Synchronous Vs Asynchronous; Who wins? Students decide

Waterford Institute of Technology’s online delivery capabilities have had to develop to keep up with evolving expectations. The Higher Diploma in Computer Science was selected as a pilot programme to identify good practice,... [ view full abstract ]

Waterford Institute of Technology’s online delivery capabilities have had to develop to keep up with evolving expectations. The Higher Diploma in Computer Science was selected as a pilot programme to identify good practice, improve the learning experience and maximise the quality of online delivery. This programme was chosen because of the suitability of the curriculum to online delivery, the enthusiasm and skill set of the lecturers involved, and the technically savvy students open to using new tools and technologies.

This fully online course provided two main learning modes for students:

• Asynchronous self-directed learning with detailed notes available at the start of the week before classes commenced.
• Synchronous live delivery with online classes delivered at lunchtime 3 days a week with support sessions at allocated times. Each synchronous class was recorded in Adobe Connect as an interactive video and also rendered to a Youtube facilitating variable speed playback, embedding and channel subscriptions.
• Delivery was designed so that there was a close integration between the detailed class notes and the live online lectures.

Students were surveyed to investigate delivery modes and suitability of class times in week eight of a twelve-week semester. The survey was designed with Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning in mind. Phil Race’s approach to requesting feedback part way through a semester using open questions like Stop Doing, Keep Doing encouraged valuable anonymous feedback from students with a high response rate.

This presentation will highlight key insights from the student survey including the preferred delivery modes, presentation style, the timing of online sessions and the importance of aesthetics. Questions asked in the survey generated conversations in the class which led to further materials being provided for the students and informed Institute decisions on electives and methods of online delivery.

This survey raises valuable questions on contrasting wishes for methods of online delivery.