Why Online Classes Fail
Many companies are starting to move to distance learning courses as a way to increase the knowledge and skills of their distributed workforce. The most common reasons cited are: convenience, cost, and time. Although many articles discuss what to do and not do in regard to migrating classroom content to the Web, little emphasis is placed on how to prepare people to take online classes. Some people are excellent online students while others struggle. Why?
A few years ago while teaching online courses for a university in Arizona, I begin to notice the students who struggled with distance learning the most suffered from a lack of self-discipline and the inability to motivate themselves. Have you experienced the same problems? If so, let’s hear about how you approached them.
April 29, 2008 at 9:40 am
i think you’ve hit the “nail on the head”. I’ve also taught many online classes and it really is a struggle to get people to turn in assignments, to participate in the class, and to just be engaged. I suspect some of it has to to with poorly designed online classes. I’ve noticed many companies take information created for traditional classroom training documents, and then just copy it up to a website and call it e-learning. Has that been your experience as well?
By the way, keep up the good work! I love reading your blog.
April 29, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Too many schools and students consider online education a solution that will make learning easier and more efficient. (BTW, unfortunately too many schools and parents and students want educational institutions to do the same thing.) But learning online or off-line never happens well when it is easy or efficient. Knowledge comes with blood, sweat, and risk.
May 4, 2008 at 9:45 am
Elissa,
“I suspect some of it has to do with poorly designed online classes.” Your comment is more accurate then you know.
I’m a big fan of Michael Allen who stresses the 3Ms and CCAF when designing elearning.
It must be meaningful, memorable, and motivational. You must also consider context, challenge, activity and feedback in course design.
Too many people assume that Knowledge is Power. I agree with Allen, Knowledge is Nice. If you can’t apply what you learn, the elearning is no good. On the other hand, if you can turn that knowledge into skill (what people can do with it), then you end up with another equation: Skill = Power. It’s this equation we are looking for in good elearning design.