Students of online classes, in essence, have more responsibility placed on them as a result of the flexible nature of the curriculum. In a traditional classroom, students have open discussions with peers and lectures from the professor; the same is true online. In his article exploring distance learning, Todhunter (2013) observes that “there is little flexibility in terms of commencement, selection of courses, duration and choices of assessments” (p.240). It can be argued that online students are challenged more in this area because they are required to have written open discussion (with word count requirements) in addition to responses to one or more classmates. The traditional student can choose to not to participate in discussions and not be penalized for their choice. This is not true for an online student, failure to participate in discussions can have a negative impact on grading and count as an absence from
Students of online classes, in essence, have more responsibility placed on them as a result of the flexible nature of the curriculum. In a traditional classroom, students have open discussions with peers and lectures from the professor; the same is true online. In his article exploring distance learning, Todhunter (2013) observes that “there is little flexibility in terms of commencement, selection of courses, duration and choices of assessments” (p.240). It can be argued that online students are challenged more in this area because they are required to have written open discussion (with word count requirements) in addition to responses to one or more classmates. The traditional student can choose to not to participate in discussions and not be penalized for their choice. This is not true for an online student, failure to participate in discussions can have a negative impact on grading and count as an absence from