The Difference Between Online Courses and Offline Courses Delivered Online
Taking part in a webinar today, I was asked the question,
“Do you distinguish between online courses and offline courses that are being delivered online? Is there a difference, whether due to the temporary nature of the online delivery (we hope), the architecture and infrastructure is built differently etc.? Do these propositions present different types of issues and challenges?”
This is very relevant to me because my work for the last 12 years and more has been about the development of fully online distance learning programmes and modules, while the focus now, for me and for so many of us in the sector, is on the effective delivery of programmes and modules online which in normal circumstances would be delivered face-to-face, offline.
My answer to the question is, probably annoyingly and obviously, yes and no.
The Differences
A key difference between courses in these two scenarios is in timetabling – on-campus courses that have moved online retain the scheduled teaching slots throughout the week, whereas fully online distance learning courses are planned around weeks of study. This then has a huge impact on the expectations of teacher and students:
When you have scheduled teaching slots you will tend to approach these with the same expectations whether in person or online – that the two-hour slot on Tuesday is used to lecture to my students, and the hour slot on Wednesday is for a tutorial with a smaller group (for example). This expectation is passed on to your students.
When you take out that schedule and plan for asynchronous fully online teaching, you plan for a series of structured learning activities that students have to complete within the week, rather than at specific times. This shifts the focus on to what the students are going to do each week, rather than what they are going to attend.
Another key difference, that I’ve observed, is in the preparation that is put into it the teaching as a whole. For fully distance programmes there is often a lot of advance planning of what will happen across a whole programme, and in each module – planning for activity and assessment types, setting up of tools, getting consistency and equity across the modules. This does also happen in-class, but it seems that in the pivot to online, there has been perhaps less opportunity to plan for this kind of consistency in all teachers on a programme go about engaging their learners, and for each teacher, perhaps less advance planning on how the learners’ activity is going to be dispersed across the whole module.
It’s all the Same!
Having said all of that, my absolute overriding instinct is that the two are not that different; in fact, they are the same, just in exactly the way I would argue that online teaching and classroom teaching are fundamentally the same thing.
Successful teaching is about a subject matter expert planning a series of learning processes for a group of students so that they can achieve a set of learning outcomes. The students cognitive learning processes are triggered by the activities we instruct them to carry out – acquiring knowledge, researching, questioning, discussing, etc. That is the same whether you are teaching face-to-face, online or blended – it is just the environment for learning that changes.
How to Manage Your Offline Classes Online
My suggested takeaway for all teaching staff faced with delivering their classes fully online (or in the future, undoubtedly, blended) is to plan for what you want your students to do each week. Not what you are going to lecture on, or how YOU will spend the two-hour online class on Tuesday morning but plan for what your STUDENTS are going to do for the two-hour class on Tuesday, and what they are going to do between that class and the next one. Embedded in what they do are the elements you provide – explanation, clarification, support and guidance – as key components of what your students need to do in order to achieve the outcomes and be successful in the module. Focus on planning a structured sequence of learning activities, built into your scheduled classes and running across the week between them as well.
There is a strong chance that you will find that you can adapt this approach when you get back into the classroom. Your face-to-face lectures, seminars and your use of VLE will be different – to the benefit of your students, and for you as a teacher. And next time a lockdown strikes (god forbid!), you will find that the pivot to online is a more straightforward process of changing the environment for your students' activities.