Interaction to build community in online courses

Interacting is a face-to-face classroom is a snap!

After all, folks are sitting right there in a classroom, next to each other - they are bound to talk, aren't they?  Interaction simply occurs naturally. If some students aren't talking, just set up group work to force them into interacting. This works, doesn't it?

Not really.

Some students easily begin conversations with other, creating new relationships.  Others bring these relationships with them from other courses they have taken, delighted to find "old friends" in a new class.

Left out

Still other students are quiet, processing internally, perhaps shy or not really interested in interacting with other students...and sometimes not even with the instructor.

One of the instructor's tasks, then, is to learn to "read" the students, to make sure all participate and interact with other students and with the instructor.  Students who contribute to class conversations early in the semester are more likely to continue to do so as the semester progresses...and research suggests they may well retain knowledge better than their non-participatory counterparts (Speaking in the Disciplines, 2007). Weimer (2011) suggests that participation increases student interest in the course while helping to increase learning and giving  both faculty and students feedback. Students who meet and converse regularly with each tend to become to supports for one another and have increased levels of attention and retention of the class material. This harkens back to Social  Learning Theory (Bandura & Walters, 1963).

But what happens when the student is taking an online course...with no one sitting next to him or her to engage them in conversation, to even say, "hi!"?

Assuming that the above information on social learning holds true for online students, we have to increase online interaction to build a classroom community.

This becomes a tad bit "sticky" with adult learners in an online setting. For example, let's view the following video on the Holmberg Theory of Interaction and Community:

 
 While the above video seems a little eerie at times, the message is clear:  engaging students with content and in relationship building increases interest in the content and increases motivation. Although the interaction mentioned in the video noted above is stilted, interaction has to be intentionally built into the instruction and the course plan.

 Building community in an online environment

So....what types of interaction are necessary to build community within an online course?

WPI (2007) identifies three kinds of interaction in online courses: learner-to-learner interaction, learner-to-content interaction, and learner-to-instructor interaction. Garrison (2007) uses the terms of  social, teaching, and cognitive presence.

Learner-to-learner interaction (social presence)

Let's look more closely at methods of learner-to-learner interaction in online courses:

 

My online courses begin with learner-to-learner interactions, often a discussion forum in which learners create a video introduction, design a digital notecard introduction, or even graphically depict their knowledge of a concept using an online drawing program such as Sketchtoy, A Web Whiteboard, Sketchpad, or Odosketch. As an introduction to using Voice Thread, learners continue to become better acquainted as they complete a VT that allows them to practice video responses, audio responses, and chat responses while following other prompts for information sharing. (This way hey learn how to use VT while learning more about each other :-) As courses progress, learners blog, respond to voicethreads, and continue posting to forums.   Several assignments require learners to craft videos which they then post to a forum for each other to view and critique.

I have experimented this semester with Facebook, asking learners to share links to articles, websites, videos, and blogs that pertain to course topics.  Along with posting, they are required to interact and share in return.  While this has learners interacting with the content, they are interacting with each other as well....sometimes that works even better!

So far, learners seem to enjoy the opportunity to interact with one another.   The activity with the biggest learn curve - interestingly enough - was Facebook....and part of that was my learning curve.  They were posting to our program page, but their postings appeared on the side of the screen, not in the timeline where i wanted them to appear, so I had to spend some time figuring out how to make that happen.  FB changes it pages frequently, so I wasn't as up-to-date as I needed to be. I am now, though :-)

Blogging has been an interesting assignment. I do not really want to read every student's individual blog, nor do I have time to do so due to various additional work commitments, so I set up a class blog to which they post, but they post individually, but only in small groups.  One group responds to the original post, another group  provides additional links and support, and a fourth group rests.  This assignment tends to trigger a little nervousness as they learn to navigate the blog and to add multimedia, but after the first round of posting they tend to enjoy it and often get a very good discussion going.

I am considering using twitter in some form next semester...but not sure at this point exactly what would be best.   I could perhaps have students tweet the same items they would post in Facebook, perhaps using #LRCCA....still pondering...... and trying to determine which course..perhaps that be best saved for EDU 606: Technology for Community College Administration....

Learner-to-instructor interaction (combines social, teaching, and cognitive presence)

Over the years this has been quite fun to develop!

Individual video-conferences. I  video-conference (in Canvas) individually with every single learner in my courses during the first week of class. This helps me connect immediately with those who may be fearful of the technology as I take them around the course site - not just a demo, but I talk through the sections and where to click. I provide a quick overview of the course, and we explore the syllabus together, focusing on the various assignments. We also discuss a few time management tips to help them stay on task with various assignments. After these individual sessions, I post a brief overview as a reminder - usually some sort of screencapture video.  Learners tell me these individual sessions ciuled with the screencapture videos are very helpful.  While I have tried group "welcomes" in the past, those who are uncomfortable with technology often leave these sessions feeling inadequate and that they slowed down the session for everyone else with their various questions.  Thus the individual session was born! Definitely time-consuming for me, but the rapport I develop with the students cannot be developed another way.   Several of my courses frequently attract students who are not in an online program, so these one-on-one sessions become very important.

Every 2-3 weeks, we video-conference individually in Canvas again, talking about the course content, the assignments, their jobs and career aspirations. Our program is an example of personalized learning where course assignments and projects and definitely the internship are designed to help learners fill the gap between the knowledge and experience of their current job and their dream job after the degree. This often means frequent meetings as we identify that dream job to help us determine the path to reach it. Filling this gap becomes a focal point as I work with learners individually - not something that can be handled in a group setting. Sometimes I have several learners from he same institution in class, so they may not be comfortable with sharing their dreams with one another due to politics at their community college.

Writing conferences are very easy using video-conferencing. Synchronously we can review a piece of writing, looking at the strengths, organization, what we need to bolster.... nothing beats a face-to-face video writing conference...

I suppose when totaled, I tend to spend over 50 hours each course with individual meetings....Teaching face-to-face would be much less time-consuming!

Audio-video. For years, learners have told me they loved to hear my voice in the courses, and I had been recording audio files to describe assignments and in forums for the past 5-10 years.   I have experimented with Audioboo for audio postings and have used brainshark to narrate powerpoint lecture chunks as well as assignment descriptions. Usually I tie in the assignment descriptions with an individual conference, requiring they listen to the audio/watch a video, then schedule their conference with me as we discuss the assignment. 

Video is just as important as audio, so learners can see me...not being vain, but in online courses, the instructor needs to be seen, to be viewed as more than a disembodied voice or a generator of emails. This increases our humanity and helps to build rapport with learners. Sometimes I will create a quick video announcement or overview of a task....and I have been known to participate in the icebreaker videos during the first week of class :-)  The following video, Interaction with online teaching,  emphasizes the importance of learners seeing instructors in online courses. I love his view on interaction and his methods...:

After attending a program meeting where  the speaker introduced me to using SnagIt when grading, I decided to give it a try...and I love it! So do the learners. In the past I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking to dictate my responses when grading (saving lots of wear-and-tear on my arms, triggering some carpal tunnel) and found that helpful as I felt I was almost carrying on a conversation with the learner....but..... some of those comments were long, and I didn't want the learner to feel put off by all I was "writing."

So, I tried SnagIt  with a few papers and with a learner's PowerPoint presentation.....and was very impressed!

I graded the papers using Word and inserted comments that noted warm feedback, the type of error, and helpful websites. THEN I used SnagIt to add in my conversation about various sentences, sections, even grammar and punctuation...I was finally able to explain when to use a comma with a coordinating conjunction - without going numb from typing!   Learners seemed to appreciate the feeedback and a few tried to send me audio comments in response :-)   I experimented with a PowerPoint presentation submitted by one student for her Reflective Journal...and that worked as well!

I will definitely keep SnagIT and video comments when grading in my toolbox! 

Learner-to-content interaction (teaching presence)

 Much of the content for the Community College Administration Program is delivered through student texts, but some courses have no texts, and I tend to supplement in others. I direct learners to  videos, podcasts, and websites, and they discuss their findings and their "learnings" through their discussion forums and voice threads (more social presence) as well as in their reflective journals (social and cognitive presence).

I have even been known to assign a specific movie and give learners a guided assignment exploring leadership...and I have asked them to select a movie on their own and explore the fundamentals of leadership theory and team management as portrayed in the movie.

Over the years I have developing a series of "chunked" videos that I am currently in the process of revising using Camtasia to make them more interactive using the quiz feature. 

What's next?   more screencapture grading, more video-conferencing, more audio, and more interactive videos :-)

References

Bandura, A., & Walters, R. (1963). Social learning and personality development. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Garrison, D. R. (2007). Online community of inquiry review: Social, cognitive, and teaching presence issues. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11 (1), 61-72.

University of Pittsburg. (2007). Speaking in the disciplines. Retrieved November 9, 2014, from http://www.speaking.pitt.edu/instructor/class-discussions.html

WPI. (2007). Incorporating interaction into your distance learning course. retrieved November 10, 2014, from https://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Collaboratory/Teaching/interaction.html


Weimer, M. (2011). 10 benefits of getting students to participate in classroom discussions. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/10-benefits-of-getting-students-to-participate-in-classroom-discussions/

10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions - See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/10-benefits-of-getting-students-to-participate-in-classroom-discussions/#sthash.3Alr2GTC.dpuf