Online Versus In-Person Instruction: Which One Is Better?
As I was creating my new website this past month, I reflected on my business model's rapid evolution in recent years.
Two and a half years ago, in March 2020, when WORDS, like many other businesses, was forced to transform from an in-person business to an online one overnight due to necessity, I knew that it would eventually revert to providing in-person services, but I didn’t know when that would happen, and I would never have guessed what would transpire when it finally did.
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On March 14, 2020, I was teaching my Saturday classes at the Saratoga Library when one of the librarians there approached the table I was sitting at with a student to inform me that all of the Santa Clara County Library District locations would be closing early that day due to impending fears related to the COVID-19 pandemic and would remain closed indefinitely.
Thankfully, that morning I had sent an email to my students' parents, letting them know that I would be teaching all of my classes online through the end of April 2020, well beyond the date I thought the library would reopen.
Within a few hours of arriving home from work that Saturday, I drafted a two-page single-spaced document outlining how I would turn my in-person business into an online one and emailed it to the parents of all of my students.
The plan outlined what I had in mind for each type of instruction (i.e., private classes and group classes) and each age group (i.e., kindergarten through third graders and fourth through eighth graders): it explained how I planned to conduct the classes, the procedure for the exchange of materials, what students would need for each class, etc. At the end of the email, I stated that I would begin using the new class formats the next day.
I continued to use those online class formats for the next year and a half, making minor modifications to them when needed to improve them.
Finally, in July 2021, when the time seemed right to do so, I decided to sign a lease for an office space so that I could teach most of my classes in person again. I thought that everyone, students and parents alike, would be ecstatic about the transition. A few were, but most were clinging to the convenience and proven effectiveness of the online writing courses—even the parents who enrolled their children in them with the condition that the classes would become in-person in the near future.
Upon the commencement of my lease, I had wanted all of my group classes to return to being in person and my private ones to be in person or online, depending on students’ and parents’ preferences. However, that plan quickly changed.
As I began instructing my group Grammar classes in person after not having done so for so long, I realized that they were better taught online because I could annotate the course documents on my shared computer screen. I made the same observations during my in-person private Editing classes. And in my Private Paragraph & Essay Writing classes, it suddenly seemed awkward for students and me to sit across from each other in person with two laptops separating us instead of sharing my computer screen online. These observations led me to change the format of the Grammar classes back to online and recommend that private Editing and Paragraph & Essay Writing classes be online as well.
Gradually, and somewhat reluctantly, I have accepted that most of my writing classes are better taught online . . .
If I were asked today if online or in-person instruction is better, my answer would depend on what exactly the instruction is for. For all of the classes that I teach (Spelling, Grammar, Editing, Advanced Vocabulary, Writing Critique, and Private Paragraph & Essay Writing), I would say only the Spelling and Writing Critique ones are better taught in-person. I think spelling is better learned in person because it is more efficient, but not more effective, to do so. As for the Writing Critique course, I would prefer to teach it in person because the camaraderie that develops over writing amongst the students in those classes, making the course so special, is best experienced with students together in one room. However, the reality is students' schedules don't allow for that these days.
In addition to helping me realize that almost all of my writing classes are better taught online, the pandemic has also encouraged me to restructure my writing class schedule, breaking hour time slots for private and group courses up into 25-minute ones to best target students' specific needs; enabled me to help students well beyond an approximate 20-mile radius of the Saratoga Library—ones in San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington, Texas, Spain, Italy, Singapore, Shanghai, Taiwan, etc.; and allowed students who had to move out of the area to continue their writing trajectory and classes with me.
The road that led me from the business model that I had at the beginning of March 2020 to the one I have now has required continuous navigation and countless decisions to be made as I have traveled along it over the past few years, leaving little time for rest. The journey on it, though, has been chock-full of learning experiences that I am forever grateful for, for they have helped my business evolve into what it is today and, in turn, helped me to more efficiently and, most importantly, effectively instruct students both near and far.
Founder & Owner of ★ W O R D S