Online And Traditional College Degrees Serve The Same Purpose
It’s good to start the comparison with the following thing in mind – both online and traditional college degrees serve the same purpose, which is to provide students with an education and award certification. This, however, is all they have in common as they vary significantly in structure, assessment and progress tracking. One of the key distinctions between online and traditional college degrees lies in the Internet-based curriculum. Based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the definition of an online class is: “a formal education process in which the students and instructor are not in the same place.” In this sense all exams, lectures and much of the reading in online classes are done over the Web. Here lies the biggest difference in comparison to traditional classroom learning. Many students are able to overcome the challenge of online instruction and adapt well to the system.
Similar to traditional courses, online classes are taught by instructors and include multiple classmates. However, the correspondence between the participants is done via email, telephone or live chat. Some programs require on-campus visits or clinical work—for example nursing or occupational therapy—while in others the student will never meet his or her instructors and classmates face to face. Traditional college classes require your physical presence as you listen and take notes during professors’ lectures. While most traditional college classes make attendance mandatory and the grade suffers from frequent absence, online courses tend to be more flexible by introducing a lower ‘pass mark’ that is sufficient to advance to term exams.
The biggest difference is in the way students exchange information with their tutors over the Internet as opposed to in person. In order to guarantee a certain level of clarity of that material, instructors in a virtual environment are required to provide a more detailed feedback. This in turn leads to a higher frequency of mid-term tests and assessments. According to the Sloan Consortium, there are several additional types of feedback important to online classes, such as interaction in discussions, highlighting key ideas and creating follow-up questions. Feedback can also come in the form of audio clips and voice-supported chats. A good online instructor works hard to provide valuable assistance and interaction with his or her students, staying on top of everything they’ve achieved so far as well as struggling with.
As mentioned before, online classes have a decided advantage over traditional ones and it is that they offer more flexibility, making them convenient for many students – particularly those who need to juggle part-time work to put themselves through college. Online classes allow a student to build and shape their curriculum in a way that best fits their daily routine and availability. This has proven to be of invaluable help to a lot of young people to further their education while still fulfilling their family and work responsibilities.
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