The Responsibilities of Teaching Online
The responsibilities are the same. The instructor is responsible for teaching, and the students are responsible for learning. However, the differences in the settings create great differences in the interactions that occur for a great teaching/learning environment. The participants in online education do not benefit from face-to-face communication, which often permits quicker communication of course objectives, policies, and practices. Instead, the communication depends mostly on written communication through posted information, email, and discussions. Resolution of communications issues may be more difficult, and in some cases, communications issues may not be apparent or resolvable in the online environment.
Chuck
The responsibility to provide the best learning experience possible remains the same. However, online the instructor may be more of a facilitator than a teacher. Lectures may be recorded and assignments automated and, sometimes, self-graded. The techniques for managing these two environments are different but the learning outcome should be the same.
Teaching a course online does not equate to the same responsibilities when teaching the same course in a traditional classroom setting. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer.
I agree and disagree, the time element is different and in the case of on line most of the time the student has more time to work with the information but the course is the course and you will still need to complete the course in person or one line.
Yes the loud student could be ignored in the course. If a student is posting in the course room then proper modifications in monitoring the loud student feedback should be used by the instructor. I would also view the loud student toward indicating that your first response is of quality and your other responses need more support in your discussion postings. I would encourage the loud student to go back to the other responses not the initial posting and add information toward looking for academics scholarly resources to support your non-initial posting responses.
Hi Kate, I completely agree. The good thing is that there are many excellent students, so generally we end up having to manage only a few learners who require more attention. Tina
Hi Nathan, I think a critical component of teaching online is ensuring learner's understanding. When we design our courses, we provide additional instructional scaffolding to support their learning. In addition, we have more assignments to assess where the learner is at and provide appropriate feedback to ensure the learner meets the learning goals of the course. Tina
The one benefit of being in an online environment is that the loud student can be ignored! Tina
Yes, I agree, so it's important to continue to reach out to learners throughout the course. Tina
True, not only do I get the feeling that I should be able to get the student to show up, I should also be able to get them to put forth the necesary effort on each and every assignment.
While we can't make the students show up, engage and put forth the work, being disengaged doesn't help. I think some students get behind and feel that it is a lost cause, when in reality there are things that can be done to help them catch up and by engaging the missing students we can get a few of them to re-engage.
There are many differences between quite and loud students in the online learning world. Quite students may tend to need more encouragement to ensure their success and participation is welcomed and not discouraged in the online course. On the other hand loud students that talk so much that the quality of the responses does not make any sense on what is being asked by the instructor in the online course. So it is like a swinging pendulum where a happy medium needs to be met. I look at the students making progress on communicating in an appropriate fashion with quality responses. I also appreciate when students respond to other students in the course where their input is highly valued by the instructor.
Dr. Stavredes,
I believe it is harder to teach online than onground. At least onground, if they come to your class, you have the abiltiy to pull them aside and talk with them. In an online environment, if they don't want to communicate you are out of luck. Also you can arrange time to review assignments together and look at the book or the computer program together. Of course there are technological ways of doing this, but it requires more technological capabilities than most of my students have.
Also online instructing, is more of a tutoring role that requires remote one-to-one attention that is particularly challenging when done remotely. The fact that you may have over 20 people to do this with can make it a logistical nightmare.
Kate
I neither agree nor disagree.
As I have experience simultaneously teaching both online and in the classroom, I recognize that the responsibilities are actually different from teaching online versus in the classroom.
In the classroom setting, my responsibilities are more geared toward lecturing and ensuring student understanding. On the other hand, while teaching online, my responsibilities are more geared towards student retention, resolving technical errors, and ensuring that the course discussions continue at a proper pace.
Thus, the two environments may have similar outcomes, but the responsibilities of each environment vary quite a lot.
Hi Christina, you make a great point! We have been trying to do more synchronous meetings to present information and allow students to ask questions. Tina
I believe teaching an online course equates to additional responsabilities over a traditional classroom. The lack of body language and ability to instantly correct mis-understood communication means the online professor must take extra care when choosing her words, tone, and diction.
A professor cannot assume her messages will be fully understood in an online enviroment. Also, a student may believe she understands the professor's message and can act under a false assumption.
Constant communication and re-instating important information becomes paramount.
The responsibilities are the same but the way they are executed is different. For example, you need to be prepared and be on time for classroom settings. The same is true for online but the preparation is different - before the course starts and you need to continually update. You also have to be timely - but the timeframes are not once or twice a week. It is everyday and usually several times a day to respond to students quickly.
Hi Glenn, what we have found is that the online environment, which is highly textual, may not be the best learning environment for students who have poor reading and writing skills. Tina
I agree. While curricular content is expected to be deliverd through effective instructional design in the traditional onground setting, the online setting depends on the student's ability to read for comprehension. Learning through the written interface is a powerful method of empowering adult students to learn authentic assessment and cirtial thinking skill. Engaging them with critical thinking promotes critical thinking. The online classroom cuts througth the mileu and targets the main fucos for how the student engages. This is why online learning is much different.
I disagree all teacher have the same responsibilities to their students.
The only difference is in an elearning enviroment time management can effect you more since students can email you, fax and text you continuously. But the lesson explained how to manager this problem.
Hi Julia, yes, I have faculty use a spreadsheet to track all communications from learners as well as all proactive communications they have with learners. Most of the time, learners who fail are learners who at some point in the course disengaged, so it's important that faculty have done their due diligence in reaching out to the learner to re-engage them. Tina
