Imagine you are visiting a new city. You have two choices: you can hire a guide who will navigate the city for you, showing you the city, or you can navigate the city on your own with a guidebook.

If you hire a guide, you are relying on the guide to create some of the experience for you.

If you are referencing the written tour guide, you are choosing to create your own experience with the help of a guide.

This is a helpful analogy to understand face-to-face vs online learning. Your navigation through the material is, like a tour versus a guidebook, different but effective depending on what you need.

Online courses are primarily asynchronous

In a face-to-face setting, your time to engage with course material is determined by the amount of time you are in the face-to-face setting. In an online course, you choose when you engage.

Online courses allow learners to work, within reason, at their own pace with the material, meaning it requires you to be an active participant. It may seem counterintuitive, but online learning may allow you to learn more by doing. In a face-to-face session, you may sit back and allow the lecturer to guide your experience. In online learning, you navigate a structured experience yourself.

Communication and feedback are different

In face-to-face courses, communication is often verbal, and feedback is immediate. For example, you may speak directly to the instructor and to fellow learners and take notes based on the live interaction.

In asynchronous online learning, communication is usually written in a discussion board, direct message or email. Communicating online can take more time than face-to-face, but you have time to construct your thoughts and can be intentional about what you are saying. Feedback may also be given in different ways, such as through online quizzes and discussion boards.

Bringing people together

Both learning modes are great ways for people to come together and create a shared experience. The online learning environment helps to expand the reach, allowing learners to participate in a community that they may not be able to access in a physical, face-to-face setting.

The instructor is not the focus – you are

In both settings, the instructor’s role is to teach. Teaching online becomes less about teaching information and more about facilitating student efforts to think critically, make sense of new knowledge and apply what they are learning. Learning activities are created and purposely organised with an online learner and an online journey in mind. This allows you, the learner, to be at the centre of the experience.

Online learning, at least initially, can feel like navigating that unknown city. Over time, you will figure out where to look for things you need and find your learning pattern. The first step is to log in and take some time to acquaint yourself with your new, online learning environment, and start exploring.