In-person vs. online - the differences (part 2)

Previous post: In-person vs. online - the similarities (part 1)

In the first postlet (linked above), I focused on the similarities between in-person classes at school and classes in the online environment. In this postlet, I will interweave the findings of research studies with my practical experiences as a math teacher to illustrate the differences between these two modes of teaching/learning with a continued focus on one-to-one classes as that is my area of expertise.

A point worth mentioning here - there are four types of classes that we could technically experience and analyse:

1. classes in schools (one-to-many and in-person)
2. private in-person tuition classes (one-to-one and in-person)
3. online classes being conducted by schools during the Covid-19 pandemic (one-to-many and online)
4. private tuition classes over the web (one-to-one and online)

I have extensively taught in contexts #1 and #4 and taught, to a limited extent, in context #2 when sitting down with individual children after school to explain a concept. I have no experience in context #3.

Hence, there might be some tension and blurring of boundaries in the analysis that follows owing to the fact that there are two variables at play and I don't have equal exposure to all four contexts. However, I'll try my best to keep the analysis focused on in-person vs. online! 😀

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Logistics

As far back as 1995, Derek Rowntree, a professor of educational development in the United Kingdom, taught a one-to-many online course and published his findings on the model. He commented on the flexibility of online courses to adapt to what learners actually want to talk about. However, Rowntree was cautious in his optimism by mentioning technological difficulties around hardware, software and internet bandwidth (Rowntree, 1995). This was rather prescient of him as, even today, when educational systems pivoted to online learning in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, they faced similar challenges.

During my three years as a teacher in under-resourced schools, the logistics and infrastructure needed were pretty straightforward - chairs and desks for students, a chair and desk for the teacher, a blackboard/whiteboard, chalk/whiteboard markers and duster, electricity for lights and fans and a portable projector (optional - I bought one and used it for videos, movie screenings, presentations, activities etc.). Besides these aspects, I also needed a printer and photocopier shops for worksheets and supplemental material and stationery shops for classroom supplies. Of course, my students and I were in the same physical space for all our lessons.

The logistics/infrastructure for online teaching is worlds apart. For starters, my students join the session from their homes and I join from mine; in fact, I've taught children from Denmark, the UAE and Singapore where the children and I were in different countries altogether! 😂 Due to constraints around internet bandwidth, we tend to keep our videos off so that we can hear each another clearly. A computer/laptop screen with a shared whiteboard serves as the visual medium of communication. I upload images/content and 'write' on the whiteboard using a digitiser (see an example here). No printing, photocopying and classroom supplies are required. Of course, electricity is the fuel that keeps all parts of this engine smoothly running! Unlike a physical classroom, examining student work is more challenging since I can't walk around the class and it isn't convenient for my students to write on the whiteboard without a digitiser! So, I've adapted to asking them to call out their steps and I write them on the whiteboard which helps during problem solving.

Customisation

At school, there was one teacher (me) and 40 students. Tailoring the daily class to each student's needs was out of the question - especially when I had some children who couldn't read or add/subtract and others who were expert readers and whizzes with numbers. The closest I came to customising lessons was during extra classes where I practised differentiation by having 3 batches of students created broadly based on their English and math levels. In these classes, I was able to cover stories/grammar and solve math problems appropriate to their levels. However, not all children could stay for extra classes so, by and large, customisation was a challenge that I could not overcome during my fellowship.

For those who can access them, online classes provide synchronous supplemental instruction that meet students where they are – both, academically and physically (Vasquez III & Slocum, 2012). On similar lines, my one-to-one classes online are inherently customised. Once I have taught a child for a few weeks, I develop a sense of their working style and existing knowledge and use this information to design the class in their zone of proximal development. I am able to encourage and guide them through focused attention which serves to enhance both their skills and confidence. Furthermore, if they are struggling with a concept, I can explain it in different ways and give them multiple opportunities to practice until they attain mastery (this is backed by research by Whetstone et al., 2014).

While not the focus of this piece, I should mention here that one-to-many classes online will face challenges similar to in-person classes at school with respect to customisation.

Dialogue

In one-to-one online classes, a well-executed lesson would have a back-and-forth dialogue between the teacher and student which makes the process engaging (Chappell et al., 2015). To explore this power of dialogue, another study looked at whether frequent and focused interactions/conversations between the teacher and student helped the teacher adapt on the fly and select actions/methods that were likely to benefit that particular student (Siler & VanLehn, 2015). The study conclusively found that teachers drew on prior experiences and interactions with students to adapt and inform their future teaching actions.

With regards to my in-person classes at school, I firmly avoided lectures/monologues even when I had 40 children to work with. I tried to facilitate dialogue between myself and the class as a whole (by encouraging participation, calling on students at random, group/team activities etc.) or between two or more students (or groups of students) to create a stronger lesson. Such interactions gave me a broad sense of whether my teaching was leading to the learning outcomes that I wanted or not. 

My online classes took classroom dialogue to another level. Since I couldn't see my students or respond to their body language cues, I was completely reliant on speaking to them and hearing their responses (and tone of their responses) to gauge their understanding of key ideas. This dialogue, accompanied by humour and informal conversations, was also key to building a rapport with my students because, unlike school, I couldn't informally chat with them outside class, share lunches with them, play sports with them or visit their homes and parents.

Note-taking

During in-person classes at school, my students would note down important points from the lesson that I either dictated to them or wrote on the blackboard. They worked out problems in their notebooks that I would collect and correct. Content on the blackboard was eventually wiped out so they used to be under some degree of stress to write at a reasonably efficient speed before the next subject period.

In online classes, all slides (with markings and annotated notes made during the session) are available as a compact document upon completing the class. Students can focus entirely on understanding the concept without having to copy the slides into their notebooks. During a session, a previous slide is one click away and never wiped out as such; thus, there is a reassurance that content can be conveniently revisited (if required) at a later point of time.

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I hope that these two postlets gave you a sense of the similarities and differences between in-person classes at school and classes in the online environment. In subsequent postlets, I intend to get back to the meat of online teaching by outlining my approaches to planning and execution of regular non-trial sessions.

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References

Chappell, S., Arnold, P., Nunnery, J., & Grant, M. (2015). An Examination of an Online Tutoring Program’s Impact on Low-Achieving Middle School Students' Mathematics Achievement. Online Learning, 19(5), pp. 37-53.

Rowntree, D. (1995). Teaching and learning online: a correspondence education for the 21st century? British Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3), pp. 205-215.

Siler, S. A. & VanLehn, K. (2015). Investigating Microadaptation in One-to-One Human Tutoring. The Journal of Experimental Education, 83:3, pp. 344-367.

Vasquez III, E. & Slocum, T. A. (2012). Evaluation of synchronous online tutoring for students at risk of reading failure. Exceptional Children, 78(2), pp. 221-235.

Whetstone, P., Clark, A., & Flake, M. W. (2013). Teacher perceptions of an online tutoring program for elementary mathematics. Educational Media International, pp. 1-12.

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I read the articles quoted as part of the course EDU T561 Transforming Education through Emerging Technologies at the Harvard Graduate School of Education while pursuing my master's degree.