3. DEMANDS FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION
More faculty members needed
Issues of time
Developing the course
Designing the course
Delivery of the course
4. REQUIREMENTS FOR TEACHING
ONLINE
TOTALLY RETHINK AND REVAMP LESSONS
TOTALLY RETHINK AND REVAMP TEACHING
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT NEED TO BE SET-UP
DIFFERENTLY
TECHNICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL TRAINING
DIFFERENCES IN COMMUNICATION
5. 3 STUDIES WERE REVIEWED
Teaching Online - A Time Comparison
By: Joseph Cavanaugh
Teaching Time Investment: Does Online Really Take More Time
than Face – to – Face?
By: Rebecca Van de Vord and Korolyn Pogue
Comparison of Time Investment in Common Teaching Practices
among Three Instructional Methods
By: Cynthia B. McKenney, Ellen Peffley, and Igino Teolis
9. REFERENCES
Cavanaugh, J., (2005). Teaching online-a time comparison. Online Journal of Distance
Learning Administration Content, 8(1). Retrieved from
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring_81/cavanaugh81.htm
McKenney, C., Peffley, E. & Teolis, I. (2010, February). Comparison of time investment in
common teaching practices among three instructional methods. Teaching methods, 20(1), 245-
249. Retrieved from http://horttech.ashspublications.org/content/20/1/245.full
Van de Vord, R., & Pogue, K. (n.d.). Teaching time investment: Does online really take more
time than face-to-face. (2012). The International Review of Research in Open and Distance
Learning, 13(3), Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1990/2212
Pirani, J. A. (2004). Supporting e-learning in higher education. Retrieved from
http://net.educause/it/library/pdf/ERS0303.pd
Jones, C. (2001, January). Ain't got time to teach. Training Magazine, Retrieved from
http://www.trainingmagg.com/article/aint-got-time-teach
Arabasz, P., Pirani, J., & Fawcett, D. (n.d.). Supporting e-learning in higher education. (2003).
Educause, 3, 39-48. Retrieved from
http:net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0303/rs/ers03036.pdf
DiBiase, D. (2000). Is distance teaching more work or less work? The American Journal of
Distance Education, 14(3), pp. 6-20.
Editor's Notes
Hi my name is Shauna Riedy. Development and Delivery Time of Distance Teaching Versus Face to Face is an issue which is not thoroughly understood.
Does online teaching take more time than traditional teaching?This is an issue, which has not been studied immensely, but needs to be researched more in-depth, especially the total time needed to design, develop, and teach. Both development and delivery time need to be researched together in order to make a solid comparison of the two instructional modes.
With the huge success of online classes, came the demands for universities to offer more distance education courses, thus more faculty was needed to keep up with the demand to teach them. Should we be paying distant educators more for their expertise? Do they spend more time when developing, designing, and teaching on-line courses versus face-to-face? Many instructors state that the time commitment is too great. Is this true? Where do overburdened instructors draw the line
While researching the topic of time commitment for teaching online, I examined what some of the requirements for teaching an online course entailed. “Each instructor needs to totally rethink and revamp their lessons and teaching for their e-learning classes which takes substantial time and effort. The design and development of their online course needs to be set-up differently. They also need technical and pedagogical training, which is a major commitment of additional time beyond their daily workload. Then there is the biggest time commitment for e-teaching, which is the communication requirements when actually teaching the course. “Instructors are challenged by the time required to write rather than speak their thoughts and to build interactivity into a course along with the ongoing course maintenance which needs to be done. Instructors and students underestimate e-learning’s time commitment.
The first two studies showed no difference when teaching online versus face to face. In the Van De Vord and Pogue study, the results of this research showed that interaction time with students was greater in the traditional classes while evaluating students and their work was greater in the online courses. The importance of this data is not whether time demand is greater in one environment or the other, but where and how that time is spent, which will point to possible strategies for supporting instructors teaching online. The Cavanaugh study showed that even though the time demands were greater, teaching online was not as taxing as the data suggested. Online teaching can be overwhelming only if you let it. The third study by McKenney, Peffly, and Teolios, stated that a series of one-way analyses of variance were run to test the hypothesis that there is no difference in the amount of time per day needed to conduct a course using different teaching mode.
In the previous three studies the design and development time was not used when recording the data.
The survey and qualitative interview studies showed that instructors viewed teaching an online class as timelier involving all aspects of teaching especially with designing and delivering the course material. According to Jones online teaching requires instructors to learn new technology, new instructional methods, and new ways to design courses. These studies indicated that instructors thought that distance education was very time-consuming.
In Summary, the research on the time commitment for teaching online versus traditional teaching is unclear on which takes longer. There are many factors, which make this issue hard to research and find comparable data to justify that online teaching takes more or equal time of face-to-face teaching. Most of the qualitative data states that online teaching is more time-consuming while the quantitative data leans more to traditional teaching taking more time. A lot of the research did not include the design and development time for e-teaching as they state that it is not the actual teaching. I feel that until studies include course development, design, and delivery for distance teaching, there will never be accurate data for this issue. Does online teaching take more time? Not sure.
