Collaborative Synchronous Online Teaching

Abstract

In a world that changes constantly, ways of teaching have to be adapted to technological improvements on a regular base. Massive open online courses (MOOC) and online teaching are offered by a growing number of universities all over the world. These courses are free to attend and everyone worldwide – presupposed the technical needs are fulfilled – can watch these lectures online. These courses are mainly meant to inform and train people in a certain topic in the field of arts, these courses may not work for technical topics, surely not for beginners. In order to achieve success and to learn from mistakes, beginners need a certain level of have to be trained and their success has to be monitored by a trainer. MOOCs may not be the most suitable way for universities to teach their students using distance learning. Online courses, using a web platform where students can watch videos of lectures, fulfill tasks and submit work to be graded online are very common and some of the problems existing using MOOCs can be solved. What´s left is the direct, immediate communication with trainers or lecturers which can be provided during an on-site lecture in the laboratory.By doing the online lectures synchronous, meaning both, the students and the lecturer, are online at the same time using an online conference tools, the students can interact with the lecturer immediate when a problem occurs. These tools have been used by some universities for a couple of years and have proven successful. A new challenge evolves, when it comes to team-teaching, especially if the lecturers are not at the same location. This paper shows some ways of teaching online which have proven successful and efficient and how the special task of synchronous online team teaching can be solved.