Promoting Interactive Peer Learning in an Online Environment
by Janie Sullivan
There are some components of online learning that cause concerns in the world of academia and ivy covered walls. Interactivity between the learners and accountability for the learning are two of those concerns. Accrediting bodies are starting to shift the emphasis from course completion to competency as technology enables more and more learning to shift from the classroom to cyberspace as more schools are offering more classes through online delivery systems. Colleges across the country are hiring more and more adjunct faculty to handle the increased course offerings through online modalities.
As this new wave of part-time faculty come on board, it is crucial to the institution to makes sure they understand that the learning in the online classroom needs to be as rigorous as in the face to face classroom. There are misconceptions on all sides of this issue, including students thinking an online class is going to be much easier than a face-to-face class, administration concerns about the rigorousness of the classes, and adjunct faculty thinking that teaching an online class is a good way to pick up some quick, easy money. Proper training and adequate information for all stakeholders in this area will dispel those misconceptions.
The question remains: How do we, as adjunct instructors, ensure that interactive peer learning happens in our online classrooms? How do we promote interactivity in an environment where our students are not only separated by distance, but by time as well? In an asynchronous classroom, students are “present” at different times of the day and night and the faculty member is not available 24/7 to answer questions or provide guidance to the students.
The role of the faculty member is changing along with the delivery modality. Faculty are facilitating the learning rather than lecturing and testing comprehension of the material. In an online classroom, the learners are expected to take control of their own learning, to follow the instructions provided to them by the faculty and to participate in the class through interactive discussions. Accountability becomes key in this process, encouraging students to keep up with the workload or they will soon be left behind.
One way to ensure participation in the class is to provide points of discussion throughout the course through posting questions in the bulletin board areas of the CMS system used by the school. Just posting the questions is not enough, however. There must be an accountability process or there would be no point to posting the questions. Faculty can decide how much participation should be required and how much of the student’s final grade will be dependant on participation. One way to do this is post a specific number of discussion questions each week, on different days, and require that the students respond to each question.
Follow that requirement with another one that students respond to a minimum number of the other student’s comments on a minimum number of days each week. Just requiring them to respond once, or on one day, will cause the discussion to flounder. The idea is to get them back in the discussion on multiple days to contribute additional comments, which will keep the discussion going. Set criteria regarding the student responses and comments. The responses to the questions should be substantive, consist of several sentences, if not a paragraph or two. The student comments also need to be substantive and credit for participation should not be given for responses like, “I agree with you.” Set minimum word or sentence length, or just tell the students that their responses are expected to be substantive.
The students will naturally move the discussion ahead by commenting on each other’s responses, adding their own personal experience, and even asking questions. Once they get used to this format, the discussions will become more interactive. Sometimes the discussions will get off track, just as they do in the traditional classroom.
It is up to the faculty member to monitor the discussion, interjecting comments and questions frequently enough so the students know they are not alone in the discussion. Bringing the discussion back on track is relatively easy, just as it is in a face to face discussion. As long as the faculty member is monitoring the activity in the discussion, he or she will be able to re-direct the comments back to the topic of the day quickly by posting a “Let’s get back on track” comment.
Developing the discussion questions is critical to the process. You want the questions to be short and simple enough that the students understand them, yet complex enough to elicit substantive responses. The questions need to be related to the content being presented that week, and they need to be relevant to the student’s needs. For example, if the class is a writing class, the discussion can revolve around writing styles or grammatical concepts. In a history class you could have the students responding to questions about the impact certain historical events had on life as we know it today. There are many variations of this kind of question, and as long as the question is designed to elicit discussion generating responses, you should have no problem keeping the discussion going.
Some students will not respond with much more than a few words. There are several reasons for this, including self confidence and possibly even shyness. The thought that their responses are going to be read by everyone else in class besides the teacher may cause some of them to hold back. You can encourage these students online much the same way you would in a traditional classroom.
Try to draw the student out by posting a comment like this: “I haven’t heard anything from you this week, Bob. I know from reading your bio that you have experience in this area and I am sure you can add a great deal to this discussion.” Or, if the student is answering, but all the answers are one-liners like “I agree with that,” post a response to the short answer post and ask some questions like, “Why is it that you agree?” or “What do you agree with?” Sometimes you will just have to address the student individually and explain that he or she needs to provide more information in the responses and comments.
Promoting interactivity in an online environment will make the learning experience much richer for the faculty member as well as the student. Making sure that the student is accountable for the interactivity will help to ensure that the student is taking an active part in his or her education, therefore learning more. This is an area where the adjunct faculty can take the lead in promoting more interactivity in their online classes, providing excellent examples of how this is done and contributing toward higher retention, resulting in increased enrollment numbers.
