Moving from face-to-face to online classrooms:
The reflective university teacher

Faye Wiesenberg
Faculty of Education
University of Calgary

Elizabeth Stacey
Faculty of Education
Deakin University

This study explores the similarities, differences and possible interaction between two small groups of Canadian and Australian university teachers’ face-to-face and online teaching approaches and philosophies. The paper compares their perspectives on teaching face-to-face and online at two comparable Canadian and Australian universities, both of which offer instruction in these two modes. Teaching philosophy data were gathered with the ‘Teaching Perspectives Inventory’ developed by Pratt and Collins at the University of British Columbia, which assessed participants’ teaching approaches and philosophies in terms of their beliefs, intentions and actions in both modalities. The study upon which this paper is based builds upon a well established research partnership of the two authors who have previously explored emerging philosophies of learner centred teaching in distributed classrooms in Canada and Australia.

Keywords: philosophy of teaching, teaching perspective, theory of practice, cultural differences, face-to-face and online teaching, institutions of higher education