With more faculty moving course elements online and more technologies and services becoming available to support those environments, you may be considering how much of your class should be held in the online space.
Many working professionals already pursue graduate programs that are fully online, and some colleges and universities are now experimenting with methods of integrating online learning into the traditional undergraduate environment. While most courses at Georgetown are still delivered face-to-face, there are many fully online courses and programs currently available to undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, there are many elements of online learning that could even enhance traditional, face-to-face classes.
Developing an online or blended course
If you are considering moving your class online, you’ll need to first consider whether you aim for a fully online or a blended course. It is important for you to discuss any opportunity to develop a fully online course with your program or department chair, so you can ensure that your individual course will still meet larger programmatic goals.
Benefits of a fully online course:
- Your students need not be in the same geographical location, allowing you to connect a larger community of learners.
- Your students will engage in active learning, since all students must participate in online activities and assignments to complete course requirements.
Benefits of a blended course:
- Your students will benefit from both online engagement and face-to-face interaction with their professor and peers.
- Your students will have access to a rich array of course materials online, and use face-to-face class time for active learning applications of course content.
Instructional considerations for teaching a course online
No matter which type of course you choose to develop, you will have to adapt your pedagogical practices for the online space. Here are some considerations to keep in mind.
Adapting your pedagogical practices to a visual medium
The possibilities for teaching and presenting content online are quite endless, and you can experiment with a variety of methods for delivering information to students. You can still rely on traditional pedagogical methods, such as providing articles and other texts, and presenting traditional lectures (although in the online space these would be captured and delivered on film or through audio). However, you can also experiment with other kinds of videos, PowerPoint presentations, interactive modules, Whiteboard demonstrations, and other visual and audio media.
Converting instructional time
Moving content from the classroom to an online format doesn’t mean a one-to-one correspondence in terms of time—that is, a one-hour in-class lecture doesn’t necessarily translate into a one-hour video. And even when you integrate materials from a face-to-face course, you likely won’t be using that content online in quite the same way. Students tend to respond best to educational content when it is delivered in shorter chunks.
A series of segmented, shorter videos would be preferable to one longer video, so consider whether your traditional 50-minute lecture could be reimagined for the visual medium as five 10-minute, self-contained chunks, each paired with an interactive application to help students process the information.
Your time
Online courses, even blended ones, work best when there is an active faculty presence because it helps students see that they are part of an active community in which everyone’s participation is required. If your class is fully online, you will not have any other medium through which to address potential confusion over course material or assignments. And even the strongest peer-to-peer discussions may still need a faculty presence to steer the conversation in productive directions.
Online courses require a significant investment of faculty time, and the delineation of “class time” may not be entirely analogous to your sense of this concept in a traditional face-to-face course. Because online courses typically function as a series of asynchronous conversations happening over extended periods, you should spend some time planning for when your presence will be needed from week to week. While you still have total control over these elements of the course design, it’s important that you plan for them carefully—and even build in more time than you might initially expect for responding to students’ questions, posting to discussion boards and other collaborative online spaces, and adequately commenting on all student work.
CNDLS resources
Consultations
CNDLS team members are happy to meet with you to help assess what elements of online learning design will best support your course goals. At these meetings we will typically ask you to come with a course syllabus and to be prepared to talk about what elements you plan to move online, depending on whether you intend to develop a fully online or a hybrid course. We will then talk through your particular objectives for the online components of your course. To schedule a consultation today, contact us at cndls@georgetown.edu.
See more information about developing online courses and programs on our Online Programs site.
Teaching guides
If moving a piece of your course online is part of a larger strategy to flip your classroom, check out the resources on the Teaching Guide on Teaching with Technology.
Teaching in-person and teaching online require different considerations, when it comes to assessment and checking in on student progress. See this guide on Understanding Student Learning.
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