The topic 4 in ONL202 was about designing your course and teaching for online and blended learning environments. Moving away from the classical campus-based teaching towards online and blended learning forms has been challenging for most of us, especially during the year 2020 where everyone was forced to do this overnight. At our university, I remember when our management decided to offer online study programs during the last few years, they were faced with a lot of resistance from the teachers. Apart from the obvious workload for re-planning the course material for online environments, one of the main reasons for the resistance was perhaps the unfamiliarity with this form of teaching. Later during this year when teachers were forced to move to online environment anyhow, many realised that this was actually not as tricky as they thought. Many of the aspects when designing are the same as campus-based teaching, like encouraging student interaction, open communication, etc. My feeling during the discussions on this topic were exactly the same. When designing an online course, one needs to think about similar aspects as for a campus-based course, which are also highlighted in the different models presented during this topic, such as ‘The Five Stage Model’ [1] and ‘The Community of Inquiry’ [2]. The Five Stage Model consists of the following stages: Access and Motivation, Online Socialisation, Information Exchange, Knowledge Construction, and Development. On the other hand, The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model consists of the three key elements/dimensions: Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, and Teaching Presence. The CoI model highlights the importance of the social presence, that is being present for the students in a personal way and creating a ‘safe’ and friendly learning environment.

The challenge with the online environment is of course to implement these aspects successfully as compared to a campus-based environment. We tend to think that it is important to see heads nodding to make sure that everyone understands the lecture, but maybe it is only to make ourselves comfortable and is not needed all the time (?). Many teachers complain that online teaching means we need to learn new tools and familiarise well with the technology, but don’t we typically check the lecture hall (does projector work, are there enough whiteboard pens, etc.) before start of the course to familiarise ourselves with the classroom environment? Efforts are definitely needed to design an online course, but we should also think the new and unique possibilities that online teaching offers. For example, instead of having the same lecture every year, one could now record it and focus on other things (like student discussions) during the scheduled meeting times, which could be even more rewarding for the students. Whether we like it or not, the shift to online teaching is already happening and it would be best to adapt as quickly as possible.

References

[1] Salmon, G (2013) The Five Stage Model. [Homepage] http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html

[2] Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton: AU Press. Chapter 1 “The Community of Inquiry Conceptual framework”.

Do we need to think differently? (ONL202 Topic 4)