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Session 1358

Enhancing Student –Teacher Interactions in Internet-based Courses

Murali Krishnamurthi Northern Illinois University

Abstract

In face-to-face courses, instructors usually have a number of opportunities to interact with students, engage them in active learning, stimulate their critical thinking through discussions, and monitor their progress. These essential components of student – teacher interactions should also be incorporated in internet-based (online) courses to enhance student learning and capture the positive aspects of face to face courses. Enhancing student – teacher interactions in an online course requires addressing a variety of issues that impact such interactions and the pedagogical techniques available for integrating those interactions effectively. In this paper, a number of issues and techniques related to enhancing student – teacher interactions online are discussed. The issues include types of interactions, number of people involved, modes of interaction, communication tools used and training needed on those tools, language used for and tone of interactions, roles assumed by students or assigned by instructor for interaction, interaction facilitation techniques, timing, and volume and frequency of interactions, etc. The techniques address enhancing interactions during asynchronous and synchronous discussions, collaborative and individual interactions, and evaluating online discussions. The issues and techniques are illustrated with examples from the information systems course taught fully online by the author.

1. Introduction Several universities in U.S. already offer engineering courses through the World Wide Web and satellite broadcasts. These courses are beginning to replace or supplement traditional classroom instruction with convenient, self-paced distance education, and reach a larger student body across U.S. Courses offered through satellite broadcasts are not very much different from classroom instruction, and therefore, require instructors to make minor changes in their course design to suit this mode of distance learning. However, courses offered through the internet require considerable instructional design and delivery due to the absence of frequent face-to-face interactions between students and teachers.

Numerous products have been introduced commercially during the past few years for online instruction and many of these products contain state-of-the-art course delivery features, such as audio, video, chat, etc. However, these products require instructors to design their courses using sound pedagogical techniques that allow students and teachers to interact effectively similar to a face-to-face course. In face-to-face delivery, instructors have the opportunity to interact with students, engage them in active learning, stimulate their critical thinking through discussions, and monitor their progress. These essential components of student – teacher interactions should also be incorporated in internet-based courses.

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Krishnamurthi, M. (2000, June), Enhancing Student Teacher Interaction In Internet Based Courses Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8359