Blog Post #13

For blog post #13, I chose to read the Wall Street Journal article by Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon entitled My Teacher is an App. In this post, they discuss the pros and cons of hybrid courses and fully online courses. Fully online schools are springing up all over the country. Students are flooding into them, and the results have not been great. For some students that are a step ahead of their peers, it can be great. It lets them work past their grade levels, and they can learn at an accelerated rate. However, a learning-impaired student that goes into these classes will almost surely fail. On average, these students are struggling compared to their peers that physically attend class.
The only real advantages I see to this system are as follows:
1) They let advanced students work ahead of their grade levels.
2) High school students that have failed a course can make it up online.
3) Students that have to travel excessively can have a reliable source of education.
4) Home-schooled students can have a more structured curriculum.

The disadvantages that I see are:
1) The average student doesn't score as high on tests as normal students.
2) It takes away any type of social atmosphere,
3) It eliminates "soft learning" such as cooperation, toleration of different types of people and views, and working as a group.
4) Teachers lose their jobs.

I think that the best solution would be a hybrid class. Even in the post, it said that hybrid students are excelling, and they score excellently on the ACT. I can never bring myself to agree with having completely online classes. I have had them, and they are an inferior method of learning.