For Faculty

Instructor Interaction

by Brian Ditmer, M.A., Instructional Designer

We always strive to achieve better student outcomes. When we teach a course online, this effort suffers since we are no longer in a physical classroom with our students. There have been a few articles written by instructors on how one can address this, but the best information for this would probably come from the students themselves. One study did just that to find out what online instructor characteristics help the most for students' success.

Communication/availability and feedback were the two primary characteristics that the students found important in their online courses. Communication and availability are important in providing the sense of instructor presence in the course—the sense that there is a real person there with the student goes a long way towards creating an engaging learning environment. Here are some ways we can do this:

Provide a clear communications plan. And stick to it! Specific information about the turnaround time for responding will help alleviate students' stress regarding receiving a response to a question. It is quite common for instructors to promise a reply within 24 hours. This can also be helpful in reminding you to check into the course every day. (Shi, Bonk and Magjuka, 2006.) This also helps avoid a student's anxiety of not knowing when a question will be answered. You can easily alleviate those feelings by letting your students know when they can expect your reply.

A primary avenue of instructor interactions is the Course Discussion board. This is a place where student-to-student interaction occurs and is also the primary place where student-to-instructor interaction occurs. Discussion boards are the equivalent of classroom discussions in a face-to-face course. The big difference (and possible advantage) is that they are asynchronous (not happening at the same time), which can provide time for reflection before a response is posted. A good strategy provides the opportunity for the same productive interactions that a face-to-face discussion can provide. Some good suggestions are:

• Create open-ended questions that prompt learners to apply the concepts they are learning.
• Model good Socratic-type probing and follow-up. Why do you think that? What is your reasoning? Ask clarifying questions.
• Don't post questions that solicit basic facts. This too easily results in responses of yes or no, and little actual dialogue. (Boettcher, 2006)

Definitely participate in discussions. But be careful. When you do so, remember to model, challenge and question, but do not dominate. If the predominate voice is the instructors, the voices of other students may not heard. Allow students the opportunity to experience one another, however, they do very much welcome knowing you are there alongside them, too.

Contact the Instructional design team at elearning.id@ttu.edu for more tips on providing good instructor presence in your online course.

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Resources

Time Management Strategies for Online Teaching; Min Shi, Curtis J. Bonk, Richard J. Magjuka, accessed from http://itdl.org/journal/feb_06/article01.htm

Designing for Learning; J.V. Boettche http://www.designingforlearning.info/services/writing/ecoach/tenbest.html