“We do have student feedback that said, ‘We … value that face-to-face time together,’” Hopkins said. “It doesn’t need to happen all the time, but we do like what that brings to the learning experience.”
The University of Minnesota is trying out hybrid courses as well. An introductory chemistry course, a lecture once offered entirely in the classroom, is now taught partially online. That means students who normally wouldn’t take courses online, 18- and 19-year olds living on campus, are now online students as well.
Bob Rubinyi oversees online courses at the university. Rubinyi said the internet-based classroom is no longer solely for older students piecing together a degree between work and family duties.
“It’s not this division between the traditional students and the students who are taking classes after hours or on the weekends that we might have had in the past,” Rubinyi said. “We’re seeing much more blending of those two populations.”
Rubinyi said 12,500 students took at least one course online from the university in the 2008-09 school year. That’s a 10-percent increase over the year before.
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) officials say they saw a 22-percent increase in the number of students taking online courses at their state universities and two-year colleges this fall compared to last.
Leslie Mercer, associate vice chancellor for planning at MnSCU, said that’s in part because online learning is becoming a normal part of the college experience.
“I think it’s becoming more widely known, [and] I think students are more comfortable with it than they used to be,” Mercer said. “And faculty are more comfortable as well.”
Mercer said students have become so comfortable with online classes that many are taking courses from more than one MnSCU school at the same time. That’s something MnSCU hopes to make easier for students to do in the future.
Links:
“Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning”
Minnesota State Colleges and Universities
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