My Thought on Online Learning

My thoughts on Online Learning

Can online learning work? Yes!
Does it always work? No!

I have had quite a few different experiences with online learning and can honestly say that it can work, but doesn't always. I recently heard that online learning only works for 10% of the population. I have a hard time believing this. As a college student, I did okay in some of my online classes and I did very well in others. I did well after I finally decided that I was going to become a teacher and had a plan. I did not do so well my first few years of college when I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my life. I took online classes so that I didn't have to spend all day in class. The online classes I took towards the end of my undergrad college days, I chose to take because I was a single working mom trying to finish my degree. I was motivated! So, my own experiences in online learning tell me that with purpose, online learning can work.

As an instructor running an "online credit recovery lab" I witnessed a lot of good and bad things. The first, there is no one size fits all online program. I believe that instructor feedback is necessary for students to really learn. Some of the online programs don't provide much feedback or direction by a real instructor. It is simply a program with multiple choice answers that assumes that if you guess right, then you understand and are ready to move on. I was not a big fan of the programs used in my lab, but I do believe there are better programs out there that could be used to make this better. I do believe there is a need for online learning and it does benefit some. There are many students that would drop out of high school for a variety of different reasons. If we could gain some of these students back by offering an online alternative, isn't that better than nothing? My philosophy is that I want all students to receive an education and reach at least, the high school graduation mark. If online learning can help some students do that, I think it is worth it. Whether it be because of illness, social issues, physical reasons, location reasons, behavior problems, etc. any learning is better than no learning, regardless of where it is done.

Even though I have had bad experiences both as a student and running the online lab, I do not let this cloud the good that it has done in my own life. First, it has allowed me to graduate with my teaching certificate while being a working single mother. I am now starting my first teaching job in a few weeks in a small Charter school close to my current home. I am thankful for the opportunity to have online learning as an option to me for getting this far in my own education and continueing by pursuing a Master's degree in Educational Technology through MSU in an all online format. For me, the convenience of being able to do this online is HUGE! Secondly, I have watched students who graduated from high school after receiving credit in the online lab that I ran. These students would have had an extremely hard time graduating on-time if this option was not available to them. It made a huge difference in the future for these students. This was an experience that I will not forget.