Face to Face versus Online Learning Environments

What does it mean to teach online?

Depending on the goal of the individual faculty member, teaching online can have different definitions.

At the unit level:
At the level of a subject/unit, there are three general models of an online learning environment:

• The web is used to support and/or supplement the normal face-to-face teaching program (the 'web supported' or supplementary model of web usage)
  
• The web is integrated with other teaching delivery strategies, and student engagement with the web is a necessary aspect of their studies (the 'web dependent' or blended model of web usage)
  
• The web is the primary means by which the unit is taught; i.e. the unit is fully online (the 'web based'/fully online model of web usage).
  

Why use the Web in teaching?
Using online learning environments and tools can provide both you and your students with greater flexibility in teaching and learning, and generally add value to your classroom teaching. It allows you and your students to do things more effectively or differently. Going online can:

• Enhance communications with and between students
  
• Improve administration and learner support
  
• Make more accessible high quality learning resources
  
• Aid in assessment and facilitate timely feedback (through, for example, incorporation of online quizzes, self tests, with automatic feedback, posting of past exam questions and sample answers).

Importantly, online course delivery is one powerful way to introduce more student-centered learning — where students are given greater control over, and responsibility for, their own learning. It allows faculty to move away from a focus on presenting information to a more supportive or facilitative function.

10 reasons for going online:

1. Increased flexibility in teaching and learning: Online delivery is one means of providing greater flexibility and hence improved access for students. It gives students greater choices over:
   - when and where they study (be it the home, campus or workplace)
   - the pace of study, and the sequence in which the work is undertaken
   - what they learn (through choices in content, depth of coverage, learning tasks engaged in).
   It also gives teaching staff flexibility in their teaching arrangements.
   
   
2. Enhanced communications opportunities: Online course software such as Blackboard offer new dimensions to communications between staff and students, and between the learners themselves. Discussion boards promote reflective thinking and writing, increased participation in discussion, and the sharing and building of knowledge and understanding between learners. ‘Chat’ tools provide for real time communication, and email speedy, targeted communications between members of the learning community. Together, these tools provide enhanced opportunities for collaborative work.



3. Student have access to a rich and diverse range of resources: Students can access resources presented in a variety of modes – text, images (still, moving) and audio, often in integrated (multi-media) form. Material can be lecture notes/summaries, unit outlines, past exam questions and exemplar assignments and other supplementary enrichment material. Through links, students can be directed, or otherwise explore, the rich reserve of web resources at hand.



4. Capability to create more authentic learning situations: The Web’s ability to integrate text, images and audio allows for more realistic representation of ‘real world’ problems and scenarios than say print alone. Multi-media capability allows for illustration of otherwise difficult to explain concepts or actions – e.g. simulations, experiments, social interactions.



5. Enhanced interaction with course content: Interactive activities and exercises (e.g. learner manipulated simulations) can be embedded in the course content, as can self tests and quizzes for diagnostic feedback on students’ learning.



6. Capability to provide timely and efficient feedback: Diagnostic tests and quizzes can provide immediate feedback; communications tools (discussion board, chat, email) can provide timely and efficient ways to respond to student questions; electronic handling of assignments or other student work can reduce turn around time for marked items.



7. Catering for a range of student learning styles and approaches: Individual differences and needs can be catered for by presenting information in a variety of media formats — text, images and audio, providing for alternate pathways through content, and building in a variety of tasks (including assessment tasks).



8. Enhanced course management: Online course management software such as Blackboard provide sophisticated tools for monitoring student participation and progress, maintaining records, and keeping track of electronically sent student material such as assignments.



9. Opportunities for ‘re-personalising’ education: Online courseware allows for ‘individual voices to be heard’ (which might otherwise be silent in large classes) through tools such as discussion (bulletin) boards and student presentation and home pages.



10. The way of continuing professional development: Arguably, Internet-based education and training will be the main way in which professionals maintain and update their workplace knowledge and skills. It is the University’s responsibility to see that graduates have the underlying information literacy and technology skills, and preferably experience in this mode of learning.

Sean Chamberlin provides a brief description of the differences between teaching face-to-face and teaching online in his article Face-to-Face Versus Cyberspace: Finding the Middle Ground.