Get Your Students Hired
ILEANA,
This is a very good point. We all have to tweak our classes....traditional or online!
Shelly Crider
Tanya,
This is true. You need to be sure to include personal experiences in your discussion area so that you can bring your class alive.
Shelly Crider
Michael,
Oh so true! Each school and each platform allows for different item in the classroom. Some you can add and some you have to teach from what is there. You can still add lively discussion and personal info into these discussions.
Shelly Crider
I disagree, I too have created online courses and the time and effort it takes to create online content whether original or an adaptation of a traditional classroom curriculum is comparable to traditional classroom delivery.
Instructions, navigation and key concepts must be very clear to the learner; as there are no immediate "assistance" should a question arise.
I have developed quite a few courses over the past few years and agree that the original time investment in an online course is greater since you do have to spell everything out and you also have to determine structure and content. There is maintenance that has to be done as Meir has pointed out, but if the original course is structured well, the updates are not too time consuming. If you have faculty who are current in the field of study and have a platform and method of updating that allows for some changes on the fly, the updates are easy to implement quickly.
I also feel that online courses have the potential to be better structured and deeper in content since they are fully thought out and collaborated on in teams. When I first started with online teaching, I was a bit of a skeptic, but now feel there is greater consistency in information and a deeper content base.
I do not think it takes less time to develop an online course than a traditional classroom course. For each type of course delivery we must go through a systematic process such as ADDIE to create a quality course. Most of us are more familiar with what works in a traditional course than online delivery, so it may seem that an online course takes more time. But, if one knows the LMS well, it cuts down on time. The main difference I notice with an online course is you have to preplan the entire course because it usually doesn't work to change assignments midway through a course. Whereas, in a traditional course we have more leeway. Like any other course, we learn what works and what doesn't and we can make our adjustments the next time we teach the course.
To be honest with you I think it will depend on the subject matter as well as the level of expertise of the online facilitator. In both instances the course needs to have instructional and structural integrity, be easy to navigate and ensure that content included in different modules clearly supports the assessments of the class and supports terminal course objectives.
At the moment I have an issue with a class because there is a weekly quiz that appears to test the students on information that was not included in the weekly lecture or module content and as a result the students are doing poorly and getting frustrated. I have contacted course developers to alert them of this situation and hope they will make a change soon.
I disagree with this. Having done both over the years I have found that the ways that you develop to engage an online student require more in the way of technology that can sometimes take longer. It is common at most universities to use a specific learning platform (Learning Management System) and with this there are restrictions on what the faculty member can do. In a traditional classroom, the instructor can create all of the support materials by him/herself therefore no waiting on others to implement any type of systems requirements. While much of this can transfer over, there are still items that are specific to supporting online students, which simply take longer because of the lack of face-to-face that therefore requires the support of technology.
It can really depend on the school as to whether or not it takes more time to develop an online course. Some schools have required tools and platforms for each course, such as asynchronous discussions, live sessions, and group projects; however, other schools aren't as sophisticated in terms of what technologies they can provide instructors, often times I've seen that Black Board is the primary means of online education. In the case that an instructor can pick and choose, I would say that developing an online course can be even more time consuming, simply because of the work required to determine and collect content and tools is often times more work than setting up a traditional classroom.
Anthony,
What we think is organized may not be found by the students as organized so there may be tweaking along the way that is needed.
Shelly Crider
Darlene,
You are right about planning for a class whether online or ground does take planning.
Shelly Crider
I disagree. I think the time to develop an online course is just the same if not more than the face to face course. The design and organiztion of the online course is important so that nothing is missed and the course flows effectively. Therefore, it takes more time to develop.
I disagree. Additional thought must be employed to address delivery issues of concepts and applications in the context of the objectives. Additional methodologies may be employed that include audio, visual, text, online resources including the university library resources as well as internet activities and should be evaluated to ensure that the students are learning the material.
Each student learns a little differently. Assignments should incorporate each of the tangential resources or delivery applications to ensure a thorough understanding of the course material has been mastered. Mastery can be evaluated to incldue exercises, assignments, tests or exams. The outcome should provide feedback that the instructor can use to measure performance.
The initial set up can be quite time consuming. If you already have the class as a F2F, you have the skeleton, so to speak.
Once you have the online class up, then tweaking is needed when teaching it again to make sure the hyperlinks are current, along with any other supplemental information being used in the class. Basically, just as you would with the F2F.
Any instructor knows, we are always setting up and planning for the next class!
I disagree. I invest more time in creating an online course because I want to make sure that I provide enough inofrmation and example to the students so that there is minimum confusion.
Grace,
It is easy to have a spelling error and not catch it while reviewing. A second pair of eyes to do quality control is nice to have as well.
Shelly Crider
Laurie,
I am glad you mentioned resources! When we add resources, students feel like they are receiving something extra!
Shelly Crider
It takes more time to develop an online course for the first time. Getting everything to line up and flow properly takes a lot more time. Then as in face to face classes updating and tweaking needs to occur.