyone Can Successfully Learn Through Online Courses, Despite Their Popularity” at Medical News Today
In my experience, schools just aren’t generally good at dealing with atypical students. Hopefully this will change with time.
When I was married to Katie’s father, before he took the job in south Georgia, he considered one in Huntsville. I vetoed it because to homeschool in Alabama, you HAVE to work with an “umbrella” school — usually a religious one. Ick!
(See any lingering Italian?)
And the only lingering Italian I see now is me, and I’m only half :)
Even the government/political types who are in favor of homeschooling often get freaky about people who aren’t like them doing it. They certainly don’t want to consider how many little heathens are avoiding de facto Christinizing in government schools!
When they talk about social isolation in distance learning, I think this is specially addressing the young learners, teenegers and those starting college. For this group of people, distance learning may not be suitable to them because part of their reason for going to college is for the physical, social connection and interaction with others, to interact with peers and build relationships. With distance learning, most often one is studying alone. Thus this young group of learners may feel isolated or miss that social physical interaction that comes with attending a traditional classroom.
A key factor to successful online learning is motivation. A learner needs to be self-driven and an independent thinker who enjoys working alone. Being motivated means that one needs to be interested in the courses and program, keep in touch with the instructor, classmates, readings etc and see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unmotivated learners or those with poor study habits often fall behind in their online courses.