Are your students highly engaged in the class, motivated, and performing to the best of their ability? In a perfect classroom setting, all students would be engaged in the course, interested in the subjects, and performing to the best of their abilities. That is what every educator expects when he starts teaching a class.
The reality for most classes is that while some students may be highly engaged and motivated, other students will base their participation on what is experienced in the classroom and whether or not their expectations are met. While addressing student engagement can be challenging for traditional classroom educators, it can be even more difficult for online educators who can’t see their students or meet with them for a scheduled class time.
At the start of a new online class, educators often find that students enter the class with mixed feelings of excitement, apprehension, and uncertainty. From a student’s perspective, staying motivated and engaged in class requires considerable effort. While many students are naturally self-directed and have the ability to stay engaged, there are often others who lack self-motivation and begin to disengage over time. As many educators realize, by the time a student becomes disengaged from class, it is often too late to get them back on track.
One challenge for instructors is that facilitating online classes can take a significant amount of time. With a busy schedule, it’s natural to focus on contractual obligations and classroom management, and not notice a student slowly disconnecting from class until they’re absent altogether or check out. It then becomes important to take a proactive approach with students online and establish an instructional focus to help them stay focused and engaged in class.
Definition of the concept of student engagement
When educators define the nature of student engagement, they usually do so from a tangible perspective (what is seen) and this can be a subjective assessment. For example, if a student posts engagement messages online almost every day of the week, she could tell that he is very engaged. The question is how active a student needs to be to meet these criteria. If they post for five days, do you have the same level of engagement as a student who posts for six days? As a general guideline, you can assess how engaged students seem to be in your class. This includes their participation in discussions, asking questions, turning in assignments on time, and how responsive they are to other students and their instructor. If a student is to be considered highly engaged in the class, an instructor should look for various visual cues.
Why is student engagement important?
Engagement is important because it indicates that students are involved in the class. When students are fully engaged, a distance learning class begins to feel like a community. If students aren’t actively engaged in your class, especially an online class, they can easily become disconnected, lose interest, and eventually drop out. If the instructor does not intervene, these students may drop out of the course, and an ongoing pattern like this can also lead to disengagement from your degree program. Visual cues are important because they are indicators of how engaged students are in the learning process. These signals include qualities like your effort level, along with your responsiveness to feedback, communication, and coaching.
Find out how to measure student engagement
When visual cues are interpreted, it is often done subjectively, looking at more than the student’s tangible work product or written assignments. The purpose of measuring class participation is to increase an educator’s awareness of students and track their participation. It’s easy to get so busy managing class operations and discussions that students who aren’t present end up being overlooked when they’re not actively present. For those instructors who care about details, they can create a spreadsheet and track their students’ progress. Some learning management systems provide analytics that allow an instructor to check students’ progress in the course. The purpose of doing this is to pay attention to your students and how they are progressing.
To help educators with the process of encouraging student participation in class, I have developed a model called COMMIT.
myExamine the conditions of the class, as they may encourage or discourage active participation. For example, do you run ads that include a preview or summary of the week’s topics or concepts? Do you provide additional resources? Do you provide multiple contact methods so that students can reach you easily? All of these strategies can help create conditions conducive to learning.
NONotice student participation and pay attention to their activities. If you wait until you provide feedback to determine who is active and who is not, it may be too late to intervene. If there are features built into your learning management system that allow you to track students and their access to the course, this can help you identify students who are disconnecting. You can also check who completed learning activities before the due date and develop a list of students who are behind.
GRAMmeasure the expected level of activity for an average student to establish a standard. As an instructor, you develop a feel for the online class over time. You have a general idea of how much activity in the online class is indicative of an actively engaged student. Take that knowledge to help you develop a basic template and checklist that you can use, either mentally or in writing, to help monitor your students’ progress.
INAssess students and look for visual cues as you monitor their progress. As you monitor your students’ progress and consider how active they are based on your expectations for participation, also consider how well they are performing. For example, a student may communicate with the class from time to time by posting a short discussion response and still not be substantially involved. A student who seems to be getting by is someone who requires her time and attention.
GRAMGet students’ attention through some form of communication, such as an email or phone call, if it appears that they are not present or if they are disconnecting from the class. With an online class, it’s important that you proactively reach out to your students whenever you notice them struggling, not performing well, or not posting substantive contributions to class discussions.
If you have developed a positive working relationship with your students, they will likely respond when you contact them by email. If you haven’t been able to make that connection, a phone call could be a helpful approach to reach out and establish your willingness to help them. One of the main challenges in making phone calls is finding a time when both the instructor and their students are available, especially if they are in different time zones.
myJoin the class as students will follow your example. As a faculty director, I have observed many online classes with students not actively participating and it was a reflection of the level of engagement of their instructors. Students often develop the perception that their instructor doesn’t seem to care about the class if she doesn’t seem to be actively present. However, even if an instructor is highly visible and engaged, she does not guarantee that students will also respond with the same level of participation. What an active presence does is encourage them to participate and get involved.
Always participate in your class
For instructors, being highly engaged in an online class requires proactive effort and participation. It is possible to catch struggling students before they log out; however, it can be challenging because keeping track of students takes time. If you are allocating only enough time to complete the required facilitation tasks, it may not be appropriate to take the time to contact students and do outreach.
One of the first steps you can take is to develop a standard of engagement acceptable to the average student. By developing this standard, you can observe patterns and communicate with your students as needed. In general, it is necessary to establish a plan for raising awareness of your students if you want to keep them involved. Student participation in an online class is related to their engagement in the learning process, their retention in a degree program, and is a contributing factor to their overall success.
As an instructor, you have a direct impact on the performance of your students. Take the initiative, show them how to commit a lot, and show them you care when they’re starting to disengage. It may take more of your time, but teaching and nurturing the development of your students will require time and effort on your part. While you may not see immediate results from your efforts, if a student remains engaged in the course, It will have had a direct impact on your lifelong learning experience and this is likely why you became an educator in the first place: to make a positive contribution to the academic growth and development of your students.