Introduction
The article seeks to convince the reader that the quality of education is highly independent of the mode of delivery. It is contrary to popular belief that some ways of teaching result in higher quality education. The author indicates that online learning, just like classroom learning, can either be of low quality or high quality. In his argument, he states that online teaching is no different from classroom teaching because the learners exhibit similar learning outcomes. According to the author, the curriculum and schedule of online teaching are no different from the one that is implemented in a brick and mortar classroom. For this reason, he posits that rather than spend time trying to find out which pedagogical methodology is superior to the other, we should be looking at how to make use of technology to improve the real learning outcomes (Mendenhall 2). The author, with numerous authoritative examples, succeeds in convincing the reader that the mode of delivery is not as significant as the quality of education.
Additionally, he chooses a topic that is not only relevant to the audience but one of the most pertinent issues in today’s teaching and learning process. In an era of great technological advancement and an equal proliferation of online learning institutions, the issue of online learning remains thorny. People are yet to be convinced of the quality of online learning and, as the author so objectively states in the article, people tend to approach online learning with some caution. Their main concern being that online learning does not have quality outcomes. In a fair and objective tone, the author can show the reader why the quality of education is independent of the mode of learning. He can show how both classroom and online learning can be of high or low quality (Mendenhall 1). Further, he uses a fairly simple language and impeccable grammar that shows his understanding of the topic in question. He indicates what it is we should use to measure the quality of education; what the real indicators are and what we should focus our energies on.
The article is laden with valid examples that perfectly illustrate the author’s argument; that the quality of education is not determined by the mode of delivery. He gives the example of a study conducted in traditional classroom schools that indicated that even such schools suffer large numbers of dropouts and how we should not expect any great difference in an online learning setting because; even online courses are taught by the very same instructors to the same kind of students. The only difference is that online learning has some form of flexibility and learners can learn at their pace (Mendenhall 3).
Works Cited
Mendenhall, Robert. "How Technology can Improve online Learning." 2016.
