Making Contact with Students in Online Learning (Part 3 of 3):

Student Engagement

Dr. Ken L. Haley, Ph.D
Paris Junior College, Paris, TX
E-mail: khaley@paris.cc.tx.us

As the world shifts into the much-discussed information age, educators look for ways to adapt to new educational delivery systems to keep pace with this fundamental shift. As reported by Kadlubowski, in 1997 "more than 76 million American adults--40% of the adult population--participated in one or more adult education activities, up from 32% in 1991" (2). Higher education is no longer limited to the population just out of high school. This trend seems likely to continue as employers demand an increasingly educated and specialized workforce with skills not easily acquired on the job. The educational community must meet the demand for continuing education and find ways to engage these students--both traditional and nontraditional--in an educational delivery system that can meet the increased pressures of students in need of education while they work and meet family obligations. We need to engage these busy students in the world of distance education.

Online classes would seem to be the ideal answer to this challenge. One potential danger, however, rests within the fundamental delivery system itself. As these courses become more and more independent of the traditional restrictions associated with college classes (such as prescribed meeting times) educators should be careful not to neglect interaction with their students. These courses should continue to engage them in intellectual exchanges with faculty members and with other students. Kadlubowski cautions that "regardless of how well web-based instruction is designed, if it is designed solely as a stand-alone product without any human interface or interaction, it will not meet its ultimate goal to educate" (3). The goal in online education should be to deliver top-quality education in a flexible format while still maintaining reasonable contact and interaction between the instructor and the class.

Students do not need to feel isolated in their education, and my own experience in teaching online classes has led me to incorporate four methods of engaging students in the course: synchronous chat, asynchronous discussion postings, frequent quizzes, and essay exams, all of which require some feedback from the instructor. Of these, this paper will address synchronous chat, a relatively new aspect of student engagement, since its value has been discounted by some studies. I use WebCT, which has the chat component built in.

A traditional lecture in a classroom can be a monologue, or it can allow for students to interact during the lecture with questions and examples of their own. As Kadlubowski has pointed out, if the instructor "engages the students in the lecture, and encourages them to participate or to make other contributions to the lecture, it could be said that the educator utilized a constructivist approach to learning" (4). In my own use of the synchronous chat room, students are certainly free to ask questions and participate in the discussion. Chat rooms have been used in various ways, of course, and the setting allows for a lot of flexibility. Chat rooms also have some inherent problems, and Lapadat concludes that these problems "may tend to shift the conversational emphasis toward superficial social elements and away from substantive content or reflection" (4). While this tendency does exist, the chat room focus can be controlled and these rooms can be valuable additions to an online course.

I use the chat room at first almost exclusively for a question/answer forum. This works very well in the beginning of the semester when everything is new for many of the students and they have many questions. However, as the semester progresses, the questions decrease. I find that I then need to provide more formal direction for chat. We remain informal in chat as far as grammatical and typing conventions go, but I do bring in questions or lecture-type information as time allows. It is important to let students feel they can ask questions or provide information as well, allowing them to fully participate and to some degree "construct" their own sense of learning, based upon the idea that in a constructivist approach "learning requires active engagement with subject matter[,] collaborative learning environments[,] and opportunities for problem solving (Whittle, Morgan, and Maltby 1).

One of the problems related to this modified constructivist approach to chat concerns the number of students in the room at any time. It would be nearly impossible to use this approach with 25 to 30 students or more all logged in at the same time. Since my classes usually have around 25 students each term, I address the problem by having three chat sessions each week, only requiring the students to attend one. They know they are welcome to attend more than one, but one will meet the requirements for the course. These meeting times are varied in order to provide opportunity for nearly all students with varied work schedules--two of the three sessions are at night and one is during the day. Since I usually have three online courses, this means I have three different schedules, one for each class. Each class must meet by itself. Mixing different classes in the same chat room would be chaotic.

These sessions take place in real time, of course, as opposed to the asynchronous discussion postings, which I also use. This real-time exchange of ideas can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. It certainly does require some management and engagement strategy, and as Lapadat has noted, "there is a great need for speed--both in reading the messages others send, and in composing and sending one's own messages" (4). Lapadat also points out that the messages tend to be fairly short and are often relatively informal. He contends that this time pressure "tends to elicit messages that lack depth" (4), and ultimately asserts, "synchronous conferences are characterized by the use of brief, rapid messages that are often superficial, socially oriented, and ambiguous . . ." (5). While all of this can be true, chat rooms can also be very productive aspects of an online course when managed well. My own students have often commented on how they like the chat room component of the course; it allows us to approach something like conversation and can be valuable just for that, but it also becomes an important teaching medium with proper direction.

In order to provide some sense of how these chat rooms progress, I have included a transcription from a recent meeting of an American literature class. I have cleaned up the obvious misspellings, grammatical errors, and deleted an entry or two into the chat room to avoid distractions, but otherwise, the transcription remains true to the original. Notice how in this format the topic does not always flow in a smooth and orderly manner. We were discussing Puritans and Calvinism for the early readings in American literature. I have omitted the names of students and substituted numbers so that readers may still follow the lines of communication.

Ken Haley>>They did not have much room for diversity.

Student #1>>I did these chats in the summer for 1302 and they
            are very helpful.

Ken Haley>>Yes, they will help.

Ken Haley>>They wanted to purify the Anglican church.

Ken Haley>>That is how they got the name.

Student #2>>I found the puritans to be a little closed minded.

Student #3>>Was that arrogance or just not knowing?

Ken Haley>>Yes, they are, but very dedicated.

Student #2>>That is who we are talking about?

Ken Haley>>It is not that they meant to be proud or arrogant,
            but just that they believed they were right.

Student #1>>The puritans really had their own ideals.

Ken Haley>>Puritans

Student #4>>They still make good oatmeal though.

Ken Haley>>And if they were right, everyone else was wrong.

Student #5>>lol

Student #3>>I guess every religion believes they are right.

Student #2>>If we think about it though there are other religions 
            even today that feel the same way.... you aren't a Christian 
            if you don't see our way. It wasn't/isn't just them.

Ken Haley>>Yes, they do.

Student #5>>I thought that was Quakers.

Ken Haley>>Yes, we still have this.

Student #1>>Their beliefs of who is chosen before birth if they go to 
            heaven or not is a bit odd though, don't you think?

Ken Haley>>They would force others out, like Quakers.

Student #3>> I do.

Student #1>>Why would God chose that if he did not even give the people 
            a chance to prove what kind of a person they were?

Ken Haley>>This is the doctrine of predestination. Everything was 
            determined by God before they were born.

Student #1>>Interesting concept.

Student #2>>I would have been depressed about it... thinking what was 
            the point!

Student #3>>I thought we were all God's children.

Ken Haley>>It was not their job to question God as to why.

Ken Haley>>They would absolutely reject that idea, student #3.

Ken Haley>>Only the elect were God's children.

Ken Haley>>And they were few in number.

Student #1>>Yes, but how did they decide?

Student #3>>When did people start questioning this concept?

Student #4>>Not considering since England is where they come from and 
            they believe God chose their kings.

Ken Haley>>Furthermore, for them, Christ only died for the elect, 
            not everyone.

Student #1>>That is wrong and the bible says so.

Student #2>>Maybe I missed this, but did they let others join their 
            religion if they wanted? If someone believed like them? 
            I'm sure that was in there and I just missed it.

Ken Haley>>God decides who will be the elect.

Student #1>>Maybe that is why many did not like them? Or what do you 
            think?

Ken Haley>>Yes, people could join but they had to convince the church 
            that they were true believers.

Student #2>>I see.

Student #1>>They said they waited for a sign or something, but how did 
            they really believe they were chosen?

Student #6>>How to convince?

Ken Haley>>They could never be for certain, but they lived in hope.

Student #2>>I thought you said that they really didn't know. They 
            just thought so.

Ken Haley>>Yes, they live in reasonable hope.

Student #3>>Was it the wealthy that could join? Or anyone?

Ken Haley>>Only God really knows.

Ken Haley>>Anyone could be a Puritan, at least in theory.

Ken Haley>>Anyone God calls.

Student #2>>Is the Puritan still around today?

Student #6>>How did they know what God knows?

Ken Haley>>They did not really know the mind of God, of course.

Student #6>>So how did they know someone who wants to join in is really 
            a believer?

Ken Haley>>The Puritans died off, but they became the Congregationalist 
            church.

Student #1>>In my opinion it seems like it could get kind of "clickish."

Student #2>>hmmm, haven't heard of it.

Student #1>>Those that were elect were better than others.

Ken Haley>>That person would have to testify concerning his revelation from 
            God that called him to repentance and salvation.

Student #4>>Would they be considered racist today?

Ken Haley>>They were better only because God made them better, 
            so they thought.

Student #6>>I see.

Student #1>>Maybe that is a wrong point, but it seems that way to me.

Student #1>>I guess I see too.

Student #1>>Is that why they felt they had to leave?

Student #1>>Because of their ideals?

Student #1>>I meant leave England.

Ken Haley>>Yes, they had to leave England. They were not free to worship 
            there.

Ken Haley>>They were persecuted there.

Ken Haley>>But they did not come here with the intent to let all worship 
            freely.

Ken Haley>>They wanted to worship freely.

Student #3>>Is that why people were mean to them, because of their beliefs?

Student #1>>Only them, correct?

Ken Haley>>Yes

Ken Haley>>The Anglican church in England saw them as trouble makers.

Ken Haley>>And this was the official church.

Ken Haley>>They could lose their jobs, etc.

Student #6>>I am sorry student #1. I already moved to here, but didn't close 
            that window.

Student #1>>ok

Student #1>>no problem

Student #1>>ha ha

Ken Haley>>Before we go, anyone having problems?

Student #1>>Do you find their concept of religion a bit odd?

Student #3>>Everything is fine here.

Ken Haley>>In some ways, but it is not so odd after you come to understand 
            it better.

As this segment demonstrates, the flow of ideas in a chat room can border on chaos at times. This is all happening as fast as everyone can type, and at times, some questions may just go unanswered--a situation I try hard to avoid; the progress of the main idea is such that we just do not get to everything. As you can see, the students ask many questions, but they also put forth their own ideas and evaluations as well. It is very important to promote an environment that allows students to feel free to ask questions and participate fully without worrying about grammatical errors or spelling. Weatherley and Ellis confirm the value of such an approach: "For online learning communities to be successful the environment must be inviting so that group interaction, sharing and participation can lead to learning relationships between members rather than isolating the members" (4). They also conclude: "understanding the range of interactive possibilities and promoting an environment which encourages active participation online is vital" (6). This inviting environment will be very difficult to cultivate if students are overly concerned with being criticized for any little grammatical infraction.

I have also found that this informal but directed approach to chat sessions allows us to develop some sense of community as a class. Students begin to say "hello" to each other as they enter, and some even develop connections that go beyond the regular class meetings. This sense of community is also important for the student not to feel completely isolated in this virtual classroom, and studies have indicated that indeed some substantial sense of class community does develop. Rovai asserts that "one plausible reason is that interaction and involvement of learners in [the] course lessen[s] psychological distance" (45). We see this happen in the informal chat rooms on the Internet. People meet and become attracted to each other without ever physically meeting. Certainly students can also develop some sense of belonging in a virtual classroom.

The pace in these chat rooms can be so fast at times that one simply does not have time to proofread much, if at all. Some purists may object to this approach, in an English class in particular, but for the chat format, I feel the concepts are more important than the mechanics. I certainly do expect them to take more time and care with their writing when composing quizzes, exams, or papers, but this space is meant to be more informal and informational. Students quickly recognize the difference and seem to appreciate the relative freedom of expression in chat.

For those who have never participated in a chat room, this can seem a little disconcerting at first. The ideas overlap frequently, and responses often have interruptions appearing between question and answer. This is, however, the norm. Herring has studied this problem, calling it "disrupted turn adjacency," which occurs because "messages are posted in the order received by the system, without regard for what they are responding to" (2). This problem is inherent in the system itself, and it can be a little confusing for some who do not frequent chat rooms. Herring further observes, "multiple threads may become entangled, and individual threads are rarely free of disruption by irrelevant messages" (9). Even so, Herring concludes that chat rooms likely remain popular because "users successfully accommodate so as to be able to manage interaction effectively," and/or these perceived limitations are in fact "in some respects advantageous" (11). In any case, the chat room has become an important part of my own methods of engaging students in the business of their own education in spite of its problems and limitations.

A few years ago, before I began teaching online, I took the time to visit some non-academic chat rooms on the Internet. I found them a little difficult to follow at first, but I adapted quickly. Anyone anticipating using a chat room in a course would do well to get a little experience first. Many of the students enrolling in these courses already have substantial experience with the chat room format. These experienced students are easy to spot, since they will frequently use the accepted shorthand for chat rooms, such as "oic" for "Oh, I see" or "lol" for "laughing out loud." I have no problem with these abbreviations in chat. Response time is important in a chat room, and these abbreviations developed to fill a very practical need.

These highly-interactive sessions would be just about impossible to conduct with a large class. Some modifications would have to be made, or questions and comments would have to be limited. Whenever I have more than ten students online, the pace becomes so fast that I cannot keep up well, and the conversation becomes somewhat disjointed, even more so than usual. I have found the ideal number for a serious discussion to be between five and ten. A few students will be very active in participation while others will be slower to join in. Some students will seldom jump in unless drawn in by directed questions. This becomes part of my technique if things get slow. In many sessions, however, the problem becomes one of just keeping up and trying to maintain some reasonable sense of direction and purpose. The progression in these chat sessions will never be perfectly logical and orderly, yet there is generally a sense of understanding and accomplishment generated by the interaction. Rather than comparing these to a formal class lecture, they would be better compared to informal meetings with several students where part of a class might meet under a tree and discuss recent topics from class. The atmosphere is more relaxed, and the whole exchange progresses much like an informal conversation. My own role in the process is not so much to dictate everything that happens, but rather to try and keep us more or less focused on something potentially productive.

Below I have inserted another session on a similar topic from the same class, but we have a different group of students. Since we have three scheduled meetings each week, we often have overlap in topics between sessions. Most of the students were not in the other discussion, so the topic is new to them. The example below illustrates the organic nature of the chat session. It can bounce from one topic to another quickly. Again, I have omitted names and made minor adjustments to more closely conform to accepted grammar and punctuation standards.

Ken Haley>>The Puritans died out, but their descendants became the 
            Congregationalists.

Student #1>>you [another student] say thank God we're not puritans. 
            I understand why you say that but we could learn some things 
            from them such as their conviction.

Ken Haley>>Yes, they had great faith and dedication.

Student #2>>There are a lot of people that..... I'm "congregationalist" 
            (or so I've been accused)

Student #2>>lol

Student #2>>Conviction? Or dogma?

Ken Haley>>They seem rather harsh to some folks, but they just had a firm 
            belief they were right.

Student #2>>Conviction is admirable, dogma is not.

Student #3>>In her poem about the burning of her house, her faith is very 
            evident. I wonder though if she had moments where she felt why me?

Ken Haley>>It is hard to distinguish between the two at times.

Ken Haley>>I am sure she must have, but her faith overcomes that.

Student #2>>Not really, if it is edifying, it's conviction, if it's hurting, 
            it's not.

Student #2>>Someone else that is.

Ken Haley>>Well, is that not still a matter of perspective?

Student #2>>lol

Student #2>>Yes, that's true.

Ken Haley>>What the Puritans did, they did to help what they saw as God's 
            community.

Ken Haley>>Others thought they were unreasonable.

Ken Haley>>Who was right?

Student #3>>If the Puritans felt they could change the Church of England 
            from within, what led them to come to America rather than stay 
            in England?

Student #4>>Both.

Ken Haley>>They were heavily persecuted in England.

Student #1>>What was right was their incredible faith in God.

Student #1>>No one was wrong.

Student #2>>Aren't we supposed to read the Scarlett Letter this semester?

Student #3>>Because of their strict interpretations?

Ken Haley>>Yes, we have it around the middle of the term.

Student #2>>So this isn't the last of this discussion.

Ken Haley>>True, student #2.

Student #3>>Doesn't sound like it.

Student #2>>Religion is my LEAST favorite subject.

Ken Haley>>The Church of England saw them as trouble makers.

Ken Haley>>They wanted to purify the Church of England.

Ken Haley>>So they got the name.

Student #4>>Why did they consider them troublemakers?

Ken Haley>>But the Church of England thought they were just fine already.

Ken Haley>>So they just wanted to get rid of them.

Ken Haley>>Or make them conform.

Student #2>>The church of England was the opposite end of the discussion

Student #2>>as far as conviction goes.

Ken Haley>>Remember that this is the official church of the country.

Student #2>>the king

Student #2>>Henry the 8th

Student #2>>was the first

Ken Haley>>You could lose your job if you did not comply.

Student #2>>and he started the church

Student #2>>because he wanted a divorce.

Ken Haley>>Yes, in a break with the Catholic church.

Student #2>>You could lose your head too

Ken Haley>>As a wife did.

Student #3>>I believe it is hard for us in the modern world to understand the 
            sense of oppression that must have been present since we have so much 
            freedom and haven't had to fight for the right to believe freely.

Student #2>>He wanted the pope to grant divorce.

Student #2>>Anne Bolin

Ken Haley>>Yes, it is a different world.

Student #2>>But he just beheaded the others.

Student #3>>He changed the church to suit his personal desires.

Ken Haley>>Imagine things if a Baptist got elected president and then all 
            Methodists were out of work.

Ken Haley>>That is more or less how things worked at times.

Student #5>>That would suck!!! I would be out of a job.

Student #3>>What rhetoric we would have to listen to.

Student #2>>Oh, he wanted the Catholics back when he wanted to divorce Jane.

Student #2>>saying he wasn't officially divorced.

Student #2>>from Anne.

Ken Haley>>We are just about out of time. Any problems?

As the transcript indicates, the topic tends to waver and vary from time to time, but it is possible to keep the focus more or less in the right direction with a bit of effort. The segment above also illustrates how some students will jump right in and begin teaching the class. I do not mind this as long as it does not stray too far from our discussion and it stays reasonably accurate. At times, however, I do have to intervene and set the record straight. This is really no different from what we do in a traditional class when we take questions and comments from the students. There also, it is possible to correct the subject or adjust comments. The responsibility for order and direction still falls on the instructor, and students will look there for direction when things begin to get confused. The same skills apply to the virtual classroom.

To conclude, although some in online education have shown a significant preference for asynchronous communication as opposed to synchronous chat, my own experience indicates that the chat room is a valuable tool. Too often, these two approaches are viewed as an either/or choice, but both can be used within the same course. Some advance planning will be required concerning the meeting arrangements for the class online, and some adjustments may be required to manage the number of students in the chat room at any given time, but these are relatively minor considerations.

The chat room, more than any other single aspect of the course, allows me to feel like I have really contacted my students. The real-time exchange of ideas and information has become an important part of the learning process online just as it always has been in the traditional classroom.

Works Cited

Herring, Susan.

"Interactional Coherence in CMC." JCMC, 4.4 June (1999).
www.ascysc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue/herring.html

Kadlubowski, Michael G.

"Is a Paradigm Shift Required to Effectively Teach WebBased Instruction? NAWEB 2000 Conference Proceedings.
http://naweb.unb.ca.proceedings/2000/kadlubowski.htm

Lapadat, Judith C.

"Written Interaction: A Key Component in Online Learning." JCMC, 7.4 July (2002).
www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol7/issue4/lapadat.html

Rovai, Alfred P.

"Building Classroom Community at a Distance: A Case Study." ETR&D, 49.4 (2001). http://www.aect.org/pdf/etr&d/4904/4904-02.pdf

Weatherley, Robyn and Allan Ellis.

"Online Learning: What Do Teachers Ned to KnowAbout Communicating Online?" NAWEB 2000 Conference Proceedings.
http://naweb.unb.ca.proceedings/2000/weatherly-ellis.htm

Whittle, Jan, Michael Morgan, and John Maltby.

"Higher Learning Online: UsingConstructivist Principles to Design Effective Asynchronous Discussion." NAWEB 2000 Conference Proceedings.
http://naweb.unb.ca.proceedings/2000/whittle.htm

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

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