Access to the Best Teachers
Something that not every student thinks about while attending college is the quality of the professors who teach them. We operate under the assumption that, because they are college-educated professionals themselves, they must be equipped to teach us what we need to know to succeed, right?
Let me tell you that not all professors are created equal. Teachers can operate their classrooms typically in any manner they see fit and assign coursework to a syllabus of their own design. As long as they fit certain requirements determined by the school, they are pretty much free to teach in their own style.
This can actually be a good thing, as a professor at the traditional campus can be flexible in how they teach to optimize how students learn in the classroom.
Online, however, things are more rigid, as students can only learn by the lectures given to them by their professors. These discussions could be prerecorded videos, written notes, or a slideshow deck. The advantage here is that, unlike a sit-in lecture, online lectures can be recorded, re-watched, and reviewed. If you’re stuck or need clarification, you have all the time you need to catch up.
Despite these conditions, online classrooms can leverage the best professors worldwide, to tackle any challenge that may be present. Online schools can outsource lectures from professors from prestigious universities and Ivy League schools or deliver presentations from industry professionals in master classes.
The scale is another advantage. In a TED talk held in 2009, in economics professor learned that he could deliver lessons and teach hundreds of thousands of people in the same span of time he could otherwise to a class of only thirty students. This sense of scalability makes online classrooms incredible cost-saving tools for universities. Class sizes can be multiple times larger and still be cheaper than a traditional class of thirty students.
