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By Mary Jones
According to a recent NS survey, over a third of students claimed that they have chosen to take a course online rather than the same course offered in person at the high school.
At NS, there are three ways to obtain credit for a class. The first option is taking live classes at the high school; the second option is by using the school’s credit recovery program, Odysseyware, for original credit; the third option is by enrolling in Pleasant Creek, the alternative school, and using the online platform Edgenuity as a homeschool-like program.
“I think for some people it’s way better for them,” said NS counselor Heather Allred. “They understand they can read something or watch a video and they can apply it. “I think there’s a niche for it. I think if you’re an independent and motivated worker, and you kind of want to finish early and just do things at your own pace, then it’s pretty helpful in that way.”
Choosing to take online courses can benefit students by helping them get ahead or add classes to their schedules that would not have fit otherwise.
“Online classes can benefit students if students are extremely busy or they have a lot of extracurricular activities going on,” said NS math teacher Matt Syme. “We have students that work 30 or 40 hours a week, if you just need to get credit real quickly and you’re busy and you’re trying to help out your family make ends meet, that’s okay.”
Although online courses are beneficial for students who wish to quickly obtain credit, according to Syme, the credit recovery math class offered through Aleks is not rigorous enough to meet the academic needs of students.
“Certainly, it’s less work,” Syme said “When you’re expected to do a class in-person, yes, you’re expected to be at a certain place at a certain time, and there are things that we do in class that you’re expected to do as well. The online course you can do it whenever you want, or not, you can essentially recruit whatever help you want, or not, and in the end, there’s only one test you have to pass instead of multiple tests or checkpoints along the way.”
According to Syme, the ease of the course material isn’t the only issue brought about by this option. Not having a way to tell if students are understanding or are even doing their own work brings concern for the well-being of their education.
“First of all, if someone else is doing it for them, they’re not learning the material … and second of all, if somebody else is doing the work for them I guess that they’re learning that they can have somebody else bail them out,” Syme said. “That’s not something that North Sanpete wants to teach kids, that they can hide or run away from difficult things. We want to teach students to tackle difficult things head-on, persevere and overcome.”
Though there are concerns about how effective online courses are at preparing students for higher education, according to Pleasant Creek principal Stephen Solen, the online courses teach the personal responsibility required in college.
“At school, you have teachers who allow kids to turn things in extremely late, teachers are constantly reminding students ‘hey this is due,’” Solen said. “With Edgenuity, they are on their own to get it done, … they actually have to sit down and buckle up and say okay I have to get this done. That personal responsibility is the same as in college. College professors don’t care if you turn stuff in, they’re not going to sit there and remind you.”
Taking at-home classes through Edgenuity can be a beneficial option for students who need quick credit.
“Compared to a lot of other programs I’ve seen, I like it a lot better because it’s a lot more essentially focused, and it’s much more user friendly than some others that I’ve been introduced to,” Solen said. “Online school will never be as effective as in per- son school. Having that community, friends, the social networking part of it, a teacher that’s live there to help explain things even more, it’s just not there. But then again, some students just need that acceleration.”
The difficulty of not having a teacher available to answer questions when taking an online course can be a struggle and, to NS credit recovery teacher Jane Tucker, makes in-person courses preferable.
“It’s important that students have that lesson presented to them, you don’t get that with Odysseyware,” Tucker said. “I think that instruction is import- ant for any of the online classes. I would rather see them in a classroom than in credit recovery. I mean it’s job security for me, but I think that instruction is important because they may not understand what’s being presented to them. If that was the case in a classroom, you could always ask for help from your teacher.”
Depending on a student’s needs, circumstances, and educational goals, online courses may or may not be the best option for their education.
“I think it’s just nice to have different options for differ- ent people and you just have to choose the option that is best for you based on what your goals are,” Allred said. “I think that if you wanted to go into a trade that online might be a little bit harder just because with your trade you’ve got to learn to work hands-on … I don’t know if it gives you that kind of practical experience. I think it’s a way for people based on their circumstances at home to still get what they need educationally.”
