Is Online Schooling As Effective As In-Class Education?

Author : Ananya Shukla

In the past couple of months due to COVID-19, Schools all around the world had to be closed for the safety of students and school staff. Despite the closures of schools, they have transitioned to an online classroom setting where teachers can still continue to conduct their classes online with students at the comfort and safety of their homes. This transition however raises the questions, is online schooling as effective as in-class education ?

My answer to the question is no. Online schooling is not as effective as in-class education. I will argue two points why. Firstly,I will argue that the environment of in-class provides a better learning experience as compared to online schooling. Secondly, I will also argue that due to online schooling, this makes it tough for teachers to ensure that students do not cheat on their tests.

In a classroom setting environment, teachers would be conducting their lessons while students would take notes and pay attention. In such an environment, students would not be distracted with other things as opposed to being at home having online schooling. At home, students can easily be distracted by their mobile phones as they go through social media sites while the teacher is conducting the online class. One may object however that if students were to have their phones confiscated by their parents, or social media sites blocked, it may solve the issue. However, this would only remove one of many distractions while having online classrooms in a home environment. Thus, a classroom setting would be more ideal for students to focus on school work without any distractions and in an environment that promotes learning.

With online schooling, teachers have to find new ways for tests to be conducted to assess students understanding of subjects being taught. In a classroom setting, while tests are being conducted, teachers would walk around to ensure students would not be communicating with one another or other means of cheating. However, in an online classroom, teachers are unable to ensure that students would not cheat for their tests. All the teachers can ensure from the students is their integrity in not cheating. If a students does cheat and the teacher does not suspect, the student would be assessed unfairly. Such students would struggle more in higher learning and teachers would not be able to help them as they assumed they would know the topics better since they did 'well' for their tests. Some may argue that there are anti-cheat softwares on computers to ensure and check students' work and ensure no plagiarism was done. However such software are not full-proof, students could still find other means of cheating. For example, if a test was multiple choice questions, students many use their phones to take a picture of a question and message friends or seniors for answers. However if such a case were to happen in a classroom setting, the student would be caught and disciplined accordingly.

In short, a classroom setting provides a distraction-free environment ensuring students can have a better learning experience as compared to a home-based online classroom setting with full of distractions. In such online classroom setting, it makes it challenging for teachers to ensure that students do not cheat for their tests as opposed to an in-class setting where students can be easily monitored.

Thus concluding my points that, online schooling is not as effective as in-class education.