Article #2 - The art of online teaching

Article 2 (Course material)

Palloff, R.M., & Pratt, K. (2001). The art of online teaching. Lessons from the cyberspace classroom. The realities of online teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Summary: “Unlike the face to face classroom, in online distance education attention needs to be paid to developing a sense of community in the group of participants in order for the learning process to be successful” (p. 20). This places online distance education (ODE) in opposition to the traditional face-to-face classroom; it also seems to assume that face-to-face classrooms are unable to develop a “sense of community”. This point makes more sense within the context of an article that takes the approach that not every teacher is suited to teaching online, and few teachers have access to the training or time needed to create a deep, flexible online learning environment. 

Evaluation: As the title proclaims, the chapter is didactic in nature, rather than explicitly opening up ideas for debate or pointing towards a future scenario. The article makes useful, if sometimes obvious recommendations, such as pairing those new to online teaching with those who have more experience (p. 23). Other statements are of a more dubious nature, such as “Working online certainly takes more time than teaching face-to-face”, which ignores context as a factor. In recommending asynchronous learning environments, group work is not considered - and although the chapter seems aimed a HE teachers, group work does not get much discussion. Synchronous vs asynchronous environments are touched on via a discussion of chat functions, but the effects on the learner of asynchronous learning are assumed to be  positive (p. 25).  The chapter is extremely successful at pointing out the ‘black holes’ of those heading into online teaching for the first time, and quotes published research to support their ideas. Lists of what to/not to do certainly give many ideas to teachers new to online DE, or offer a refresher for a more experienced online educator.

Source: This book chapter is cited more than 1000 times on Google Scholar, with most of the citations coming from articles in peer-reviewed journals. The authors have long careers in education and technology. This should be considered a respectable source.

Relevance and Comparison to other sources: Although only published one year apart, this is a very different article to that by Collis and Moonen. This functions more as a ‘how to’ guide for planning and implementation of online teaching, and is fairly black and white on what works and what doesn’t. It is firmly based in the authors’ interpretation of best practice, and is not a theoretical or exploratory article.