Traditional Education vs. Online Education Free Essays

Online Education vs. Traditional Online Education vs. Traditional Education There are different ways to access higher education, either through online education or traditional education. We will write a custom essay sample on Traditional Education vs. Online Education or any similar topic only for you Order Now For centuries, online education could not compare to traditional education. Today, online education competes with traditional education in many ways. Though online education has become very popular, how does one know which is best for him or her? Identifying the pros and cons through flexibility, communication, interaction, skills development, and affordability will help the student decide the best option. Although online education seems to be taking over the traditional means of education, both are great options in different ways. The bottom line is that the world is becoming technologically smart. For one juggling home, school, and a job, it can be difficult commuting to class every day. Online education eliminates the need to attend class. Online courses allow the student to access coursework from an Internet site. Motivated, responsible, independent learners can work at their own pace, whenever is suitable for them. This allows the flexibility that a traditional classroom setting does not provide. However, one who struggles to be self-motivated may fall quickly behind. In a traditional classroom setting the student has to attend class on campus. Traditional education is for a learner who needs more lecturing to understand and also needs to be able to ask questions as he or she learns. A student who is enrolled at a traditional university gets the chance to take advantage of the university’s facilities. These facilities include places like the student union and the gym. If the student chooses online education, the student has to make sure he or she has a computer, Internet usage, and a backup plan in case he or she has a computer failure. Though flexibility is important in choosing which option is best, there are many other things that should be taken into consideration. Communication and interaction is an important factor in learning. Online education does not offer the face-to-face interaction traditional education offers. Online courses provide interactions between the student and the content, interactions with other students, and interactions with the instructor using different forms of computer- mediated communication. These interactions take place through e-mail, chat, and discussion threads. Traditional education allows the student to have direct contact with the instructor to ask questions with instant feedback. An online student is in a class with instructors and students from all over the world whom they will never meet face-to-face. Traditional education allows the student to interact and to meet new people, which results in a growth in contacts and networking opportunities. For the student who strives on the quick exchange of ideas between the instructor and the student, the classroom environment may be a better option. On the other hand, a student who experiences anxiety when called on to speak during class may prefer the time given to reflect on his or her responses offered by online courses. Communication provided by both online education and traditional education allows a convenient way for the student to communicate with the instructor and classmates, thus producing a great learning environment. The main reason a student is enrolled in school is to learn and develop new skills. Though online education allows a student to learn in a comfortable, quiet environment, without being distracted by others, online education may be difficult for a learner who has a hard time learning without direct, face-to-face interaction with the instructor. Traditional education allows teacher-student interaction and instant feedback that online learning cannot provide. Depending on the interaction level in a classroom setting, a shy student may attend class without providing communication ideas, which forces the student to learn by a vocal exchange with the instructor. This may limit one’s ability to learn. Online education is not for a student who struggles learning from books or other written material. Online courses involve a lot of writing practice because there is little opportunity for questions to get answered verbally. In a traditional classroom setting, the students have the ability to exchange ideas and information with each other, as well as directly with the instructor. Questions are answered immediately, as opposed to waiting for an online response. The instructor is also able to focus on a particular subject, inspiring the student in a way that learning through an online course cannot. However, online courses offer some unique opportunities for learning and developing skills, but it is important to be familiar with computers before deciding on online schooling. One of the most crucial factors about achieving higher education is cost. Both online and traditional education can incur a lot of debt. Online education, in most cases, is less expensive. Traditional education is more expensive, especially considering tuition fees, accommodations, and transportation. Enrolling in an online course eliminates the money that has to be spent on gas, parking, or childcare. There is no need for expensive housing, since the student does not live on campus. Another pro of schooling online is textbooks can be downloaded to the computer instead of spending money to purchase them. There are options for paying for schooling. Online education and traditional education both offer financial aid packages, including loans and grants. There are different types of loans a student may qualify for, which has a time frame of when it has to be paid back. Overall, before the student decides which option is suitable for him or her, he or she must know the cost of enrolling and have a plan in place to repay to avoid a lot of debt. The choices of online education and traditional education are both excellent options to pursue higher education. Online education programs can be an awarding experience for a student wanting to earn a degree at his or her own pace. Studies have shown that a student who is mature, independent, and self-motivated becomes very successful in the online classroom. Studies have also shown that a student who is a dependent learner may find it challenging to take on the responsibility of an online program, thus making an extremely successful student in a traditional classroom setting. Ultimately, the student makes the final choice as to which educational program suits him or her by carefully identifying the pros and cons through flexibility, communication, interaction, skills development, and affordability. How to cite Traditional Education vs. Online Education, Essay examples Traditional Education vs. Online Education Free Essays Now days, with technology generously available, schools are opting to implement online classes into their traditional teaching curriculum. As a result of this our society is divided in two different ways of thinking on the education. Some believe the modern method is better than the traditional method of teaching but yet these two methods are both successful. We will write a custom essay sample on Traditional Education vs. Online Education or any similar topic only for you Order Now Personally, I believe both methods should balance one another instead of attempting to substitute one another; this way their purpose of educating will be far more successful. Online education, also called long distant learning, can be defined as a new method of learning through a computer network. This modern way of teaching gives students an opportunity to take classes online. Bill Gates recently predicted that in five years most colleges will be providing online education. â€Å"The self-motivated learner will be on the Web,† Mr. Gates said, speaking at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe. â€Å"College needs to be less place-based. †(Steve) Online courses allow students to access course content, including reading lists and library materials, at any time. This flexibility of online courses is primarily important for students who have young children, who are caring for ailing or elderly family members, who have full-time jobs, or who live too far from campus. Flexible hours are also beneficial because it allow students to work at their own speed; taking courses either part time or on an accelerated schedule. According to the article in the New York Times, titled â€Å"Study Finds That Online Education Beats Classroom,† the SRI International for the Department of Education, conducted a research on online versus traditional classroom teaching from 1996 to 2008. Most of the studies were conducted in colleges and adult continuing-education programs. Over the twelve year span, the Department of Education found that, on average students doing some or all of the course online would rank in the 59th percentile in tested performance, compared with the average classroom student scoring in the 50th percentile (Lohr). According to Barbara Means, the study’s lead author and an educational psychologist at SRI International, online education ultimate goal, is to provide learning experiences that are more tailored to individual students than is possible in classrooms. That enables more â€Å"learning by doing,† which many students find more engaging and useful. However, advocates of classroom learning believe the online method isolates the students from one another as well as their professor minimizing the overall value of taking the course. They also claim that students learn better when working together with their instructor and their fellow classmates. Students learn better when they are given the opportunity to ask questions, join in class discussions, and they move the process of learning forward through their participation. Face-to-face advocates firmly believe that this kind of interaction is not possible over the Internet; and for many types of education, e-learning will never meet the potential of live human interaction in the classroom. An article in the New York Times titled, â€Å"Second Thoughts on Online Education,† backs up the points made above. A recent research published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, comes to the conclusion; â€Å"A rush to online education may come at more of a cost than educators may suspect. A research funded by the National Science Foundation and the Education Department, consisted on comparing the grades of one group online, and one in classroom lectures. The 312 students were undergraduates at a major state university. The data concluded that certain groups did notably worse online. Such as, Hispanic students who took classes’ online fell nearly a full grade lower than Hispanic students that took the course in class. Male students did abou t a half-grade worse online, as did low-achievers, which had college grade-point averages below the mean for the university. David Figlio, an economist at Northwestern University and co-author of the paper, has a few conclusions as to what accounts for the differences in outcomes. The poorer performance of males and lower-achievers, he says the time-shifting convenience of the Web made it easier for students to put off viewing the lectures and cram just before the test, a tactic unlikely to produce the best possible results. The lower performance by Hispanic students online, Mr. Figlio said, might be due to missing the body language of the teacher and other classroom cues, which could be more important to a student whose first language is not English. The truth of the matter is that there are advantages and disadvantages to every type of learning environment. It is best to use the advantages that each method offers to their fullest extent. It appears from the initial studies, that a combination of online and classroom learning will be the best teaching method for educating a person for the better future of everyone. According to Judy Willis, â€Å"The more regions of the brain that store data about a subject, the more interconnection there is. This redundancy means students will have more opportunities to pull up all of those related bits of data from their multiple storage areas in response to a single cue. This cross-referencing of data means we have learned, rather than just memorized. † However, it is important to accentuate that learning highly depends on the students’ motivation to learn. So it still comes down to the effort that the students put into their education that ultimately decides how beneficial the overall experience was to their future career. How to cite Traditional Education vs. Online Education, Papers