While taking online college classes and earning an online degree, you will be challenged to respond to questions beyond the domain of factual recall. You will still use facts, of course. However, you will find that it is what you do with the facts while in the online college classes that count most. Consider the following elementary example. Children learn their ABCs and time tables before understanding their use. The facts alone will not provide the use. Use must be taught or situations must be set up for the child to discover use. The same holds for adult problem solving taught in online classes leading to an online degree. Consider this example from organic chemistry and imagine how it would apply to any academic discipline studies at an online school. Carbon has a valence of 4 and hydrogen has a valence of 1. So how would it be possible for carbon and hydrogen to combine in the ratios of C6H6? No combination of linear carbon chains would make this possible. But what about non-linear carbon compounds? Who would have guessed that simple carbon chains could be linked to produce cyclic compounds, such as benzene? The German chemist, Kekule, did. A number of educators, philosophers and psychologists have underscored the importance of generating a broader range of thought processes. Attending one of the many online degree programs will require you to consider such issues, but independent thinking will go a long way to help you understand and successfully grapple with these questions.

The goal of contemporary education, which, due to the advances of distance education technology, is more and more frequently located in online college courses, is to teach in such a fashion that the college student is more able to break out of the box, rather than passively waiting for more boxes to build up around him or her. Invariably, a college student must learn how to be more intellectually active in her online college classes in order to learn the materials and earn a college degree online.

Online Degrees and Intellectual Survival Skills

Howard Gardner, in his Frames of Mind, argues that different kinds of intelligence emerge as survival skills in different cultures, and there is no question that most college students find online education courses a very different culture. He develops a theory of multiple intelligences, ranging from the traditional mathematical-linguistic intelligence to kinesthetic and musical intelligence. Traditional intelligence tests have been shown to be culturally biased. Experiments with Australian Bushmen have shown that they can read the signs of their environment far better than British citizens educated at Eton. The Bushmen can remember subtleties such as position, texture, and configuration, location of leaves, rocks and growth of plants far better than the British. The British can outscore them on the Wechsler Belleview Intelligence Tests, but the children of Bushmen outscore the British on their intelligence tests. Therefore, there are a variety of approaches that can be quite successful for distance learning, but the task, at least initially, is to discover which of the multiple intelligences work best for you as you pursue your online courses and earn an online degree.

You will need strategies that go beyond fact finding to make to complete the assignments in online courses. For example, one of the most affective strategies of thought, an arena that the philosopher Richard Paul explores in his 35 dimensions of critical thought encompasses thinking independently, fair-mindedness, exploring thoughts underlying feeling and feelings underlying thoughts.

To think independently is to follow a given line of thought on a given problem, just as Einstein did when in response to quantum mechanics he said, “Intelligence does not play dice with the universe.” He went on to say that the concept of gravity does not require us to accept the existence of “ether” for gravity is a product of the curvature of space. To think independently is to be willing to test time honored assumptions. Commonsense would lead us to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects, but when tested in a vacuum we find that all objects, regardless of weight, fall at the rate of 32 feet per second. Such independent thinking will be very important while earning an online college degree.

Logical Fallacy and Online College Courses

Fair-mindedness requires you to consider all aspects of an oppositional argument before attempting to refute it or advancing another argument while taking online college classes. Consider, for example, that in debates Thomas Aquinas would ask many questions of his opponent to clarify his opponent’s position. Only then would he begin his refutation. Fair-mindedness would require us to avoid slanting our arguments, inciting emotional reaction to propositions, using distractions (red herrings) to beat down our opponent. In fact, the deliberate use of any logical fallacy is an attempt to gain points in an argument via illegitimate means. Suppose I say that if Madame Curie had not discovered the pitch blade glowing in the dark, she would not have discovered radium and we would be minus this element. This is a logical fallacy because Madame Curie might have discovered radium later or in a different way or someone else could have discovered it. So the identification of logical fallacies gives us a way to keep an argument honest.

In addition, it helps a great deal to explore thoughts that underlie feeling and feelings that underlie thoughts in many psychiatric descriptions. Depression, according to Freud, is a manifestation of self-hatred. The dream is the “royal road to the unconscious.” Or, take a popular poem, “The Road Not Taken,” by Robert Frost. The poem may cause us to reflect on choices we have made, some good, others undesirable. And as a result we may experience a feeling. This feeling could then lead to thoughts about how to handle choice in a future situation. The above represent the sort of thinking you will find yourself immersed in when you take online college courses leading to an online degree. Who knows where it will lead? Who knows what discoveries will be made as you work through the online classes?

Earnng an online degree by attending online college classes can certainly put you at the front of the line when it comes to professional opportunities, and in today's market you need every advantage available to you. The truly amazing aspect of college degrees online is that you can attend online college courses even while flying in an airplace to a new location. Online education courses are offered at every academic level of achievement, such as an associate degree online, online bachelors degree, and online mba. The number of online degree programs to choose from is growing daily.