Is Online Learning Impersonal?

Our bias for classroom learning—since that is what we are familiar with—is the primary experience that shapes our concept of distance learning (or online learning). This has given rise to what have been called the 5 Myths of Distance Learning. The first myth is: Online learning is impersonal. “Correspondence Schools”, popular in the last century, help form the idea that online learning involves a student sitting alone in front of a computer examining content. Even much of traditional, classroom learning involves an impersonal form of learning: a professor reads the day’s lecture while the student takes copious notes, attempting to capture every word spoken by the professor. In the haste to capture these notes, there is little time to consider the meaning and implication of the lecture.

Occasionally, the professor asks a question--but who answers the question? Only a few quick-thinking students are able to respond. If a student is a process-thinker—needing time to consider the question and its implication, he rarely, if ever, is able to participate. In fact, it is possible for students to take a course in a classroom without ever interacting with the professor or other students! The classroom environment does not intrinsically create a personal experience in education.
By contrast, an online course has intentional times of student interaction with the instructor and other students. In the courses that eDOT develops, students must participate in group discussions at least twice a week via threaded discussion or email. In the future, webcams and computer blackboards will afford even more enhanced interaction. Because time is not a factor—participation is—each student has the ability to fully engage with the material. He is able to take the time to consider the matter from several vantage points, meditate on the information and apply the truth to his own life.

So, is online learning impersonal? Absolutely not! It’s highly personal as students engage with each other as well as their facilitator and apply the truths they learn to their lives. In the process, an online community it built and each individual can grow in their walk with God through interaction and involvement.