Online learning has been a common feature of higher education for some time. In my opinion, this has both a positive and negative impact on student learning outcomes.
On the one hand, there are some benefits of learning online courses. Firstly, online programs offer flexibility. Students can research and learn any subjects they are interested in with dynamic schedules. Online learning also eliminates the need to physically travel to the amphitheater in the university. It helps save transportation costs and remove geographical obstacles for remote students. Secondly, students can have access to an unlimited amount of resources on the Internet and the majority of them is free of charge. This facilitates their learning process and improves their self-study abilities.
On the other hand, online learning also brings some drawbacks. First and foremost, lack of peer support is one major disadvantage of online learning that leads to lower results compared to traditional learning model. This type of learning does not allow discussion between classmates either, so students’ learning outcomes might be affected in an undesirable way. Besides, online courses don’t offer face-to-face communication, which is very important to students’ understanding abilities. Last but not least, online learning requires high self-discipline. There are many distractions from the Internet, while studying. Students can distract their study and can result in low academic achievements.
In summary, offering online courses to choose from while studying at university will benefit students in a number of ways. However, their limitations in terms of reduced academic performance need to be taken into account.