how to provide strong learner-to-learner interaction in an online math course

by Shyanne Reichel 8 min read

Adding variety to your online content can be one way to boost student interaction. Instead of only relying on a textbook to convey information on a subject, try pairing textbook reading with supplemental videos, relevant websites, diagrams, and online simulations or games. Not all students learn best in the same way.

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What is the learner-to-learner interaction?

Learner -to-learner interaction can best be viewed in a hierarchical structure with a set of five levels that describes the particular focus for the learner at each level. Each successive level builds on the previous one and adds additional substance to the interaction that is occurring between learners.

How to improve student-teacher interaction in online lessons?

The online teacher-student interaction “off-class” will increase the interaction during online lessons. Make sure you create an opened communication channel. That’s as simple as replying to their emails and making time to give them feedback on their work. Feedback is an essential part of the learning process.

What are Level 3 interactions in online courses?

Online courses with level 3 interactions would be typically rich in audio and video elements, customized visuals, interactions, games, or quizzes. This level of interactivity is a must for teaching a new software application where learners have an opportunity to work in a simulated environment.

How to promote learner-instructor interaction?

Quick Action: Promote learner-instructor interaction by Increasing dialogue between instructor and the student (offer several different ways for them to contact the instructor. For example, provide e-mail address, social media accounts and office phone number.) Monitoring the student’s course performance and participation.

How do you engage students in online math classes?

How to Better Engage Students in Online Math ClassesIdentify the Essential Content. Distance learning demands that teachers think very intentionally about which concepts students need to master. ... Make Content Delivery Asynchronous. ... Focus on Practice. ... Create Opportunities for Interaction. ... Rethink Assessment.

How can we improve online student interaction?

Recommendations to Increase Student Engagement in Online CoursesSet Expectations and Model Engagement. ... Build Engagement and Motivation with Course Content and Activities. ... Initiate Interaction and Create Faculty Presence. ... Foster Interaction between Students and Create a Learning Community. ... Create an Inclusive Environment.

How do you engage learners in online learning?

Student engagement in online learning – what works and whyBe present.Create interesting learning materials.Provide 1-to-1 sessions.Assign some group work.Create an online forum for discussions.Provide and ask for a regular feedback.Challenge students.

What are the 4 active learning interactions in online learning?

When students are observing, doing, communicating, and reflecting, they are actively working with concepts and people. We describe these activities as interactions.

How would you want the learners in your virtual classroom to interact?

Here are five simple ways to engage your learners by making your online learning program more interactive.Ask for feedback. Any chance the learners have to leave feedback is a great opportunity for interaction. ... Let people choose the way. ... Make it social. ... Invite learners to contribute. ... Encourage peer evaluation.

How do you make a virtual class interactive?

1:1616:59Interactive Bitmoji Classroom Tutorial | Google Classroom and SeeSawYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipIf you screenshot your virtual classroom and you'll see the different things I've got set up in myMoreIf you screenshot your virtual classroom and you'll see the different things I've got set up in my virtual classroom in a second you could download it as a PDF.

How do you promote learning in an online lesson?

How To Improve Your Online TeachingEngage With Your Learners Online. ... Create A Supportive Learning Environment. ... Use A Mix Of Learning Tools For Better Engagement. ... Provide Ongoing Feedback. ... Make eLearning Content Mobile.

What is interaction in online learning?

Social interaction in online learning allows students to share their ideas on various subjects with each other. Student-led online discussions typically motivate deeper understanding as well as yield interesting personal applications of course concepts and theories.

What can teachers do to improve online learning?

5 things teachers can do to improve online teaching.Utilize a variety of technology options. ... Connect to students individually. ... Prepare to work with parents. ... Consider new learning methods. ... Provide collaboration and socialization opportunities.

What are the different forms of online interaction?

Instructional design strategies for online learning have typically considered three main types of interaction: learner-content interaction, learner-instructor interaction and learner-learner interaction (Moore, 1989).

Why is interaction important in online teaching?

Increasing the online teacher-student interaction can help students learn faster and more efficiently. To do that, online teachers need to create a connection with their students and build trust with them. But that can be challenging to do through a screen.

Why do students need support online?

Online students need support because with e-learning the distractions are too great and the temptation to not do the work might too strong. An effective way to give your students the proper support is to plan virtual office hours.

Why is feedback important in online courses?

A feedback during the online course can help you increase the online teacher-student interaction and help you better reach your students. The review of the course is essential for your progress as an online teacher. It could show you if your students were engaged, how they felt about your interaction with them and anything else you ask them.

Why do teachers use chats?

Some online teachers use chats to encourage their students to comment and interact. Chats are a great way to increase interaction because the level of commitment is low, opposed to joining in a video conversation or audio. At the beginning of your online class, make sure you explain the guidelines for using the chat.

What are incentives in online classes?

Incentives are an excellent strategy to increase online teacher-student interaction. They can be contests, giveaways, prizes and so on. For example, you can offer book prizes for the most interactive students, or they can join a contest through their participation in the online class.

How to be successful as an online teacher?

Interaction is key to your success as an online teacher. If you increase the online teacher-student interaction, you’ll be able to build trust with your students. In turn, the trust will help them learn faster and more efficiently. So, create a connection with your students and encourage them to interact with you and with each other , every chance you get.

Why is online presentation important?

Effective online presentations are critical to any organization or industry. Your success can depend on it. You might need to prepare an online sales presentation, present an idea for your team, lead a professional conference or even teach something to your audience, on a live performance … (Continue reading)

What is level 2 eLearning?

Level 2 eLearning consists of limited interactivities. Something like the instructor posing a few questions to the audience now and then just to check for understanding and comprehension. In an online setting, this would be in the form of simple quiz questions that learners have to respond to before moving to the next segment. It could also be simple puzzles with drag and drop interactivity, animations, click on images, etc.

Why are presenters and instructors more popular?

Naturally, such instructors and presenters would be more popular with learners because they are bound to learn better from those lectures. The same holds true for online courses. There are 4 levels of interactivities that can be used in online courses.

What is an instructional designer?

Instructional Designers create storyboards with the appropriate level of interactivity based on the course content, learners’ needs and objectives. But they also must keep in mind the tools that are available for developing the storyboard, and the allotted budget for the course.

Why is interaction important in learning?

Part of what makes interaction so important to student learning is the instant feedback they get from students and instructors. It is possible to use the LMS to create interactive assignments that will give students the instant feedback they need without creating more work for the instructor.

What is learner content interaction?

Learner-Content interaction is focused on students’ opportunities to access course content materials like textbooks, lectures, handouts, and multimedia. Increasing this type of access can be achieved by offering the same content in a variety of modalities so students can choose to access content by reading, listening, or watching. You can also increase learners’ access to content by offering recorded lectures that students can pause, fast forward, and rewind until they master core concepts.

How to increase student interaction?

One of the best way to increase the level of student interaction is to have students interact with each other! Students report greater course satisfaction and higher levels of learning when they have high rates of interaction with other students. “teachers in online learning rated the learner-learner interaction as the most important form of interaction, followed by learner-instructor interaction. ” (Thurmond, V., & Wambach, K. 2004). If interaction is a key determinant of students’ success and satisfaction in courses, it makes sense than the more students interact, the more they will exhibit these gains. Canvas offers several tools to facilitate learner-learner interactions such as Peer Review, Group Assignments, and Group Collaboration.

What is the most important part of a teacher's workload?

Remember, THIS is the most important part of your workload as a teacher– making time to read student work carefully and give meaningful feedback, have 1:1 interactions frequently, questioning student thinking, clarifying misunderstandings, and simply being there is a huge motivator for your students!

What is the first interaction type?

The first interaction type is the interaction between the learner and the content or learning materials of a course. Learning materials are how knowledge is conveyed to your students. Moore (1989) states that content is a defining aspect of education. Over the years, how learners interact with educational content has drastically transformed.

How to create a learning environment?

Here are a variety of examples of how you can enhance the learner interaction with your course’s content: 1 Explore textbook publisher materials for supplemental learning materials. 2 Incorporate relevant videos into lessons. 3 Narrate materials such as lecture notes and PowerPoint slides. 4 Instructor-made videos and lectures (both synchronously and asynchronously) 5 Find or create simulations, scenarios, case studies that allow students to better connect what they are learning to real-life situations. 6 Ensure your learning materials are accessible to all learners (captioned, proper headings, readability, etc.) 7 Use self-checks or practice quizzes to help students check for learning throughout the content.

Why is online learning important?

Adding a variety of learning materials to your course allows all types of learners to succeed. Another advantage of online content is its reach and accessibility by all! Online education is continuously expanding and becoming available to more and more learners.

What makes learning visible?

What makes this learning visible when learning is so often an internal concept? INTERACTION! INTERACTION! Interaction is what is making this learning visible and, therefore, effective. In this productive classroom, there are three main components that are all working together; content or learning materials, an instructor, and students .

How to boost student interaction?

Adding variety to your online content can be one way to boost student interaction. Instead of only relying on a textbook to convey information on a subject, try pairing textbook reading with supplemental videos, relevant websites, diagrams, and online simulations or games. Not all students learn best in the same way.

Is online learning one dimensional?

It is important to remember that your online course is not a one-dimensional entity. For your online teaching and learning to reach its full potential, keep the three interaction types in mind. Learner to content — Learner to Instructor — Learner to Learner.

Can students interact with online content?

That being said, there are now more ways than ever for online students to interact with content. The beauty of online learning materials is that students can interact with the content how they want, and however they need to learn best.

What is learner-instructor interaction?

Moore (1989) labelled learner-instructor interactions to be one of the im-portant interactions within an educational setting. In an online setting, learn-er-instructor interactions can be defined as any type of communication be-tween a student and teacher or anyone who helps them with course content. This can include synchronous interactions like live classes and phone calls to asynchronous communications such as emails and feedback on course-work. Interaction in class with the teacher can help to create a connection for some while others said that the fear of having to interact preventing them from attending. This seems to go along with the self-efficacy of each student. Most students only reach out to STEM teachers outside of synchro-nous classes when necessary for clarification on an assignment. Only a few used the teacher as a resource to better understand the content.

What are the types of interaction in distance learning?

He explained that there are three types of interaction in distance education: learner-content, learner-instructor, and learner-learner. Learn er-content in-teraction is when students have internal discussions about the information they encounter in the course or elsewhere. Learner -instructor is the most commonly understood interaction and involves instructors stimulating stu-dent’s interest of what is being taught. This type of interaction also involves helping students organize and self-direct their learning, so this could also be expanded to students’ interactions with advisors/mentors. Drysdale, Gra-ham, and Borup (2014) looked at a shepherding program at an online high school that paired each student with an online mentor to help facilitate their learning and communications. They found that this relationship involved many of the characteristics that Moore included in the learner-instructor relationship, such as building caring relationships, understanding student backgrounds and facilitating content interaction. In addition to mentors, it is also essential to online education to look at the interactions that learn-ers have with their parents. Hasler-Waters and Leong (2014) described the changing parental role in online education to include organizing, motivat-ing, and monitoring and Borup (2016b) explained that parental involvement is important to student success, so learner-parent interactions should be in-cluded when exploring important interactions in online education.

Why is teacher in-teraction important in STEM?

The two main areas in which students feel they benefit from teacher in-teraction in their STEM courses is to create a feeling of connection and also to make class more enjoyable, both of which could increase engagement. An increase in student engagement in a course could have a positive effect on their overall success in the course, making these areas important to in-vestigate. Mia explained it well when she said the following:

How do synchronous classes help students?

For students that attend synchronous classes, they interacted through the chat box and in breakout rooms with their peers. These interactions tended to be related to encourag-ing one another or working together to better understand content. Jaime felt that chatting during class helped answer questions or share thoughts on the topic. Jerry, who did not come to this school looking for social interaction, also liked to work with his classmates, specifically in breakout rooms, dur-ing synchronous classes. He mentioned that he feels his peer interactions have always been positive. Simon was surprised at how he benefits by this learner-learner interaction during synchronous classes, “with all the other students in that class with you, they’re asking questions that you might have not known to ask, or things you might have actually not understood that you thought you did.” Some students also used the chat box to encourage one another. This not only helped the students feel more comfortable in their class, but also helped students feel more connected to on another.

How does social interaction affect learning?

This can happen with or without the instructor. Social interaction definitely plays a main role in how people learn and it’s something that many eLearning professionals tend to forget (or ignore). Studies find that learner-learner interaction leads to greater learning and high course satisfaction.

How does feedback help learners?

By providing ongoing feedback to learners, the instructor can clarify issues, reinforce crucial points and correct interpretation of a subject matter, and stimulate learners’ interest and motivation.

What is the most important form of interaction?

Researchers consider learner-content interaction the most crucial form of interaction since this is where learning takes place. Once students access learning materials such as multimedia, lectures and handouts, they should be able to consume it their own way.

Is a virtual training session effective?

Certainly, most of us have once attended a long and boring training session (virtual or face-to-face), where the students are merely passive observers and are given little or no opportunities to participate. The truth is, this type of instruction hardly makes an impact on the audience. For effective learning and retention you need interaction. This is what makes the experience more worthwhile and valuable for the learner.

How does interaction affect learning?

For online course participants, in-teraction with the course content (learner-content interaction) is especially important be-cause it can contribute to successful learning outcomes and course completion. This study aims to examine the relationship between learner-content interaction and course grade to determine if this interaction type is a contributing success factor. Data related to student interaction with course content, including time spent reviewing online course materials, such as module PowerPoint presentations and course videos and time spent completing weekly quizzes, were collected for students in three sections of an online course (N = 139). The data were then correlated against grades achieved in the course to determine if there was any relationship. Findings indicate statistically significant relationships between the amount of time the learner spent with the content and weekly quiz grades (r = .-72). The study concludes that learners who spent more time interacting with course content achieve higher grades than those who spent less time with the content.

What is interaction in education?

Moore (1989) closed this gap by identifying a three-dimensional framework that characterized interaction as either learner-content, learner-instructor, or learner-learner. Learner-instructor interaction is communication between students and the instructor in a course, while learner-learner interaction is communication between the learner and peers in the same course . For online courses, this interaction can take place using both synchro-nous (video-conferencing, online chat sessions) and asynchronous (e-mail, discussion boards) methods (Kearsley, 1995). In its most basic definition, learner-content interaction refers to the time spent with course content including textbooks, PowerPoint, web pages, and discussion forums (Su, Bonk, Magjuka, Liu, & Lee, 2005).

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Learner-Content Interaction

Learner-Learner Interaction

  • One of the best way to increase the level of student interaction is to have students interact with each other! Students report greater course satisfaction and higher levels of learning when they have high rates of interaction with other students. “teachers in online learning rated the learner-learner interaction as the most important form of intera...
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Learner-Interface Interaction

  • Part of what makes interaction so important to student learning is the instant feedback they get from students and instructors. It is possible to use the LMS to create interactive assignments that will give students the instant feedback they need without creating more work for the instructor. Students can interact with self-graded quizzes as a way of checking their understanding of a ne…
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Learner-Instructor Interaction

  • Students expect and benefit from high levels of personalized interaction with the course instructor. The strategies above can reduce the instructor’s burden of meeting students’ varied interaction needs. You may want to work towards providing students several opportunities to interact with the interface, other students, and the content so you can spend a greater percentag…
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