ILI Blog - Week 5 - Online vs. Face-to-face Instruction

Questions
What are the characteristics of good teaching? What are some types of online instruction? What are some characteristics of effective online instruction? Compare the advantages and disadvantages of online and face-to-face instruction. Describe an "aha" moment you had this week, if any.


Answers

 

• Advantages of online instruction include
• having instruction synchronously or asynchronously
• flexibility over time and space
• reaching across distance that make face-to-face impossible
• through course management platforms/programs, creation of a record of discussions, other exchanges and work as it develops, documenting it all and potentially making it viewable/extendable for years to come
• accessing instruction from anywhere and whenever the learner needs to learn
• Advantages of face-to-face instruction include
• providing immediate feedback on ideas
• potential for more emotionally interactive and deep discussions and explorations of ideas not possible online
• creates a set learning space and time which can help instructors and learners be present
•  in-person learning is potentially more likely to lead to deeper learning 
• Disadvantages of online instruction include
• potential lack of immediate feedback, if not live video/chatting (though even then there can be lags)
• the potential for technical difficulties postponing/derailing the instruction
• a lack of immediacy in correcting incorrect conclusions or understandings, or answering questions
• the potential to feel disconnected with and un-serious about learning where you don't have to be somewhere with others at a certain time, in the case of asynchronous online instruction
• also feeling disconnected from instructor or fellow learners
• difficulty for learners who aren't as strong in writing as they are in discussing in person
• Disadvantages of face-to-face instruction include
• not generally having a record of every instruction situation or interaction (can be made available in blended approaches)
• some learners will have trouble joining discussions in person (anxiety about group/public speaking, incompleteness of thoughts or needing time to formulate and share ideas, greater ability in writing)
• learners having to be absent will miss out
• time and location incompatibilities