Pedagogical Dilemmas in the Simultaneous Education

Abstract

In the past few years, Swedish higher education institutes are increasingly coopting distance education by broadcasting lectures, given to campus students in traditional classrooms, in real-time for distance students. We call this phenomenon simultaneous education. Irrespective of the obvious benefits, there are many dilemmas associated with this pedagogical mode and yet many university teachers remain rather reluctant to embrace this model of education. Adopting a qualitative approach and conducting semi-structured interviews in a department of Linnaeus University, we have identified some pedagogical dilemmas that arise in the simultaneous mode. Our results indicate that online and campus education bear fundamental different assumptions and combination of both modes often becomes problematic in the design, delivery and course examination.