Increase Student-to-Student Interaction

Matthew Hightower
Professor of Business and Information Technology

 (submitted by Matt Hightower)

As online instructors at Cerro Coso, we are bound to follow the Regular, Effective, and Documentable Contact (REDC) document. Among other things, this requires that we provide a learning environment that fosters regular instructor-to-student and student-to-student contact. In this article, I will present a technique that I have found to be effective for increasing student-to-student contact.

Student-to-student contact is typically addressed by having a weekly discussion forum that requires that students post a response to the discussion and reply to at least two other students. Usually, both are due by the end of the week. While this provides some student-to-student contact, it really does not require much interaction. Some students will post and reply at the beginning of the week and never return and some will post and reply at the end of the week. The problem is that they often reply to the early students who are not around to read and respond to them. Consequently, while there are posts and replies, there really is not interaction or discussion.

I have increased the student-student interaction in my online classes by changing the discussion timeline. The change was to require that the initial response to the topic be made by Thursday night and that the two replies be made between Friday and Sunday. This forces at least two accesses to the discussion during the week -- before Thursday and after Thursday. Knowing that everyone is required to be in the discussion after Thursday also allows me to perform my second weekly interaction with students (required by the REDC document) by using the discussion to post an announcement, a clarification of the assignment for the week, or a follow-up question to the discussion topic.

I teach a variety of courses; some allow for the typical debate or discuss type of discussion topic. But other courses, like computer programming are activity based. For these courses, I often use the discussions to require that students post their progress on their assignments or ask questions about the assignments by Thursday and then attempt to answer other student questions between Friday and Sunday. While it may seem rather innocuous, I have seen a 25 to 50 percent increase in weekly student posts. Additionally, the sense of community that is built is apparent. I regularly receive comments from students stating that they have enjoyed the interaction in the discussions and found it to be a very beneficial component of the class.

I encourage you to make this change too. To help, here is the verbiage that I add to my discussion instructions each week.

To receive credit, make sure that you post by Thursday at 11:55PM and fully reply to at least two other posts between Friday and Sunday at 11:55PM.

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to send me an email (mhightow@cerrocoso.edu).