School Notes

A report on online education for the U.S. Department of Education found that blending online and classroom education beats classroom learning. The report analyzed 99 comparative studies conducted between 1996 and 2008, and found that “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”

The report, conducted by SRI International, found that blending online and classroom elements produced the best results, but not because of online media. Instead, “blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students” in face-to-face settings, the report found.

Students in classes with some or all course work online tested in the 59th percentile on average, while students in classroom-only settings landed in the 50th percentile on average. That is a statistically significant difference.

Of course, the report gave several caveats.

Most of the studies it found looked at college and adult continuing education classes. Only a handful of studies looked at students in K-12. Also, the report cautions that the studies “do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium.” But online learning gave the course more flexibility in students’ individual learning experiences and allowed them to spend more time on the material. As the report states, “online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face
instruction.”

As many as one million K-12 students took online courses in the 2007-2008 school year, according to one study cited by the report.