Summary Essay

Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online In “Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online,” Rob Jenkins, professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, brings online courses and their cons out into the open. Professor Jenkins argues in his article whether every course should be available to be taken online or if every student should be allowed to take courses online. Are the advantages that the school receives from online classes worth the failure of their students? Jenkins uses a joke in his article that he references in his own classes about an online anatomy class. “We used to offer an anatomy lab online until we started receiving complaints from people whose cats were missing. No doubt that joke is in poor taste, but it illustrates a point that seems to me self-evident: We can't teach everything online, nor should we try.” (Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online”). Even if you don’t fully agree with Jenkins, he does offer some “common ground”. He states that online learning and courses should have its limitations. Who would seek out doctors that had all of their training through an online learning program? So what are the limitations? Where do you draw the line for online learning? Jenkins thought he had drawn the line at an online public speaking class. Who would the students present to? How would the students learn from others speeches? Until another professor at the university worked out a video system where students taped themselves doing various public speaking activities and observed other students work. Jenkins was concerned with the teacher-student dynamic. Would an online public speaking class be as beneficial to the students as a face-to-face class? The students would miss the experience of student to student and teacher to student by going through an online program. But if executed well, an online public speaking course would suffice. Jenkins came to the realization that online classes are “good enough”. The classes online