Students in online learning perform better than those in traditional classroom? - On The Job

Students in online learning perform better than those in traditional classroom?

Aparna Kalra - Monday, August 24, 2009 11:58 AM

Alerted via Twitter on an intriguing study by the U.S. Department of Education which has found "students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction".

The wordily titled 'Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online learning Studies' also found that combining online and face-to-face instructions is even better. That is, online education when combined with traditional classroom is better that pure classroom teaching or a pure online course.

This is a valuable finding for India as well, where online education is growing.

Though the U.S. study is about K-12 (the term used for Kindergarten to 12th class), it is colleges in India which are making an effort to start tech-based distance learning courses. Mint covered one such course from XLRI in a story on industry-university partnerships last week. 

I am a little skeptical, though, if online education is making a difference in K-12 education in India though it is becoming more and more popular in private and government schools (where the government allocates a big ICT budget every year). Last year, Mint ran a profile of Educomp Solutions Ltd's owner Shantanu Prakash whose company sells online lessons to schools. The lessons I witnessed comprised of teachers clicking a mouse and showing seed germination/climate change on a wall-mounted plasma screen. While some students responded enthusiastically, it seemed like our rote-based education system in a new form. That is, old wine in a new bottle. Education experts such as Krishna Kumar favour a learning-by-doing approach; he feels a child will learn more if she is encouraged to germinate a seed in a pot. Reading the lesson in a book or watching it on screen makes little difference.

Can readers of this blog who have partcipated in internet-based distance education courses write to me about their experiences? 

 

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7 Comment

From Sandeep Raj Sharma

August 24, 2009 4:59 PM
I absolutely loved this line: "The lessons I witnessed comprised of teachers clicking a mouse and showing seed germination/climate change on a wall-mounted plasma screen. While some students responded enthusiastically, it seemed like our rote-based education system in a new form. That is, old wine in a new bottle." This is so True! eLearning just takes the normal classroom and transforms it into a computer or even web enabled environment. The content provided by such companies is just ordinary, even poor in some cases [I have personally experience them]. What the government pays for is for the technical infrastructure [PC, Screen, Projector, etc]. The content is considered just as an add on, which is why it is poor compared to what a kid can experience on media and knowledge sharing portals like howstuffworks.com or even youtube.com for that matter. What eLearning does: converts readable text into viewable content [audio-visual] What needs to be done is to convert the readable text into touchable things that children can make and break. I would like my child to build or break apart a dc motor, a glider, a walking robot, a rc car, a coke-mentos powered rocket, a solar powered car and many such things instead of hearing and watching about them. And why just my child ... that should be the case with each and every child. The experience of building something in DIY style is much much much powerful than that of reading writing and listening about the same. I hope this transformation happens soon enough - we do not want to raise a generation full of data banks ... we want Think Tanks! Sandeep Raj Sharma Co-founder www.themagictree.in sandeep@themagictree.in

From Tarun

August 24, 2009 7:57 PM
There's nothing compared to hands-on learning. Check out some of the best Science kits at www.bulo.in specifically designed keeping Indian ethos in mind.

From Aparna Kalra

August 25, 2009 5:13 PM
Sandeep, Tarun, tks for writing-in. Hands-on and touchable learning is posssible only when curriculums become less rigid, and the teacher is more empowered and under less pressure "to complete the syllabus". We are a long way from there. I explored your websites, which appear interesting. Do you do anything in poor (read MCD/BMC) schools?

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From Vinay Gudi

September 18, 2009 12:46 AM
Students in online learning are 100% hooked to their computers, and assuming the content is of reasonable quality... yes they do perform better than those in traditional classroom. Online learning has to be accepted as the new way of education (the merits are many. However no concepts are registered in the mind by looking at the video or scanning through the presentations, that ensures classroom interation with all the knowlledge bundled at one place, that energy can never be substituted.

From JSA

November 20, 2009 5:57 AM
I also support online education. But I think students need to have socialization.

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