Photo by Myranda Stika Amanda Dorrell, Newton, uses Rimmer Learning Resource Center to work on assignments. Rimmer has about 70 computers for students to come in and work on online assignments.
Education Anywhere
Online Education at HutchCC continues to grow and provide many benefits for students. Myranda Stika, Reporter & Designer
In the spring of 2021, online education will be celebrating 20 years of online classes at Hutchinson Community College. Throughout the years, many changes have been made as well as the online education’s constant growth at HutchCC. In 2007, there were 100 online courses, which then increased to 246 online courses and 75 hybrid classes as of 2015. Currently, there are 420 online courses and 76 hybrid classes. Many students have chosen to take online courses through the years. However, in March, all face-to-face students at HutchCC were transferred to a remote-style learning which used the online course format due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online courses can become a struggle depending on the students’ major. Ryan Roderick, Mulvane, is a sophomore music education major.
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“Music is hard enough to do and teach about through regular classes. To do choir and other instrumental or musical ensembles was impossible,” Roderick said. Other majors such as art can also be difficult to do online. “It’s hard to find clay and play dough. It’s not the same. It was a learning process for all of us as a class,” Lylia Fernandez, an art education major from Newton, said. Even though there were struggles in transferring these major specific classes to online, the teachers were very helpful and were learning themselves during this time. “My teacher would help us and have us write out our process, have us explain why we weren’t able to do it the way we had envisioned and what we thought we could have done differently,” Fernandez said. The bumps in the road when transitioning online was mainly due
to the unfamiliarity of online classes for some students and teachers. However, there are many benefits to this learning platform. Online classes can be scheduled around the student’s personal schedule and can help with management skills. “My time management skills were more of ‘how can I evenly space my homework over this day or week rather than getting it done in that one night,” Roderick said. Rhonda Corwin, Director of Online Education, helped the instructors at the college tremendously in March when transitioning to online. “We were prepared.We had a bunch of templates and provided training for them or met one on one [through Zoom],” Corwin said. Many teachers already taught classes online prior to the transition in March. The teachers with prior experience were a large help to the teachers new to online instruction. “We call them ‘super users,’ those who have already taught online jumped in and helped the others,” Corwin said.
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