The face-to-face environment is the most traditional instructional method where (in which) course content, learning materials, and assessments happen in-person with both the instructor and students present at the same time. However, the pandemic changed teaching and learning with the learning management system (LMS) as a critical platform for continuity in education. What does that mean for the future of the face-to-face environment? This article explores the LMS as a keeper for enhancing communication, instruction, and engagement in the traditional face-to-face environment.
Before the pandemic, many instructors at higher education institutions never used their university-supported LMS (McMurtrie, 2021). The LMS serves as a platform for teaching and learning by offering features and tools for communication, instruction, assessment, collaboration, course administration, and content management (Walker, Lindner, Murphrey, & Dooley, 2016). There are several LMSs available for use in higher education, however, all LMSs have common features and tools. Learning management systems are not just for online and hybrid courses.
In traditional face-to-face courses, LMSs have the potential to extend and enhance students' learning experiences within and beyond the classroom walls. Here are a few tips.
- Explore and learn different ways to teach your specific subject matter. Learning is a life-long journey.
- Redesign your course to make it more interactive and student-centered. Students are the focus of teaching and learning.
- When possible, turn an individual activity or assignment into a group project. By using Groups in the LMS, students can collaborate in and outside of class.
- Assign pre-class work to prepare students for in-class active learning. Students proactively learn.
- Set up your online assignment submissions, quizzes, or test in the LMS before the course start date.
- Upload course content and prepare activities in the LMS. The LMS can function as a course repository and a location for online activities.
- Accept assignments online through the LMS. For example, if you have students turn in a typed essay before class, let them do it online.
- Post all grades in the LMS. Whether you grade an in-class activity or assignment submission, set up the grading in the LMS.
- Post course materials in the LMS. Students like having 24/7 access to course content.
- Post announcements and send email messages through the LMS. Communication with students outside the classroom.
- Offer both in-person and virtual office hours. Be flexible and encourage students to attend.
Let’s face it, the LMS was not a technology in response to a pandemic. The traditional face-to-face environment does not have to be the classroom of the past, but a redesigned classroom for the future. Are there features and tools in your LMS that you can implement into your face-to-face environment?
References:
McMurtrie, B. (2021, June 10). What does the future of teaching look like? Retrieved November 1, 2021, from https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2021-06-10.
Walker, D. S., Lindner, J. R., Murphrey, T. P., & Dooley, K. (2016). Learning management system usage: Perspectives from university instructors. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 17(2), 41-50. Retrieved from http://www.infoagepub.com/quarterly-review-of-distance-education.html
