The Importance of Instructor Presence
A recent investigation into the influence of online course organization, learning objectives, effective technology, and interpersonal interactions discovered that only the quality of interpersonal interactions accurately predicted student grades (Jaggars & Xu, 2016). Put differently, the instructor’s ability to convey care and support for their learners significantly affected their students’ performance in the course. Courses where instructors frequently posted, encouraged student questions through various means, promptly responded to queries, sought and integrated student feedback, and, notably, demonstrated a sense of “caring” cultivated an online environment that motivated students to engage with the course and excel academically (Jaggars & Xu, 2016).The findings underscore that the caliber of interpersonal interaction within a course correlates positively and significantly with student grades. Further analyses based on course observation and interview data propose that consistent and effective student-instructor interaction fosters an online environment that encourages students to invest in the course and achieve higher academic levels (Jaggars & Xu, 2016).Even minor gestures towards connection, such as the instructor being visible in video recordings and making ‘eye contact’ with the camera, can enhance student performance in understanding the content (Fiorella et al., 2019).
Creating a Course Introduction Video
At Marshall, we are committed to providing a sense of belongingness to our students. This starts with a warm welcome to the classroom – including our online classrooms!
A course introduction video is a great way to engage students, even if the course meets in person. Being enrolled in a course is much like riding on a tour bus in which the instructor is acting as the driver. You know what’s coming around every curve on the journey. Just as traveling without guidance would produce anxiety, our students become frustrated when they navigate courses with poor signposts. Being a good tour guide starts with a strong introduction.
Gamification for Online Student Engagement
In this video, Marshall Professor Dr. Wendi Benson, explains how she uses gamification in her Experimental Psychology course. The walkthrough includes visual aids that clearly break down how to design motivational rewards systems for engagement with course content, the instructor, and fellow classmates. If you’re looking for guidance on how to set up points tracking or what behaviors to incentivize, this tutorial will offer insight.
Achieving the full spectrum of engagement is perhaps the greatest challenge in online course design. Dr. Laura Stapleton, assistant professor in the Mathematics and Physics department at Marshall, explains the role that engagement plays in adult learning – especially as it applies to autonomy in assessment.
Be sure to check out the interactive video tool highlighted in this tutorial: Flip.
Workload Awareness for Active Learning
This tutorial, presented by Dr. Shannon Miller-Mace, assistant professor in the Mathematics and Physics department at Marshall, walks through her use of a self-awareness survey. She shares how the survey is structured to prompt weekly reflections according to the progression of the course and how you can use tools within Blackboard to aid in generating the questions.
Asynchronous Video-Based Discussions
This Educause article sums up the limitations of synchronous and asynchronous text-based discussions before delving into an exploration of asynchronous video-based discussions. Various applications, such as VoiceThread, Flipgrid, EdConnect, and Marco Polo, offer educators the ability to conduct asynchronous video discussions, with each application having distinct features and capabilities.
Incorporating Active Learning in Course Videos
Videos play a crucial role in contemporary education, but merely watching them may not ensure effective learning, especially for abstract topics. To enhance educational outcomes, active learning strategies can be employed, such as framing videos as guided lessons with pre-viewing questions, structured outlines, and embedded assessments; using videos as a springboard for discussions and collaboration; prompting critical thinking by comparing and contrasting concepts from multiple videos; and fostering online research skills by having students find and present additional videos for class discussion.
10 Tips for Engaging Students in Synchronous Courses
Teaching in virtual spaces, whether in online courses or remote meetings, comes with challenges such as technological disruptions and student disengagement. To address these issues, the article suggests practical strategies, including collecting information from students beforehand, clearly outlining session expectations, making content relevant, encouraging questions, incorporating novel material, requiring camera use, conducting social check-ins, using writing exercises, and fostering debate. These approaches aim to enhance the energy, interactivity, and productivity of virtual classes while acknowledging the initial awkwardness of the online environment.
How Do I Facilitate Effective Group Work?
This webpage from the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Massachusetts Amherst offers strategies and examples that work for short-term collaborative group work and long-term collaborative assignments (e.g., group projects). Advice on how to communicate purpose and criteria is particularly helpful.
To the casual observer, great class discussions seem to unfold organically. But the preparatory work involved in setting the stage for a discussion—establishing an environment conducive to bold, student-centered conversations, articulating clear discussion objectives, and posing pertinent, thought-provoking questions—requires substantial upfront planning.
What measures can we implement beforehand and in the moment to facilitate discussions that are both enriching and aligned with specific objectives? How do we navigate a dynamic conversation while ensuring the attainment of our goals? Are there instances where breaking into small groups is more effective than involving the entire class in a discussion? In what ways can students actively contribute to shaping the discourse? In the following videos, educators share their strategies for optimizing discussions and directing them purposefully.
Framing Discussions as a Three-Way Conversation
This resource from the Harvard Graduate School of Education combines Best Practices with a Faculty Spotlight interview to provide a deep-dive into the use of discussion to teach close reading skills: “This clever framing encourages students to consider the author’s point of view, place his/her writing in historical context, and uncover assumptions that underpin the author’s argument. Framing discussions this way can be an especially powerful technique for instructors teaching historical texts.”
SUNY RSI Backgrounds and Strategies
The visual aids on this site are particularly helpful in distinguishing what qualifies as RSI. While many sources represent practices in rigid, dichotomous charts, the scale presented here helps to convey how the addition of certain components can push an interaction into substantive territory.
Northern Illinois University Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
This resource provides some of the most straightforward recommendations on the subject of RSI.
Regular and Substantive Interaction: The Regulations and Beyond
This resource was featured in the Design Center Newsletter, and it provides not only the definitions and regulations, but also some practical advice for how to go beyond the bare minimum. It’s especially helpful in its specific references to Blackboard Ultra tools.