Online education businesses are growing and multiplying every day. There are several business models, ranging from offering completely free content to charging for premium content. But are these initiatives effective? Are students able to learn?
This discussion has become recurrent because the massification of online courses in the world, and also in Brazil, seems to be a path of no return. Many companies are making money and having success with their offerings and the market is still expanding.
The so-called MOOCs (massive open italy phone numbers online courses) are an example that have become popular. There are some that offer courses from universities that are international references and, as a result, have grown rapidly in the number of enrollments.
The positive side of these initiatives is the democratization of access to information. The negative side is that they have not yet managed to create an effective way to lead people to actually learn.
Recent statistics show that many of those who enroll in these courses do not complete them and quickly give up. This often occurs because the content is more difficult than they imagined, meaning there is no easy way out when the challenge is to learn something.
You have to study, have some prior knowledge (prerequisites) depending on the topic to be studied and, of course, it requires dedication to learn new concepts. Technology allows for widespread access to content, but there is still no magic when it comes to learning.
Even though the use of technology is a path of no return, some research shows that simply taking notes in class by hand is more effective than taking notes on a computer, for example.
In fact, researchers Pam A. Mueller, from Princeton University, and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, from the University of California (both in the United States), found that students who take notes by hand, despite writing down less content than those who do so with computers, are able to absorb and retain more knowledge.
According to researchers, those who take notes by hand create mechanisms to remember classes using their own ideas, unlike those who take notes mechanically via computers, tablets and the like.
The challenge for online education business entrepreneurs is to involve educators and discover what works and what still needs to be developed so that online courses are more effective in terms of learning.
Often, innovation does not just mean replacing the old with the new. On the contrary, if the old works, it should only be replaced when there is something new that is better.
That's why the most successful online education models are still those that combine the virtual and real worlds, that is, models that don't try to get rid of the experiential experience. This may change one day, but it doesn't seem to be the case yet.
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