Online courses have become a popular alternative to physically attending class. This is good for some people like single working parents trying to go back to school, foreign students who can’t leave their country, or disabled students who have difficulty leaving their home. However, the common factor of laziness takes over many Americans in abusing this luxury making generations less social or independent. Many people make excuses for themselves so that they don’t have to make an effort to leave their house to attend a class. In result, more and more people sign up for the online course option to ‘fit their schedule’ where they procrastinate to the death, wasting their money and never learning anything from the course they signed up for.
Physically participating in a course is a big part in taking a class because human interaction is an effective part of one’s learning experience. Being present is easy and makes a huge difference because students are forced to be around people rather than a computer screen and that face-to-face learning experience can’t be replicated. People have to socialize, like small talk with your neighbor or even making eye contact with someone across the room. These simple human interactions keep people civilized and familiar, whereas being alone in your home without unfamiliar faces keeps one awkward and unaware of other human beings. With the students and the instructor in the same room, conversations are able to flow freely as there can be give and take with questions and answers.
Online courses are typically available at any time, which sounds convenient, but most people take advantage of that and never progress in the course due to procrastination. When there is a scheduled time and date that students have to attend, it becomes routine and is considered a requirement to pass the course. Students believe they will do it later, but they frequently never get around to it at all. Certain courses are always better taught in a classroom than online due to the level of difficulty and ability to comprehend the material. Physics and mathematics are courses where it would be hard to actually learn the material online because of their complexity. Learning such new and strange information is hard to digest and retain without one-on-one interaction.
When having the choice to take a face-to-face course versus an online course, it is typically better to pick the old fashion way and attend the class in person. Certain courses are best to take in a classroom setting rather than online because they are different than anything that was ever taught to them before. When students are physically in a classroom, they experience and learn more than just what the course is meant to provide. They could learn simple people skills and keep generations from having heavier ties to technology so that humanity can continue to be social.
