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Increase Engagement Now
Whether you’re halfway through the term or just getting started, this post presents actionable, simple strategies you can implement immediately to increase engagement in your course.
Communication, Community, and Student Engagement in the Online Classroom
The most difficult task in transitioning from on-ground to online teaching is determining the best way to emulate the community and engagement inherent in a face-to-face classroom.Consider this: Your online classroom can be even more engaging than an on-campus classroom. Simple tools, such as discussion forums and announcements, can elevate your classroom immensely.
Student-Generated Content
Student-generated content — materials and tasks created by learners for other learners — can strengthen engagement by providing students an opportunity to express creativity, practice critical thinking, and increase ownership of learning. Developing student-generated content requires learners to produce an instructional artifact, demonstrating new knowledge alongside existing understanding. Student-generated content can include a variety of formats:
The Power of Retrieval Practice
Faculty aim to impart lasting knowledge and skills, but sometimes, learning doesn’t stick. One of the most powerful techniques for enhancing students’ long-term retention is retrieval practice, the process of actively recalling information to mind rather than passively reading or reviewing it. In this piece, we’ll dive into the evidence behind retrieval practice, provide strategies for how to incorporate it into online courses, suggest ways to frame its utility to students to ensure they fully reap the benefits of this learning strategy, and describe specific types of retrieval practice activities.
Five Instructor Feedback Essentials
Providing student feedback is a key component of an instructor’s role and an important part of effective instruction. Research shows that ongoing feedback keeps students engaged and improves their morale, motivation, and learning (Best, et al, 2014). Yet, providing high quality feedback can be a time-consuming commitment, especially in courses with large class sizes or numerous written assessments. Instructors should keep in mind the tools, structure, and best practices that can help them provide feedback.
Presentation Best Practices Guide
Many online courses focus on written communication skills, featuring discussion posts, papers, and case study reports among other assignments. However, oral communication and presentation skills are just as integral to students’ success, and, indeed, many employers list presenting as one of the most desirable skills for job candidates (Suhadi et al., 2021).
Group Work Best Practices Guide
Group work in online courses can facilitate student learning in unique ways. In particular, group assignments can provide students with opportunities to engage in authentic tasks and develop collaborative skills applicable to their future careers. Williams, Duray, and Reddy (2006) argue that team learning stimulates student thinking at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, including application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Group projects can serve a variety of different purposes across a wide range of academic programs and subjects. Additionally, group projects can foster interaction and community building amongst students, which can be especially valuable in an asynchronous online classroom (Martin & Bolliger, 2018).
Quizzes for the Multimodal Course
From trivia games to final exams, quizzing tools have a variety of uses for learning as well as assessment. Exams and quizzes have a particularly plentiful range of possibilities in a multimodal or hybrid course, where they can be administered synchronously or asynchronously. Research suggests that the presentation of a tool influences student behavior in response to the tool. In comparing two student discussion boards, one an ungraded discussion and one a graded replacement for a final exam, Cheng et al. (2013) found that students displayed more knowledge on the graded board, but more evidence of learning on the ungraded board. The students who participated in the study were more likely to grapple with new ideas when the stakes were low, but more eager to showcase topics they were confident about when their responses would have a greater impact on their grades. When considering quizzing tools, then, we recommend allowing your course goals to guide your usage.
Discussion Best Practices Guide
Discussions are an impactful way to build engagement and discourse in asynchronous online courses. When properly designed, discussions can encompass the three pillars of engagement: student-content, student-student, and student-instructor. Asynchronous discussions allow students time to reflect prior to participating, which can lead to deeper insights and richer discourse. Moreover, when participating in discussions, students have the opportunity to collaborate with others, participate in an online learning community, and gain insights from others’ unique experiences and perspectives (Ransdell, Borror & Su, 2018). Facilitating multiple types of engagement in an online course can improve student motivation, satisfaction, and achievement (Dailey-Hebert, 2018).