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Self-Study vs Online Learning

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Aditya Singhal
Self-Study vs Online Learning

In the fast paced world of today, when services across industries are going online, students have complete access to numerous online courses. Also, the online mode offers multi-dimensional benefits over regular classroom sessions like: cost advantage, better scheduling, ability to attend sessions from the comfort and confines of own home etc. However, there could still be a debate over how beneficial is an online course over self-study.

For the students who aspire to get into reputed institutes and are involved in preparation for higher education in any field across medical, engineering, law, social sciences etc.,there could be pros and cons of both ways of preparation. Let’s move ahead getting an insight into all avenues, so that students can choose for the most appropriate mix.

Benefits of Self Study

As the name suggests, this approach allows students to go with the flow and pick the most suitable ways and means to study, per their schedules and comforts. It essentially is a self-paced learning, wherein the student chooses the best ways and means, duration and design of the instructions. There essentially is no need for an instructor and facilitator here, because the learner/student feels more at ease to self-study.

  • Find Your Own Pace: For the aspirants working their way forward towards clearing the most reputed entrance examinations in the country, this is a great choice. They can choose to not be led by pre-established courses by any coaching institute or instructor led sessions. Through self-study they can choose to spend more time or less time on specific content pieces. They can then approach experts for attaining clarity on their doubts, if any. They can also choose to spend more or less time on the topics per their comfort and understanding.

  • No Need for Minute to Minute Scheduling: When aspirants, choose to take the self-study route instead of Coaching for Civil Services, Medical Coaching or Engineering Coaching, or any kind of professional assistance they are essentially choosing to not get stuck to any fixed schedules. They can take on off courses online at their will and access them through desktops, laptops or tablets. They can choose to club those along with their regular study schedules through regular classes at school, reference books, and notes. This allows them space of time and there will of course be no scheduling conflicts.

Of course, there are various disadvantages as well, like lack of scheduling, getting in way of dedicated efforts. Moreover, there is no one to seek and share feedback on one’s efforts and approach. This can also lead to self-study proving a little expensive in itself, because it might lead to haphazard approach of studying resulting wastage of time and resources.

Benefits of Online Learning

On the same lines Online Learning has its own advantages when it comes to providing effective coaching to aspirants towards entrance exam preparation or those striving to clear various reputed entrance exams. This is because online learning in comparison to regular classroom sessions allows better flexibility, ease of access through wi-fi connections on own laptops and desktops from wherever. Moreover, there is always the essential avenue of supervision by an instructor present in this case.

  • Access to Streamlined Course Curriculum: Through the live online classes, institutes today  Offer comprehensively aligned courses pertaining specific entrance exams. While, a student gets the freedom to study at free will through self-study, this particular aspect takes a back seat there, as nothing is streamlined and scheduled.
  • Flexibility to Attend Sessions from Comfortable Confines: While, online mode of learning offers the required streamlining, it also provides a lot of flexibility in terms of ease of attendance from home, cafes, library, wherever. Learners can comfortably attend their regular school hours and take online courses from home. Moreover, if they miss out on some essential instruction or need to revisit a specific lecture, they can review the class recording again.

  • Evaluation and Feedback: Through the online mode of learning one also gets to appear in various test series, get their work evaluated, refer the detailed analytical reports and connect face to face with the expert for any issues. Online coaching institutes offer regular parent teacher connects to keep them in know of their child’s performance.

  • Cost Effective: While, self-study might at times come across as the cheapest source of learning, but the absence of immediate evaluation and feedback makes it seem incomplete. Wherein, the learner does not understand the missing aspects, there is no streamlined approach and sometimes lack of effort.

  • Customized Courses: Online learning also sees benefits by way of offering customized courses for specific entrance exams or for subjects that a learner finds much difficult to self-study.

However, like self-study, online learning too suffers from its share of disadvantages. The mode can prove tight on schedules, if someone needs to attend all live online classes. There could be scheduling issues, if the instructor needs to re-schedule them again and again, per the availability of different students. On a first view, the mode is also more expensive, as there are set fee structures for specific courses.

Considering all scenarios, it is always better, if the learner chooses to take a mix of both or a blended approach to learning. One can enroll in few limited customized online courses that do not impact his/her schedules much. While, they can club it up with planned self-study, which give them freedom of taking things at their own pace. This will provide them essential feedback from learned instructors, while allowing them space to prepare some part of the courses at their own pace. It seems to be the best choice, as a blend offers peace of mind essentially leading to long lasting acquisition, effective retention, and timely retention of what all is learnt.

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Aditya Singhal
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