This post explains the interactions between online students
and online instructors and expounds various strategies that can be used to
support this. It goes into detail about various online activities and
strategies implemented to fully support students.
The key to developing these strategies, is to ensure that
correct amount of interaction which is conducive to learning. Some people
misunderstand interaction as people interacting more, however I believe
interaction in learning is about enabling learners to interact in a way which
will improve their learning experience coupled with developing within them new
ways of thinking about and drawing in new knowledge elements.
One of the most common interaction theory is Moore’s “Three
Types of Interactions” which includes learner-learner, learner-instructor,
and learner-content interactions”.
Interpersonal interaction refers to learner-learner and
learner-instructor interaction. The main purpose of this is to measure social
interaction within a learning environment. This is measured by how learners in
an online environment feel directly connected to each other.
http://favim.com/image/173877/
Course Environment,
In order to develop an interactive environment, you need to
use ice-breakers, profiles, recommendations liking posts and commenting on
others, messages and a social space.
It is important students know the objectives and modes and
methods of interaction. When designing the interaction it should be as seamless
as possible, ideally using recognised standards when designing online resources
(SCORM, WEB 2.0, 3.0 and ISO). Where unconventional methods are used students
should be given training.
Course Structure,
Shea et al. “Determined that student’s feel more connected
when the instructor shows an active teaching presence in the course.” This
should be implemented at every level:
1.
Send welcome letters
2.
Show learners their objectives and ask learners
to take ownership of them.
3.
Ensure effective time-management, allowing
students to properly reflect over learning and create relevant and useful posts
for discussions.
4.
Lead discussion forums
5.
Provide effective feedback to leaner on
assignment
6.
Include grading or prizes for discussion entries
7.
Set clear participation rules and demands
8.
Implement periodically activities that promote
interaction (demos, debates, discussions, group work, e.t.c)
9.
Encourage peer feedback, with set deadlines
10.
Using challenging questions, assignments and
group activities, this creates further interactions as students support each
other in tackling difficult scenarios.
Community Discussion
A good use of discussion forums is to develop
non-conventional names, in addition use names that will provide greater meaning
and develop more constructive patterns of thinking. Within an online
environment, you could have compulsory posting on board or have optional
posting. I feel in order to promote learner-learner interaction, having a
compulsory posting element will promote interaction. Another useful ideas would
be to promote students joining small groups and developing their own group
discussion boards as well as overall discussion board for the whole online
learning community. Where possible develop groups of individuals of different
skills levels that balance out the strength of each group.
Structured discussion are also important, it enables
students to find their required discussion and post information easily, online
whiteboards such as Padlet, this improves the graphical side of discussions and
allow you to visually see posts at a snapshot.
An instructor should provide feedback on discussions boards,
in addition where there are misunderstandings the instructor should provide
clarifying information, there should be the ability to involve the instructor
within the discussion and where possible the instructor should lead discussion
to relevant topics.
Feedback type and Medium,
Feedback types:
1.
Interactive learning content,
2.
Peer
3.
Instructor
Mediums:
1.
Video,
2.
Audio,
3.
Written (real-time)
Feedback should be
timely, relevant and adequate
There are many methods of providing feedback to students,
dependent on the student they will find different methods to be more familiar.
Researchers: Ice et al
have found audio feedback to be more personal, to written feedback I can
understand this because it demonstrated tone of voice as oppose to written
feedback, which is read via the observation of the reader. I feel web
conferencing would be even better method for distance communication, however
require more data. My personal experiences when providing feedback have also
followed these methods
Other
feedback methods include surveys and questionnaires which allow the instructor
to create reports and view learners’ satisfactions and learner views within a
report format.
Immediacy behaviours,
Within an online learning environment students need to feel
close to each other, learning material and instructor. For this to occur
effective communication needs to take place.
With regards to communication between students, there are
certain strategies that enable this. If the tutor develop
controversial/interesting discussion points, this will prompt students to
defend and support their opinions as well as to a certain extent side with some
and disagree with others. The key is not to develop a haranguing situation but
to foster meaningful communication leading to a learning objective.
Allowing students to use I agree, or like buttons on
responses to posts, in my opinion is an excellent idea, this replicates the
agreement nod or clap gestures within a classroom/lecture based environment.
Another method used by myself is to enforce discussion entries
as part of a grading criteria, this will enable definitely improve peer to peer
communication. Furthermore enabling peer to peer assignments and dividing
students into smaller groups will make them feel closer within online
environment. I have observed this and found a lot more activity on both
discussion boards and other group based learning activities. This concept is
drawn from “A big society just being a
group of small societies” (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/apr/21/big-society-localism-churches)
The instructor plays a big role in supporting immediacy of
behaviours. (Ice) states that 15% of community discussion should be from the
instructor. This is to help guide, encourage and coach the student discussion
in the right direction. It is possible for students to start discussing the
topic and due to lack of experience, start discussing elements within the wrong
context, hence the aid of tutor supports them to achieve the course outcomes
and objectives.
Other elements include, types of text, important words in
bold or using capital letters as a form of shouting or announcing. You can also
include audio/video resources to further emphasize a learning element.
The instructor should post regular announcement coupled with
both group and individual feedback on assignment work. This is to develop a
community environment as well as provide the individual support for learners. This
can be done via weekly journaling with students.
Tu and McIsaac [2002] utilized
Surveys, interviews, observations, and document analysis
to determine that the following factors contributed positively to interaction:
(a) timely response, (b) casual communication style, and (c) informal discussion
board. All three of these factors can be considered components of the
overarching factor
