Teaching with Technology

From one perspective, online courses are a modern incarnation of the old-time correspondence classes advertised in comic books and on matchbook covers. Students study a subject with complete time and place independence of their instructor or other students. The old style program provided readings and accompanying assessments to be returned for grading.  Current models leverage technology in an attempt to replicate the learning opportunities found in a live classroom.

In current jargon, distance education has two distinct models: synchronous, in which students attend class online with a “live” lecturer and other students with technology to support some level of immediate interaction, and asynchronous, whose students typically listen to recorded lecture “chunks” and then complete assignments to help internalize the lecture material and assess their learning success. Both models can also include the use of online discussion threads to further foster a “community of learning” as students engage in threaded, delayed response discussions. An instructor’s challenge is to motivate the students to participate in these discussions such that students develop the desired critical thinking skills as they would in a live classroom with the immediate feedback from the instructor and their peers.

“The Development of the Motivation for Critical Reasoning in Online Discussions Inventory”, published in the Fall 2009 issue of the American Journal of Distance Education, discusses a study of graduate and undergrad students at two universities in which students were surveyed in an attempt to identify what types of motivation was most effective.  The article discusses the difference between surface and in-depth discussion and suggests that students engaged in in-depth discussions will tend to clarify information, make inferences and judgments, and will propose solutions.  The authors suggest that on line discussions offer students more time to think and respond, but also mention studies that show that, in many cases, the opposite happens.

Potential student goals may affect discussion quality as well. Some students write for self-validation, that is, to make themselves feel good. Others are interested in a positive outcome (grades) from their contributions and that is their motivation. Other goals are competitiveness, a desire to be seen as better than their classmates, and an actual desire to for greater learning for its own sake.

The study determined that only three factors from the couple dozen evaluated actually had a substantial effect on student motivation: interest and enjoyment, normative (competitiveness), and the desire for positive outcomes. The authors suggest that further studies could refine these findings to help instructors better motivate their students towards higher quality contributions in their online discussions. As a student in some courses that have utilized this model with minimal success, I look forward to seeing more work in this area.

Zhang, T., Koehler, M. J., & Spatariu, A. (2009). The Development of the Motivation for Critical Reasoning in Online Discussions Inventory (MCRODI). American Journal of Distance Education, 23(4), 194. doi: 10.1080/08923640903294411

Jonathan Goldman