"They were willing to take on more work if the time was flexible"

A faculty member I’ve been working with from time to time over the years stopped by to tell me how her tech-enhanced class went. She’s adding some online activity to the class instead of some of the face-to-face time.

For her, students were willing to do a harder reading and an assignment based on the reading – as long as they could do it on a Saturday or Sunday at home. Plus, she found that since they had to do the reading and the assignment, they actually did it – and online and face-to-face discussion was much better. When they show up in class expecting her to hit the highlights of the reading and they don’t do it, she said, discussions really “stay on the surface”. But with everyone in class up to speed with the topic matter, the discussion was a lot deeper, a lot better.