B5 - Regular, Effective Contact Among Students

Creating opportunities for student-to-student interaction is not just for the purpose of making sure students "feel good;" relevant interaction contributes to learning.

• Meaningful interaction has an impact on student achievement and retention, as reflected by test performance, grades, and student satisfaction (Roblyer & Ekhaml, 2000).
• Students tend to learn and retain content better when they have the opportunity to discuss or work with it along with classmates as opposed to just learning through lectures and readings. (The New Science of Teaching and Learning, Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa, 2010)

In a classroom setting, these interactions tend to occur naturally, as students listen to each other’s comments, ask each other questions, and build rapport through frequent contact. Fostering student-to-student interaction in an online setting may require a more intentional building of formal and informal interaction opportunities in your course design. B4 focused on the "informal" interactions; this element addresses the more structured, formal interactions that involve the course content.

Here are some ideas to build on the asynchronous nature of online learning in order to facilitate structured student-to-student engagement.

• Craft meaningful discussion prompts
  • Effective: Assume one of the characters from this unit's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Speak from their point of view about one of the internal conflicts depicted in the story.
  • Ineffective: Share your thoughts about The Grapes of Wrath.
• Keep discussion groups small to promote meaningful conversation and connections that can grow.
• Sprinkle "get to know each other" activities throughout the course rather than just in the first week or two.
• Encourage supportive (rather than competitive) student-to-student interactions: peer review, "share a tip" wiki pages, well-structured "real world" group projects.

Want more ideas? Try this tipsheet Links to an external site..

Where to Look

In addition to looking through the module items, it would be useful to check assignment instructions to see if any involve a group/collaborative approach. 

What to Look For

Instructors may be using tools or assignments creatively to align with this element, and alignment may look very different from course to course or from discipline to discipline. Be open-minded in your interpretation. Besides discussions, look for collaborative or group activities, peer review, and other opportunities where students are asked to interact with each other around course materials/learning goals. Keep in mind, interactions may be paired, small group or whole group.