It is argued that teaching in lecture halls to large numbers of students is outdated and that instead, these should take place exclusively on the internet. This essay disagrees with the above statement. The essay will first discuss how interaction between students and teachers is essential to the learning process, followed by a discussion of how demotivating learning online can be.
Learning via computer may be convenient, but it stops students and teachers actually talking to each other about their subject. Pupils need to ask the teacher questions in order to fully understand the material and they also need to talk about the topic to help them remember and fully understand it. For example, the School of Law at Queen’s University allows students to question the professor at the end of each lecture and then they have a seminar in which learners can debate each topic, resulting in some of the best exam results in the UK.
Presenting lectures solely online also presents the problem of students not being motivated to watch them. It would be very difficult to know who actually viewed the lecture and if students know this, it is likely to result in more people not watching and not being fully prepared for the exam at the end of the course. For instance, Udemy, the online learning company, found that only 12% of people who purchased their online courses actually watched all the videos and completed the online tasks, principally due to lack of supervision.
In conclusion, exclusively online lectures are a bad idea because they do not allow face-to-face communication and they can lead to a drop-off in student attendance.