Last year, 35 million people signed up for online college courses, better known as MOOCS, short for Massive Open Online Courses.

The problem is 95 percent of those enrollees quit within two weeks.

Why?

"It's no surprise that so few online learners finish. Few MOOC platforms include features that allow students to collaborate or ask questions in real time. Students are often expected to just click play on a lecture video, sit back, and passively learn," writes Satesh Bidaisee, an associate professor of public health and preventive medicine and assistant dean for graduate studies at St. George's University, Grenada. "They're stuck studying alone, with no sense of belonging to a broader community. If they find a lesson especially challenging, there's no one to boost their morale or guide them over the hump. It's easy to lose motivation."

To read more about how online courses can fix this problem, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.

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