Episode 1: Academic Accolades

Virtual education has become popular, especially during the pandemic, with many students finding it convenient and effective. However, there are drawbacks to online learning. Technical difficulties, lack of feedback, and increased cheating are some of the challenges. Cheating is more common in online classes due to the lack of monitoring. Print materials are found to enhance comprehension and retention compared to digital devices. While online learning has its benefits, it still falls short in providing a comprehensive and engaging educational experience. What student doesn't want better grades? What about a higher GPA or a better chance to get into their dream college? How about all those things without having to leave their living room couch? Virtual education is undoubtedly a rising phenomenon that is found to ameliorate a student's educational experience. Elevating flexibility, accessibility, and the potential for higher grades, online learning accommodates for the many areas that the traditional school lacks in. But is this new way of learning truly beneficial for the world? Or does it set up these rising leaders for failure in the future? Welcome to Classroom or Computer, a podcast where we delve deeper into the recent education predicament. I am your host, Jacob Goldberg, and today I will be exploring in detail the impact of online versus traditional schooling on adolescents. We will be able to analyze the effect that the two options have on academic performance as well as human health. There is no question that over the past five years virtual education has skyrocketed. There is also no question as to why it skyrocketed. The world's reaction to the coronavirus made an online learning experience inevitable. As the world went into lockdown, humans went virtual. We started communicating online, shopping online, working online, and even taking fitness classes online. However, as the pandemic came to an end, we started to shift these habits back to the traditional way. Of course, there are exceptions, but for the most part, our daily lives were returned to pre-pandemic routines. The only difference being our approach to education. The opportunity to retain good academic performances from the luxury of one's couch is an offer many people cannot resist. Matter of fact, over 75% of academic leaders deemed online education equal or even superior to the world's traditional style of teaching. Not only that, but grades are also found to increase through online school. However, this virtual success does come with the absence of many essential attributes that are only found in a traditional classroom. So, what does a virtual classroom lack, and why does it matter if students' grades are increasing? Doesn't that just mean kids are getting smarter? Well, to be brutally honest, it means quite the opposite, but it's more complex than what it seems. To start off with, I want to address, yes, grades are found to increase while partaking in online education. But no, this is not because the new education system enhances learning, rather it takes the challenge out of learning. As students switched to remote learning, they were found to be learning less than they would in a classroom. In fact, a recent study performed by Thomas Cain, the Center of Education Policy Research at Harvard, found that kids missed the equivalent of seven to ten weeks of material when online. This loss of instruction was not for no reason either. As Cain puts it, when schools went remote, kids simply did not learn as much as they would have in-person. But why do they not learn as much? Don't worry, that's what we're here for. Let's start with the biggest cause of this learning loss, technological difficulties and limitations. There's no dispute that technology brings drawbacks to the educational world, but even traditional learning has its drawbacks. So what's the big deal with these discrepancies? Well, let's first look into the obstacles that come along with online learning, the most obvious being poor internet connection, camera and mic problems, and slow computers, in which 72% of people have been found facing at least one of these technical difficulties across their educational experience. But it goes way beyond the confines of a laggy computer. For starters, personal feedback is largely eliminated through virtual education. The immediate face-to-face feedback that makes the traditional learning process easier, richer, and more significant cannot be recreated in a virtual environment. Rather, with a lack of feedback, virtual students are more likely to disconnect than students in face-to-face courses. For advanced students, this is no big deal, but for struggling students, a lack of feedback creates a poor learning environment, hindering their educational progress. However, there is a solution that will minimize these technical limitations. Instead of focusing on teacher comments, we can emphasize the use of peer feedback, which, when incorporated correctly, propels quality of discourse, subsequently improving the quality of learning. So why doesn't every school just incorporate peer feedback and continue online? Nonetheless, peer feedback has its drawbacks, too. Fellow students do not meet the qualifications in a subject that a teacher would, which would result in inadequate feedback that is not found beneficial to a student. Likewise, students are also found showing lack of interest in, and even resistance to, providing peer feedback. So while peer feedback does provide a solution for the lack of feedback, it does not compensate for the teacher feedback received in a traditional classroom. Let's now look into an area some of you might have a little more knowledge in, cheating. As anyone that has taken an online class would tell you, cheating is much easier. And yes, cheating is morally incorrect, but who doesn't love an easier way to accomplish a task? Don't worry, Ms. Mowgli, I don't cheat. That also goes for all my other past teachers listening to this. Anyways, enough about me. Let's get to the topic at hand. As the world began to shift towards virtual learning environments, cheating was found to be a common reoccurrence. And when I say common, I mean common. Matter of fact, a recent study found that 60% of students openly admitted to cheating. That's not even taking into account the people that responded falsely in fear of receiving disciplinary actions. But why did cheating increase? Well, that's simple. The lack of monitoring that an online environment provides. This absence of direct observation opens the doors for a variety of scandals. Let's start with the ones you are most likely to partake in. Without surveillance, students have the opportunity to use external websites and resources in order to aid them with assignments. While this is the most common, virtual cheating extends far beyond these measures. Not only can you use external resources, but you can also use external people. Now you're probably asking, Jacob, what the frickin' heck do you mean by external people? And I'm here to tell you exactly what it sounds like. Students have been found letting third party applicants complete assignments for them. Without verification or teacher oversight, this has been found to be fairly easy. The good news is, cheating is preventable. And unlike the feedback crisis, there are numerous solutions. For starters, schools should require cameras and microphones to be on for all assignments. This will limit the ability for students to receive help from other people. To build on that, schools should also implement automated ID verification to prevent fraudulent test takers. This will ensure that the correct student is honorably taking the assignment. Most importantly, institutions need to prioritize learning rather than promoting achievement and competitiveness. When one understands the importance of learning, they're found to focus on grasping a concept rather than obtaining a good grade. I know that earlier I said that this is unlike the feedback crisis, but I was wrong. They do both have one thing in common. Even with the implemented solution, it does not equate to a traditional schooling environment. Without the physical moderation that traditional education provides, online learning still struggles to prevent cheating, making it uncomparable to the healthy learning environment that comes from face-to-face schooling. Okay, so now that we have discussed information that you most likely were already familiar with, or at least thought you were, let's explore an area people usually don't consider. To be honest, I didn't even think of it until I started researching this podcast. That area being comprehension. Students are found to perform better with print materials. They are found to have higher understanding, comprehension, and retention rates. Not only that, but they are more successful in identifying main ideas, recalling specific details, correctly remembering sequences, and completing abstract tasks like inferencing. To top it all off, when assessing on identical material, students who read the information on paper were found to score higher than students on a digital device. These positives are for no reason either. The ability to write, draw, and annotate on paper material are found to enhance recollection, in turn improving learning. On the other hand, screens have numerous characteristics that diminish comprehension. To begin, the flickering and glow of an LED screen creates more work for our eyes, causing visual and mental fatigue. Additionally, scrolling through text creates spatial challenges that impair comprehension. But this is where it gets interesting. Kindles do not require scrolling, and they also use e-ink technology to reduce strain on the eyes. So why don't online participants just use Kindles? While Kindles do eliminate scrolling and reduce eye strain, they still lack one important feature. Flipping the page. Yes, I know what you're thinking. How in the world is flipping a page affecting comprehension? Some might think it's because we can flip to any page we want, any time, but in reality it's more complicated than that. Instead, researchers have found that print provides sensor-motor cues that enhance cognitive process. Now, you probably have no idea what that means, and that's fine. That's what I'm here for. Essentially, to better process information, the human brain makes the most of the body senses. Seeing the words, feeling the weight of the pages, and even smelling the paper is found to improve understanding. As we come to an end, if you actually paid attention to this episode, you'll remember I said, grade averages are also found to increase through knowledge, and after hearing all the crap that I talked about that involved virtual school, you're probably wondering how grade averages are increasing. Well, I could tell you it's because of cheating and end the podcast right here, but it goes further than that. Also, don't get me wrong, cheating is still one of the main reasons that grades are increasing. And for all you kids tuning in, let me emphasize one thing. Don't cheat. It will never help in the long run. But back to the topic. The real reason grades are increasing is because institutions are working to compensate for the lack of essential characteristics in a virtual environment. However, in lieu of striving to enhance virtual education, school systems are simplifying curriculums to accommodate for the discrepancy between the two schooling options. In the confines of this episode, I have focused on the academic concerns that are brought about through virtual education. I narrowed the problem into three main categories, technical obstacles, cheating, and comprehension. With that being said, thank you for tuning into Classroom to Computer. Thank you for following along as we shift away from the academic aspect in order to more thoroughly analyze the health effects that virtual schools pose. Until next time.