Has anyone ever seen this PBS program. I just watched it (well most of it, I have 20 minutes to go) through Netflix instant watch. http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/show-synopsis.html The show pointed out things that are happening on large campuses which are exactly why I did not do so well when I attended a local college 20 years ago. I found long lecture classes to be boring and would just write down notes of whatever they wrote on the board but never really absorbed what they were teaching. I got into a debate yesterday with a guy at work saying that I should not be taking classes online, I will not learn anything. But I have found that I learn more, especially being forced to participate in discussions. The program showed this one political science class that had two days of lectures and another day where they broke off into smaller groups for discussions. Now one would participate in the discussions. The workload that I had in two classes the last quarter of school that I took online seems to be more than what these kids have in a two year span. This show just made me feel better about my education. People may knock down online classes, but from what I saw on this show, it just makes me feel as though I am making the right choice, and getting more out of my education than just being a body in a large classroom.
That's good that your perception of your degrees is high. Its very nice to feel like you are doing the right thing and headed in the right direction. However, public perception and indeed HR perception of the degree is the true test. Will others be impressed sufficiently with your online degree? We all hope so. Unless of course this is just for personal satisfaction then it really does not matter at all what others think of your education.
It has been my experience both as an on-campus in-classroom student and as an online student that active participation is essential for a true learning experience. The weekly discussions in most of my online courses encouraged me to not only remain on schedule with reading assignments, but required me to think critically about what I was reading. Coupled with the requirement to respond to the discussion postings of other students the participation made the courses far more engaging. Now, the majority of the courses I have taken via online delivery were of the general education variety, mostly social science and humanities; I avoided these courses when I was an on-campus student years ago. The weekly discussion board postings provided ample opportunity to exercise critical thinking skills. Plus, most of these courses had significant written assignment components. In the case of mathematics courses, I prefer a more independent mode of learning in as much as I attended the lectures solely for the purpose of listening to the professor. The only notes I ever took in mathematics lectures were written in the textbook margins.
