scholarly journals A Critical Analysis of Characteristics that Influence the Effect of Instructor Discussion Interaction on Student Outcomes

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Simon Hoey
Keyword(s):  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Instructional Strategy ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Cognitive Presence ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Optimal Frequency ◽  
Course Quality ◽  
Instructor Interaction ◽  
Teacher Presence

Teacher presence facilitates students’ social and cognitive presence in online courses. Instructor interaction in discussion forums, a widely adopted instructional strategy, establishes teacher presence but research on the optimal frequency and content of instructor interaction in discussion is underdeveloped. This research evaluated 1625 instructor posts in 36 graduate-level courses in education to determine their impact on students’ perceptions of the quality of the instructor and course, students’ perceptions of their learning, and students’ actual achievement. Findings suggest the frequency of instructor interaction in discussion has no effect on student outcomes, but posts that are instructional improve students’ perceptions of their learning, and posts that are conversational improve students’ perceptions of instructor and course quality and their actual academic achievement. Implications for instructors and policymakers are addressed.

Fostering Interaction and Social Presence through eCollaboration

2015 ◽  
pp. 89-119
Author(s):  
Patricia McGee ◽  
Jooyoung Voeller
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Learning ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Instructional Strategy ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Teacher Presence ◽  
Learning Frameworks

eCollaboration is an instructional strategy used in online courses in which two or more students work collaboratively at a distance to achieve a pre-determined instructional outcome. In order to work together at a distance, social, cognitive, and teacher presence are required. In this chapter, the authors focus on how social presence informs eCollaboration in the fundamental learning concepts of the strategy, the learning frameworks that support collaborative learning, and for building and supporting learning experiences.

scholarly journals Evaluation of an Algorithm for Automatic Grading of Forum Messages in MOOC Discussion Forums

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9364
Author(s):  
Raquel L. Pérez-Nicolás ◽  
Carlos Alario-Hoyos ◽  
Iria Estévez-Ayres ◽  
Pedro Manuel Moreno-Marcos ◽  
Pedro J. Muñoz-Merino ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Online Courses ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Automatic Assessment ◽  
Automatic Grading ◽  
The Impact

Discussion forums are a valuable source of information in educational platforms such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as users can exchange opinions or even help other students in an asynchronous way, contributing to the sustainability of MOOCs even with low interaction from the instructor. Therefore, the use of the forum messages to get insights about students’ performance in a course is interesting. This article presents an automatic grading approach that can be used to assess learners through their interactions in the forum. The approach is based on the combination of three dimensions: (1) the quality of the content of the interactions, (2) the impact of the interactions, and (3) the user’s activity in the forum. The evaluation of the approach compares the assessment by experts with the automatic assessment obtaining a high accuracy of 0.8068 and Normalized Root Mean Square Error (NRMSE) of 0.1799, which outperforms previous existing approaches. Future research work can try to improve the automatic grading by the training of the indicators of the approach depending on the MOOCs or the combination with text mining techniques.

scholarly journals Assessing the Reliability of Merging Chickering & Gamson’s Seven Principles for Good Practice with Merrill’s Different Levels of Instructional Strategy (DLISt7)

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Syaril Izwann Jabar
Keyword(s):  
Instructional Strategies ◽  
Instructional Strategy ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Measurement Instrument ◽  
Internal Reliability ◽  
Seven Principles ◽  
Confirmatory Factor ◽  
Different Levels

Based on Chickering and Gamson’s (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice, this research project attempted to revitalize the principles by merging them with Merrill’s (2006) Different Levels of Instructional Strategy. The aim was to develop, validate, and standardize a measurement instrument (DLISt7) using a pretest-posttest Internet quasi-experiment. It was proposed that the instrument could then be used as a rubric either for facilitating the implementation of DLISt7, or as a set of unobtrusive diagnostic indicators for assessing the quality of learning experienced by students in blended and online courses. The study was conducted across five faculties at a regional Australian multi-campus university. The intent was to contribute to knowledge building by leveraging the data that had been collected, analyzed, and reported to generate awareness about the likelihood of scaffolding and scaling, varying levels of instructional strategies for communicating expectations, and relaying information. The idea was to produce a tool that would create more opportunities for more of the principles to be put to good use as an effectiveness multiplier. The findings from the analysis conducted using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis verified the validity of DLISt7 and demonstrated excellent internal reliability values.

scholarly journals The Course Improvement Flowchart: A description of a tool and process for the evaluation of university teaching

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
P. Morgan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Student Outcomes ◽  
Professional Growth ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Course Quality ◽  
Effective Evaluation ◽  
Action Inquiry ◽  
Quality Of Teaching

The use of evaluation to examine and improve the quality of teaching and courses is now a component of most universities. However, despite the various methods and opportunities for evaluation, a lack of understanding of the processes, measures and value are some of the major impediments to effective evaluation. Evaluation requires an understanding of what to evaluate, how to evaluate it, how to collect and analyse the information and how to action and implement what has been learned. The aim of this paper is to describe an instrument to document not only the evaluative process, but also evaluative outcomes. The Course Improvement Flowchart (CIF) provides a template for the application of an action inquiry framework. Throughout this process, the CIF template can be used to document key recommendations emanating from multiple sources of feedback so that a proactive statement of intent or action plan for teaching and course improvement is written. The resultant improvements that may be achieved in teaching and course quality may lead to more satisfying teaching experiences, improved student outcomes and heightened professional growth as a teacher.

What We Know About Assessing Online Learning in Secondary Schools

2009 ◽  
pp. 684-701
Author(s):  
Art W. Bangert ◽  
Kerry L. Rice
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Evaluation Criteria ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cognitive Presence ◽  
Program Evaluations ◽  
Seven Principles ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of

In this chapter, the authors examine past and current efforts in evaluating the quality of online high school courses. They argue that policy organizations in the United States have made recommendations to guide the design and delivery of effective high school online courses. However, past efforts at determining the quality of online courses have focused primarily on broad-based program evaluations and the development of standards lacking specific evaluation criteria. They propose the development of evaluation processes and instruments based on solid theoretical foundations which embody learnercentered instructional practices, communities of inquiry, and a proven record of empirically-based research results. They suggest that a history of research evaluating instructional effectiveness using the Seven Principles of Effective Teaching combined with the inclusion of principles of cognitive presence in assessing deep learning may provide a useful framework for establishing empirically-based guidelines for evaluating the quality of online instruction.

Addressing Discrepancies in Faculty and Student Perceptions of the Quality and Rigor of Online Courses

2019 ◽  
pp. 120-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anisah Bagasra ◽  
Mitchell Brent Mackinem
Keyword(s):  
Historically Black ◽  
Student Performance ◽  
Student Perceptions ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Faculty Perceptions ◽  
Online Programs ◽  
Course Quality ◽  
Historically Black University ◽  
Online Coursework

The chapter addresses the discrepancies that exist between student and faculty perceptions of online courses, specifically differences in beliefs about the quality of online courses and the rigor of online coursework. The authors present data collected from faculty and students before the launch of undergraduate and graduate online programs and over the course of the first four years of online course offerings at a small, Historically Black University (HBCU). The data is used to discuss ways to reduce incongruities in how students and faculty view online courses with a focus on faculty establishing their expectations for student performance in the online environment, measuring course quality, and using student evaluations to enhance course quality. Congruent beliefs and expectations are important to ensure that both faculty and students involved in online courses are satisfied with their experiences, leading to better retention and learning outcomes.

Negotiating Diverse Populations in Online Graduate Courses

2017 ◽  
pp. 136-152
Author(s):  
Patricia Webb Boyd ◽  
Andrea J. Severson
Keyword(s):  
Social Presence ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Cognitive Presence ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Graduate Course ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
Student Centered Learning ◽  
Course Material ◽  
Teacher Presence

This study uses Garrison et al.'s Community of Inquiry Model to analyze the difficulties that arose in an online English graduate course. Using the three presences (teacher, social, and cognitive) to understand the interactions and engagements between students, instructor, and course material, the chapter illustrates the primary need for strong teacher presence in student-centered learning environments, especially in online courses where traditional verbal and physical cues are not present. Without a strong teacher presence, the effective achievement of social presence and cognitive presence is hindered. Students need instructor modeling and direction in order to achieve the deep learning goals that are at the center of graduate education. The implications of the study are that teachers must carefully and flexibly design the course both at the beginning of the semester and throughout it as the demographics of the student population are illustrated in the online discussions.

scholarly journals Converging Online and Class-Room Methods: A Promising Mode of Knowledge Sharing in Digital Age?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arul George Scaria
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Methods ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Law School ◽  
Traditional Classroom ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Online Discussion Forums ◽  
Class Room

The emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is considered as oneof the most disruptive changes that happened in the field of education inthe last decade. They are playing an important role in democratising accessto knowledge across the globe and many countries, including India, arecontemplating the use of such courses for addressing their mass educationalrequirements. In this context, it is important to explore how certaincomponents of MOOCs like online videos and online discussion forums couldbe converged with traditional classroom methods for giving broader accessto education, without compromising the quality of learning and instruction.This article is a case study in this direction in the background of apedagogical experiment done at the National Law University Delhi, incollaboration with the CopyrightX program of the Harvard Law School. Thearticle describes how a dynamic comparative copyright law course wasdeveloped by merging online and offline teaching methods. The article notonly analyses the learning implications from this pedagogical experimentfor evolving other comparative law courses, but also analyses the broaderlessons for designing similar courses in other subjects.

Gamifying Discussion Forums

2020 ◽  
pp. 333-350
Author(s):  
Alexander Nagurney ◽  
Patrick A. Smith ◽  
Michelle Fulks Read ◽  
Ann Evans Jensen ◽  
Gwendolyn M. Morel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Student Choice ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
Student Work

This study examines the effect of gamifying and adding problem-solving aspects to discussion prompts in online courses with the goal of increasing the quantity and quality of student work. It was also a goal to foster motivation, engagement, and critical thinking skills. Results show an increase in the number of posts, the quality of posts as evaluated by the instructor, and student satisfaction with the overall course judged by responses to a survey administered at the end of the course. A number of recommendations are made, including furthering the use of student choice in how coursework is completed, promoting teamwork, and using incentives to increase student engagement.

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