In 2020, Minn. saw the shutdown of schools, and students logged in on their computers amid the pandemic. Four years later, students have been taking online classes at a higher rate. Online learning is virtual as opposed to in-person, providing different school experiences to students who receive education at home or in the classroom.
Class of 2025 counselor Heidi Cosgrove said the ability to work on your own schedule while participating in online courses is an important upside. However, with that she said problems can arise.
“We are seeing students appreciating the flexibility that online brings and how students can work at their own pace, within a timeline,” Cosgrove said. “As soon as students start saying, ‘I’ll work on it later,’ or ‘I’ll put more time into it this weekend,’ that’s when it’s getting really troublesome.”
Junior Salvatore Lien said flexibility plays a large part in why he likes online classes. He said it benefits him in prioritizing other work that needs to get done.
“(Online classes) are easy because they are at your own pace. You can do the work whenever you feel like,” Lien said. “You have more time on your hands. You’ll have a study hall to work in so you can do other stuff that you have to work on — it creates more time in the day.”
Park math teacher Anson Opara said there are cons regarding online learning once students get to higher levels. He said it’s because students don’t have access to the same interaction with a teacher.
“When it comes to higher level learning, It’s really difficult to do that, especially when you’re learning a new concept and you need clarification on pieces, and you can’t get that instant feedback,” Opara said. “It’s just what the video says, or what the reading says, then you can go ask questions later. You’d have to be diligent about the question and meeting with someone maybe days later.”
According to Cosgrove, the learning style will be different compared to in the classroom, but the content will be the same. She said this is because online schools have to be certified by the state and follow the same guidelines as regular schools.
“Students aren’t going to get the same learning experience, but they are going to get the same curriculum,” Cosgrove said. “Because the online schools are certified by the state of Minnesota, they have to be presenting state certified material and meeting the requirements.”
Lien said that while in online school, students learn less compared to students in the classroom. According to Lien, online is more focused on the learner and how they can take in knowledge.
“Students definitely don’t learn as much as in person (while online), but if you need it for instance credits I would definitely encourage that,” Lien said. “It’s a lot more (based on) how you can study it and how you are able to comprehend reading something and fully taking in paragraphs.”
Opara said different subjects work better or worse online. He said it can be a good tool for learning something, but can’t always work for learning a skill.
“Some subjects could work better where maybe you just have to have some knowledge ingrained. For things like certifications, sometimes you have to be able to show knowledge about some kind of concept, for example learn about a disease and how it affects somebody,” Opara said. “I can learn about CPR in a video, but actually doing it on a dummy is way different.”
