Practical Reasons That Have Made Online Education More Proactive
Online education has opened the doors of vast learning opportunities for the learners across the globe. It doesn't matter whether you are 6 or 60 if you have the zeal to learn, you just need to have a computer and a good internet connection. Gone are the times when learning was bound to a particular age or place now it is just your own desire that will drive you to complete the courses or learn about the world.
Place and Time are not a barrier anymore for anyone seeking quality education Whether you are someone working with a corporate, a full-time housemaker, a mother or may be student.. it doesn't matter what you are doing and where do you live. For a lot of people, the universities they want to join or courses they want to pursue are not available close to home. These days if you want to learn and do something new, and can't go extra miles for it online learning is the answer for you.
With the help of online teaching you can learn at your office or in the comfort of your home at your own desired time.It is available 24 x 7.It is seen that one need to sacrifice one's career for a long time for pursuing higher studies but with online courses you can easily learn while you earn. In past few years, there is a remarkable change in the number of students enrolling for the online courses. Some stats that make us easy to understand the impact are:
- Studies across schools/universities in USA done during fall 2011 display an increased number of participants (roughly 570000 students) studying in at least one of the online programmes.
- One-third of students who go for higher education at the same time also enrol themselves for at least one online course during the term
Learner Centric Approach When a tutor is taking classes online a learner can directly interact and communicate with the educator who may not be possible in traditional teaching method where the class size itself is a barrier in one to one interaction. Hence in some modes of online learning student teacher ratio does not matter and the pace/style of teaching is customised for an individual who can have great results. Since educator gets the chance to interact with the learner, he /she can understand student's style of learning and can incorporate ways to make the teaching more meaningful.
Self-Paced Programs unlike traditional teaching methods online education is not limited to textbooks or fixed curriculum. It has seen that fast learners pick up their curriculum easily, and if no challenge is given to them they start receding away from the class, but online teaching can solve this problem as the teacher now knows her student better she can offer them assignments, feedback and questions as per their mental level. Same goes for the slow learners who require multiple examples of the same concept to concretise the topic.
Technical Help there are a variety of topics which are very abstract to explain and are very hard to understand.In such situations, the educator can take help of the technical educational tools to explain the topic in a better way. It helps to get rid of the traditional rote memorization method of learning.
Interaction with Students/ Teachers across the globe online education gives a chance to interact with teachers and students across the globe and understand their culture. So learning is not limited by your caste, creed, sex or nationality.Apart from that one gets the chance to learn from the best professors and have courses from the most esteem universities.
Make students Self Motivated Most of the pioneer institutes are offering online courses where they have specially designed curriculum, classes from the best professors and even assignments like a regular class.All this motivates learners to learn more.
Acceptance of online courses across faculty and schools
Online courses are designed in a very similar framework to conventional classroom courses. Typically these programmes have the same schedule, same study material and have same credits/weight age and are usually run by a single faculty member who is responsible for both offline and online teaching programmes. Acceptance of quality of education in such courses/programmes has not always been there but this is gradually changing, and academic leaders across the world have started to accept the online courses and certifications. Studies have shown data to prove that the trend is changing with online education becoming the new norm.
- More than two-thirds of Head(s) of universities/academic gurus now accept online learning as a part of institution's long-term strategy.
- More and more college(s) and universities are now either planning for MOOC or have already started offering such courses to students.