Articles | Traditional versus Online College Courses

Teaching is acclaimed as the noblest of all professions. None of the other professions dared challenge this distinction accorded to teachers until the Internet was brought into existence. Hence, when curriculum developers recognized the amazing potential of the Internet as a mode of delivering instruction, the old school academics insisted that nothing beats the classic chalk-and-board method of sharing knowledge to students. Research came pouring in and in no time, the No Significant Difference (NSD) phenomenon revolutionized the American educational system. Findings from a mammoth of researches gathered by the NSD website, which compared the efficacy of traditional and online learning revealed that, indeed, there is no significant difference. However, the debate about the efficacy of traditional courses over online courses continues.

In the meantime, through government support, enrollment of students in online college courses is constantly increasing. For concerned parents, there will always be a persistent question in their minds - which is really more effective: traditional or online college courses? Literature search from published studies in the Internet can gather considerable resources about online college courses being more effective, or traditional classroom courses being better, or that there is no significant difference. The truth of the matter is that the issue is at a deadlock . There will always be benefits in favor of traditional classroom-based courses in the same way that there will always be a decisive advantage for online college courses.

The fact remains that despite the rumpus , the credibility of the teachers are not being questioned. Whether they be the classical courses delivered in the classroom or the technology-mediated online college courses, teachers create the learning and assessment materials. Certainly, even in the online courses, it is the teachers who assume responsibility of the decision whether to pass or fail a student based on the merits of his academic achievement. The only difference is in the mode of delivery. Thus, the basic issue in the raging debates is not the proficiency of the teachers concerned.

Both parents and students welcome online courses, mostly because of the convenience of schooling in the comfort of a student's domicile, where stay-at-home parents can monitor their children while learning online. Moreover, the fact that students do not need to go to school offers the advantages of economy and safety. No transportation allowance is needed, and the student is deemed safe inside the home.

There are also great benefits of traditional classroom instruction. Most parents observe that their teenagers and children who are already in college are in front of their most of the time. When college students are enrolled in traditional courses in school, they get to spend more time away from their computer. On the part of teachers, traditional classroom gives both the teachers and the parents some assurance that whatever progress the student has achieved is definitely the student's own work. Teachers can not always be sure that students taking the examinations online are not getting any help from other people or from their favorite buddy named Google. This is not an imputation that students taking online courses are cheaters, but let us admit that cheating is not a remote possibility.

Enrollment in online courses is growing at an unprecedented rate with the latest figures showing more than 21% increase from the past year compared with only a 2% increase in the overall population of students in higher education. The heated arguments regarding efficacy may be quelled by more quality and objective researches to cover all points of disagreement . For the time being, let us give the students and their parents a free hand to decide.