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Have been thinking about why students and instructors favor in person ‘live’ instruction and find online synchronous instruction so difficult.
From the instructor perspective, a key thing I’ve experienced and I also hear from other instructors is the lack of nonverbal feedback when teaching synchronously online. You can’t see everyone, even if the students show themselves on camera, which most seem not to.
Live instruction possibly seems to be ‘3D’ vs the ‘2D’ image constrained by a screen. Seeing someone in person seems more real than seeing them on a screen. Difficult to overcome that barrier, as much as you try.
I think one advantage of synchronous instruction, whether live or online, must be related to the ability to adapt instruction in the moment in relation to the specific questions and conceptual difficulties expressed by the learners. Changing explanation on the fly.
This is harder to achieve online because of said absence of nonverbal feedback. It means providing more explicit ‘time outs’ in order to check for understanding.
My son told me that online he was more afraid to ask his teacher questions. So we need to be aware of this and make sure instructors provide a psychologically safe environment and also allow students to ask questions and clarifications anonymously.
All of these things we must work to overcome when teaching online. Students like dynamic, personal instruction that is adaptive to learners’ needs- we can do this, but it requires extra effort and to be intentional about building in ways to overcome these barriers.
