Is virtual schooling as good as face-to-face classes?
"Nothing replaces being in the same room, face-to-face, breathing the same air and
reading and feeling each other's micro-expressions." said Peter Guber.
As more technology has become available in many parts of the globe, a new type of
student population has emerged. The traditional student image of higher learning has been
somewhat limited in many countries, but given the impact of the Internet, this traditional “student
body” has changed. Rather than being limited to regional demographics, the student body for
educational institutions offering online courses has changed drastically. Online class imbalance
learning is a new learning problem that combines the challenges of both online learning and
class imbalance learning. It deals with data streams having very skewed class distributions.
Within many educational institutions across the world, the delivery of undergraduate and
postgraduate courses is facilitated by online learning technologies. The development and
transformation of traditional academic courses for online learning delivery provides a number of
opportunities for both the academic institution and prospective students.
It is an irrefutable fact that a lot of significant changes had taken place in our education
system during the past few decades. In the internet age, technology opened an array of ways
for learners to obtain higher education, whether that is by attending on-campus classes, taking
online courses, or even attending virtual school sessions. Right after the surge of the global
pandemic, it became inevitable that virtual schooling became more and more prevalent. To
begin with, engaging in person is easier than engaging through a computer. Face-to-face
learning is a very effective method of acquiring knowledge and skills since it frequently
incorporates a variety of learning methods such as writing, conversation, presentations,
projects, group work, reading, demonstration and more. Based on the research study of
headspace (2021), there are many advantages that students get in face to face classes than
online learning. One of these advantages is concentration, the student is able to concentrate
more when he or she is at school or in the classroom because there will be less distraction
compared to at home. Another benefit of face to face classes is that students can gain greater
knowledge, understanding, stories and real-world examples by teachers and other students.
Online learning requires a lot of self-motivation, focus, and discipline to stay on task. Lastly,
there are some classes that cannot be simply taught online. Science classes can be a great
example, as most of science topics should be done inside a lab. This can't be done in most of
student's home, a lot of students can't provide necessary materials that needed in the
experiment, and it makes science as well as any other subject extremely difficult for students to
comprehend through a screen.
The national hero of the Philippines Jose Pontacio Rizal Merchado y Alonso Realonda
or Jose Rizal said that “ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan” or in Filipino, “the youth is the
key for our future” tells us how important children really is. Nurturing the students, nurturing the
hope, nurturing the future should be the top priority in these times since that said students can
be the leaders someday. The old generation will pass and then the new one will rise. This
pandemic is a very vicious foe but the pandemic is not the main villain, its boredom. It is true
that the online class is the alternative for learning since there is a pandemic raging nonstop but
we cannot change the fact that many students failed or have difficulties on understanding many
topics leading to low grades and depression. Learning face to face might be risky but with
proper infection prevention and control measures, it might help students drastically. We do not
live for the sake of ourselves, we live for the brighter tomorrow. The children is our hope and
thus nurturing them will save us all.
Barrett, Bob. (2010). Virtual Teaching and Strategies: Transitioning from Teaching Traditional
Classes to Online Classes. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER) 3
(12), 17-20. [Link]
Wang, S., Minku, Leandro L., Yao, Xin. (2014). Resampling-based Ensemble Methods for
Online Class Imbalance Learning. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering 27
(5), 1356-1368. [Link]
Stansfield, M., McLellan, E., Connolly, T. (2004). Enhancing Student Performance in Online
Learning and Traditional Face-to-face CLASS Delivery. Journal of Information
Technology Education: Research 3 (1), 173-188.
[Link]
National Youth Mental Health Foundation. (2021). Face-to-face vs. Online Learning. ABN 26
137 533 843. [Link]
Pitt, D., Columnist, S..(2020, April 8). Face-to-face Learning is Better than Online.
[Link]
Members:
Ermita, Alexa Gwyneth- Introduction & Compile of everyone’s contribution
Gamboa, Zenia Jean- Reference Bastatas, Simon Czar- Conclusion
Tacan, Shine Catherine- Body Yecyec, Julianna- Body