I disagree. In an online you are not only dealing with the material but you are also dealing with technology and naviagting the online environment. You have to plan for every little detail ( a student submitting the wrong assignment, a test closing too soon, a video not working). These issues can be easliy fixed in the traditional classroom setting. In the online environment you have to see these issues before they occur and plan accordingly.
A poor online course delivery will surely affect the students ability to learn the material and their enthusiasm to continue with the course.
Srabasti,
This is such a great post! I can tell that you are passionate about this topic...as am I!!
Shelly Crider
Yes, I agree with Lynn Hoffman's answer as far as facillitation methods are concerned. It does take far more time when you are teaching a class for the first time to get up to speed on all the materials as well as the course delivery.
I do think that the inital upfront programming of a course, is much more intensive in an online environment. It takes hours about hours of code language and website programming to set up a visual appealing and navigational friendly user interface in an online environment. I think in the traditional classroom, one needs to think of activites, handouts, and materials to distribute however not every single detail of the exercise need to be thought out and explained such as in an online environment.
So both online and traditional environments both have intensive preparation periods but differ in upfront verses back-end work.
Thank you, Dr. Shirley Chuo
The time spent preparing the lessons for face to face verses the on-line environment is different due to the delivery of the objectives and competencies. The initial planning and preparation may be a little more detailed for the on-line environment especially if it’s not synchronized.
I think the goal is to have a syllabus for both environments to ensure the students are aware of the expectations for the course.
I agree if you have taught the course prior it’s easier to teach that same class again because you already have the material in place. You would just update the information to reflect current events etc.
Monica,
Many courses do have ojbectives and competencies that will take a different amount of time.
Shelly Crider
I have yet to design an online course my school has done that for me. I need to figure out how I can effectivly take my voice to "text". That is my concern with delivering quality lectures without giving my little tidbits of expeirence that I am able to give in the classroom that I remember as i lecture.
I disagree. In an online course you have to allow for differences in the students more. You have to anticipate follow-up questions and include those because the students does not have the opportunity to ask you in real time. You have to be explicit with directions to make it easier for the novice learner.
I disagree with the premise that less time is required to develop a quality online course than a course for a traditional classroom delivery.
Currently I'm involved in creating curriculum for an online course. The time involved in uploading the content and setting up the course for the first time took several months. This is not including PDF's for worksheets and projects. The test banks for this online course had to be extensive so students had varried questions from eachother. Syllabus, discussion questions and calender entries all had to be uploaded and due dates of each of the online quizzes and tests had to be specified.
The simplicity of the in-class presentations, syllabus, worksheets, and quiz/tests preparation took significantly less time to prepare than the same course prepared for online.
I agree that if you have taught the material before that you may have less preparation time howver I would think that with any change of how material is presented whether it be ground to online or online to ground would require some preparation time.
I disagree,
Online teaching takes just as much time as an on-ground class. There is a lot more preparation, more questions and more explaining. I think it is because the way we communicate the response. In a ground class a student ask a question and all classmates are in class to hear the immediate answer from the instructors mouth.
Online I find myself repeating the same answers to the same questions form students. I eventually send out 1 big email or post the common question and answer to the announcements and hope they all read it.
L Singleton
kathleen,
You can certainly do this through programs out there. I love powerpoints and I also love livelecture or jing.
Shelly Crider
Not really sure if there is an answer to this question, maybe the best answer is it depends…
For example, in developing an online course, I am responsible for subject matter expertise, content, questions, assessments, etc., but the actual creation of the course, the editing, making sure things are in the correct order, making sure all course competencies are aligned, etc., there are a lot of other things that other course developers work on – whereas in face-to-face, I actually do most of the work in preparation for the course, e.g., delivering the lecture, encouraging feedback and participation, writing and grading the tests, so I don’t think its more or less, just different tasks that need to be completed.
I would have to disagree with that one. As someone that has developed a number of online courses I can attest to the amount of time that I invested. There isn't a lot different when it comes to the initial development of a ground course vs an online course. The one aspect that I might say takes even longer when creating an online course has been creating the lecture. When you are conducting a traditional ground class you can create a lecture using bullet points and cliff notes so you can follow along and adapt the lecture as you go. In an online class you need to spell the lecture out word for word and anticipate questions that the students will have as they progress through the lecture. In a traditional class you can just deal with those as they come up, but in an online class you need to build those thorough explanations right into the lecture.
On the other side of that, once the online class is designed I do think it is more time efficient to administer since they can access the lecture anytime they want.
I disagree. I think the time involved is more extensive. Lectures need to be changed from paper to electronic format, media tools need to be uploaded. Class discussions and grading systems implemented. Open and closing dates for assignments, quizzes and tests must be done rather than simply being handed out and collected. Verifying student participation takes more time online than observation in a live class.
LaShanta ,
It is good to know your students ask questions!! I like that!
Shelly Crider
Steven,
You are right as each class could be a monster or piece of cake to create depending on the objectives
Shelly Crider
Michelle,
I am happy to hear that you verify participation. It is important to check in on your students.
Shelly Crider
i would disagree just because with online you might have to change the content at one point while in traditional you can stick by your outline of the course throughout the year.
I disagree, in my experience it takes longer to develop an online course than the traditional classroom. The biggest difference or time comsuming aspect is the lecture. With an online course you must write out word for word the lesson. For a traditional course I just use bullet comments to guide me through the lesson.
