Online vs Classroom

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I was wondering what other people have had more success in classroom or online classes, pertaining to college.

I seem to be better off on online classes and feel more at ease asking questions over email then in person in front of other students.

Though some classes I seemed to struggle more with online are the humanities class that instead of being taught anything its just a read the book and memorize everything kind of class, though that could have been just a bad online professor for that class. As I even asked him questions over email about things I had issues with and the only response I got was I should reread the chapters. As well combined with hating to take pointless classes that wont further me in any career but are required by the college for a degree, and trying to research something you have very little interest in all on your own time made concentration difficult.

Theyre great to get the course done and get a good grade...but its bad because you do miss out on a lot if you're not there in person. Most of the 'true' education you get from Proff's is what they say when they answer questions, give out extra knowledge from their experiences, etc.

I prefer on campus classes to online classes as a rule... but, about the same time I switched majors from history to social work I also acquired a spinal cord injury. Since then I've been forced to take nearly all of my classes online. Luckily, my degree program has extensive online offerings.

In my experience--I've completed about 36 hrs online--the quality of an online course depends on the quality of the instructor.

My intro to social work class was basically read chapter, answer discussion question on class message board, take weekly quiz. It was the same monotonous crap week after week after week! The guy who usually taught the class was busy finishing a second master's degree in English, so the class was left to a teaching assistant who just let the class run on auto pilot. It was tedious as hell.

However, most of my classes haven't been like that. We have extensive reading assignments--text book chapters, chapters from additional books, journal articles, etc.--then there's usually some sort of message board discussion that the professor actively participates in along with a recorded lecture and a weekly quiz and private journal post. It's a lot of work, but it's also usually fun and interesting.

My favorite class so far was a class on drug addiction diagnosis and treatment. The format was basically as described above. Each week we would be assigned case studies related to our readings. We would have to read the case files, make a diagnosis based on the DSM IV and then develop a treatment plan. Then we'd have to post everything to the class message board.

It was really interesting and helpful to get to see everybody's work and compare it to your own. That's not something you could do in a regular on campus class.

I guess my point is, if you have a professor who gives a crap and understands how to use the format effectively, online classes can be great--even better than traditional classes.