Carrie,
Good point. The classroom takes time with handouts and personal questions. As online, handouts can be uploaded and email or discussions can be answered as quickly as you need to.
Shelly Crider
I believe they both take the same amount of time. You still have to edit your content in a traditional setting (ie handouts, Power Point lectures, quizes etc.). The challenge of the online class is you might have to be a bit more thorough in your lectures because you don't have the luxury of seeing the students face to face for them to pose any questions ASAP. Either way, you are trying to present information in the easiest manner for all students to understand. No matter what the medium, I still believe it takes the same amount of effort.
Barbara,
Same goals just a different format! Most students who want online courses will do just fine,those who are not so sure will struggle.
Shelly Crider
Robyn,
Be sure to double check your spelling and your links!
Shelly Crider
The time invested to develop a quality online course requires the same amount of time as a traditional course because you want the learner to achieve the same goals as a traditional learner the outcomes of both online and traditional are the same.
You're correct that you will have to inspect for quality control. I think that link checking takes less time though than having to develop an entire course online.
I am about to develop my first online course and I am nervous. I thought it would be easier than my classroom course but I am finding it to be more of a challenge. The time I will need to put in is considerably more for the online class primarily because this is my first attempt at creating a course using this method. Although it will be hard, I am looking forward to teaching online!
Kendra,
You will still need to inspect for quality control, even if the class is from a product vendor. Links change all the time.
Shelly Crider
Amie,
Oh so true....I have seen classes that have literally been thrown online. Students know quality!
Shelly Crider
I think it depends. If the course is prepackaged from a educational product vendor, then less time is needed in preparation for an online course, especially if no changes are made.
If one has to develop the course then it will take more time, because all the lectures will have to be formatted in an easy to read format, any interactive or multimedia components have to be developed and added to the course content.
Also, if one is developing the class, extra care needs to be taken to make sure all copyright use and legal permissions are followed. For example, an instructor may want to have a journal article for the class, and to have the students download the article from the class shell, but if that journal has restrictions on distribution, then the instructor can only cite the article and have the students find it as a homework assignment.
I completely disagree! If a quality course is developed it will take more time to put it online. Unfortunately, some instructors think that they can post everything on the LMS at the beginning of the semester and not have to touch it again until the end of the semester. To effectively teach online, it is time intensive and requires dedication from the instructor to respond/engage students. Not as easy as it looks!
I have found that over the years, the personal experiences are the things that most students remember. I still remember the stories from other instructors I had in the past. I remember them for that fact. There are others, that were just names.
Antonio,
Good to know! Students really love personalization!
Shelly Crider
That is a good thing, because I love to tell stories about what I have experienced.
Antonio,
Each degree will have classes that are harder to engaging and will lean on the instructor for personal experience.
Shelly Crider
In my opinion, I feel I have to devote more time to the online curriculum than the on ground setting. Let me explain.
In the past when I first started teaching on ground students, I was mentored by several of the instructors that were also teaching the same courses. I did not develop a change right away, more like the third class. I looked at where my students were and what was necessary to make it more of a challenge. It did not need to be difficult, just engaging. A few moths later, the class was updated by corporate and I had to redo all of my assignments and test. But the lectures had only to be slightly changed. Since I had the face to face with the students, I could judge their reactions and modify where needed.
I have been teaching in the online environment for about an year. I feel that each and every class I have to get the feel of the room. Some have been more challenging than others, and I honestly spend much more time in assessing the reasoning to why they react more or less to the subjects.
STEVE,
An instructor or someone should always do quality control check each term as well.
Shelly Crider
Bobby,
Thank you for brining up compliance. This is an area we do not touch on much, but is a necessary topic to be taken seriously.
Shelly Crider
In a traditional setting, an online platform does not have to be designed. However, in an online environment, everything from discussion forums to quizzes need to be designed and inputted, which can take an excess amount of time. Nonetheless, by far more time is used in the development of an online class.
I disagree because the differences between a traditional classroom and an online learning environment differ based on the synchronus and asynchronus classroom.
While one may have discussions in a live classroom, many instances in an online environment require the online classroom to have a discussion board and a time requirement for posting. In my online class, I have my students post their inital response by Wednesday, and their responses to fellow classmates by Sunday. I also use the discussion board to determine participation along with my student tracker which records the time the student spends in the online classroom
Secondly, compliance with assignment material on a week to week basis is hard to judge unless the material is tied to the weekly assignment or discussion. In a live classroom, the instructor can ask direct questions; the online classroom requires one to structure information in a manner that engages the student without ever seeing them.
Lastly, online instruction requires development of the classroom layout to foster student centered learning. Live classes can focus on more content as the layout of the class is already done by the design of the classroom.
