Online and Face-To-Face Versions of a Calculus Course: Student, Instructor and Course Designer Perspectives

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Veselin Jungic, Department of Mathematics

Project team: Jamie Mulholland, Department of Mathematics, Kanthi Jayasundera, Centre for Online and Distance Education (CODE), Greg Hum and Qi Zhang, research assistants

Funding: $3750

Poster presentation: View a poster (PDF) describing this project from the 2012 Symposium on Teaching and Learning.

From the final report: A surprising finding in this study was a “majority of students in the face to face (91% and 83% in surveys 2 and 3) watched the online lectures.” Read more >> (For report appedicies please contact Veselin Jungic.)

Description: The Department of Mathematics is re-examining its policy towards distance education math courses and looking to making improvements. The Centre for Online and Distance Education is investigating student learning enhancements in the online/distance learning environment. This project is a partnership between the two units. In the Spring of 2011, for the first time, a large calculus course was taught as a face-to-face course and a distance education course (new offering) by the same instructor. This situation provided an opportunity to compare the two versions in several key areas and use the findings to make improvements in subsequent semesters.

Questions:

• How do students in the two versions of the course rate teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction and the overall course design?
  
• What are the differences in student performance in the two versions of the course?
  
• How are the aforementioned ratings related to performance in each version?
  
• How do the experiences of the instructors across the two versions differ? 
• What are the experiences of the course developer for the online version?
  

Knowledge sharing:

Hum, G., Jungic, V., Jayasundera, K., & Mulholland, J. (2012, May). Leading change in the innovative virtualization of the classroom experience: lessons learned from the design and evaluation of online and face-to-face versions of calculus I., Poster session presented at the Symposium on Teaching and Learning: Leading Change @SFU, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.