The Best Practices in Virtual and Real-Time Education - Essay Example

Comparison-Contrast: Taking an Online vs. Taking a Traditional Word Count 250 (5 pages) I. Introduction There are several elements that can compared and contrasted between taking an online course, versus taking a traditional course in a brick-and-morar classroom with an instructor in the room. Here, the main resemblances that will be analyzed in the comparison section include students having to still complete work, being accountable to the teacher, and still accountable to their peers/classmates—whereas, to contrast, in an online setting, students are not necessarily held accountable for not turning in their work, there is no personal connection to a teacher who is never seen, and there is not a personal, face-to-face interaction with the other students (emphasizing the element of ‘distance’ in distance learning). II. Comparisons of Taking an Online Course vs. a Traditional Course Comparisons that could me made between taking an online course versus a traditional course include: the fact that students still have to complete coursework; students are still accountable to a teacher; and students are still held accountable to their peers or classmates. It is highly probably that in today’s society, many adults are working and do not want to have class interfere with their work schedules. “Online education courses do not cut into your work week…” (Kelley pgh. 2). However, working or not, the bottom line is that students taking online courses still have to turn in their coursework, no matter how much of it they have to do. That is the similarity between classes which are online and courses which happen in real-time—students must complete the coursework adequately in order to receive a passing grade for which they will receive credit. Students are still accountable to a teacher or professor when taking an online class. One teacher used an “online grade book as a convenience [which] fostered a healthy level of instructor accountability in…classes” (Schrand pgh. 2). From personal experience, taking an online class can be difficult because one doesn’t have as much interation with the professor. The bonus, however, is that the student taking the online course can still have some forms of interaction with the teacher or professor by other means than just having face-to-face conversations. For example, the professor or teacher may chat with the student via Pronto, and assignments can be assigned via Blackboard or Moodle. These are just different ways of communicating rather than writing something on the board, but the intended message is the same: student-teacher involvement can still be tapped to the maximum level possible through a variety of media, including email. Students are still held accountable to their peers by participating in online courses as well—whether it be chatting via the application Wimba Pronto or creating Wiki entries on Blackboard. Even though there aren’t real-time equivalents of that in a real-life setting, it is a different way of interacting but still achieves the same goal as traditional classroom courses, which is, to foster learning and interactivity between students. In traditional courses, there is obviously face-to-face interaction, but there can also be face-to-face interaction in online courses, too. Students can chat with each other via Skype so that they can watch each other on the computer screen while talking to each other. In that sense, there is no physical person in the room with someone else, but the main point is that one is still interacting in a personal manner with one’s peer or classmate. III. Contrasts Between Taking an Online Course vs. a Traditional Course In online settings, there are risks that: students are not necessarily held accountable for not turning in their work; there is no personal connection to a teacher who is never seen; and there is not a personal, face-to-face interaction with the other students in real time. Students may not really feel as accountable in an online classroom as much as they would in a traditional classroom. In an online classroom, there is no professor or teacher breathing down a student’s neck to turn work in on time, or to do anything, really, on time or not. It is completely up to the responsibility of the student to turn in all of his or her work on time and to complete it in a manner adequate enough to pass the class. Otherwise, the student risks failure. For classes that are completely online, the teacher usually makes all elements or components of the coursework completely transparent. For example, the teacher or professor will put forth all of the assignments due on the online message board (let’s use Blackboard as an example since that’s very popular). So, all homework assignments are on Blackboard. All paper assignments are placed on Blackboard. Getting work in early may be less of a priority, especially if a hard copy of the paper is not due in to the professor. Therefore, there is less of a personal connection to the teacher, and, perhaps less so than in a traditional classroom, students who have online classes are more likely to slack off since they don’t really know if their professor cares about their progress. This lack of personal connection to the professor also makes communication between students in the class rather disingenuous. The students may be reluctant to trust one another, not knowing what kind of rapport the students have with the teacher or professor because all of the activities that are completed are being done online. Thus, what one might call the “human element” of interaction between people in real time within an actual classroom setting might be the one detrimental and missing piece of the puzzle which is required to ensure that a classroom runs smoothly. In the online learning classroom, there is not really much face-to-face interactions. There is a study out which suggests that students working online might not perform as well in the traditional classroom which has more face-to-face interaction. “Higher education’s embrace of online courses could hurt the performance of some groups of students, according to a study that contradicts the findings of a 2009 report from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) showing that online students perform as well, or better, than their peers in face-to-face settings on average” (Carter pgh. 1). IV. Conclusion Obviously, learning in an online course is definitely similar as well as different than learning in a traditional brick-and-mortar classroom. Most definitely, the same elements present in the traditional course is that, students still have to complete work, be accountable to the teacher, and still be accountable to their peers or classmates—whereas, in contrast, in an online setting, students are not necessarily held accountable for submitting their work on time or at all, there is not as much of a personal connection to a teacher who is not ever seen in person, and there is little to no personal, face-to-face interaction with the other students in the course. Without a doubt, there are certainly many differences between courses which are taken online, versus those courses that are taken in a traditional classroom setting—as discussed in the third section. However, there are also many similarities to boot which were described in the second section. Whether a student takes courses online or in the traditional classroom, it is hoped that the same objective would be achieved by both methods—that the students learn the targeted objectives of the class. It only makes sense that online classes would be more impersonal, but technology now allows for less static, uninteresting interactions. Rather, there is Skype technology, email, Blackboard, Moodle, the Wimba Pronto chat application, and a variety of other types of technology at the helm of both students and teachers. Hopefully both groups can meet together in the middle for best practices in virtual and real-time education. WORKS CITED Carter, Dennis. Study: Online Learning Might Be Less Effective For Some. Available 13 Oct 2011 at: . Kelley, Martha. Study At Your Own Pace With Online Education. Available 13 Oct 2011 at: . Schrand, Tom. Online Gradebooks Provide Transparency, Accountability. Available 13 Oct 2011 at: . Read More