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Post 6: Not enough classes for everyone

  I have worked hard to show you that online education is the best fit for our students.  I have even offered ideas on why online education would be better for us as educators.  Still not convinced?  I will prove it to you in this post.  

     Our school struggles to offer classes that are appropriate for students who don’t fit the cookie cutter high school succession. It is not because we don’t recognize what the students need but rather because it’s not possible to meet their needs in a traditional classroom setting. It just isn’t in the budget to hire a teacher to teach a Calculus 2 class to the four students ready to take that class. These students have to either go to a community college nearby to take this class or be forced to take a class they don’t need because they don’t have the proper transportation or funding to take the class elsewhere. “Others might want to take additional courses that don’t fit into their school day schedules, either during the summer or other break times, or completing their work in the evenings or on weekends” (Best Colleges). With distance education, there doesn’t need to be a certain amount of students for a course to be available. A teacher can be accountable for more than one course so that it is available for whoever needs to take it. In addition, since the course is online, students don’t need to worry about being transported somewhere else. They can take the course wherever a computer is available.

     In a traditional classroom, a student who did not pass a class has to be held back a year or take this class after school. This student can no longer participate in any extracurricular activities because he or she has to attend a class. Students who fall behind because they were not successful in a course often end up dropping out because they can’t seem to catch up. “With online and blended learning, districts are beginning to develop flexibly paced credit recovery to help students stay on track to graduation instead of finding themselves in senior year with no way to graduate” (iNACOL). Students have the opportunity to retake these classes online and at their own pace. They don’t have to be held back a year because they can take the missed course online, in addition to their normal class schedule. These students don’t have to miss out on extracurricular activities because of the flexibility of online learning. They can do the courses at home, on their own time. They don’t have to be in class at a certain time for a certain amount of time.

   BOOM! Solution solved. There is no way for traditional education to accommodate these students.  Online education is the only applicable and realistic way to help these students.  Why are we still choosing to turn a blind eye to this problem when there is a solution available?  

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