Teaching on-Line versus Face-to-Face

Abstract

This study investigates and describes the current instructor experience of teaching college courses over the Web (versus in face-to-face formats) in terms of the teaching strategies, social issues, and emergent issues such as media effects. We interviewed 22 college instructors who had taught in both formats. Four of the interviews were made by telephone and eighteen by e-mail. Interview fragments were categorized and counted for frequency to highlight emerging trends. Results indicate that Web-based classes have a profoundly different communication style than face-to-face classes. This has far-reaching consequences for on-line classes in terms of greater equality between students and instructors, greater explicitness of written instructions required, greater workloads for instructors and deeper thinking manifested in discussions, initial feelings of anonymity giving way later to emerging on-line identities. Authors propose a model with two competing systems, isolation effects versus community effects.