Duluthian Magazine Features Online Learning Article
Governor Tim Pawlenty with Barry Dahl at Nov. 08 online education initiative announcement
The following article,”Online Learning: Here to Stay and Growing…” was featured in the July/August issue of the Duluthian magazine.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty wants all 32 colleges and universities in the MnSCU system to offer 25 percent of their credits online by 2015. In fact, he held a press conference last November announcing this initiative, in tandem with the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, at Lake Superior College in Duluth. Pawlenty joked that he would have to come up with a new target for the college since LSC’s online program has surpassed his initiative’s goal.
Lake Superior College’s Connect e-Campus has been steadily growing for 12 years since its beginning in 1997 with a handful of classes. The online campus now offers more than 150 courses, including degrees and certificates in accounting, paralegal, business administration, network administration, associate in arts and more – completely online.
During Lake Superior College’s 2009 spring semester, 27 percent of students were enrolled for online classes with approximately 2,200 students taking at least one online course. During the 2009 academic year, more than 4,000 students studied online.
“Online learning is not so much about distance as it is about flexible scheduling and time management for our students. It gives them the opportunity to fit education into otherwise very busy lives,” said Barry Dahl, LSC’s vice president of technology and the Connect e-Campus and a nationally recognized expert on online learning who consults with other higher education institutions. “For many of our students who work one or more jobs and have family obligations, the face-to-face traditional classroom model doesn’t fit into their lives as well as online learning does.”
On a national scale, online enrollments have grown much faster than overall higher-education enrollments over the past few years, according to a 2008 study by the Sloan-C Consortium. Enrollment in online courses grew nationally by 19.7 percent compared with 1.5 percent in the overall student population between 2002-2007. The study also found that more than 20 percent of American college students took at least one online course during the fall 2007 semester.
As far as naysayers believing that online learning is second to traditional classroom learning, evidence has shown that for the motivated and focused online student, performance is as good or better than in the on-ground classroom.
“We know that students want learning options. They have diverse learning styles and needs,” said Dahl. “Technology is a part of our daily lives. It will continue to influence and enhance the delivery of online higher education in new and positive ways we can’t even imagine yet.”