Most of you might be in a dilemma while having to make a choice between online high school courses and traditional high school courses. If a traditional high school environment seems to not work for you, it might be easy to make this crucial choice though! At the time of choosing between online and traditional education, you need to consider a bunch of factors like learning styles, the technology required, settings, tuition, pacing, etc.
Here are some common differences between online courses and traditional high school classes:
Learning style and methods of communication
In general, online learning calls for independent learning. In order to
succeed in an online high school course, online students are required to be
self-directed. They need to have a personalized schedule to do the learning
in a systematic manner.
Now, online high schools impart education in various formats to facilitate
every type of learner. If you are a visual learner, you can go for visual
content to gain knowledge and learn. If you are an auditory learner, you can
learn through recorded audio lectures.
Now, it is a huge misconception that online high school courses are
isolating. Most of the present-day accredited online high schools make sure
to adopt an active learning environment. This learning environment
incorporates various activities to help children learn through collaborative
projects. These lead to effective peer-to-peer communication as well as
student-instructor communication. Thus, students who learn well in a team
perform well in these collaborative activities.
Some of the communication options in online courses are inclusive of email,
message boards, instant messaging, video conferencing, chat rooms, etc.
However, most of the traditional courses cater to students with collaborative
learning styles. These are most beneficial to auditory plus kinesthetic
learners. In a similar manner, traditional learning environments provide
opportunities for direct interaction inside as well as outside the
classroom.
Setting of classroom
In a conventional school course, students are required to attend physical
classes at a fixed time. Most of the students attend lecture-discussion
sessions, study groups with peers where these groups are independent, etc.
The instruction is often teacher-led. Highly qualified instructors provide
lectures on his/her subjective areas. There are certain online courses that
follow the same model. Most of the synchronous online class sessions are
question-and-answer sessions that take place in instructor office hours.
However, most of the online courses tend to enable high school students to
avail flexibility. Students can choose the appropriate time and place to
learn. This provides a lot of convenience to them. Usually, the style of
instruction in online high school programs is user-led. On the basis of the
online high school course, students might experience different levels of
control over the pace of learning.
Technological issues
In order to perform well in online high school courses, students need to have
basic computer knowledge. In a similar manner, teachers need to understand
various ways to incorporate these resources into lessons. Teachers need to
provide quality instruction as to how students can make use of these
resources. Most of the online high school course use media such as pages,
webinars, webcasts, search engines, social media and software programs.
When a student is taking traditional high school classes, he/she still tends
to make use of various basic technology skills for using programs for
document creation, conducting Internet-based research, and making use of
various technology resources. There are a bunch of similarities as well as
differences between online and face-to-face academic programs. The choice
between an online high school and a traditional high school can be made on
the basis of various personal preferences plus learning styles.
Tuition
There are certain schools that do charge online students the same price as
traditional school students. Still, there are many that have different
tuition plus fees for their distance learning programs. Most of the times,
schools tend to structure their tuition on the basis of credits or charge a
flat fee. Here, the fee is inclusive of every requisite expense for the
semester. There are certain schools that drop some fees that are not
applicable to online students or additional fees that assist them in
maintaining the technological infrastructure of the online school.
Pacing
When it comes to a conventional classroom setting, students need to follow
their very own learning pace. They cannot choose their own learning pace.
They need to stick to a generalized learning pace just like the others! When
it comes to online high school courses, there are no location constraints.
Thus, most online courses tend to offer more flexibility. Most online schools
provide you with the ability to follow a self-generated pace. While following
a comfortable learning pace, students tend to learn more effectively and
retain the study material on their own time. Also, they are able to use
various useful resources that are provided by online high school. Even when
an online high school student has a busy or unconventional lifestyle, he/she
is able to juggle his/her life schedules with his/her course preparation.
When it comes to flexible online schooling options, online students finish
their degrees quicker as compared to their conventional school counterparts.
Feedback
This is one other major difference between a traditional high school and an
online high school. When it comes to online high school courses, most of the
instructors offer a greater level of feedback on various assignments,
activity performances, and papers. In a traditional course, the professor
might provide a few comments. Also, they tend to offer the entire class with
generic feedback. In an online high school environment, teachers are able to
provide prompt and genuine feedback to each and every student. Thus,
one-on-one attention is a major highlight in this flexible online learning
environment.
In an online high school, the feedback can be in the form of an extensive
written critique, a video clip, etc. The level of feedback for conventional
and online courses is somewhat similar.
In order to choose between an
online high school
and a traditional high school, you would have to factor in all of these
points first.
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