Are you going to teach synchronously or asynchronously? What’s better for your students? What’s better for you?
in the synchronous online classroom you can readily help students remember why they registered for your course to begin with, which can be very grounding.
The most popular reason for choosing this option for your teaching is flexibility regarding when work is done. Asynchronous classes have pedagogical benefits too. They allow students to literally “pause” your class when they are confused or need a break, something only possible in their dreams for in-person and synchronous online classes, which go at a pace not set by them at all. Also, the technology requirements to take in an asynchronous class are lower, and this is therefore more accessible to more students.
An example of “doing both”
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How to Reconnect With Students and Strengthen Your Remote Course
how to structure a supportive learning environment, and how that might apply to an emergency situation such as this, where many students struggle to stay focused, or find it difficult to learn with unfamiliar systems and technologies.
Qualitative researchers: Does anyone have any general pointers on conducting qualitative work in this environment other than doing interviews or focus groups over Zoom? Example: I (normally) do a lot of participant observation work. Where and how will I do this or do it as well as I have done it?
At this moment, my focus is all on teaching. But if this situation becomes more prolonged, I need to figure out how to keep the research going too.
Importantly, today’s educators in the digital-era have a range of new teaching methods, activities and resources they can consider when choosing their learning designs. Although the traditional face-to-face lecture is not dead, delivering a monologue for an hour to a passive audience of learners is hardly the gold standard of good teaching in the 21st Century–irrespective of delivery mode. This point should not be overlooked in the rush to replace conventional teaching with live online sessions using platforms like Zoom.
Most importantly, what we want to avoid is using old 19th Century teaching methods on new 21st Century technologies to merely dump large volumes of undigested information down large digital diameter pipes to relatively inactive and passive learners.
ICDE has a series of forthcoming webinars you can join and you will find around a dozen different types of online course offerings available right now for educators on our NIDL Resource Bank.
National Research Council’s (2000) four types of learning environments: assessment-centered, community-centered, knowledge-centered, and learner-centered.
Second, another reason that there cannot be a definitive answer to this question is the diversity of stakeholders in online education. Yong Zhao: Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education https://t.co/LNqv2YYb40pic.twitter.com/SKG1jCyudo
— Ana Cristina Pratas (@AnaCristinaPrts) April 2, 2020
One of the most frequently and persistently asked questions about online education is “does it work” or “is it effective.”
The question is meaningless because there cannot be any definitive answer for a number of reasons.
First, online education (and its variants such a online instruction, online teaching, distance education and distance learning) is a big umbrella that covers a wide array of different practices, which vary a great deal in terms of quality. Comparing the effectiveness of online education with face-to-face education has been the most common research approach to examine the effectiveness of online education. And the answer has been, for a long time, that there is no significant difference between the two. This answer, however, does not mean online is effective or not, it simply means there are plenty of effective and ineffective programs in both online and face-to-face education. In other words, the within variation is larger than the between variation.
Second, another reason that there cannot be a definitive answer to this question is the diversity of stakeholders in online education.
And unfortunately what works for one stakeholder may not work for the others.
Third, even within the same program and with only students as the stakeholder, there cannot be a definitive answer because no program can possibly have the same effects on all students equally.
Fourth, yet another reason that the question cannot have a definitive answer is the multiplicity of outcomes. Education outcomes include more than what has been typically measured by grades or tests.
Fifth, the rapid changes in technology that can be used to deliver online education add to the elusiveness of a definitive answer to the question. While pedagogy, design, and human actors certainly paly a significant role in the experiences of online education, so does technology.
