Las Vegas Sun

What a shame SweetTart had such a bad experience! Of course, there are many, many ways in which on-campus classes can provide less-than-optimal learning experiences - droning, often-repeated lectures, unprepared faculty, classmates who dominate discussions or waste time with irrelevant or tangential comments, group activities in which not everyone pulls his/her weight, classes with busy work in place of learning activities, faculty with little understanding of appropriate assessment, egotistical faculty who make the classes about themselves instead of student learning, etc. Although many college students and grads can recount having had some, if not all, of these experiences in on-campus courses, they undoubtedly have had profound, even life-altering, learning experiences in other on-campus classes. That there are many ways in which some on-campus classes fall short of optimal has not resulted in a wholesale indictment of on-campus education (or even much commentary), but, at this point, it only takes experience in or knowledge of one poorly-designed, ineptly-instructed online course to taint someone's opinion of online education. I hope SweetTart's next online learning experience is with someone who applies appropriate theories of instructional design and pedagogy to maximize what the medium has to offer and minimize the potential for negative outcomes. I also hope that the scrutiny given online education not only raises the quality of learning via that medium and helps people better choose online learning opportunities, but also leads to a greater dialogue about learning in postsecondary education in general.