Teaching Asynchronously

What is Asynchronous Learning?

• Com­par­i­son of  online learn­ing for­mats sum­ma­ry: Dig­i­tal Learn­ing For­mats – Char­ac­ter­is­tics and Com­po­nents PDF and Deliv­ery For­mats - PDF
• Nut­shell: An asyn­chro­nous course has no required live online inter­ac­tions and sched­uled con­tact time between instruc­tor and stu­dents.
  • Stu­dents par­tic­i­pate and com­mu­ni­cate in the course with­out hav­ing to be online at the same time. How­ev­er the instruc­tor is very much present, engag­ing in very fre­quent (cou­ple of times a week) com­mu­ni­ca­tions with stu­dents, shar­ing video and email updates and facil­i­tat­ing the learn­ing expe­ri­ences.
  • Teach­ing and learn­ing activ­i­ties occur in dig­i­tal for­mats using a vari­ety of learn­ing tech­nolo­gies and dig­i­tal resources.
  • Course is char­ac­ter­ized by reg­u­lar and sub­stan­tive online inter­ac­tions between the course instruc­tor and stu­dents.
  • Defined expec­ta­tions and dead­lines for com­ple­tion of assign­ments and oth­er course relat­ed activ­i­ties.
  • Stu­dents may have to inter­mit­tent­ly work in groups with oth­er stu­dents or under­take col­lab­o­ra­tive activ­i­ties, but these can be done asyn­chro­nous­ly.
    Mid-terms, tests, and quizzes includ­ing any final exams will take place dig­i­tal­ly via a vari­ety of for­mats. If a final exam is sched­uled for the course, the exam will take place dig­i­tal­ly on a cer­tain day/time accord­ing to the insti­tu­tion­al exam sched­ule.
  • Option­al live, online office hours and/or group times as part of the course.

Resources 

• An Affin­i­ty for Asyn­chro­nous Learn­ing | Hybrid Ped­a­gogy Arti­cle from Maha Bali
  • Writ­ten in 2014, this is still a sem­i­nal ari­cle about equi­ty and access asso­ci­at­ed with asyn­chro­nous learn­ing.
• Syn­chro­nous and Asyn­chro­nous Learn­ing: Two Basic For­mats of Learn­ing in an Online Envi­ron­ment | Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty
  • Excel­lent web­site out­lin­ing the dif­fer­ences between the two for­mats for teach­ing and learn­ing with easy to fol­low charts
• Asyn­chro­nous Learn­ing Across Time Zones | Cen­ter for Teach­ing and Learn­ing, Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in the City of New York
  • Web­page high­light­ing strate­gies for engag­ing learn­ers across time zones with asyn­chro­nous learn­ing from “Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty” to “Acces­si­ble Con­tent”
• (The Right) Learn­ing Modal­i­ties to Deliv­ery Dig­i­tal Learn­ing: Part 3 (Asyn­chro­nous) | Arti­cle by Pat­ti Shank, eLearn­ing Indus­try
  • good arti­cle high­light­ing the com­mon con­tent and social inter­ac­tions, achiev­ing more flex­i­bil­i­ty and deep­er learn­ing, and when we should use asyn­chro­nous
• Blend­ed and Online Learn­ing | Web­site from Tay­lor Insti­tute for Teach­ing and Learn­ing, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary
  • This is an excel­lent site with many resources for online and blend­ed learn­ing cours­es.
• Inter­act­ing Asyn­chro­nous­ly | Cen­ter for Teach­ing, Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty
  • This web­page, by Stacey M John­son, Assis­tant Direc­tor for Edu­ca­tion­al Tech­nol­o­gy, shares ideas for engage­ment and inter­ac­tions in asyn­chro­nous cours­es. She includes exam­ples of “stu­dent-to ‑con­tent” inter­ac­tions, stu­dent-to-instruc­tor inter­ac­tions, stu­dent-to-stu­dent inter­ac­tions and stu­dent-to-self.
• Fos­ter­ing Fun: Engag­ing Stu­dents with Asyn­chro­nous Online Learn­ing | Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle
  • Lisa Forbes, an Assis­tant Clin­i­cal Pro­fes­sor in coun­sel­ing pro­gram at Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado pro­vides some first-hand exam­ples of how she has engaged stu­dents in her asyn­chro­nous class­es.
• Low Band­width or Lim­it­ed Con­nec­tiv­i­ty: Cre­at­ing a More Acces­si­ble Course for Learn­ers | NIC PDF
  • Inspired by Daniel Stan­ford’s arti­cle, Video­con­fer­enc­ing Alter­na­tives: How Low-Band­width Teach­ing Will Save Us All, the NIC cre­at­ed-hand­out presents ideas and sug­ges­tions for cre­at­ing more acces­si­ble cours­es that will work when stu­dents have low band­width and lim­it­ed con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

From Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty, this chart of when to use syn­chro­nous vs. asyn­chro­nous learn­ing.
Syn­chro­nous and Asyn­chro­nous Learn­ing by Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty CC BY-SA 4.0