Teaching Online

This week many colleagues are migrating their courses to an online format to meet the needs of our students. So, I would like to share a 2015 article entitled, "Faculty Perceptions Of Moving A Face-to-Face (F2F) Course To Online Instruction" by Chiasson, Terras and Smart. The authors explored categories of planning, implementation, and reflection. Within the categories, themes emerged which addressed tech support received during online course development, time commitment, faculty role, instructional strategies, adjustment of teaching in an online course, synchronous vs. asynchronous instruction, faculty confidence, and control.

Conclusions from the study included:

1. When planning, faculty realized that developing an online course is more time intensive than F2F, and spent ample time with an instructional designer learning the technologies to support their self-identified pedagogy; thus, compensation for development was perceived as necessary;

2. While implementing their online course, faculty’s conceptual framework was their prior F2F course; interestingly, for those who delivered it synchronously, online did not require different instructional tools like it did teaching asynchronously; and

3. As a result of teaching online, faculty increased their confidence and believed they became better instructors in their F2F courses.

4. Faculty perceived they had less control teaching an online course resulting in students taking more responsibility in their own learning

"One of the major concerns was the need to provide students with more detail and clearly sharing the due dates of all assignments. All participants made an adjustment while teaching. They realized that it was unrealistic to take everything from their F2F course and put online."

Chiasson, K., Terras, K., & Smart, K. (2015). Faculty perceptions of moving a face-to-face course to online instruction. Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 12(4).