Does Online Education Work?

How have you handled the shift from in-person to online education? Does online education work? How does it compare to in-person or traditional education? How do we make online education better? I discuss all these questions in this episode of #CoffeeWithDrA​

Transcript

Today, on Coffee with Dr. A, I want to talk about how I transitioned from avoiding online courses, to absolutely loving them.  

A little more than a year ago, one of my colleagues asked me if I would ever teach online and without hesitating, I told them that my teaching style is not meant for online education. See, like many, I believed online education wouldn’t allow me to be an effective teacher. I believed that my energy and enthusiasm could not be replicated in an online classroom. I also believed that online courses didn’t allow the community to develop in the classroom. 

Well over the past year, due to the pandemic and like many teachers, I have had to move online. I have invested so much time studying and learning how to create engaging and productive virtual education. It has been the best thing that has happened to my teaching career, I have found new excitement and energy for teaching. 

I have gone from someone that avoided online education, to someone that believes the future is in online learning. Over the past 9 months, I have been invited to lead workshops, professional development, and discussions on how to best transition to online education. I thought I would create this three-part series on 1. Why I think the future belongs to online education which is this video 2. How to design online courses and build connections in online settings and 3. finally the resources you need to be an effective online educator, and the basics of how to use them.

If you are new here, I’m Dr. A. I am an Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Economic Education at Northern Kentucky University. I have made it my career mission to increase economic and financial literacy awareness in our community. I believe everyone would be better off with a better understanding of economics. 

Grab a cup of coffee and let’s talk about how I became a big believer in online education.  

The most common thing I hear about online education is

“Online education is not as effective as in-person or face to face education” or I hear students say  “Online courses are just not the same”

Well, I agree, online education is completely different than in-person education. However, it is not necessarily less effective. When it is less effective it is because educators were forced to take what they did in face-to-face environments and shift it to online settings. And that just doesn’t work. 

It reminds me of the cartoon that criticizes our education system.  It has a bunch of animals, a monkey, penguin, elephant, fish, a seal, and a dog sitting in front of what is a teacher. The teacher assesses their ability by asking them to take the same exam each animal has to climb the tree. The cartoon has been linked to Albert Einstein’s quote

“Everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”- Albert Einstein

I often think about that when I hear the debates about online vs face to face education. I think we are judging online education by how well it can replicate face to face education. It’s a new tool that should be used differently, and it provides new ways to engage learners. Forcing what we do in-person into an online course will be disastrous to all, students, educators, and administrators

 The other thing I often hear is the phrase “when we go back to normal”. There is this hope or desire to go back to the way things were. I am not sure that’s going to be the case. Students often talk about how much they prefer in-person education, but the reality is that this shift due to the pandemic will increase the expectations that each course will have an online component. Whether it is instructor created videos, meetings via zoom, or group work in virtual setting. 

The secret is out, virtual connections help reduce some barriers, and we will need to consider how we incorporate them in our lives. 

HOW TO BE EFFECTIVE IN ONLINE EDUCATION 

I totally understand the reluctance to change. Psychologically change creates uncertainty and fear. We feel like we might be losing something, even if that’s just our sense of comfort or routine. In this situation, the pandemic forced a drastic change on us in such a short period of time. Overall, at least at my institution, the transition went better than we could have expected, but now, that we have had some time to adjust we need to start thinking about the future, and that means investing in online education. 

Online teaching is here to stay. And we need to adjust how we teach. So what, exactly, is needed?

First, we need training for educators. In my professional development workshops for higher education, I spend a lot of time talking about how to redesign your courses. Next week’s video will go into more depth on course design and content development. But this is an area that most educators need more support. 

Administrators should be investing in building educator’s skillset to teach online. This is one area where I would like to see more investment. 

Teaching online requires high startup costs. For those of you that have seen my previous video of what I have invested in to create videos know that I spent a lot of money getting started. Since making that video I had to move across continents, that’s a long story that I might share some time, but due to the move I had to reinvest in a new office set up. My students loved my videos, as they said in the evaluations “The videos were professionally done!”, I’ll take that as a compliment or they said, “Love that the videos were made by my professor”. My students seeing how much I invested in creating course content showed them that at times we might face difficulties but with the right mindset, a growth mindset it is possible to tackle these difficulties together. 

Creating your own videos might seem to be overkill, especially with so many resources out there, but if you are able to, I think the videos for your class should include you in them! I would love to see higher ed invest in providing video support. Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions about how to get started.  

The market perception is that online education is inferior to in-person education. As I said already, it is not inferior, it is different. I also believe online education may not be for everybody. But neither is in-person education. Moving forward, “after the pandemic”, our higher education institutions will have to invest in both formats. For online education, we must admit that we haven’t invested enough in it. It is here to stay, and we need to do more. 

In next week’s video, I will talk about how I redesigned my course to be better suited for online learning and how I modified it for asynchronous and synchronous formats. I will also walk you through my strategy with content/material development. I would love to hear your thoughts about online education and your experience with the shift during the pandemic. Please share in the comments section below what was your most challenging part of transitioning to online education?

 See you next Friday at 9am eastern for Coffee With Dr. A