By Andrea Christensen
Kristen Tanner attended only eight 80-minute lectures for her three credit accounting class winter semester. But Tanner, 20, a sophomore from West Jordan, majoring in elementary education, never skipped class.
Tanner''s professor, Norm Nemrow, only requires his hundreds of Accounting 200 students to attend eight class lectures. They learn the rest at their own discretion, with the aid of quizzes and explanation-filled CD-ROMs.
'I was able to do the work on my time, at my own pace, when I was ready for it,' Tanner said. 'I really liked that aspect of the course.'
Nemrow''s technological approach to teaching his class, although still relatively novel, is becoming more common in college campuses across the nation. And most students are not complaining, he said.
'Almost 87 percent of my students prefer this method, and for the 13 percent that don''t, the most common reason is because they are students that are less disciplined,' he said. 'And frankly, those students need to learn how to discipline themselves.'
Erin Hallmark, 19, a junior from Salt Lake City, who also took the class winter semester, said she liked the fact that the course material was readily accessible to her whenever she needed it.
'In most lectures, you miss a lot because you can''t write everything down fast enough, or you fall asleep,' Hallmark said. 'But this way, you have all of the lectures documented and you can go back to them.'
Nemrow said he considers using this technology as an opportunity to spend the money that supports BYU in a much more productive fashion.
One critique of this type of class is a lack of human interaction and faulty technology, and there are some hesitations regarding the development of online courses and supplements.
'The technology is not completely reliable,' said Matthew Mabey, a BYU professor of geology who taught a physical science online course winter semester.
'If the server goes down, it could be down for a few hours or it could be down for a few days. That could really throw a monkey wrench into the students'' scheduling plans,' Mabey said.
Krisy Whitley, 20, a junior from Salt Lake City, majoring in communications, said the biggest problems she had taking an online biology course were the inevitable technological shortfalls.
'It was just a big inconvenience,' she said. 'Sometimes the server would be down, and every time you went online it was an ordeal. Nothing was reliable.'
Although the system is not perfect, Mabey said he would like to see continued online development in the future.
'I hope we learn how to do new things and to do things better,' he said. 'I''m hoping that we don''t lose the opportunity to do things more effectively.'
Nemrow said one of developers'' top priorities right now is to improve the stability and reliability of the online technology.
'It is a problem, but it''s a problem that''s going to be overcome,' he said.
But faulty technology is not the only problem. Critics also complain that online courses seriously decrease, if not completely eliminate, a vital professor-student interaction.
Neil Mecham, an assistant professor of family and consumer services at Southern Utah University, said it is possible to have no relationship with a professor and still get college credit.
'It''s a wonderful benefit for people who can''t otherwise get it, but do I think it''s as good an education? No,' he said.
Mabey said although there are countless benefits of the Semester Online courses, the reduced interaction with the students in his physical science class was difficult for him.
'I felt myself lacking in the contact and feedback from students, in that I wasn''t seeing and interacting with them,' he said. 'I didn''t get quite the same reward out of it on that internal level.'
Winn Egan, chair of the Teacher Education Department, said if an online course is well designed and allows students to learn in an active fashion, it has the capabilities to teach students just as well as a lecturing professor.
'What students and professors need to ask is: What kind of learning is going to be most effective for me?' Egan said. 'Quite frankly, for many students, going to a lot of lectures where they''re not actively participating isn''t going to be the greatest method.'