Earning a Degree Through Distance

Earning a Degree through Distance Education believe that earning a degree through distance education is more practical than earning a degree through a traditional institution. First, traditional institutions of higher education operate during traditional working hours, which make it difficult for working students to attend classes; distance learning provides students with an opportunity to attend class when they have available time. Distance learning also provides a greater opportunity for learning; in a traditional classroom setting, students are taught material one time, but in a distance-learning scenario students can access lectures and other classroom material repeatedly. Furthermore, many traditional institutions have huge class sizes and professors with limited office hours and availability; whereas, distance education courses traditionally feature smaller class sizes and provide greater opportunities for students to interact with teachers. Next, traditional institutions of higher education place an emphasis on socialization and relationship-development, which detracts from the educational process and may not be appropriate for students outside of the traditional college age group. Finally, distance education is more affordable than traditional educational institutions. The combination of the above factors makes it clear that pursuing an education through a distance learning program is more practical than pursuing the same degree through a traditional educational institution.

One of the most important differences between distance learning and traditional institutions is that distance learning provides students with the opportunity to attend classes during non-traditional hours. Many students seeking a higher education are working individuals, and they are unable to attend classes from 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. Although distance learning takes several formats, most of those formats permit students to complete classwork during non-traditional hours. For example, distance-learning may be done via mail or online, where the coursework and classroom participation are asynchronous. Sometimes distance learning is accomplished in real-time, but those classes are often available in non-traditional hours, such as in the evenings and on weekends. This non-traditional schedule allows more flexibility for working students.

A further benefit of distance learning is that it provides a greater opportunity for learning than the traditional educational environment. In a traditional arena of higher learning, a student has limited exposure to a teacher, lectures, and the classroom environment. Instead, for a student to pursue learning outside of the classroom environment, he is stuck resorting to class notes and a textbook. The problem is that many students, especially those beginning the higher-education experience, are not good at taking notes, and do not know which portions of lectures to emphasize. In distance learning, students are provided with copies of an instructor's lecture material, which makes it much easier for a student to understand the professor's emphasis and to coordinate classroom material with texts and outside reading. Furthermore, some students need repeated exposure to classroom material before fully comprehending that material; distance learning provides students with unlimited opportunities to expose themselves to classroom material.

One of the reasons that a traditional classroom environment can distract students and hamper learning is because many of them feature an enormous number of students. In a class with 200 students that meets for three hours each week, it is impossible for an instructor to give personal attention to each individual student. However, distance-learning courses do not feature the same overwhelming student-to-teacher ratio. On the contrary, because of reduced expenses and unlimited "classroom" availability, distance learning courses can be limited to a much more manageable number of students. The result is that individual students get individual attention; rather than an instructor's attention being focused on the few brightest students. In addition, it can impossible for an instructor to notice when a single student in a group of 200 is failing to attend class or participate in lectures. However, because distance learning provides written records of student-teacher communication, it provides teachers with an easier way to track student participation, so that teachers can initiate contact with students who appear to be struggling.

In addition to taking away from individual time with the instructor, the large class environment of many traditional institutions of higher education demonstrates that traditional colleges are focused on socialization, not simply education. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the college socialization process; in fact, it makes sense when one considers the typical age of beginning college students and their positions in life. However, for students who have established careers, family lives, and outside responsibilities, the heavy social influence of traditional colleges can be distracting. In addition, the focus on socialization can be alienating for students who do not fit into the "norm;" whether because of appearance, race, culture, sexuality, or disability. Distance learning opportunities take away many opportunities for bias and allow students to interact with teachers and with peers simply as students, to be judged on the merit of their work, not their personal characteristics. For example, I had an acquaintance who got pregnant while attending a major state university; while the university was willing to make accommodations so that she could breastfeed her infant; her fellow students reacted in a very negative manner to her because of that. Once she placed herself outside of the "norm" for college students, she ceased being able to have normal interactions with the majority of them.