As life picks up speed every day, demands on students increase. Nowadays, students need to play several roles including sometimes parent, spouse, partner and employee. It is easy to see how being a student can get lost in these other responsibilities. Over the last ten years, online classes have provided a bit of relief to students, letting them attend class when they have time, thus opening up the day for work and family.
The scope of online classes is ever expanding at IPFW, with more and more classes transformed into an online accessible course. Even summer courses are conforming, making it a little easier for students to get those general education courses nailed down.
Zach Kohlmeier, a current student, says to be careful when considering an online course, as they can be more challenging than being in the classroom.
He explains, “I recently enrolled in one class in which students were required to watch all the lectures (posted online), post in a discussion board several times per week, and take 3 online tests per unit which required several hours of studying.” He adds, “…another class was just the opposite. There were no lectures, there was one assignment every two weeks, and the grading was fairly easy.”
There are certainly mixed feelings with the experience of distance learning at IPFW.
“If the instructor takes time to actually tune the course to being online then the class can be good. It offers students a chance to take a class that maybe they otherwise would not have been able to take,” says current IPFW senior Aaron Stanley. “If, however, the instructor simply recycles a class that they already teach by simply putting the information and expectations online, it can lead to a very bad class.”
Professors uploading content to Blackboard from previous semesters with dates unchanged on syllabi, delayed responses from instructors to emails, Blackboard issues, and having to come to the university to take tests have all been complaints coming from some distance learning students. These shortcomings are seen as especially unjust considering there is an extra fee per class of $190.
Turning a classroom into a virtual one can be a difficult task for professors, as they must rethink the entire aspect of communication as well as how they can convey new information for students. Feedback from some students has been very positive, reporting professors who were attentive and made the class as easy to maneuver as possible.
The world is moving faster and everyone is feeling strapped for time. With the option of online classes, IPFW is helping people to play those many roles they find themselves in—students being one of them.
