I found this great resource that discusses the myths of online learning. I think it is right on the money, and I am including it in my Welcome Letter for my students this fall:
http://www.educationonline.com/dispel-some-myths-about-online-learning
I am wondering if or when online classes will be deemed as rigorous and demanding as face-to-face ones. After teaching totally online classes for 2 semesters now, the sense I get from a good number of students is that my class is way harder or more demanding than other online courses they have taken. I think the same can be said for face-to-face courses. I mean, very rarely does the majority of my students breeze through my class with little effort. I can't think of one class I have ever taught that I didn't have a good number of students struggling to get through. There are different reasons for this struggling always, but the point is that online or face-to-face, learning a second language is daunting.
I have only taken one online course, and have done some training for one of the new schools I'll be working with online in the fall. I like online learning. I find it relaxing to be able to learn at my own pace, wearing my scrubbie clothes, in the comfort of my rocker recliner with the tv on for background noise. I also like to be able to take my time and re-read the lecture or watch the video again if something has trouble sinking in. I guess that is a reflection of my learning style. I know this is not true of everybody, though. I also am not sure this delivery of learning would have been good for me in high school. I don't think I was ready to hold myself accountable. Even a couple years into college, I'm not sure this type of class would have been for me. But now I think it's a pretty good way to learn, and not feel inhibited in the process. But this is me.
It is my experience as an online instructor that many students cut off their own foot in the process. If you are not coming to a class where you are forced to hear the announcements, then you darn-well better read my weekly announcements I email out. This past spring, I tried a little experiment, just to verify. I was suspicious that many students were not reading the emails I was taking time to write each week. I was getting way too many questions that I had already answered in those emails. So one week, in the middle portion of my weekly email, I inconspicuously placed a sentence "if you are reading this, please send me a reply and I will award you bonus points." I was stunned that only about half of my students did so. I was convinced at that point I'd been sending a lot of wasted emails to people who simply weren't taking the time to read them. Or maybe I shouldn't so harshly call them wasted, after all the other half were reading them. (Glass half full or half empty, right?)
As I finish my thoughts on this post, I'm not sure these struggles are all that different from face-to-face courses anyway. Thinking back to my high school teaching days, there certainly was a high percentage of students who were physically there with me as I was making those ever-important announcements. Though there thoughts were clearly somewhere else, which means they didn't hear my announcements either. No, it feels different, but really it's all just the same! My quest continues to find ways to get through to ALL of my students, no matter the learning platform!
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