The importance of interacting with our students in our new online/distance classrooms
As university faculty and K-12 teachers shift from face to face models to various forms of distance learning, one of their goals should be to maximize student involvement. A few years ago, I conducted a small research study while teaching a US history course online for the University of Maryland University College. Though I had very high levels of participation, I was concerned about sporadic student involvement in the course and what factors might influence the amount of student involvement.
During the literature review, I learned a few things I would like to share today (the text in italics was not in the original, but are my comments looking back in light of our current situation):
1. Eom, Wen, and Ashill (2006) identified six factors that influence student satisfaction: a) course structure, b) self-motivation, c) learning styles, d) instructor knowledge and facilitation, e) interaction, and f) instructor feedback.
As we make this transition, we should ask ourselves, what specific actions am I taking to address these six factors in an effort to increase student involvement in my distance course?
2. Attrition rates for online courses remain higher than face-to-face courses. (Angelino, Williams, & Natvig, 2007; Brown, 2012; Moody, 2004).
Our students probably will not drop out of our K-12 distance or online course, but they might check out and reduce their amount of participation if we do not take steps to address the factors listed above. This will effectively result in students “dropping out” of learning if not the actual class. For college and university, students may actually drop out of classes and maybe out of our programs. It is imperative that we do what we can to meet student learning needs as well as student satisfaction with our courses. I have seen people advocating not to do our best teaching online, but we should because we are professionals and because our students deserve our best efforts.
3. Increased interaction leads to increased satisfaction. In many online courses (and we can include all distance courses for our purposes) the primary sources of interaction are the discussion forums. Less interaction in discussion forums leads to reduced interaction and reduced satisfaction. This reduced interaction and satisfaction can result in increased drop outs and decreased performance and learning.
What are we doing to increase interaction with our students in an online/ distance mode of learning? Can we do better than simply posting instructions and assignments online? How can we use a combination of synchronous and asynchronous ways to interact with students? The tools are there, we need to use them.
4. How important is interaction? Parker (1999) identified the presence of interactivity as important to the perceived quality of distance education. She wrote, “Integration of interactivity into the course content profoundly increases the potential for both enjoyment of learning and the enhancement of cognitive skills” (p. 16)
Interaction matters. Our students need it because of the nature of their lives during these periods of social isolation, but interaction is good for learning too.
5. When we plan ways to get students to interact in our ad hoc distance and online courses, we need to teach and model effective ways to participate in classes. Song and McNary (2011) reported when the instructor provided guidelines on how to interact, the students followed the guidelines improving the quality of their participation. Clearly, participation alone does not guarantee a good grade, but as other research has indicated, it is a factor in student satisfaction and performance and continued participation in a course.
If we want students to participate and interact whether asynchronously or synchronously, it is imperative that we teach them how to participate and interact in the environment we create.
What were my findings?
The findings suggest that an element of course design, the presence of a major assignment, can reduce the amount of participation in an online course. This finding validates the researcher’s original hypothesis as well as reinforces earlier research that students reported they reduced the amount of participation due to assignments (Bullen, 1998). These findings held true for both males and females. The findings challenge online instructors, administrators, and course designers to find ways to balance course assignments with the desire to maintain levels of course interaction that are key to student success in online courses. The researcher presented several ways to prevent or mitigate the impact of the reduction in participation during the weeks assignments were due. As online learning continues to grow as an option for college students, an increased understanding of the factors that contribute to their level of participation and consequently success in these types of courses is important to administrators, course designers and instructors.
If you are interested in the full article, you can find it here:
Analyzing the influences of course design and gender on online participation
https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall153/anthony153.html