Some educators believe that online teaching is lower quality and ineffective, but in fact, various researches showed that online learning may produce better results than traditional instruction(Major 2015).
There are five elements of online learning, which are enrollment, amount, timing, platform and pathway (Major 2015). Online courses all provide platforms that distributed learning and open learning.
No matter what the way of learning, students should have a strong self-awareness. They need to concentrate to complete assignments on time and participate in online classes. How to make the teaching form of the teacher accepted by the students becomes extremely important. Teachers also need to prepare a lot for the class to ensure that students can understand. The content of the online courses needs to be very systematic and detailed for students to learn in depth. The teacher assigns tasks on time, students complete assignments on time, and communicate with the teacher in a timely manner are all important parts of the online learning.
Open learning gives everyone the opportunity to get knowledge and anyone can participate in the class. Although open education’s approaches and technologies are different, they are all learner-centred. Whether the courses are delivered in person or through distributed learning and open learning, effective teaching methods and student effort are the focus.
References
Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)
Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.
zhaohantan
Hi Fenghua,
You are quite right that online courses require students to have strong self-awareness. Since they can adjust the time and place to study online courses, they feel free to have class or do assignment. Teachers cannot have any effective interactive skills like they do in the traditional class. Therefor, teachers should take this into consideration when they design online lesson plans.
Personally, I have an advice for you. When you try to support your ideas with data or quotation from someone, you should have the in-text citation. For example, in your first and second paragraphs, you illustrate the contents from Major, you can cite in the form of APA or MLA and tell others that you quote these ideas from him. It is not appropriate to copy or paraphrase contents without citation.
Meng
I agree with you that the ultimate goal of all teaching methods is to help students better understand knowledge. Both face-to-face teaching and open learning have their own advantages and disadvantages. While online courses are more convenient, they also reduce the interaction between teachers and students. But ultimately, these tools are only aids to teaching, and both teachers and students should be held accountable for their learning.
olliefromcanada
Hi Fenghua,
Great post! I agree alot with what you said about student accountability. I didn’t write that in my post but it’s something worth remembering when comparing to online vs traditional the student’s must set more deadlines onto themselves to meet the school’s online criteria. I agree with Zhao that this is something teachers must consider when moving to online studies.
I also agreed and even wrote similar aspect about the positive of open learning. Your point on it being learning centred despite technology difference is something I might need to disagree on though. Especially in the case of online streaming classes that aren’t recorded. Because some students quality of education will be hindered by the lack of stable internet connection and that is something that must be furthered talked upon in the future. Otherwise I enjoyed reading it!