When I taught face to face college classrooms, basically, I would just go to class 3 times a week and give 3 one hour lectures. Then, I would grade papers and have office hours 2 times a week after my 1 hour lecture and then have weekends off. When I created my lectures, they could be Power Point presentations, but most of the time, I just spoke off the top of my head and I mainly did group activities and question and answer sessions.
"In planning a face-to-face course, many faculty devote significant time to creating and developing lectures. For online courses, the time spent in preparing lectures morphs into preparing short text, audio or video introductions and many lectures, developing and managing threaded discussions, and monitoring student discussion and reflection spaces such as forums on the course site. Lectures in the face to face class are the primary channel for faculty to student dialogue. This is important to the teaching presence as these lectures convey the special expertise and personality of the instructor. In planning a face-to-face course, many faculty devote significant time to creating and developing lectures..In the online classroom the equivalent teaching presence is expressed in the weekly plans, teaching guides, discussions, and faculty comments and observations." 114
When I taught online, my lectures were no longer one hour oral lectures in front of living breathing students. My lectures in online classes became written text posted in an online classroom where I had written text, interspersed with videos, audio clips and flowcharts for variety. My Teaching Presence was no longer just my 3 hour lectures in a classroom. Instead, my lecture presence became my class materials in the classroom, my announcements, my forum participation, my feedback to students on papers and forums, my email responses to student questions and my video lectures posted in Resources, Lectures and Forums. When I add videos, audios and pictures to my lecture, I appeal to learners of all modalities (audio, video and hands on learners)
In a traditional face-to-face college classroom, lectures are given by the professor to the students. I remember my professor lecturing us about mathematics, and we were a classroom of 500 students. He then used teaching assistance to give us quizzes and to have a remedial and to have if we had any questions we were director questions to the teaching assistant and so that was my experience in college when it came to the professor the professor was the center of authority and the center of expertise as he gave up but three lectures of one hour each on Monday , Wednesday, Friday. Therefore, on Monday I would listen to one hour; then, on Wednesday, I'd listen to another hour, and then on Friday, I would listen to another hour. So when I was in college, it was pretty much a teacher centered classroom with the teacher who did all the talking, and we were like receptacles that received the information and regurgitated the same information on our weekly quiz that was given by our TA.
In an online classroom, professors cannot lecture for one hour three times a week. Instead the lecture is written down and the one hour lecture is the weekly lecture notes that are in the online classroom that students read once a week. So when an online teacher prepares a class online class, she has to write about One hour of lecture notes per week and then the other two hours are filled with video lectures mini lectures and forum participation it's in that way that students get the required three hours per week in an online classroom to be equal to in face to face three credit class.
An online lecture is much different than the traditional or lecture giving in a face-to-face classroom. When an online teacher writes an online lecture, she has to put in audio clips, and video so that students of all modalities can learn the same material. When you have a face to face lecture, the student can see the body language of the professor so the Visual learner can actually see the three dimensional figure of the teacher and the audio learner can hear the professor's voice as he gives the lecture to the class. So in an online environment, when an online teacher writes lecture notes, she has to include audio clips and video clips in order to accommodate the video and audio learner.
Many college professors feel that a teacher centered classroom with the teacher at the center of the classroom giving a lecture and students just being mere receptacles of information is out of date. These days , teachers want to design a more learner centered classroom where the learner takes center stage and constructs his or her own knowledge from the readings and assignments given in the classroom. So the teacher, instead of being the Sage on the Stage morphs into the Guide on the side. In an online classroom, I have to keep my video and audio clips short not more than 2 to 3 minutes unlike the traditional one hour lecture given in the traditional face-to-face college classroom.
I still believe that college lectures still have a place in both the online classroom and the face-to-face classroom. Lectures tell students that the teacher is an expert in her field and that students are learning from the very best. Many teachers feel that lectures should be made obsolete since lecturing promotes a more teacher centered classroom and many students feel one hour lectures are boring.
One of the advantages of being in an online classroom is that you only have 2 to 3 minute lectures audio clips and videos and the rest of the class consists of assignments papers tests and Forum discussions and it is in this forum discussions that students get to construct their own knowledge and take charge of the class. So, rather than having students be mere receptacles of knowledge, students in the forums can discuss the topic at length with each other and with faculty. The importance of the teacher recedes into the background as the teacher becomes just the facilitator of knowledge rather than being the expert lecturer.
No comments:
Post a Comment