Personal Connection Lost, Responsibility Gained
Houghton has always emphasized making personal connections between its faculty and students. It isn’t unusual to see a professor sitting with a student at lunch or praying with a student in between classes. So does a student taking a class online through Houghton lose that personal relationship?
Houghton Online offers an increasing amount of online classes during the summer. Among the options are Literary Voices, Math in the Liberal Arts, Introduction to Psychology, and Biblical Literature. The majority of the classes offered are Integrative Study (IS) requirements, so instead of being crammed into a student’s semester schedule, the IS credits can be fulfilled during the less academically strenuous summer months.
Taking an online course through Houghton is an ideal option if a student is behind on credits, can’t attend Mayterm, or simply can’t balance certain classes with their schedule during the fall and spring semester
Sophomore Raisa Dibble said she missed the chance to learn from a professor and that it was a “big minus” of taking an online course. “I just think professors make it a little more personal and give moral support to learning,” said Dibble of traditional classroom learning. She continued to say she missed the “wall of support” that she usually gets on campus. “At Houghton, if I’m struggling with my beliefs, I have professors I can ask and talk to and classmates to bounce ideas off of. At home, I just have Google,” said Dibble.
Despite learning less from the professor, Dibble said, “I like online learning because I learn more about the subject.” Because online learning is generally self-taught, Dibble spent a lot of time reading. “When you take a class online, you have so much more time to devote to actual work rather than having to go to class,” she said as a benefit of taking Literary Voices and Biblical Literature through Houghton. “You definitely learn the material better.” She appreciated that online courses allowed her to go more indepth into the subject material because she had more time.
Online learning differs from the traditional classroom setting because it requires much more responsibility and not as much interaction. “I enjoy listening to lectures and reinforcing the information on my own, so teaching myself and being responsible for my own learning was a different experience,” said junior Casey Mauger, who took Medical Terminology this past summer. Mauger said although it was easier to focus all of her academic attention on one class, “if something was unclear it was harder to get clarity on the subject because you were basically teaching yourself.”
Junior Maisie Pipher also agreed that taking an online course demands more responsibility. “Online learning is entirely dependent on the individual,” she said, “You are in charge of learning for yourself.”
To most students, summer means warm weather, sun, and no classes. But for students who want to get ahead on credits or need the credits, summer means something a little different. Pipher relied on self-discipline to get her through Literary Voices and Medical Terminology. “Assignments crept up on me more easily during the summer when I was working and relaxing,” said Pipher. She wished the professors were more empathetic to the fact that it was summer and that she had other work to do besides academics. “There were days where I would have a long shift at work and have to come home late and finish an assignment because it was only available for 24 hours,” said Pipher, “It was like [the professors] forgot it was summer.” Mauger too thought is was difficult to balance “the business of the summer with a class.”
Dibble also contributed to the notion that it takes a lot of discipline to get through a summer course. “It’s hard to make yourself wake up and get to work,” she said, “You have to make sure to set aside time from the day to do the class.”
Writing Professor Laurie Dashnau said the challenge of online teaching comes “in terms of gauging where students are at in terms of start or middle of instructional units.” Finding the best resources to cover instructional material is also another challenge of Dashnau’s. Still, she finds online teaching to be rewarding. “One does not take conversations of face-to-face time for granted,” said Dashnau. Professors, not just students, value in-person interaction.
Although the student may miss out on an interactive relationship with their professor, they acquire skills such as self-discipline and responsibility along the way. Meeting deadlines and overcoming the distractions of summer challenge students to become more focused and more disciplined.