CETL Resources: Teaching in Different Modalities - Pros and Cons

Recording lectures for all students both synchronous and asynchronous:

For this method you can either:

• Hold lectures as normal, teaching live to students who can attend and, if possible, broadcast live to students who cannot be present in person. We recommend using Zoom or Teams.
• Record lecture and upload to Moodle for remote students to view if they cannot attend synchronously.

No matter what option you choose, we recommend pairing the lecture with a discussion board to allow remote students to ask questions and more easily engage with the material. 

All assignments, lectures, and assessments should be available online. 

Pros:

• Easy for faculty, can maintain normalcy as much as possible
• Limited extra work for faculty
• In-person experience doesn’t suffer
• All online materials are asynchronous 

Cons:

• More passive experience for remote students
• Similar to what happened in spring 2020 (which was met with some negative student feedback)

Fully integrate remote students (synchronous for all)

For this option you would hold lectures as normal and have a TA come to class to engage remote students synchronously (preferably on a department-provided laptop for privacy reasons). Class would be broadcasted live through Zoom or Teams and require all students to attend either in person or virtually.

A student could be asked to  manage questions from the remote students that may arise, and any group work will need to include remote students.

Pros:

• Remote students are as close to in-person as possible
• Faculty only have to teach class once
• Students feel connected to campus/community

Cons:

• Time zones will keep some students from likely being able to attend synchronously
• Technology limitations in some classrooms may present challenges
• May require you to think about asking a student to help monitor chat / Q and A

Two synchronous versions of the course (In-person and Remote)

Teach the course twice: once at the regularly scheduled time for students who can meet in-person and once virtually for remote students at a time that collectively works for them. 

Pros:

• Both the in-person and remote students feel sense of community
•  Can accommodate time zones more easily

Cons:

• Requires instructor to teach the course twice 
• Two separate learning communities instead of one 

Flipped Classroom 

Record lectures for students to view asynchronously and follow best practices for pre-recorded lectures listed above.

You can use class time for active learning and will likely need two separate experiences, one for remote students and one for in-person students. Alternatively, you could potentially create a different experience for remote students if time zones cannot be accommodated. 

Integrate alternative assessment methods into the class time for more frequent and lower-stakes experiences. 

Pros:

• Allows all students equal access to lecture material
• Creates learning communities
• Class time can be kept shorter than the full lecture, potentially allowing for half the class to attend one day and the other half another day
• More active, engaged learning under the supervision of the instructor

Cons:

• Have to prepare the lecture videos ahead of time 
• Requires the creation of in-class active learning activities (but this is also a pro, since such activities are hugely beneficial to students!)

Adapted / Modified from: Rochester university CTL 

Example of what a flipped classroom may look like:

1. On their own, students read the assigned textbook chapters.

2. They complete exercises through Moodle (these are graded automatically).

3. When class begins on Tuesday, they complete an "entry ticket" which further assesses their learning from the reading.

4. If they score a 95% or better on both the exercises and the entry ticket, they can opt out of the rest of Tuesday's class. For everyone else, we meet and review the concepts they had the most trouble with.

5. Before class on Thursday, they watch a video lecture (about 15 minutes) which adds additional concepts not covered by the textbook.

6. In class on Thursday, they do activities in class that challenge them to apply the learning in a more complex manner.

Want to know more? Free MIT Course: How to Flip Your Classroom