Online teaching and its place in your class

Office for Advancement of Learning and Teaching Best practices in teaching, learning and technology Online teaching and its place in your class

Online teaching and its place in your class

Online teaching was first introduced as a mode of distance education, in which students could learn with support despite being separated from their teachers in space and time. As the technology has matured, educators have realized that online teaching is not simply a replacement of face-to-face teaching, but an enhancement to traditional teaching modes. In response to COVID-19, most schools and higher education institutions adopted online teaching as part of their regular teaching. The key question for many teachers now is not whether they should adopt online learning, but how they can implement it effectively.

At HKMU, with the support of online learning platforms such as the OLE, teachers have a wide range of choices for delivering classes.

The three basic modes of teaching in the diagram above are face-to-face (F2F) class, Zoom class, and video lecture. With a mix of the three teaching modes above, we can have:

Blended learning

  • Some F2F classes are replaced by video lectures
  • Saves contact time and utilizes the contact time more effectively, i.e. flipped classroom

Hybrid teaching

  • F2F and Zoom teaching simultaneously; students can also watch a video recording of the class
  • Takes care of both in-class and out-of-class students

Teachers can pick the most efficient mode of delivery to cope with the nature of their courses and the needs of their students.