With the advent of the pandemic worldwide, every field and industry faced new global challenges. While on the one hand, WhatsApp, FaceTime, or Zoom made it easier to communicate with family and friends, the education sector came face to face with different challenges too. As a result, e-learning emerged as a popular tool.
There’s no doubt digital learning is a great resource and offers many advantages. For example, British assignment writers – an online writing platform, help you with your assignments and dissertation, allowing you to score good grades. But, now, when the world is inching its way back to normal, is there no need for online learning anymore? Or traditional classroom experience is gone for good?
Perplexing thoughts, right? More so for students!
Therefore, this post deals with the intricacies of different learning methods in detail to help you reach a conclusion and decide accordingly.
The Best Way to Learn: Online Vs In-Person
It’s nothing more than an opinion that one medium must be better than the other. While different people have reasons to prefer one over another, it may or may not sit well with others. In short, it is subjective. For example, just because the online medium emerged in the current era, it doesn’t make it better than the old face-to-face learning methods. Similarly, it is not like e-learning is devoid of pros that conventional learning lacks.
It is no secret we’ve been able to interact with individuals worldwide thanks to applications like WhatsApp, FaceTime, Zoom, WeChat, and others as technology more in the past few years. Likewise, education has developed to connect students and teachers in virtual classrooms. However, it all comes to how many pros e-learning provides us and how traditional learning has benefitted us throughout the years.
It’s clear things aren’t the same as they were a year ago, and many people have debated whether in-person learning is superior to online learning. But how do the two stack up? Is one truly better than the other? So, let’s talk about it.
What is the Difference Between the Two?
E-learning is just what it sounds like; classroom discussions and topic materials provided remotely. However, the conventional method of learning is in-person learning, in which students attend face-to-face sessions at set times. So now, let’s skip the dialogue and talk about the pros and cons of each type of learning environment.
Pros of E-learning
With COVID-19, studies observed a surge in students enrolling in online programmes. People from different communities who couldn’t commute to the institutes also enrolled in the online course. Some people believe online education offers high quality and thus choose to pursue it. Let’s have a look at the various pros of E-learning:
1. Education Accessibility for Students
Students benefit greatly from virtual programmes. It opens the door for many people who don’t have the funds to attend in-person classes or wish to return to school but have other obligations. For example, single parents, military personnel, and full-time professionals can all benefit from online education. In addition, online courses enable a broader range of people to get a formal education.
2. Online Classes Support Schedule Flexibility
Online learning offers self-paced study and schedules flexibility. E-learning is an exceptional option for people who do not like the formality of traditional classroom meetings. Students work and learn at various rates, and online programmes allow them to choose their timetables. Thanks to flexible timings, students and teachers may shape the classroom to what works best for them.
3. Selection of Programmes and Learning Styles
Online schooling offers many advantages. One of them includes a vast list of programmes being offered to students. The learning style has changed now, and since you are learning and working remotely, it helps you select programmes that were not offered on campus. Such as, if you are a student living in a remote area where schools offer typical subjects, and you want to study fashion or applied physics or marketing on a higher level, you can always enrol with any academy from any country and educate yourself about those subjects. You can select courses suitable to your schedule and style.
- Online Classes Save Money
Traditional schooling is usually more expensive than online learning due to the various extra expenditures of the in-person experience. It covers extracurricular activities, dining halls, electric bills, and so on. Students are generally willing to pay for these perks, but these costs can stay on hold as the epidemic continues. As a result, with a frugal option available, more prospective students will enrol in online programmes to get an affordable formal education while ensuring convenience.
Cons of E-learning
Despite the benefits of the virtual classroom setting, there are several characteristics of in-person classes that virtual classrooms lack. It is vital to stress typical online classes have distinct drawbacks than online programmes. Certain disciplines were more challenging to adapt to in the online environment. Therefore, given below are some of the drawbacks of online education.
1. Online Classes Cause Metal Fatigue
There has been a rise in internet exhaustion lately. If you’ve heard the term ‘Zoom fatigue’ creeping around the internet, you’re not alone. After a year of online meetings, Zoom conferences, and everything else you can think of, it might start to seem dull. And completing back to back college assignments without your professors’ help seems to be more difficult. No wonder you always end up having thoughts such as: If only “I can hire someone to do my assignment” because of the workload. And such worries worsen your mental condition and cause fatigue. Online learning is helpful, but it may cause serious damage to the eyesight and brain.
2. Student’s Lack of Commitment
In virtual classes, there may be a lack of involvement from students. It is mostly due to the difficulty of maintaining virtual teacher/student or student/student connections. It’s tough to get to know individuals through video conferences. Furthermore, without a tangible connection, students lose attention in online classes as, with no proper supervision, they get distracted or sleepy more easily. They are also hesitant to learn when taking online classes since they know they’ll only have to watch and memorise (a.k.a. passive learning). Finally, when students attempt to create relationships, they are frequently met with technological challenges such as sporadic Wi-Fi signals, scratchy mic noises, or uncomfortable delays.
3. Hard to Understand Subjects
Certain topics are difficult to accommodate online. Subjects such as chemistry, physics, biology, nursing, and culinary arts are difficult to adapt into an online teaching technique since they require practical demonstration. Because instructors in these professions were unprepared for the pandemic’s dramatic changes, it was difficult for them to devise ways to educate their class through a screen. Students, however, were probably having difficulty studying due to a shortage of supplies at home.
Pros Of Old-School Learning
Teachers may actively monitor what is going on in the classroom, from conversations to tests to student interactions. Many of these perks are eliminated with online learning. Let’s look at the benefits of in-person learning.
1. Easy Discussion
Being present in a class allows lecturers to conduct discussions, case studies, role plays, and other activities more easily. When teachers engage students in dialogue, pupils realise their peers are as enthusiastic, naturally drawing them into an enlightening conversation. Effective communication is essential for better learning.
2. You Can Connect with Bigger Communities
There might be greater chances for community and relationship building. Unfortunately, online connections are not as effective as face-to-face interactions and friendships. Connections may be a valuable resource or reference. Furthermore, it helps students be freer and communicate better in within-person seminars without feeling lonely and awkward. In-person sessions allow before and after-class talk, catching up on weekends and working through difficult problems together. That banter makes students feel at ease, even if the material is difficult for them. Mental health is an important element of schooling that is sometimes disregarded, and in-person connections may significantly lower stress and anxiety levels.
3. Fewer Distractions
In the classroom, there are fewer distractions. Learners who take online lessons at home are prone to become quickly sidetracked. Daily interruptions from the internet or routine distractions at home can cause students and teachers to lose attention, contributing to a lack of engagement. When students are in a classroom environment with their peers and cannot switch their cameras off to do something else, they have a greater opportunity to participate in the lesson since there is nothing else they can do.
Cons of Old School Learning
One of the biggest drawbacks of conventional in-person learning is it is not always immediately accessible. It is especially true for institutes of higher learning. Here are some of the disadvantages of face-to-face education.
1. Far From Home
Some students may find their local institution does not offer their subject of interest. However, moving away from their city may be absolutely out of their budget. Learning becomes inaccessible and ineffective as a result. Traditional institutions are expensive, and going to out-of-state colleges is much more so, discouraging students from enrolling in either. Instead, they can locate a curriculum that works for them at a lower cost by taking online programs.
2. Old Methods Are Time Consuming
Going to class might take up a lot of time. When attending classes in person, you must consider the commuting time and the length of the lectures. Many students will have three to four drives to those classes. In addition, in-person classes are less flexible than online ones, upsetting many students who pay for a college education but have little time to devote to it. For example, student-athletes frequently skip courses due to sports activities. Yet they are expected to keep up with the rest of their class even though they don’t have access to recorded lectures to absorb the information.
3. Social Anxiety
Some pupils’ learning methods may not correspond well with in-person classroom interactions. Because social anxiety has been a major concern in younger generations, there is generally a schism in classrooms. Quieter, more reserved students choose to sit at the back, reducing their involvement if they can’t hear the lecturer or see the board. In other circumstances, large group discussions make students scared to speak out, preventing them from fully engaging.
Conclusion
No matter what learning environment we talk about, old conventional methods or e-learning, each has pros and cons of its own. Therefore, look for a qualified programme when choosing virtual learning. Old teaching methods may lead to higher test scores but requires more time and effort from the teachers and parents. However, parents should consider safety, the time required for each option, and each kid’s learning style when deciding which option is best.