Education is important to be able to succeed at the many goals that people have in their lives. Education helps to make people be able to achieve better jobs, better lives, and higher ranking positions. Even though education has advanced greatly over the past years, in the United States, there is one big problem. The problem is that the system is starting to fail. The biggest failure is coming from the online learning environment.
One of the biggest issues today with education is the problems that are faced in the aspect of online learning systems. There are many issues from not being able to get the one-on-one personal tutoring that many people are in need of when it comes to math courses. Many people cannot learn through online learning systems. These styles of courses are hard for many people to concentrate on their schoolwork.
There are many changes that could be made to make the courses better for the online learning system. One thing is to have tutoring available at local affiliated campus schools. This would be able to better assist students in some of the harder courses with lessons that they may be suffering to attempt to make it through. One way to be able to change the courses for the online program is to have a mandatory attendance day, where the students have to come on at the same time as the teacher at least once a week to go over any questions or concerns that the students may have.
Another change that would help with the online learning environment would be to use more video based lessons. This would allow for the students to actually be able to view the information that they are supposed to be learning. Videos would be easier for some of the students to understand about the materials. In some cases, the videos can be the difference between the student passing or failing the class.
When it comes to traditional higher learning classes, the biggest issue that can be seen is the issue of the classes being overcrowded. Overcrowding in classes makes it impossible for instructors to be able to give students extra attention, when it is called for. With forty or more students in one traditional course, it makes it impossible to be able to ask questions, unless you are one of the first people to get to the instructor, there is a good chance that vital questions may go unanswered.
In order to assist the problem with the overcrowding, there are two possible solutions that will work for being able to overcome this issue. The first option for this would be to have more instructors available. This would allow for more students to be able to get the instruction with smaller course sizes. The second option would be to make course times shorter, but and have more classes, but that would take away time for instructing, and it will force the students to suffer by not being able to obtain the needed information. There is a third possibility, which would be the implementation of online courses for some of the students. This is able to handle issues with overcrowded classes. The thing is that even with this option there are flaws. Without the changes being made, there are many things that can go wrong by making this change.
Without there being a change to the online learning systems or the issue with the fact that courses in traditional settings are so overcrowded, there will be no way for those that need help to be successful. The students and the staff both suffer from these struggles. Both of these groups see the devastation that is caused by the fact that people that try to do well still end up failing.
The first thing that has to be done is to study both the online setting and the traditional setting within the school. One sample of this is the fact that there are people withdraws are about the same rate, but the difference is that it showed that online students have to get more credit hours than traditional students, in many cases. This will allow for the university to compare the passing rate of students, along with the dropout rate, as well. By comparing these numbers, there would be a basic idea of the first area of focus with the suggested changes. Also, finding out about other issues, like learning disabilities, could possibly be the definition between success and failure for the individual. Once there is a good idea of which system is most in need of repair, the next step is to start enacting to best possible plan of action for the university.
After the issues that have been plaguing the school have been taken care of, the individual students will have a better chance for success. People are able to know what to expect, when they see that there is a better way to make sure that they are getting an education through finding a program that actually is working. By being able to get the students to work with a plan that to cut down class sizes in the traditional setting is cut down, there would be less failures and dropout. When it comes to online learning environments, by finding a way to incorporate the extra training that is being missed, there would be a better chance for the school and the students to succeed.
Once these changes are done, there will be more success stories with college both in the classroom and online. This will be able to help the university in offering the kind of education that the students expect to be receiving. Also, there will be more chances to be able to get more students to attend the school, because they will feel as though the college’s main concern is their education and goals.
References
Wilson, Dawn and David Allen. "Success rates of online versus traditional college students." 2010. Academic and Business Research Institute. 17 October 2013.
