There was an insightful comment from Professor Ian Holiday that Hong Kong University had seen an increase in online participation from Mainland Chinese students online, in contrast to remembered participation in in-person classes. There certainly would be scope to look at online and in-person teaching from an ethnographic viewpoint and using Confucian Heritage Cultures to contrast others...

My own experience in a Secondary School in HK was summed up by a senior student when he commented “It is like school, but without the fun stuff” referring to online lessons.

The non-verbal interaction as part of in-person teaching is large, but I am uncertain as to how to quantify its value.

My personal sense is that students could most likely learn content with no real difference, but the “passion“ and “soul” that in-person communication gives is lost (not completely) to a large degree.

There is also a motivation factor of seeing a lecturer or teacher in person and not having done work, like you have let them down and there is greater accountability. I feel this is also a contributing factor that plays in favour of in-person learning.

Nice question to cerebrate

Online and traditional classrooms are no and can never yield the same experience. However, with the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is becoming increasingly evident that the online teaching and learning will form part of the 'new normal' in education globally. Post Pandemic teachers or instructors will need to improve on creativity, technical skills or knowledge, passionate, and the ability to improvise in order to create the right and conducive classroom atmosphere online. Abstractness and teacher-centeredness should be removed from the process of online instruction to actively engage students and create a lively classroom environment.

One 'con' I have found is that it requires a lot of asynchronous activity by staff members to comment on students work, posts and collaboration. A 'pro' is that students from all over the country can access postgraduate education that would normally be inaccessible because of where they live. I also find that I have to change my pedagogy...which makes sense when you think about it - different setting, different pedagogy needed?

Although distance learning provides equal opportunities to students, being in different places can cause communication disruption. I think that face to face education is always more effective and fun.

I also think that for online learning to be effective and interesting, the learners need to be quite self-directed and fluent in the use of digital technologies/applications. As educators, we probably need to develop these skills and abilities as we teach online as well as provide content.

We still need research to evaluate the effectiveness of online learning. I think there are several questions that we need answers - (1) How effective is online learning compared to face-to-face teaching, and what is the impact on student's education? (2) Does online learning meet the learning needs of the students? Which group of students feel that they did not benefit from online learning? (3) what were the key barriers to learning? (4) Will student favour a mixture of face-to-face teaching and online learning, or the students are more in favour to one of them? (5) How do the teachers feel about online learning? What were the main challenges? (6) What areas in the technology that could be improved? I think no one has reliable answers to these areas yet. We only have speculations. Things were also done in rushing without careful preparation of teachers and students.

We need a team of educators, psychologists, IT technology, students, and those involved in assessment and quality to work together in assessing such curriculum delivery online. Students will give us useful feedback as they were the receivers and can inform us about the limitations; teachers did not observe.

Both are different forms of education and have their merits and limitations. Most importantly online education has become a compulsion however it is bereft of human interface unlike conventional one. Artificial intelligence and machine learning is to play a big role in education over the time post covid19 pandemic situation. Human intervention may reduce in educational initiatives henceforth with computers may supersede humans.

As a researcher in e-Learning field, I can say that each teaching mode has its advantages and its inconveniences. However, in emergency situations such as the actual pandemic, I think that e-Learning can be the best solution for continuing the teaching process.

But, in normal situations, e-learning can be a support for teaching in traditional classrooms (face-to-face teaching).

Nice Dear Jonathan Lynch

Online teaching has some restrictions and moreover we were not used to of it.Giving online MCQ was not easy in limited time.whereas, traditional class and exam pattern is more soothing to us.

There was an insightful comment from Professor Ian Holiday that Hong Kong University had seen an increase in online participation from Mainland Chinese students online, in contrast to remembered participation in in-person classes. There certainly would be scope to look at online and in-person teaching from an ethnographic viewpoint and using Confucian Heritage Cultures to contrast others...

My own experience in a Secondary School in HK was summed up by a senior student when he commented “It is like school, but without the fun stuff” referring to online lessons.

The non-verbal interaction as part of in-person teaching is large, but I am uncertain as to how to quantify its value.

My personal sense is that students could most likely learn content with no real difference, but the “passion“ and “soul” that in-person communication gives is lost (not completely) to a large degree.

There is also a motivation factor of seeing a lecturer or teacher in person and not having done work, like you have let them down and there is greater accountability. I feel this is also a contributing factor that plays in favour of in-person learning.

Nice question to cerebrate

Online learning and teaching maybe challenging to students who are use to the physical classroom. Traditional classroom has an edge interms of physical presence of a teacher and classmates. The aim of education is not just to build an intelligent student but one who will be a responsible citizen. The traditional classroom gives room for proper monitoring of behaviour, improve social interaction, increases exposure, fade out the barrier between the rich and poor. Online education maybe flexible and interesting but cannot meet the moral aspect of a child.

Dear academic fraternity, thank you so much for your incisive input regarding Online Learning and Teaching Vs Traditional Classroom Environment! I really value your insightful discussion!

Alongside, let's begin discussing how to conduct examination (both summative and formative) in the current online learning and teaching approach.

Looking forward to hearing from you for enhancing our mutual experiences.

One hidden "con" of asynchronous online courses: faculty with little teaching experience don't always have a lot of anticipatory responses, so it is harder to "front-load" quizzes and assessments with automatic responses which help redirect students toward the underlying causes of answering a question wrong.

One hidden "pro" of online courses: departments which share information among their members readily can easily take advantage of LMS structures to create shared question banks for review, shared discussion forums that reach cross-course, and shared materials for reference and engagement. This is not limited to online nor remote courses, so the benefits to face-to-face courses are tangible and efficiently realized.

The physical reality of the teacher in the classroom totally matters.

In less developed countries, traditional face to face learning is readily available while online learning has limited patronage due to inadequate learning infrastructure and relatively high cost of data.Teachers trained for the traditional classroom are now compelled to teach online, exposing gaps in online teaching and learning skills. Online tutors need to be adequately trained for the assignment especially in this COVID-19 pandemic period where teaching and learning activities are moving online.