The number of Kent State students enrolled in online classrooms increases by the hundreds every year. What have been some of these students’ experiences? Jacob Derwin has the story.

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According to the Office of Continuing and Distance Education, 40 percent of Kent State students are enrolled in at least one online class.

Lauren Pankiw: “Analytic Geometry & Calculus 1”

Garret Waugh: “Literature & English 1”

Beau Kuhn: “I have one class that is not online.”

But how do people feel about online classes?

The Lincoln Building houses the Office of Continuing and Distance Education. It’s here Amy Grincewicz, an instructional designer, talked to me about the challenges and benefits of online courses.

Amy Grincewicz: “Flexibility for both the student and the instructor,”

…Is what Amy considers to be the biggest benefit to online classes. But for students like Lauren Pankiw, an open schedule wasn’t enough to overlook her class’ weekly workload.

Lauren Pankiw: “The homework took me about… it was literally a 15+ hour a week commitment, it was only 10 percent of the grade.”

Garret Waugh had the same problem.

Garret Waugh: “Each week you had to do a reading, then watch a narrated PowerPoint on it, write a paper on it and respond to someone else’s paper.

And with Beau Kuhn’s heavy work schedule, the only way to get classes done is to do most of them on the Internet.

Beau Kuhn: “To be honest I’m not really a fan of online classes so it’s kind of tough because I’m very personable and I like talking to people and talking to professors.”

And Beau isn’t alone. Amy also believes online classes need to be a bit more out of the box…

Amy Grincewicz: “…and really try to create more of a discussion and more of a learning community in that course.”

For Broadcast Beat Reporting, I’m Jacob Derwin.