Are you planning Online Lectures or Online Teaching?

 
 

In conversation with a colleague who manages groups of university lecturers, I was told that a lot of the teaching staff are using their online classes to lecture – they talk to their students continuously for two and a half hours via Teams.

In a lot of ways, this isn’t surprising. In timetabling terms, universities have largely continued to timetable classes in the same way that they would if the module were taught face-to-face – 2.5 hours on Monday morning for Economics or Advanced Programming or Applied Psychology, etc. That leaves teaching staff with the dilemma of what to do with your students for that 2.5-hour slot. Intuitively, a lot of us turn to what we would do with that time if it were in a face-to-face environment – lecture. After all, that time would normally be spent in a lecture theatre, and I would present all the relevant conceptual knowledge to the students throughout that slot.

What happens online?

I’ve worked on the development of lots and lots of fully distance online programmes for UK universities. When we plan and design distance courses, we most often start with an assumption of fully asynchronous teaching. The ‘teaching’ is the planned sequencing of learning activities – among which will be the acquisition of knowledge through watching (short) recordings or reading. The students are then asked to carry out research, answer questions, contribute to discussions or participate in group work. The key question is what do you want your students to do?

Any ‘real-time’ teaching is an add on or an add-value. When synchronous teaching is scheduled, through webinars or web-conferencing, we think carefully about what the value for the students will be – and rather than use real-time interaction to lecture (which students can get through digitally available resources), we use that time to take questions, getting students to work collaboratively, set challenges, and generate discussion.

Think in stages

If you have two hours with your class, think of that time in stages, rather than topics. Think of learning steps you want your students to go through. You will likely want to start with time that you spend talking to the students – presenting on key subjects, following up on what they learned last week, responding to questions they have provided or setting them up for the tasks you want them to carry out. But try to keep this talking time down to 15 or 20 minutes, and then ask your students to do something, which might be:

  • Individual tasks – answer questions, thinking of questions, solving problems, researching a topic, carrying out a task, brainstorming ideas, etc.

  • Pair or small group tasks (using the breakout rooms function in your webinar software) – answer questions, solve problems, compare experience, brainstorm ideas, etc/

  • Things that the whole class do together – discuss questions, solve problems, share examples, challenge you, ask you and the class questions, etc.

Don’t be afraid of silence. If you give your students thinking time, they will be much more likely to give responses. If you give them time in small groups and pairs, they will be much better equipped to give an answer when you pull the whole class back together.

Also, remember that you can ask students to do things before or after your class time – use the VLE to provide resources, set questions, instruct activities, etc.

Example stages to an online lesson

So, remember to think in stages, which might be something like:

  1. The teacher presents on key points for the preparatory reading (15 mins)

  2. Small groups respond to questions (15 mins)

  3. Whole class discuss responses (30 mins)

  4. The teacher presents further concepts (10 mins)

  5. Individual students work on their own examples (20 mins)

  6. Small groups compare examples (15 mins)

  7. Whole class Q&A (15 mins)

Note that the two hours quickly breaks down into sets of shorter tasks, which are all still focussed on key topics of the day.

If I don’t teach it, will they learn?

A lot of lecturers express concern that if they have not presented a topic to their students, then they cannot be certain that the students will understand it. I have two challenges to that:

  1. Are you the only source of this information – can’t the students get their learning from the textbooks or other secondary sources?

  2. If the students haven’t done anything with the information, how can you know that they understand it?

Uncertain? – poll your students

If you are uncertain whether this type of approach to your online classes will work, why not try it out and then poll your students to see if they prefer this approach, or quiz them to see if they are learning more. Students may have to accept that they will need to be more prepared to start each class (e.g., with preparatory reading), but they will certainly get more out of their time with you.


Steve Hogg