Non-Traditional Classrooms
Contributed By: Sarah Heuckeroth and Natalia Ott
This week the Graduate Teaching Community looked at three examples of nontraditional course design: online courses, hybrid courses, and flipped classrooms. Each design has clear benefits for student learning, but also has drawbacks to overcome in order to use it effectively.
In online courses all learning, assessment, and communication is done online. The benefits of online courses mainly focus on flexibility—they are highly accessible, students can choose how to fit the class into their schedules, and students can go through material at their own pace and review it as many times as they need to. Online courses also offer great flexibility to the instructor in terms of when and from where they can teach the class, and once the class is developed the instructor can reuse course content quickly and easily. Additionally, online courses offer students a low-stress environment in which to interact, which can be helpful for shy students, and give students the opportunity to interact with a diverse array people.
Despite their flexibility and accessibility, online courses have several drawbacks. Students are responsible for keeping up with course material and for participating fully in the course, which can take some adjustment from a standard classroom mentality. It can be difficult for the instructor to judge student engagement and to know if the students understand the material that is being presented. This is compounded by the fact that online courses are more impersonal, and students may feel too intimidated to ask a question when they need clarification. While online courses offer flexibility in when and where the they are taught, they are inherently less flexible in content. Experiential and active learning are challenging to implement through online courses, and it is much more challenging for an instructor to makes changes to address the immediate needs of the students. They also require tech-savvy students, a tech-savvy professor, and a user-friendly interface in order to be successful.
Hybrid courses mix online and in-person learning, with a substantial part of the course presented in each format. In many ways they use the best aspects of both, overcoming the impersonal aspects of online courses while still being more accessible and flexible than a purely in-person course. The can be designed to cater to a variety of learning styles and they provide opportunities for independent learning as well as group learning. Unlike online courses, hybrid courses have great flexibility of content which allows the instructor to be more creative and engaging when presenting the material.
The drawbacks of hybrid courses center on teacher utilization of, and student adaptation to, the new course format. From an instructor’s point of view, it could be challenging to utilize both aspects of the hybrid course, rather than relying too heavily on one or the other. It could also take time and effort to determine what parts of the course are best suited for online and which would be best presented in person. For students it may be hard to adjust to the new class style and the necessity for self-driven learning. This could lead to frustration and poor performance, as student and instructor expectations may not align.
A specific type of hybrid course, the flipped classroom, is a course in which material is communicated online and assignments are completed in-person. It is called a “flipped” classroom because in a traditional setting the material is presented in class and the students complete assignments in their own time. A flipped classroom allows students to learn material at their own pace, and then lets the instructor assess students’ understanding during the in-person portion. It allows for active engagement during class time and utilizes the in-person time to have the students connect and synthesize the material they have learned on their own. However, like other hybrid courses, flipped classrooms can be challenging for student accustomed to a more traditional teaching style. In order for the flipped classroom to be successful students must learn the material on their own, and it can be challenging for an instructor to ensure that this is happening.
This week the Graduate Teaching Community looked at three examples of nontraditional course design: online courses, hybrid courses, and flipped classrooms. Each design has clear benefits for student learning, but also has drawbacks to overcome in order to use it effectively.
In online courses all learning, assessment, and communication is done online. The benefits of online courses mainly focus on flexibility—they are highly accessible, students can choose how to fit the class into their schedules, and students can go through material at their own pace and review it as many times as they need to. Online courses also offer great flexibility to the instructor in terms of when and from where they can teach the class, and once the class is developed the instructor can reuse course content quickly and easily. Additionally, online courses offer students a low-stress environment in which to interact, which can be helpful for shy students, and give students the opportunity to interact with a diverse array people.
Despite their flexibility and accessibility, online courses have several drawbacks. Students are responsible for keeping up with course material and for participating fully in the course, which can take some adjustment from a standard classroom mentality. It can be difficult for the instructor to judge student engagement and to know if the students understand the material that is being presented. This is compounded by the fact that online courses are more impersonal, and students may feel too intimidated to ask a question when they need clarification. While online courses offer flexibility in when and where the they are taught, they are inherently less flexible in content. Experiential and active learning are challenging to implement through online courses, and it is much more challenging for an instructor to makes changes to address the immediate needs of the students. They also require tech-savvy students, a tech-savvy professor, and a user-friendly interface in order to be successful.
Hybrid courses mix online and in-person learning, with a substantial part of the course presented in each format. In many ways they use the best aspects of both, overcoming the impersonal aspects of online courses while still being more accessible and flexible than a purely in-person course. The can be designed to cater to a variety of learning styles and they provide opportunities for independent learning as well as group learning. Unlike online courses, hybrid courses have great flexibility of content which allows the instructor to be more creative and engaging when presenting the material.
The drawbacks of hybrid courses center on teacher utilization of, and student adaptation to, the new course format. From an instructor’s point of view, it could be challenging to utilize both aspects of the hybrid course, rather than relying too heavily on one or the other. It could also take time and effort to determine what parts of the course are best suited for online and which would be best presented in person. For students it may be hard to adjust to the new class style and the necessity for self-driven learning. This could lead to frustration and poor performance, as student and instructor expectations may not align.
A specific type of hybrid course, the flipped classroom, is a course in which material is communicated online and assignments are completed in-person. It is called a “flipped” classroom because in a traditional setting the material is presented in class and the students complete assignments in their own time. A flipped classroom allows students to learn material at their own pace, and then lets the instructor assess students’ understanding during the in-person portion. It allows for active engagement during class time and utilizes the in-person time to have the students connect and synthesize the material they have learned on their own. However, like other hybrid courses, flipped classrooms can be challenging for student accustomed to a more traditional teaching style. In order for the flipped classroom to be successful students must learn the material on their own, and it can be challenging for an instructor to ensure that this is happening.
Comments
Post a Comment