By Molly Raley
Staff Writer
The majority of students has taken or is going to take an online class before their college career is over. For me, this has been something that I was trying, with all my might, to avoid.
In the past I have refused to enroll in online classes for the simple fact that I am a visual person and I don’t understand material just by reading. But the time had come for the dreaded Internet course.
At first I thought it would be fine. I received good grades on the first few assignments, and that was a huge boost to my online ego.
After a few weeks had passed, we started working on math material that couldn’t be easily solved. I decided that I should probably ask for help. I was informed that I could watch videos online to help me solve the problems. I was very upset by this answer from the instructor of this course.
Needless to say I taught myself how to work the problems and with my critical thinking skills I was able to figure out what the answer was. I did get the answer but it took extra time and effort that could probably have been solved with a little help from the professor.
I finally figured out why I refused to take online courses. Some of the instructors, not all, feel that they don’t have to actually teach the students about the material that is involved in the course. I, for one, had an awful experience with my first online class and will probably never take another.
My experience is probably not the only one. Every student has had a negative experience at one point in time with online courses. Some may be minor and others may be excessive, like mine was, were the student’s grade could possibly by jeopardized because of the lack of teaching.
The only question that keeps running through my mind is why? Why do students have to teach themselves the material when there is an instructor who already knows the material? The instructors may not be aware of the difficulty of some online courses and how it affects their students.
For example, when asked a question over email, some instructors explain the answer just the same as the book. If I didn’t understand reading the material out of the book, I probably won’t understand reading the same material through an email.
My purpose in writing this is for instructors to be more aware of the hardships some student’s face. The teachers are there to teach, not to stand by and watch the students struggle. It is equally important for the instructors to be willing and able to help the students, as it is for the students to be willing and able to do the work.
Maybe one day every student will be able to say that they absolutely love online classes, but for me, I don’t think that day will ever come. I will stick with the classroom and face-to-face instruction, where I can raise my hand and ask questions without getting a shrugged shoulder and a wave goodbye.