For my second pick, I wanted to find a popular source so I went to New York Times and searched, “online classes vs. face to face.” The second source that I chose in my research is called, “Online Courses are Harming the Students Who Need the Most Help.” This source is an article written by Susan Dynarski, a professor at the University of Michigan. The main reason I chose this article is because I was looking for an opposing view point, and the title itself seemed to do just that. I wanted to find information that would challenge me in finding an answer to my question. (Sounds odd, but I love a challenge!)
In the beginning of the article, it says that the growing use of online learning is negatively affecting students who need a physical teacher in a classroom. While there are many forms of online education, something that I found interesting was the concept of blended learning. Blended learning uses online learning alongside a traditional classroom. This makes it an extra tool in learning without replacing the physical classroom. Statistics show that students do just as well in a blended classroom as they do in traditional classrooms. This now poses my follow up question to the original question stated in the Introduction of my research: How can online learning and face to face learning work together?
The article also explains that students who are never in the classroom with their teacher face a lot of troubles. Many of the classes that can be taken online have easy pass/fail grades which may sound good, but especially for high school students who plan to further their education, they are not as prepared for higher level classes then. This means they are not getting the most out of a class that they could have taken in a face to face classroom. Online classes do have benefits for kids as those who are in face to face classrooms would be able to use the technology to further explain a topic they learned in class and use it as supplemental instruction. On a similar note, kids who are only taking online classes lacked better test scores at the end of terms and had lower success in taking higher level classes after completion of online courses.
By reading with the grain of this article, I completely agree that taking strictly online classes, is not beneficial for every type of student. It showed that some kids who failed out of a face to face classroom were sent right to an online course as a recovery class. By taking online courses after one time failure, the students become unmotivated and are more likely to drop out of the class. “The effects are lasting, with online students more likely to drop out of college altogether.”(Dynarski) By reading against the grain, I think that the article used a lot of statistics and data from online classes in high school rather than all levels of education.
I strongly agree with this source in that implementing online classes can be useful but not by going away with the face to face classrooms completely. This source can definitely be the opposing side that I was looking for with my first source. I learned statistics that I didn’t know about before reading this, which made it valuable in my research. I think something that I’m still looking for is a more in-depth study of how online classes and face to face can work together and not just oppose each other. This source helped shape my thinking for answering my question!
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