With the development of technology and the dependence of modern era in internet, the debate about traditional vs online class is in the spotlight more than ever. Pursuing a higher education is a huge decision and should not be taken lightly. Because of our dependence on technology, online classes may seem like a reasonable decision since it’s modern and supposedly better, but it lacks a major feature to produce a perfect student, character development.
On the other hand, traditional education, along with lectures focuses on character development like discipline, motivation, interpersonal communication skills everything that makes a student ideal. While online education is very flexible for students with very little time, the advantages of traditional class is more valid than ever.
Traditional school offers lots of opportunity for face to face interaction with other students and teachers which online schools cannot. In a traditional classroom, students are prompted to share their ideas through presentation, debates and speeches which helps them to develop communication skills and confidence. While yes you will see your professor in the video, but it is no where as effective as in a traditional classroom where you can lift your hand and get immediate feedback or lean to the side and discuss with your classmate.
Part of attending a school is to have fun, traditional students have lots of memory of their adventure in schools with their friends. In traditional classroom you develop lifelong friends, memories and experience while online class has nothing to offer in that field, what fun stories can you have of always sitting in front of a computer?
Even though the lectures are essentially the same, students are expected to perform better in traditional than in online class and in turn makes them a better student because online class expect students to earn a degree while traditional class promotes actual learning. Students don’t have to study or memorize study materials in online class because even the test are online.
Since there is no one to catch you cheating students have the ability to use a book or look up answers online during tests, that is not learning in true sense. If we don’t memorize stuff, then we are not really learning it because every time we have to look for the answer then we truly haven’t learned anything. We sharpen our mind and memory by constantly memorizing new material and test but online learning does not promote memory development as effectively as traditional education.
Traditional class succeeds in delivering its students with proper motivation and the discipline to success. Traditional class are more scheduled and encourages students to complete given task within a reasonable time, which is also a very important skill in life. The concept of working on an assignment in leisure sounds nice but it’s not very effective.
“In a recent study, two groups of university students were assigned to write three papers in three weeks. Group A was given the opportunity to turn in all papers in it any point during those three weeks, group B on the other hand had strict weekly deadline for each paper. Ultimately, the ones who did the best in the papers were on the ones with given the strict deadline”.
It is so because we get sacred to starting on a big project, so either we procrastinate until the last minute and do a hasty job or either we don’t finish the job at all; so proper deadline is very important to succeed. Classroom activities such as debates and discussion encourages students to listen to others and impress others through your ideas. Who would you rather want to impress teacher and friends who you will meet everyday in person or some unknown lecturer from another corner of the world with whom you will probably never meet. Also its nice to have a teacher who will pat you in the back and says “Good Job!”.
The signature feature of online class, its flexibility is not such a huge advantage as some would hope. While it is nice to have class that won’t require much time from daily schedule but sometimes we have to abandon some for better many. Also with a little planning before hand, its quite easy to schedule classes to fit your daily schedule. Even the traditional class are becoming more flexible than ever, you don’t always have to be a full time student to enroll in a university, you can take only course that you have time for. Nowadays many universities are offering morning and evening classes so you can carry your daily duties and learn at the same time.
Traditional classes always have been and will be an integral part of learning. In my opinion, the only better feature of online class of being more flexible is not too far from traditional classroom either because colleges are becoming more and more flexible themselves. All the opportunities and resources that a traditional class provides is a huge advantage for students and just being a little more flexible is not nearly enough to overshadow those traits.
Traditional classroom provides perfect atmosphere mentally and spiritually for students and better than online in every aspect. Traditional classes offer much more than just lectures, in traditional class one does not just earns a degree, he actually learns.