Social Interaction an Imperative Part of Education by Megan Brown-- Final Draft

Social Interaction an Imperative Part of Education

Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine, has said: “Parents everywhere know that a college education for their children is key to a prosperous future.” Everyone deserves the chance to have some form of education because it plays such a large role in our lives. While many attend a brick and mortar college or university, there are those that cannot afford to attend. For those without the financial resources, online education is usually a viable option. Within the last decade, with the advancement of technology, came the introduction of Massive Open Online Courses. These courses are available to all ages and provide information on a wide variety of courses.

Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, are beginning to provide new educational opportunities that have not before been available. Students can take these courses online, at often no cost, to gain knowledge and experience college level courses. MOOCs have both positive and negative aspects regarding education. There are several things that you just cannot learn from taking an online course. One of these things is the ability to socialize and form relationships with the professor and other students. Social interaction is a necessary part of a student’s experience in higher education; MOOCs do not provide adequate opportunity for socialization, and therefore are not as effective as brick and mortar colleges.

Practical Skills are Necessary

Jennifer Morton has said, “A college education bestows not just cognitive skills—mathematical, historical, and scientific knowledge—but practical skills—social, emotional, and behavioral competencies. Tenacious, confident, and socially competent employees have an edge over equally cognitively talented employees who lack those practical skills. What students cannot learn online are precisely those social skills” (Morton). Students need to be able to interact with other students and professors on a daily basis to form the social, emotional, and behavioral competencies that Morton discussed. These skills will be used throughout a student’s life, especially throughout their career, as they interact with others in a professional environment. You cannot fully develop these relationships and skills through the computer.

 

Disadvantages of MOOCs

There are a variety of researchers that have found that social interaction within education can have an impact on student motivation, persistency, and learning outcomes. Elena Sanchez, has found that “just being in the same physical space facilitates personal interactions. If you don’t understand something you can just ask the person sitting next to you, raise your hand and ask a question during the lecture, or approach the instructor at the end of the session. You also have more opportunities to comment on the materials and assignments with your classmates, learn from each other, and find encouragement to keep up with the workload”(Sanchez). In online courses, it is easy to feel disconnected and discouraged. You cannot get to know the other students enrolled in the course because of the large numbers, do not get to participate in classroom discussions, and may not feel motivated to finish the course. In brick and mortar courses, you have the support of your peers, and oftentimes, your professor. You come to understand how the professor teaches, and their expectations. You also have the opportunity to ask questions in person and have the help of the teacher’s assistant. This is a major shortcoming of MOOCs.

Massive Open Online Courses exhibit several disadvantages. MOOCs are impersonal because there is little supervision, no credits, there are thousands of students in one course, and students often grade each other’s work. “MOOCs are not yet able to cultivate the sense of belonging in "another person's presence. Not to mention that the completion rate of MOOCs is quite low. According to, The New York Times (6), "Less than 10 percent of MOOC students finish the courses they sign up for on their own." While the exposure to great content is alluring, the lasting impact may be fleeting unless MOOCs can figure out a way to establish the relationship piece between students and teachers” (Levinson). It is difficult for a student to succeed when there is no one to motivate and encourage the continuance of the course. Students need to feel engaged when learning.

Online vs. Face-to-Face

Social interaction plays a larger role in the effectiveness of education than most people realize. Shanna Smith Jaggars, the assistant director of Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, says, “the most important thing that helps students succeed in an online course is interpersonal interaction and support” (Jaggars). She did a study where she compared online-only and face-to-face learning in studies of community college students and faculty in Virginia and Washington.

She found, in Virginia, that 32% of students failed or withdrew from for-credit online courses, compared with 19% for equivalent in-person courses. This study shows the impact socialization can have on a student’s education. Student’s need support and encouragement that cannot successfully be given through technology. Face-to-face interaction is a necessary part of education.

Socialization between the Classes

Jennifer Morton continues to explain that many would argue that these social skills are learned in the home, but this is not often the case. “For students from low-income families who manage to overcome the tough odds, college is the first place where they will be asked to defend a position and to engage in vigorous intellectual debate. It is also likely to be the first place where they have to consistently engage with middle-class students and professors and navigate middle-class social norms” (Morton). This statement by Jennifer Morton also shows that brick and mortar schools do help establish this life skill of social interaction. Students are put into situations where they must socialize and learn from those around them. She continues to discuss how the differences in social skills between the classes may be minute, such as: when and how to make eye contact, or how deferential to be when speaking to authority figures, but can have a significant impact.

It is also discussed that children that grew up in poverty, most likely attended school with students in a similar situation. In these cases, they have had fewer opportunities to interact with the middle class and obtain the social skills valued by the middle class and middle class employers. (Morton) These social skills are a necessity if they wish to have a successful career. They will be better prepared to interact with interviewers, as well as, their future co-workers. They are also learning interpersonal skills of how to work through conflict. Morton then points out, “If MOOCs become the norm for colleges that serve students who do not yet belong to the middle class, the socioeconomic segregation of the educational system will extend to the postsecondary level, and we will see the gap between the disadvantaged and the advantaged grow, not shrink”(Morton). If we see this gap grow between the classes because of the popularity and implementation of MOOCs, we will begin to see negative effects in our society.

Students need these social skills, and Massive Open Online Courses are not providing adequate opportunities to gain these necessary skills. “I just don’t see how online interactions can effectively replace embodied interactions when it comes to learning and developing the skills” (Morton). Massive Open Online Courses cannot completely take over brick and mortar colleges. There should be a balance between the use of MOOCs and classes where they can develop relationships with the professors and students. Universities have survived this long, and will continue to remain essential to our society.

MOOCs Not Always a Poor Option

If students know exactly what they want in an online course, then MOOCs may be a good option for them. However, they lack the guidance and mentorship of building a relationship with peers and the teacher. Libby Morris points out that some students, “especially mature employed and place bound adults, want and need alternatives to residential face-to-face instruction” (Morris). In this case, participation in a Massive Open Online Course may be the right solution for them. All students learn differently and may find one form of education more effective than another.

A Blending of Education

The ability to find a viable job in the United States without a college degree has become extremely difficult. Marcia McNutt says: “The simple fact is that income increases with educational attainment, and by 2018, more than 60% of all jobs in the United States will require at least some college education. Colleges and universities should embrace innovative online learning environments and determine how best to incorporate them with traditional classroom, laboratory, seminar, and field classes to reduce the cost of education” (McNutt). I think that there can be balance between the use of MOOCs and brick and mortar classes. Everyone deserves the chance at some kind of education. Attending a brick and mortar college may not be practical for all students, so in these cases, MOOCs may be an acceptable option.

William B. Bonvillian and Susan R. Singer discuss the possibility of blending MOOCs and face-to-face learning to create the most effective education. They talk about how online education will continue to evolve and will be able to build online discussion groups, videos will become increasingly improved, and machine writing evaluation will get better. They also point out that hands-on research can be “complemented by online simulation and can offer online access to lab equipment and the ability to run experiments online” (Bonvillian and Singer). The incorporation of these online aspects, while maintaining a classroom setting, would still allow for students to acquire social skills. They would be given the opportunity to interact with peers and teachers, while taking advantage of advancing technology.

Online Education is Dependent on Universities

Bonvillian and Singer continue to explain that even though online education may be disruptive, it will continue to rely on conventional education. They point out that if universities disappeared, the original source of course content would also collapse over time. That would have a drastic effect on online courses, and education as a whole. “In a knowledge economy, there is no substitute for universities, which are literally innovation systems that are critical for societal growth.” Bonvillian and Singer also point out that universities should reform their face-to-face learning, while incorporating the use of online learning. (Bonvillian and Singer) If we were to incorporate both types of education, it also gives equal chances for students to succeed based on whether they are visual or interactive learners.

Flipped Classrooms

In the article, An Early Report Card on Massive Open Online Courses, Geoffrey Fowler tells us that there are many experiments being worked on at traditional schools to blend online and offline learning. They are sometimes called flipped classrooms.
In these settings, students watch lectures online at home, and then come to class to work on projects and interact with the faculty. Scientists have found some evidence that hybrid classes can improve student performance in traditional in-person classes. San Jose State and edX found in a 2012 test that incorporating content from and online course, into a for-credit campus-based course increased pass rates to 91% from as low as 55% without the online component. (Fowler) This study shows that the use of face-to-face interaction and online learning is effective for students. Often the use of both forms of education can benefit different learning styles. Even Mr. Ng, a founder of Coursera(a popular website that offers MOOCs) said: “We do not recommend selecting an online-only experience over a blended learning experience” (Fowler). It is shown that students will be most successful when they use a variety of methods to learn.

A Better Solution

I think that the best solution for lack of interaction within Massive Open Online Courses is to blend both online learning and campus based courses. This blended learning takes advantage of social situations and emerging technology. I think that this learning style will not only improve the quality of socialization, but the overall successfulness of students as well. Overall, Massive Open Online Courses are not as effective as brick and mortar schools because they lack the ability to provide social interaction; but blended together, the possibilities for advancement and success of education are numerous. As a society, the decisions we make now on education will have a lasting impact for generations to come. We can incorporate successful aspects of both styles, or simply hope that what we have is good enough to sustain future generations. University educators, will you work to reform education and protect our future?

Works Cited

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