E-Coaching Tip 1: The Importance of Interaction and "Virtual Presence" -- Being There for Your Students

For this week, the key reminder is to be "present" for your students! Be sure your students know you are engaged with them and actively talking and listening to them.

1. How important is Interaction as a key element of satisfaction for learners?

Did you know that regular and timely interaction of faculty with students is one of the key quality indicators of online courses? A number of studies suggest that learner satisfaction about their online learning courses is directly related to the "social presence" or "virtual presence" of their faculty member.

How can you be "present" for your students? Here are some of the ways...

Use the Announcements section of your course web site for a quick hello, reminder, or comment about the relevance of a current event.
Regularly post "substantive comments" on the discussion board, related to assignment or discussions.

Helpful hint #1 - "Schedule a Virtual Meeting with yourself to "be on" the bulletin board... for example, on Tuesday and Thursdays, so the days don't get away from you!

Helpful hint #2 - When I am going to do this, I play a special quiet "cd music" to separate myself from my other tasks.

Plan a live collaborative time early in the semester with your students - to just do a Q & A about the course and what you - as a group - will be doing. If your students are located in widely varying time zones--such as military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan--the chat option may not be a viable alternative. The many live collaborative tools, such as Horizon/Wimba and Elluminate and AdobeConnect,

Some Readings and References on Interaction...

"Guiding Principles for Faculty in Distance Learning"

http://www.ihets.org/progserv/education/distance/guiding_principles/

This is a comprehensive web site, but for now, just focus on Subprinciple #6 under I. Faculty Benchmarks and Principles -- Course Design and note two items:

(1) recommendation for multiple communication channels and (2) regular interactions early in the semester.

Subprinciple #6:

"Communication and collaboration foster strong learning communities, counteracting the often-isolating nature of distance learning" and that "providing variety of communications channels, such as e-mail, telephone, video, discussion forums, online chats, etc. - encourages student-to-teacher and student-to-student interaction, particularly if that communication is integrated well into assignments and begun early in the semester."

You may find the other course design principles of interest as well.

"Guidelines for Establishing Interactivity in Online Courses"

http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=12

While this article discusses all three dialogues of faculty-to-student, student-to-student and student-to-resources, you may want to focus on the introductory section that discusses interaction in general, "Why Interaction is important."

Ecoaching Table of Contents

judith@designingforlearning.org
Revised February 11, 2010
Copyright Judith V. Boettcher, 1997-2010