Although the advances of online learning methods/technologies has made an impact on education and teaching students I cannot help but wonder if it has truly helped those of us teaching in CTE fields requiring hands on skill. When it comes to certain types of learning where hands on learning and skills are necessary to learn and required to obtain employment I have found students can be broken down into three categories. They are as follows:
- Students who do well in the online portion but fail when it comes to the hands on portion such as lab
- Students who do not do well in the online portion but excel when it comes to the hands on portion such as lab
- Students who do well in both the online portion and the hands on portion such as lab
So armed with this knowledge I have found through experience that Hybrid courses or a combination of traditional and online instruction is the be best mode of instruction for my particular subject matter. We have also heard from employers, through our yearly Advisory Committee meetings, that students need to be able to interact with each other, superviors, and in teams as well as understand ontime behavior when it comes to being an effective and productive employee.
