This conversation will be focused around four propositions about interaction in online and blended courses. These will focus on the role of interaction in learning, the nature of the tools we can use, how we support instructors, and the value of knoweldge building. Participants will be asked to share experiences and research that supports or refutes four statements.
The conversation is focused by four statements. Participants in the conversation will be encouraged to defend or refute the statements as if they are in a debate. The statements have been written in absolute language are intended to be slightly provocative and to challenge some assumptions that have continued to influence online and blended course design even as the work has been underway for decades. Participants will be encouraged to illustrate their positions with real-world examples or reference to literature (to the extend they can), so the conversation saved by the archivist can be a resource for further investigation by the participants.
- Interaction is essential to learning in any course. The “presenter” will be prepared to begin the discussion with reference to the work of Poh, Swenson, Picard, & Picard (2010) which suggested students were more attentive when working in laboratories and when working on homework in social settings then they were in lectures. It is reasoned the social nature of the learning in those settings affected attention, which allowed for more effective and deeper learning.
- Face-to-face and online interaction are not the same. The “presenter” will be prepared to compare face-to-face interaction to driving an automobile as the leader can redirect, stop, slow, and accelerate as the activity emerges. This will be contrasted to online interaction which is initiated and sustained by prompts. The presenter will further be prepared to share experienced of faculty who designed courses with prompts used to structure student’s responses to each other as well as responses to materials.
- Discussion boards are the least effect tool to facilitate interaction. The “presenter” will be prepared to share experiences using blogs, wikis, and video conferencing rather than discussion boards in his courses as well as course taught by those instructors who took his advice. It is reasoned a diversity of platforms used to facilitate students’ interactions in online spaces introduced novelty that makes it more effective.
- Interaction leads to deeper learning than instructor-directed work. The “presenter” will be prepared to describe how he and his colleagues have structured and prompted online interaction so that interaction is less information sharing and more knowledge building (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006).
The session will be organized like research conference sessions with the time divided into four sessions of 10 minutes each. The “presenter” will serve as time keeper and facilitator, ensuring time is available to consider each statement. Five minutes at the end will be reserved for concluding remarks by the presenter or others. The purpose of the final session will be to articulate trends that seemed to resonate as well as actionable steps participants can take when they return to their work.
References
Poh, M. Z., Swenson, N. C., & Picard, R. W. (2010). A wearable sensor for unobtrusive, long-term assessment of electrodermal activity. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 57(5), 1243-1252.
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge building: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In The Cambridge handbook of learning sciences (pp. 97–115). New York: Cambridge University Press.