Global Journal of Engineering Sciences (GJES)
The
Future of Higher Education Online Learning
Authored by Qi Zhu
Abstract
Most
universities and higher education organizations have offered both face-to-face
sessions and online sessions to the students for most of courses. However,
COVID-19 has forced nearly all students including those who initially selected
face-to-face sessions to online instruction during pandemic time. In this
paper, we predict that the majority university learning will move from
face-to-face to online learning.
Introduction
In
recent years, fully online or hybrid/blended online instruction courses are
increasing at many higher education institutions in the United States and
worldwide [1]. Parker, et al. [2] showed that 89 percent of four-year higher
education institutions offered courses taught fully online, or hybrid/blend
online. Of all students enrolled in higher education in 2017, 33.5% enrolled in
some form of distance education/online learning courses [3]. However, the
majority learning mode is still the traditional face-to-face format.
Moore
and Kearsley [4] defined the online instruction as “distance education is
teaching and planned learning in which teaching normally occurs in a different
place from learning, requiring communication through technologies as well as
special institutional organization” (p2). Even it is hard to use a uniform
definition in rapidly changing online instructional education, but all agree
that online instruction has the following advantages over traditional
face-to-face instruction [5]:
• To
reduce the time and costs for travel.
• To
increase opportunities to access and collaborate with expert professionals.
• To
provide students with flexibility at their convenience.
• To
allow the adjustments to subjects and content.
Literature Review
The
traditional instruction is a structured education program that focuses on
face-to-face (f2f) contact with students in a classroom [6]. The instructor
plays the central role in helping students learn through organized lectures.
Students who enroll in lecture classes consistently expressed several reasons
for preferring lecture in a classroom, according to national data collected by
Kinney [7]. They preferred to learn by watching an instructor present the
material and being able to ask questions during the presentation of the
material; they valued the human interaction. Students also pointed out that
they frequently benefited when another student asked the instructor a question
and they were able to listen to the instructor’s response. Students in lecture
courses preferred these types of interactions to the opportunity for more
individual attention than in an online course [8].
Online
instructional education has grown rapidly in higher education [9]. Online
learning has become a major alternative approach to traditional instruction by
offering great opportunities for anyone who wants to learn something from the
internet, with the advantages to learn anytime and anywhere [10]. Some other
benefits of online learning are its ability to utilize various forms of
multimedia such as texts, audios, and videos, more flexible selfresponsible
learning pace, and lower costs [11].
However,
studies [12] show that traditional face-to-face learning provides real and
meaning interactions among students and teachers. Most students and parents do
not feel that the cost for online tuition should be the same as the traditional
face-toface classes [3]. There are concerns and complaints on online
instruction including: poor course content, little collaborative learning,
inconsistent instruction, no access to professors, poor instructor preparation,
and technical or network problems.
The
growing interest in student-directed learning and the rise in popularity of
online learning have also resulted in relatively steady growth in Computer
Science majors, including the programming courses [13]. Studies show that
programmers spend between 20%- 30% of their time online for acquiring
information and code, even more time than the time spend on coding [14]. A
widely adopted online resources such as concrete code examples, some program
paradigms, and video tutorials to show a step-by-step guide of how programming
solution can be implemented to help students to learn more effectively and
efficiently [15].
Also,
programming courses are generally regarded as difficult, and often have the
highest dropout rates [16]. Appropriate pedagogies and teaching approaches are
essential for effective teaching and learning [17].
Future Learning Trends
In
March 2019, thousands of colleges and universities in the United States
transitioned all face-to-face classes to online learning because of the coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Students who prefer the traditional
face-to-face format were forced to change to online learning environment, the
COVID-19 pandemic has made access to online instruction a core aspect of higher
education. Research has shown that online learning can be as good or better
than in-person learning for the students who choose it. With remote learning
moving into the long term, we here predict the following trends for the future
learning:
•
Online courses or hybrid learning will dominate in the universities’ learning
environment. However, face-to-face format will still exist for some special
purpose courses and some special required students.
• More
intercollegiate collaboration will happen in the future to save the cost in the
form of reduced tuition. If teaching online, why to limit students to their own
institutions.
•
Machine learning, SMS messaging, and AI are also having a growing impact in
optimizing student services and support. Like commercial, universities plan to
use AI-based chatbots to support students and answer questions.
Conclusion
Online
instruction is increasing very fast recently at many higher education
institutions, most offer both face-to-face sessions and online sessions to the
students. However, COVID-19 has forced nearly all students, including those who
initially selected face-toface sessions to online instruction during pandemic
time for one year now.
For
the question, will the online learning instruction be dominate in the future
education? We do think that will happen, but not very soon. Such as in Computer
Science, especially for the first year’s programming classes and some advanced
hard abstract courses, both f2f and online to the students should be offered.
Even
though there are many issues and challenges for the online learning, however,
we truly believe that online learning will dominate the universities’ education
in the future.
For
more about Iris Publishers
please click on: http://irispublishersgroup.com/submit-manuscript.php.
To read more about this article- https://irispublishers.com/gjes/fulltext/the-future-of-higher-education-online-learning.ID.000664.php
Indexing List of Iris Publishers: https://medium.com/@irispublishers/what-is-the-indexing-list-of-iris-publishers-4ace353e4eee
Iris
publishers google scholar citations: https://scholar.google.co.in/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=irispublishers&btnG=
Comments
Post a Comment