Favorability Of Online Degrees In Respect Of Students

The conclusion of the study just released by the U.S. Department of Education, has the merit of clarity. The New York Times does not hesitate to titrate that "online education beats the classroom." The study is less conclusive, and encourages more moderation.

The authors, members of the Center for Technology in Education SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), in fact insist on the fact that the 1132 studies published between 1996 and 2008 they analyzed, only five are experimentally inclined and explicitly on the relative merits of online courses and traditional classrooms with children and adolescents.

To complete their "meta-analysis", so they also included 94 other studies of online learning or distance learning in military medical personnel, students, etc. 13 to 44 years.

If studies of correspondence courses (by videoconference, television or mail interposed), have never shown their superiority over traditional teaching, the study notes, conversely, that "the course combines online learning face to face and perform better than those that are made only online only ".
To be more precise, what works best is to take advantage of services (video, instant messaging) and tools (collaborative, etc.) available on the web to customize the course to individuals who attend. The use of technology is thus a way to invite learners to do more, to "learn by doing" rather than listening only.

Thus, the expected gains would be lower when teachers "run" the course, or simply enrich them with videos, quizzes or questionnaires, that when students are encouraged to take ownership of their own, interactive or collaborative.

Asked by The New York Times, Barbara Means, coordinator of this analysis, explains that "the main lesson of this study is the demonstration that online learning is not a last resort when no other means, but it may be better than conventional methods of education. "
The study also concludes that the benefits are much more meaningful when students are under-graduates or older than in the case of children or adolescents, and calls for further scientific analysis of the issue , in view of expected developments, and the passion, education related online.

Comment out the ticket as Nicholas Carr on this subject, two teachers also point another way: the experience studied was the fact that teachers who chose to get involved in this type of learning, it is not surprising that the results are positive overall, the quality of education depends largely on the involvement of the teacher. Source : india education