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Increasing Students’ Interactivity in an Online Course
M Cecil Smith and Amy Winking-Diaz
Northern Illinois University
Abstract
Efforts were undertaken to increase students’ interactivity in an online course in adult development. The purpose was to increase students’ engagement with the course materials, heighten their online discussions, and deepen their thinking about course-related concepts, theoretical principles, and research findings. Several strategies were used towards this end. Analyses of students’ discussions showed that they relied frequently upon personal anecdotes to make meaning of the theories and developmental principles covered in the course. The instructional strategies did not, however, bear a direct relationship to students’ participation, learning, or course performance. Rendering the course materials sensible in light of their personal experiences is a critical indicator of students’ understanding and learning. Instructors may want to redirect their attention from assessing students’ knowledge of factual contents in online courses where ability to discuss and analyze concepts and principles is a critical indicator of learning.
Online education has come of age. Today, hundreds of universities and colleges are offering individual courses and degree programs online via the Web. Such academic offerings provide students with an important advantage in that they can take coursework at any higher education institution, or pursue studies at their local college or university without having to come to campus. Such flexibility is essential in creating distributed learning environments (Oblinger & Maruyama, 1996) that can increase students’ opportunities for learning and academic achievement. It is estimated that 1.5 million students took part in online education in 1998 (National Center for Education Statistics, 1999); that figure continues to grow and more higher education institutions are increasing their offerings of online classes and entire programs of study on the Web.
The introduction of powerful and flexible course management software programs, such as Blackboard and WebCT, has made the development of online courses very appealing to higher education institutions and professors. Instructors can post course materials, such as assigned readings, lecture notes, videos, and PowerPoint presentations on secure sites and students can access these materials 24 hours a day. Online courses can create greater opportunities for instructors and students to interact more frequently, communicate more effectively, and collaborate on learning projects and research (Alexander, 1999; Ko & Rossen, 2004).
However, online learning presents a number of challenges to both the instructor and the student (Muirhead, 2001). Student attrition from online courses, for example, is very high (Carr, 2000; Hiltz, 1994). Undoubtedly, dropping out of an online course can be explained in part by the perceived lack of immediate social contact and the relative anonymity among students in online courses (Kember, 1989). Students also may underestimate the amount of time required to succeed in an online course. Some students perceive online courses to be less rigorous, perhaps assuming that the amount of content and the demands on their time is small relative to traditional, face-to-face courses. A challenge for instructors of online courses is to create courses that are equivalent to face-to-face courses in terms of their learning objectives, contents and assignments, and student learning outcomes (MacKinnon, 2002).
A significant problem for instructors and students is that the level of interactivity, between and among students and the course contents, may be difficult to achieve online (Guernsey, 199
. Interactivity is conceptualized as a vital learning process (Tu, 2000), and the level of interactivity, according to Muirhead (2001) has an impact on the quality of computer-mediated instruction. Interactivity has been defined as two-way communications among two or more persons (Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena, 1994), the purposes of which are to promote explanation and challenge perspectives among learners (Garrison, 1993). Northrup (2001) and others (e.g., Moore, 1989; Northrup & Rasmussen, 2000), view interactivity as that which occurs not only between students and the instructor, and students among one another, but also between students and the course contents"including the assigned texts and related instructional materials. Although, strictly speaking, students and course contents cannot “interact,” in that texts cannot respond to students, a number of educational technology advocates claim that interactivity may be present between learners, texts, and other materials and resources that are assigned to students (Bannan-Ritland, 2002; Soo & Bonk, 1998; Tremayne & Dunwoody, 2001). For the purposes of this paper, interactivity is defined as students’ active engagement in the tasks of reading and acquiring an understanding of the required course reading materials, and demonstrating understanding of the information through participation in online class discussion activities.Critics of online education have raised concerns about the level and quality of student interactivity in classes offered over the Internet (Stross, 2001). Instructors in online classes and educational technology researchers have investigated some of the factors that can influence interactivity. Burge (1994), for example, conducted in-depth interviews with two instructors and their students in courses offered via text-based computer conferencing (i.e., primarily e-mail).
Two instructor behaviors were identified as being crucial to promoting student engagement and learning in these courses. The first was the ability to manage discussions by providing appropriate structure and pacing, and giving students sufficient time for thinking and creativity. The second important behavior was an amalgam of instructional activities that included giving students technical assistance in a timely manner, posting summaries of discussions, and offering students affective support.
In a survey of students in distance education courses for health professionals (e.g., occupational therapy, social work), Townsend et al. (2002) found greater interactivity took place when students had opportunities to communicate with their instructor rather than when working collaboratively in small groups. Students also reported that when instructors graded students’ participation, required students to post questions, or discuss case studies, then interactivity was enhanced. Larson (2002) found that student interactivity increased in an online marketing course when the instructor was frequently and actively involved in discussions. Thus, the primary issues of concern surrounding students’ interactivity in online courses are related to instructors’ involvement and feedback and students’ successful time management to achieve the demands of the course.
Obviously, student discussion is critical to the success of an online course. However, as Levin (1997) pointed out, online learning is conducted largely within text. Thus, whenever students must read challenging texts in preparation for class discussions, some will find it difficult to be fully interactive in the course. Further, according to Northrup (2001), interactivity must be intentionally designed into a Web-based course, as it does not simply happen because the materials and tasks are presented to students for their consumption. A lack of interactivity was observed when the first author delivered an online adult development course for the first time in the fall of 2001. Student discussions within the course discussion forum suggested that they had not prepared for discussions by reading the assigned articles or lecture notes. Discussions tended to lapse into story swapping and students’ sharing of personal anecdotes rather than thoughtful analyses of theoretical principles and research findings, as befits a graduate course (Bonk, Malikowski, Angeli, & East, 199
. Steps were then taken to remedy this problem and several strategies were developed to increase students’ interactivity when the course was offered again the following year (fall 2002). These strategies, and their impacts on student discussion performance and learning in the course, will be examined in this paper. The second author took the course the first time it was offered and then served as a graduate teaching intern when the course was offered again, so her insights as both student and instructor are valuable to understanding the impacts of the instructional strategies for increasing the level of engagement with the course materials and assignments.Mood:
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