Different Types of Online Education and Its Combinations

With the popularization of online education, creation of different types of online courses continues (Strothmann, 2015). Online courses do not exist to eliminate personal interaction which is evident in other types of online courses: Face-to-Face and Hybrid Course. Face-to-Face is in traditional environment where students meet with the instructor. Few activities go to online classroom to better understand the lecture material outside the class. On the other hand, Hybrid Course has significant amount of activities online to be able to reduce the meetings between students and the instructor. In Hybrid Course, traditional face-to-face classroom setting is minimized but not completely removed.

Under other conditions, online courses like Web-based eliminates face-to-face interactions between the students and instructor. This type of course is what online classes are usually referring to. Web-based classes usually use Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle to post a syllabus, materials, activities, and announcements from instructors. Some online classes have schedules of specific deadlines for examinations and assignments. In the same way, Web-enhanced type of course uses Learning Management System (LMS) for online activities depending on the lecture and course requirements. The instructor will ideally clarify the course objectives on the first day of class with the flexibility for changes using LMS.

Enhanced types of courses are also starting to commercialize (Werry, 2002). First type of these enhanced online courses is Flipped Course where instructors record their lessons or use open-source resources to relay the lecture content. Students can watch videos and complete a short evaluation quiz before coming to class. One obvious benefit of this course is that students finish their homework at their own pace that is convenient to their schedule. During class, the instructor facilitates, coaches, advises, and answers questions to address misconceptions in real time. Class may begin with a series of lectures to further clarify the content which the students finds difficult or confusing. The rest of the class hours will be utilized in active learning for students and instructor to interact with each other. Most instructors for this type of course perceive this as the most important aspect of the flipped online course. Another type is Peer Instruction which happens in Harvard.

Likewise, students in Peer Instruction assist their own learning in lecture by focusing their attention on fundamental concepts. Conceptual questions, called ConcepTests, help the lecture by exposing common difficulties with regards to the material. The students are given one to two minutes to formulate the question and think about their own answers; afterwards, they allocate two to three minutes discoursing about their answers in groups of three or four.

This process enables students to treat arguments and assess their understanding of the concepts before leaving the classroom. Lastly, the well-known MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is an online course intended for large-scale learning and open enrollment for the public. MOOCs are naturally collaborative efforts by higher education institutions for people to participate in course activities and receive lecture content electronically.

In spite of criticism with completion rates, MOOCs reflects a new age of open learning (Larreamendy-Joerns, 2006). Network technologies ease communication between communities of scholars and students without geographical limits.