Scheduled online courses are better

Online teaching, where the student is placed in front of the computer at home, is a great supplement to the more conventional teaching in auditoriums, as the class size, often exceeding more than a hundred students, is a challenge to the wish to include the students and the need for dialogue during teaching. Annemette Kjærgaard, Associate Dean for Learning, and Thyra Uth Thomsen, Associate Professor, have studied online teaching from a pedagogical perspective. In February, they published their first survey of student attitudes towards this type of teaching.

According to Annemette Kjærgaard, the courses offer new opportunities to include the students in the teaching and may be a supplement to other teaching activities. The flexibility in being able to take a class in their own time is great; however, there is a "but".

"Online teaching calls for more systematics. The physical relation, as we know it from conventional teaching, is missing," says Annemette Kjærgaard, who explains that online courses are popular because they give the students the opportunity to take courses at CBS, while studying abroad or doing an internship.

The need for scheduling and systematics can be covered by making uniform timetables, but varying the content.  An introduction video may for instance start the course, and after the students have read the syllabus, they will be presented to a quiz to make sure that they have understood what the course is about. All these elements are necessary to involve the students and make them participate in the online debates with each other as well as the lecturer.

CBS has made continuous adjustments to the course structure to create an optimum framework.

”It is a good thing to structure the teaching activities. It motivates the students to make active choices. However, we have also become less rigid and given them longer deadlines to for instance take quizzes than to begin with," says Annemette Kjærgaard.
Including the students is a pedagogical objective at CBS, and according to Annemette Kjærgaard, online courses are a contributor to that objective.

”If you are active in a learning situation, things tend to stick. A lot of students are able to contribute in an online forum, including those who are not as quick on the draw as the others, or those who feel uncomfortable speaking in front of a large class. Generally, the students are positive in the course evaluations, and a lot of them indicate that they are required to work just as much in an online course as in a normal lecture-dominated course, because they are expected to contribute actively", explains Annemette Kjærgaard. She bases this information on student evaluations and 19 individual and focus group interviews with students. They have all taken the online courses, which have been offered at CBS since 2014. They were asked about their perception of the course, how it motivated and challenged them and encouraged them to cooperate.

8-10 out of more than 1000 courses at CBS are fully online today. The objective is 3-4 pct. in 2020.


Read the paper and please contact Annemette Kjærgaard for more information.