Online Lessons VS Classroom Lessons

[johnray]

Having now been both a teacher and a student in online classes I feel I have enough knowledge to discuss the pros and cons of studying online and normally in a classroom.

 

As a student I think there are many benefits to online learning.  It is cheaper than classroom education and you can study from anywhere in the world.  Online lessons are particularly useful for learning a language.  Italki, a website and app designed for learning languages, is a really good way to learn languages.  Even an entire university course can be taught online.  We have to bear in mind university courses have zero hands-on experience.  You just sit and watch a powerpoint.  Software like zoom can host lectures and the student can easily study at home.  I have even studied courses that don't even have a teacher in them.  It is just a book and an online exam.

 

As a teacher I find that teaching online is easier because there is already an acknowledgment by the student that they must behave.  Whereas in the classroom they accept anyone.  Students that don't want to behave are allowed in the classroom and this disrupts the entire lesson.  As a result the lesson is dumbed down.  Humanity is at the speed of the slowest.

 

Online those students that can not handle sitting and reading do not attend the lesson.  As a result I have found the standard is higher in online lessons.  It is also useful that the parents are often present which forces the child to behave.

 

The negative side is many students can not handle online lessons.  They need to be in a classroom and have the teacher control them constantly.  If your child is advanced and mature enough I feel it would be good to study online as they will have a tailored lesson that fits their level and not a dumbed down lesson with excessive games and silly noises.

 

When taking tests there is a chance that the student could cheat.  The irony being that in order to cheat you actually have to eventually find the answer.  So the students end up doing revision rather than just cheating.  A timed test would also help avoid cheating.

 

I actually think it is quite hard to cheat on open-ended tests that use English.  Because there is no exact question to search for.  Even in a math test the student would have to know how to form the question in order to get an answer.  Google will often just return masses of text and no answers.

 

As a student in online lessons I have found the process to almost identical to the classroom.  There are some exceptions when the teacher will involve group projects and classroom activities but this is rare.  Most lessons can be taught verbatim on Zoom, or Skype.

 

The truth is if we taught large groups online there would be many students that can not handle that style of teaching.  Most parents aren't aware of bad behavior, or they are too embarrassed to admit it.  But in online classes the student would be removed from the lesson by the parents, muted or kicked out of the meeting.  So you would end up with a large amount of students not attending online classes.  Whereas in the classroom the student can be disruptive every day and the teachers can not do anything about it.  

 

The parents are not present at schools, so they do not see how poor the student is and the school doesn't want to tell the parents either.  Parents also don't want their kids around the house so online lessons would annoy parents as well.  Also, very young ages can not study motor skills or sensory lessons.  However, based purely on the quality of education I would say online lessons are just as good as classroom lessons.

 

How do you feel about teaching online?

[Jack Hna]

Interesting comments. 

 

My 4 year old had to do online during lockdown and he did ok.

 

It was only 40 minutes per day and at that age the integration is very important and learning to behave around others and be without your parents are a big deal so I felt online was not really that good for what he needed.

 

I spend a fair bit of time trying to find tutors for him but mostly it's group based and I think it's good to get him doing something 1 on 1 and seeing if that level of attention will help him. I never thought about online at all but for basic maths it may be worth trying it out. I was looking for a smart kid to teach him but maybe I can get him an online basic maths tutor and get him more accustomed to online.

 

Thanks for the report made a lot of sense.

[oompie69]

Thanks for the post.

Education is not only about learning but also, and perhaps more importantly, about helping learners to develop the skills required from them to be able to function as normal, well-adjusted individuals in the real word. Numerous books have been written on the topic of Human Social Development and this is where online learning falls short. Young learners need social interaction with their peers and teachers to develop real life skills. This they are not going to get via online learning. 

[Presnock]

My 16-yr old daughter at CMIS the past year began online study prior to Songkran since the year before schools were closed due to smog.  Then when the virus jumped out, CMIS just continued with the online

studies.  My daughters only complaint was that it was boring and she missed the teachers and other students but I feel she didn't really miss anything academic wise.  The school and teachers were well prepared for the online teaching and already had the facilities and equipment ready.  I realize they had to spend a lot of time preparing the rest of the season but am pleased with the result.  If the virus were

to begin infecting students in another wave and schools closed then CMIS would just do it on line and our students would not miss that time.  I read from schools in the US that the students may never be  totally able to recover the time missed by the schools not having on line available.  

 

[khunPer]

Online lessons due to Covid-19 didn't work well from the international school my 14 year old daughter in Y9 attended. More than half of the pupils in her class were leaving the school due to unhappy students, including all the boys, before beginning of last Y9-term. I'm not sure online tuition will work well in lower education levels.

[ncc1701d]

My kids loved it. instead of waking up at 0630 to get ready to go to school which started at 0830, they could now get a better sleep and roll out of bed at 0830 for 0900 lessons. Their schools were very quick to implement online learning. but they are back to normal classes now.

[OumarhindaOunsingha]

So, all in all a very diverse set of experiences... 

[Poet]

Online teaching has huge potential but, sadly, most of the school teachers in my country used the lockdown as an excuse to do very little. The kids were meant to get online classes but it devolved into a short social call every couple of weeks in which the teacher would just ask the kids how they were doing.

Good parents made sure their kids did some work each day, bad parents did not, increasing the existing gap.

Overall, the whole thing has been a missed opportunity for public education. By contrast, most companies have discovered better ways to operate and intend to retain some changes even after the pandemic.