Posted on 04/15/2020 5:52:20 AM PDT by Brookhaven
A new study led by Cornell University researchers shows that STEM students learn just as much in online classrooms as they do in traditional in-person classes. Online courses might be less satisfying than in-person classes, but many more students can access them and they are much cheaper to facilitate.
STEM students in Russia participated in this study in the 2017-18 academic year. Researchers divided 325 students into one of three classroom styles for two of their courses: a fully online class through a program called OpenEdu; an in-person course as their local university or a blended course with online course lectures; and in-person discussion sessions.
Results of the study show that students in all three groups scored pretty similarly on their final exams.
...students in the online group were less-satisfied with their class experience than students in the in-person or blended learning groups.
They find that online courses cost colleges and universities 80% less per student than in-person classes, and blended courses cost 20% less per student.
(Excerpt) Read more at studyfinds.org ...
The advantage of online learning is that you keep learning something until you know it.
The majority of my EE and supporting courses were non-lab. Much could have been done online, though the capability was decades away in 1977-1980.
What did this “study” say about those Chemistry Labs and Physics Labs I remember?
ML/NJ
So $70,000 a year in tuition at the University of Pennsylvania for an engineering degree is way overpriced?
-You don't have the social drama present in the classroom,
-Instructors don't inject irrelevant political POVs,
-Students are more likely to focus on the material in front of them, may have the opportunity to rewind or have links to related info.
I went to Georgia Tech in the early 90s.
I did one of the first virtual learning models. I only went to class for tests and quizzes, except for small liberal arts classes. All the STEM stuff was in a book. I never saw the point of watching someone explain something that was already explained in our textbooks.
The best free education can be had from YouTube videos alone.
Addendum: I forgot about labs. I went to those too, but they were fairly uncommon after the first year
Online courses are potentially extremely cheap.
There is no reason for the extreme amount we pay for teachers and brick and mortar schools, currently, other than to act as baby-sitters and Democrat Party funders through High School.
People used to be taught to read at home. Many were then self taught, up to the level of professionals, such as lawyers.
With on-line courses, disciplined, professional and organized study is available for the masses, cheaply.
You can shop between the best lecturers in the world, and fit the schedule to your time needs.
Only the regulatory rules and “rice bowl” foot dragging by the professional educator class is stopping this from happening.
My daughter got a communications disorders and psychology degree at a regular college.
She was originally going to get a master’s in speech therapy, but decided to get a degree in computer science instead.
She’s doing the computer science degree online and she’s loving it. Its self paced, and she’s getting through it quickly with the SIP going on.
She has a mentor that calls her up once a week to help her with different issues. She loves having the mentor.
They have lots of online groups. She’s enjoying those.
Academically, she feels like she is getting more online.
The administration at Cornell University are not going to like this.
Excellent observation. One solution, bring students back to campus for two weeks of intensive labs. The physics department at North Dakota State University set up a two week 2nd semester physics lab for me just before I went to work on a tanker chartered to the Navy out in Diego Garcia (fantasy island).
Did you have your own oscilloscope and stuff?
Given my TAs were all from some foreign country (and mind you, I am from Israel and was eventually a TA) and I couldn’t understand their English — I just read the book.
MIT 1980s.
Doubt it’s any different anywhere else.
Not much of those first two in most STEM classes.
I can take the tests when I'm ready as log as they're within a certain window.
We have a discussion board.
I can contact the professor via email or phone.
It's been a blast.
No need for STEM degrees to include force fed “Liberal Arts”.
One shooter thought she was a he.....
I went to college for many years, most in person and some online. For the most part, online would’ve done just fine.
However, I remember I had to take an Oceanography class online. I watched a guy sitting below me in another class open a Word Doc that had all the test answers and just put them in, then texted someone he made a 100 on it. Sickened me.
BTW, I graduated in 2012 and never got a job from that STEM degree.
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