{"id":22412,"date":"2019-03-20T08:25:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T12:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=22412"},"modified":"2022-01-14T14:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T19:36:46","slug":"screen-time-and-face-time-the-triumphs-and-trials-of-teaching-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2019\/screen-time-and-face-time-the-triumphs-and-trials-of-teaching-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Screen time and face time: The triumphs and trials of teaching online"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Matthew Curtis, Fourth-Year Journalism, Carleton University<\/em><\/p>\n

From a teaching perspective, comparing face-to-face with online courses is somewhat like comparing movies with theatre. Movies take a lot of time to produce up front, but once they\u2019re done they can be replayed, or parts of them can be used for different purposes. Theatre is live, the actors can feed off the audience\u2019s energy and immediate feedback, but night after night the actors must show up and perform. They are two different approaches that each come with their own set of opportunities and challenges.<\/p>\n

For Anne Tr\u00e9panier, a professor in Carleton\u2019s School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, one of the main differences is that online courses have the ability to reach large student audiences from around the world, who can each bring different perspectives to the course material.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can speak to each other in forums, they can work in groups, they can look at each other\u2019s work, and because all of that is asynchronous, they can work at their own pace while still working together,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Bruce Tsuji, an instructor in Carleton\u2019s Department of Psychology, has taught approximately 14,000 students online since the fall of 2014. When compared to the couple of thousand he\u2019s had in his face-to-face courses, he says it\u2019s easy to see the difference in accessibility online courses can provide for both professors and students, and lauds teaching online for its ability to condense lecture material into \u201cbite-sized pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we know from psychology is our attention span is kind of limited. When someone makes us pay attention to something for three hours at a time, we know that chances are pretty good that our minds are going to wander off,\u201d says Tsuji. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve done for my online courses is I\u2019ve broken them up into usually somewhere between 65 and 70 little bite-sized pieces, average duration of those about 11 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is something Kevin Cheung, a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, says both he and his students see the value in \u2013 especially when students are required to complete exercises between lecture segments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI try to break up my lecture material into short segments, and in between segments there are simple questions just to test understanding. I did get feedback from students saying that this way of breaking things down is helpful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Online courses do come with their challenges though, one of them being the obvious fact they aren\u2019t live sessions where instant questions and feedback is\u00a0possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an element of delay in responding to students\u2019 queries,\u201d says Cheung. \u201cYou have to wait until the students have watched the videos and posted the questions or come to your office hours, whether they are online or in person.\u201d<\/p>\n

With face-to-face courses, Cheung says he appreciates the energy he receives from the students and their real-time feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes they ask a question or make a comment that you\u2019ve never thought of before. That\u2019s invaluable, right? That\u2019s priceless,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Cheung also cites the attrition rates of online courses as one of their challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many factors contributing to that, but I think one of the biggest difficulties with online courses is the scheduling \u2013 how do you make sure students actually allow sufficient time for themselves to handle the course material?\u201d<\/p>\n

Online courses require a higher level of self-discipline, but Cheung says there should be a balance between both the students\u2019 responsibility to complete the course and the instructor\u2019s responsibility to teach the necessary self-discipline skills to succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t expect every student to have these kinds of skills, coming in at least,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity for us to teach the students to acquire those skills but we don\u2019t necessarily want them to fail a course before they realize they need to develop the skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

To reduce attrition rates in her online course, Tr\u00e9panier incentivises participation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple trick. Every time they log in they have the opportunity to earn marks. There are loads of mini activities, mini assignments; they see the benefit of working often in the course because marks are attached to mini activities,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

For Tsuji, he says he has faced problems in his courses with what psychology calls \u201cmagical thinking\u201d \u2013 the belief that if we want something badly enough, it\u2019ll happen, like when students show up to write a final exam even though they have no mathematical chance of passing. To combat this, Tsuji designs his online courses using a technique called daisy-chaining, which helps students look at their progress in a more realistic way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen somebody takes one of my exams online, they can\u2019t get access to it until they have succeeded in the three quizzes before that. And then the next exam they can\u2019t open that until they\u2019ve succeeded in the three quizzes before that one, and they\u2019ve gotten a certain grade in the previous exam,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, online courses take a considerable amount of work to prepare \u2013 all the 13 weeks\u2019 worth of course elements need to be ready well in advance of the course start date.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery activity has to have clear objectives and clear outcomes, and my assessments have to be also very clear on how the outcomes will be met,\u201d says Tr\u00e9panier.<\/p>\n

When it comes to course preparation, Cheung says he often tries to reflect and anticipate what kinds of questions students might have.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m teaching a particular topic, I have to imagine [as if] I had taught it before as a face-to-face course \u2013 I have to imagine what questions would be asked. So there\u2019s a lot of soul searching really, you need to find out whether you\u2019re making the point clear enough for the students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the advance work required, Tr\u00e9panier says she definitely prefers online courses for large class sizes, and highlights how much she loves the flexibility it offers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can be abroad, I can do my research, I can have a cold. If I\u2019m in the middle of a snowstorm I\u2019m still working, if my children are sick I can stay home and teach. So my personal life is of better quality when I can actually teach one online course a term,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Face-to-face and online, theatre and movies. They are two very different approaches, but one does not exclude the other. And at the end of the day, the audience remembers the experience more than the modality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Matthew Curtis, Fourth-Year Journalism, Carleton University From a teaching perspective, comparing face-to-face with online courses is somewhat like comparing movies with theatre. Movies take a lot of time to produce up front, but once they\u2019re done they can be replayed, or parts of them can be used for different purposes. Theatre is live, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nScreen time and face time: The triumphs and trials of teaching online - Teaching and Learning Services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Matthew Curtis, Fourth-Year Journalism, Carleton University From a teaching perspective, comparing face-to-face with online courses is somewhat like\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2019\/screen-time-and-face-time-the-triumphs-and-trials-of-teaching-online\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"CCMS Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2019\/screen-time-and-face-time-the-triumphs-and-trials-of-teaching-online\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2019\/screen-time-and-face-time-the-triumphs-and-trials-of-teaching-online\/\",\"name\":\"Screen time and face time: The triumphs and trials of teaching online - 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