Student Voice: “Engage with students as much as you can - little things to make it personable; let yourself shine through your course.”

Module Overview

Interaction in an online course is between and among the student and the instructor, content, and other students

Through the interviews and course evaluations, NNU students expressed a desire for interaction with their instructors. In fact, students' eagerness to see and hear from their professors is one of three types of interaction in an effective online course, as put forward by Moore & Kearsley (1996) in their landmark book Distance Education: A Systems View:

Student-Instructor Interaction: Students have regular substantive opportunities to interact with you, the instructor. Writing weekly announcements, giving sound feedback on assignments, and holding virtual office hours are examples.

Student-Content Interaction: Students are actively engaged in exploring and making sense of course content. For instance, readings or exploration of related websites could precede discussion questions, low-stakes quizzes, or a 1-minute reflection paper.
Student-Student Interaction: Students are encouraged to collaborate and communicate with each other. Responses to each other's posts in the discussion board, short- or long-term group projects, and peer-review assignments all facilitate such interaction.

Ideally, your course, regardless of modality, will include multiple opportunities for students to delve into the content, share ideas about their learning with each other, and engage with you for guidance and feedback.

In this module, we will take a look at ideas for keeping yourself engaged with your students, especially with regard to how you provide instruction.

Varying Levels of Interaction

If you have solely taught face-to-face courses, you may want to be more familiar with the differences between and among other modalities.

Fully online course: Everything that would normally take place in a face-to-face learning environment happens instead via technology. All student-content, student-student, and student-instructor interactions occur online.
Hybrid course: This is a blend of face-to-face and online modalities. Typically, a hybrid course is set up in advance with an understanding that students will meet in a classroom only, say, once a week, and otherwise work in Canvas. In fact, the hallmark definition of a hybrid course is that the online aspect replaces part of the “seat time.”
Blended course: Sometimes used interchangeably with hybrid but with one main difference. Online aspects of the course do not replace "seat time" but are supplemental. Blended courses are face-to-face classes that are accompanied by online materials and activities in an LMS (Canvas).

What Are the Expectations for NNU classes?

Regardless of global pandemics, blended courses are optimal for students to maintain the face-to-face community and benefit from the flexibility of working through supplemental material when and where it is most convenient for them.

Moving forward, we will prepare for classes to operate between the blended and hybrid environments. Blended courses are easier to move to a hybrid format quickly. Hybrid courses enable you to accommodate remote learners in quarantine or student-athletes or musicians traveling.

What if you cannot teach face-to-face temporarily due to conference travel, quarantine, or illness? The hybrid format allows the course to proceed with you teaching remotely or in the case of illness, have another faculty member step in to facilitate.

Fortunately, the instructional strategies of hybrid and blended courses are very similar. The main difference is deciding if the online components are replacing seat-time or augmenting them. This module and subsequent modules demonstrate strategies for both hybrid and blended courses. The intent of this training is that you get ideas for how to plan your classes and choose what works best for your courses.

Outcomes

Essential Questions to Consider

How can I meaningfully interact with my students?
How can I help my students succeed?

Goals and Objectives

A. Summarize what students value in remote learning.

A1. Explain in what ways students desire interaction with instructors.

B. Identify what barriers students encounter in remote learning.

B1. Explain how a lack of interaction with the instructor affects student motivation.

C. Create ways to engage students successfully.

C1. Determine ways to bring your "instructional presence" to a remote environment.

C2. Record a brief instructional video to be used in your course.

Checklist

▶️ Watch the three main videos of faculty voices and enter comments/questions on the timelines.

▶️ Watch the optional videos as desired.

📌 Create a video using Canvas Studio.

💻 Refer to the support and resources to learn about Canvas Studio, our campus recording studios, and tips for effective use of video.

NOTE: As mentioned in the syllabus, we are using accountability features so that you may see them in action. On the Faculty Voices pages, please click the Mark as Done button; the rest of the Module 2 content requires that you at least View (open) the items. All of these Module Requirements will need to be done before you can move on to Module 3.

Help

What questions do you have so far? Visit the Q & A Discussion Forum to post them. Hint: Resist the urge to be shy. Many times, your fellow participants have the same question, and by your asking it in the discussion forum, everyone can benefit by seeing the response.