The Star Tribune reported Sunday about the recent boom in students from grades K-12 enrolling in online courses. Advocates for online education reach students whose situations present difficulty with learning in a normal classroom setting. For example, teen moms, elite athletes, and bully victims. One issue evolving from these online courses is the question of how rigorous they are in comparison to the statewide performance levels in reading, science and especially math. Minnesota has at least 24 public online K-12 programs. The courses are also taxpayer funded, like traditional public schools. Also, traditional high schools are offering online courses taught by their very own teachers to address the problem of overcrowding. There is also the question of online lessons being too fast paced, since information is traditionally learned over a span of time to allow for proper absorption of the material.
This news story deals a lot with novelty and conflict. Online classes aren't extremely new, however, online high school classes are. I feel like under certain circumstances these online classes really present a great alternative for those who have difficultly learning the traditional way. I also find it interesting that we call going to high school, and actually sitting in a seat and listening to a teacher, traditional. It never occurred to me there would be any other way. There is also some conflict present between those who think online courses are a sufficient way to learn the information and those who think that the standards are somewhat lacking. Over all, online learning will become a lot more prevalent in the future, so the only way to fix this is to make the coursework online equivalent to the coursework taught in schools. Even if this does happen, students will lose the social aspect of communicating with a teacher physically.
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