How can I ensure that my online course is engaging?

Students play a large part in how engaging your course is. Have you ever had a class session fall short, only to have the exact same lesson work spectacularly with a different section of students? This speaks to the importance of group dynamics and the value of student involvement in the learning process.

Online discussion forums are a common method of engagement in many online courses. They are often used to facilitate student interactions that would normally happen in the classroom. Thoughtfully designed online discussions can help surface student misperceptions of course concepts, expose them to different perspectives, and build community, just like classroom discussions. 

 “The students are not only learning something from me, they are also learning from other students, and I am learning from them. My online courses no longer feel disconnected and static, but instead dynamic and interactive.”

-Dana Fowler

A highly engaging online course will often include various collaborative learning activities in addition to the conventional online discussion forum, such as group projects. Groupwork motivates students, provides a peer instruction opportunity, gives students a chance to look at the problem from multiple perspectives, and helps students become more creative. In her article, Davis (1993) shows that three or four students per group are most effective. You may prefer to randomly assign students to groups or choose to allow the class to self-select. When forming groups consider student performance levels, academic strengths and weaknesses, student backgrounds and prior experience with course concepts.