More and more community college students in Snohomish County and across the state are taking courses from instructors they seldom or never see.
Enrollment in online courses is soaring as students young and old search for ways to sandwich classes between jobs and busy schedules.
More than 47,000 students across Washington enrolled in at least one online class during the 2003-04 school year, tripling the enrollment of 15,638 five years before.
“It has really taken off here,” said Charleen Khane, interim associate dean of distance learning at Edmonds Community College, where online enrollment also has tripled over the same period.
More than 3,100 students took an EdCC course or part of a course over the Internet during the fall quarter. Most also take traditional lecture courses.
“One of the main missions of the community colleges is access, and that’s what this does,” Khane said.
At Everett Community College, annual online enrollment has increased from 258 to 2,842 since 1999.
“I think it’s a big convenience factor,” said Sara Frizelle, EvCC’s distance learning director.
EvCC and EdCC have found one of their core online student groups is working women with jobs and families. Everett reports that group’s peak time for logging into their course lessons is between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.
“We constantly hear this is the only way they can take their classes,” Frizelle said
Younger students also are a major part of the trend. Online classes often allow them to take courses when there would otherwise be a scheduling conflict between two classes.
At Edmonds Community College, surveys show its two largest online student groups are ages 30 to 45 and 18 to 22.
EdCC student Caitlin Carpenter, 19, of Poulsbo enrolled in her first online class in medical terminology last summer when she had 12 credits and was working long hours at a job while commuting to school by ferry. She would make her way to the college library after her morning lecture classes for her online class.
Carpenter discovered that an online class could be just as personal, if not more so, than a lecture class, even though she still doesn’t know what her instructor looks like.
“It really depends on the teacher,” she said.
Her summer instructor contacted her when she noticed her grades slipping.
“She did give a lot of personal attention,” Carpenter said. “She actually called. That’s a big motivator to me.”
Carpenter will try an online math class next quarter, but has some reservations.
“I’m a very visual learner,” she said. “Taking it online will be a challenge.”
Kingston resident Kathleen Anderson, 18, started at EdCC while she was a student at North Kitsap High School in the Running Start program. Anderson, an accounting student who plans to transfer to Central Washington University in Ellensburg, likes the “hybrid” classes in which students split time between lecture some days and online on others.
“Those are nice,” said Anderson, who also faces a ferry commute. “You don’t have to be on campus as much.”
Anika Ebelt, 19, of Edmonds is working toward her associate of technical arts degree in paralegal studies. She has taken classes on campus during the morning and online in the late afternoon.
All three students say online classes take self-discipline.
“I like the flexibility, but it can be very easy to procrastinate,” Ebelt said. “I recommend having a schedule for yourself to do the work at the same time every day.”
Online courses depend on instructors’ willingness to offer them.
At EdCC, nearly 20 percent of the full- and part-time faculty taught an online course in the fall. About one out of every eight faculty – 12.5 percent – taught an online course at EvCC this fall.
The online trend is cutting into other traditional distance learning courses. At Everett Community College, enrollment in correspondence courses has dropped from 906 to 280 since 1999. Computer conference courses have been phased out, and “telecourses,” taken by watching videos, have slipped from 296 in 1999 to 48 last year.
Kevin McKay, EdCC’s director of distance learning, has watched the enrollment boom evolve from humble beginnings 11 years ago.
“I saw potential,” he said. “I don’t know that I saw so much potential.”
Even so, with new breakthroughs in technology, more changes in the ways that students learn could be in store, Frizelle said.
“It will be interesting to have this conversation 11 years from now” to see a new teaching style and if another option has replaced it, she said.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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