Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Face-to-Face Education

Face-to-Face Education

            I agree with Ralph Maltese in that it is imperative for students to have face-to-face interaction with not only their teachers, but their peers as well. Group work is essential for student learning as it allows for other student opinions to be included into that student’s assignments. Essentially, students will be able to learn from their peers, as their fellow peers demonstrate and contribute their own ideas and opinions not previously thought of by that specific single student; conflicting interests allows for beneficial student learning.  In addition, I believe that students need to be interacting with peers of their age group or else they will not be able to develop socially. Social skills are crucial throughout every points of one’s life, and being inadequate would only harm one as they entered the workforce. As Maltese stated in his writing, “Studies on adolescent thinking reveal that students have not yet developed the facility to read irony or sarcasm.”
            Numerous times in the past I have encountered bad situations that were derived from emails from myself to my professors. The professor would not adequately respond to my question, leaving me on ‘another page’ and ultimately I performed poorly on the assignment or the exam. In addition, in the past I have been enrolled in courses such as Current World Problems or college level Geology in which I started the class with a bad mindset of not wanting to attend the class because I originally thought it would be boring, or a ‘waste of my time’. However, it did not take long for the teacher to inspire me by showing me the essentials of the course and how it related to present day life – this was something that had me hooked in the class which allowed me to excel.
            I feel that there is a strong possibility that students would cheat on their online examinations or, they would find all of the answers on the Internet without even having to read the required articles. Furthermore, it would not necessarily be plausible for a student to complete a science (i.e. chemistry) or a physical education course online. In sum, if online courses became a state requirement, it would truly depend on the parents to encourage their student to complete the coursework without cutting any corners.

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