Online Education Forum: Part Two--Teaching Online versus Teaching Conventionally

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Online Opportunity Students and faculty are increasingly turning to online education and the Internet to supplement, or even replace, traditional approaches to classroom teaching(Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Altbach, Gumport, and Johnstone, 2001; Hanna, Glowacki-Dudka, and Conceicao-Runlee, 2000; Palloff and Pratt, 2001). Advancements in computer and communications technologies, the Internet, and online education are attractive and powerful new tools for teaching and learning. Some say that these technologies have the potential to revolutionize higher education with increased access to educational services for students and a wider reach in the educational marketplace for academic institutions (Hollenbeck, Zinkhan, and French, 2005; Medlin, Vannoy, and Dave, 2004). While opportunities to utilize online facilities for teaching and learning have been available for years, universities have too often shown a reluctance to engage in the development and use of these technologies. While pockets of expertise exist in many faculties, the entrepreneurial adoption of online teaching methods in higher education has unfortunately been limited(Fox, Anderson, and Rainie, 2005; Spellings, 2006). As a result, while some readers may find the topics presented in this paper straightforward, others who are less experienced will find them very useful. As universities move ahead with online education initiatives, the ideas presented here will help to avoid the disruptive and costly problem of numerous faculty members trying to discover for themselves how best to approach online teaching. 1.2 Potential Pitfalls There are pitfalls in online education for the student and for the teacher. When there is a failure to communicate expectations and the student is not doing what the teacher intends, the situation can deteriorate without either party realizing that there is a problem until it is too late. Regardless of who is at fault, well-meaning individuals can fall into this trap. In a conventional classroom, there are ample face-to-face opportunities to reinforce expectations and clarify misunderstandings. And students can easily check with other students for clarification of what they do not understand. In an electronic classroom, these contacts are not so easily made(Conaway, Easton, and Schmidt, 2005). The teacher must strive to assure that expectations are clear and misunderstandings are minimized. Avoiding pitfalls requires careful planning and detailed structuring of every aspect of the online course in advance. Exactly who does what, when, and how it is to be done, must be concisely and clearly specified within the design constraints imposed by guidelines and systems limitations for given online teaching technologies. 1.3 Need for Coaching Teaching well online is really very different from teaching in a conventional classroom(Abbott, 2005; Wong et al., 2006). Professors must be prepared to communicate differently and to assert control appropriately in an online medium. They also need to learn to cultivate and sustain relationships with their students online, which can be a time consuming, even tedious, process but which is also a critical part of online teaching effectiveness. A competent teacher could learn how to do all of this 'on the job,' but the likelihood of failing with several highly visible online classes through trial-and-error makes that idea very risky at best. 1.4 Overview This paper focuses on a comparison of online teaching and conventional teaching, resulting in a set of recommended practices. Essentially, it deals with the mechanics of teaching online, including course organization and planning, teaching guidelines and constraints, mentoring relationships, online tutorials, assessment of student performance, and course evaluation. 2. COURSE ORGANIZATION AND PLANNING 2.1 Careful Organization The first critical step in the process of teaching online is the detailed organization and planning of the online course (Coppola, Hiltz, and Rotter, 2002; Karuppan and Karuppan, 1999). …