Brenna Patrick

Staff Writer 

Advances in technology have granted faculty and students the opportunity to take online classes or teacher-facilitated classes for almost every subject and mixed opinions as well as pros and cons can be found in regard to online courses.

According to Academic Adviser Mark Edwards and Director of Central Academic Advising JoAnn Hertz, the Central Academic Advisers and Student Success Center staff members believe online classes in general are “more time-consuming than in-person classes, equally if not more challenging than in-person classes, have additional costs per credit, require financial investment in relevant technology and are likely to have technological issues requiring time management and troubleshooting skills.”

In addition to added student work, professors must also work in different ways to aid different learning styles.

Hertz and Edwards said if there were online courses “without audio/video materials then students would be learning through limited physiological modes thus perhaps not learning as much as the student would in a regular course.”

Online classes give students flexibility and different time restraints than regular courses and give them the ability to get their studies done practically anywhere.

Junior Kayla Miller is majoring in Exercise Science and said, “I think taking online classes or teacher-facilitated classes are a great option for some students, but the student needs to take a proactive approach to these courses or they will get behind.”

Miller added, “These classes are really not the easy A that some students assume they will be.”

Miller took Medical Terminology online as a freshman and Child Development over the summer.

“I thought these classes were good ones to take online,” said Miller. “The Medical Terminology course would have required so much outside studying regardless so it worked well. Although some of the in class discussions may have been really interesting for the Child Development course, we still had forums each week which took the place of those.”

For Miller, “The biggest con to an online class is getting little to no face time with professors. I don’t necessarily think it should be required that everyone take at least one online course before graduation but I think it is a good learning experience for students.”

The advisers would recommend online courses “if that was [a student’s] only option to participate in higher education, if the student was academically “mature”, if the student was savvy with technology, [to students] who are “place bound” or whose occupation or life commitments do not allow in-class attendance or if that was the only way the course was offered.”

Sophomore Nick Carrington’s views mirrored that statement.

“I don’t like online classes because I think it takes away from the experience of learning from an actual instructor which helps a lot of people, although for people without much time it can be helpful,” he said.

Currently credits for online classes range from $30-$450 depending on the number of credits per class and which level it is.

Hertz said sometimes the toughest thing for students about taking online classes to know where to start and sign up for them.