Alissa Dimock gazes into her laptop and studies a litigation lesson from a Los Angeles community college – all in the comfort of her South Pasadena bedroom.

Dimock has never met her professor. She’s also never sat in his class or set eyes on her fellow paralegal students at Los Angeles Mission College.

Instead, her studies rely on a virtual pedagogic exchange, tapped out every day on a keyboard 25 miles from the Sylmar campus.

“It’s terrific,” said Dimock, 44, seated next to a stack of law books. “I never have to go to school. It’s great.”

Her class, Law 11-Civil Litigation, is among the steadily growing number of online courses being taught at community colleges throughout Los Angeles and California. In fact, community colleges are leading the way in online education, with annual online enrollments growing about 20 percent nationally over the past few years.

The two-year colleges are following the successes of private universities like the University of Phoenix and National University that have conferred online degrees for years. They’re also setting an example for four-year universities that are now kicking their online studies programs into high gear.

The growth in online learning is a response to the demands of a busy public, desperate to acquire new skills in a fast-changing jobs market that will make most Americans take on multiple careers throughout their lifetimes. And in Los Angeles, it’s a reaction to traffic gridlock.

Ironically, the push for online learning comes as Los Angeles community colleges complete a $6 billion campus construction makeover. The expansion of brick-and-mortar classrooms is in full swing as the nine campuses position themselves to offer all transferable classes on the Internet.

In the past decade, students enrolled in online courses across the Los Angeles Community College District have risen from a handful to nearly

11 percent of the student body, according to the district.

“You can see the trend – steep,” said Gary Columbo, vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness for the nation’s largest community college district. “It’s all changed. Harvard and MIT (now) offer courses online. “It’s a whole new world.”

Across the state, a growing number of the 112 community colleges have notified accreditors that more than half their lower division courses could be taught online.

A report by community colleges Chancellor Jack Scott last year reported nearly 18 percent growth in distance education enrollment in 2008, to nearly 500,000 students.

Proponents of online instruction tout many benefits, including more overall class participation and singular attention by professors.

Distance learning also grants greater access to nontraditional students, they say, allowing more flexibility to hit the books instead of fighting heavy L.A. traffic en route to campus. It also presents a digital medium familiar to younger students, while adding a powerful multimedia tool to traditional face-to-face classes.

More common are hybrid courses of traditional and online learning, as well as a growing number of hybrid students who take both online and traditional classes.

“It’s service to students,” said then-Interim Chancellor Tyree Wieder. “Our students need the opportunity to be able to enroll in online classes, so it’s fulfilling our mission of providing those classes.”

While virtual instruction can potentially save the community college district in classroom costs, administrators say it costs upward of $500,000 a year in licenses to use online learning software.

Another downside, some say, is that computer classes require too much discipline from students, especially those prone to procrastinate or drop courses when they study online.

Then there is the general criticism that computer course work simply cannot recreate the unique dynamic of a traditional classroom or campus life. Some online students have complained they feel isolated and virtually on their own.

Online students, on average, also don’t do as well as their face-to-face classroom counterparts, according to the LACCD. An average 58 percent of purely online distance learners earned a C or better last year, compared with 68 percent of regular class students. The dually enrolled students did slightly worse. In addition, up to 10 percent more students who study online fail to complete their classes.

When Alisa Dimock first thought about online studies, she imagined it would be like the nighttime TV infomercials she had seen advertising some questionable school. Now she’s thrilled with the rigor – and flexibility – of the program.

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Dimock, a native of Minnesota. “Online, you do the research yourself. It’s sink or swim. You also have to work harder. … Taking these classes, you know every area of the law. If and when I go to law school, I can fast-track.”

The University of California has also jumped on the online bandwagon. Last month, its regents agreed to develop an Internet-based undergraduate degree program that will save money and expand access to tuition-paying students.

Also, students like Dimock no longer have to drive long distances to enroll in a specific program offered only at one school. Unconstrained by geography, the colleges could draw students from out of state – along with hefty out-of-state tuition.

The growth of online programs is seemingly endless, but Los Angeles administrators say each school has caps on the number of students funded by the state. So while online enrollments soared from nearly 2,700 in 2000 to 55,000 last year, administrators predict a plateau in online growth.

Nothing tells the story of how popular the courses have become better than the numbers. More than 4.6 million students across the U.S. studied online in the fall of 2008, a 17percent jump over the previous year, according to a Sloan Survey of Online Learning.

That means one college student in four now takes an online class, according to the survey of 2,500 colleges published earlier this year. And three out of four public universities see online growth as critical to their long-term strategy.

Dimock, however, acknowledges it’s not for anyone.

“Would I recommend my son take an online program? Absolutely not,” she said. “I want him to meet friends, play sports, live in the dorm, have the typical college experience. But as an older student, it’s perfect. I’m not going to meet friends.”

Similar Posts:

Share