Online Teaching : Purpose and Methods

Abstract

Education is changing. In a time when demographic, economic, political, and pedagogical reasons are causing a greater number of adults to seek access to larger amounts of quality education in post-secondary settings, research into the characteristics of those settings becomes important. The design as well as delivery of online courses differs from traditional education. Through a combination of survey research conducted by the author, and a review of literature regarding online teaching, this article places online teaching in the larger context of technology-mediated learning and an educational framework of transforming students into self-directed, life-long learners. Examples from the text of the survey responses are given and summaries are made of the main teaching styles used by online teachers: discussion, collaboration, authentic learning activities, and self-reflection/self-assessment. Teachers value these purposes and methods that the online classroom serves as a catalyst in helping to define.