Promoting Student Interaction in the Virtual College Classroom

Jack A. Cummings, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
(812) 856-8327
cummings@indiana.edu

Abstract

The World Wide Web offers faculty opportunities to promote meaningful academic discourse among students. I used Allaire Forums, a Web-based electronic conferencing system, in two recent courses: a graduate seminar in cognitive assessment and intervention and an introductory educational psychology course for prospective teachers. The graduate class was a conventional face-to-face course supplemented with two Web-based assignments, while the whole undergraduate course was delivered via the Web. Four of the more successful assignments drawn from these two classes are used to illustrate electronic class discussions. The goal of the first assignment was to establish an environment wherein students felt comfortable presenting their perspectives and communicating with each other. In this introductory assignment, students met "virtually" and introduced themselves. Three additional assignments that were recursive by design are presented after the description of the introductory assignment. Recursive assignments require students to submit pieces that are subsequently processed by others. Issues that one should take into consideration when implementing Web applications within college courses conclude the paper.

Promoting Student Interaction in the Virtual College Classroom

The World Wide Web is a potent venue for students to engage in academic discourse. Four assignments from two courses offered by the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology at Indiana University are used to illustrate techniques for promoting student interaction. Whether instruction takes place in a conventional face-to-face class or a Web-based electronic forum, promoting a comfortable environment for communication is essential to encourage students to speak in class. Conventional college classes often start with introductions. Usually the college instructor begins by providing information about his or her academic background and perhaps, depending on the size of the class, sharing some personal information. In classes under 40, students may be invited to share information about themselves. Typically, students mention their major, home town, professional aspirations, and other information specific to the topic of the class. To save class time, introductions may also be done electronically on the Web.

An Electronic Introduction

In my undergraduate educational psychology course, a Web-based version of class introductions was accomplished by an eight-noun exercise. Students were asked to log into a CoffeeHouse Forum and go to the "Introduce yourself" thread. The first message in the thread began, "Post a message and introduce yourself. Use eight nouns to describe yourself." I did the assignment: for each noun I provided a paragraph to explain why the noun applied to me. For instance, one of the nouns I used to describe myself was a "Cyclist." I wrote,
I have enjoyed riding bicycles since my parents bought a bike that was way too big for me when I was about five. I had to stand on an overturned bucket to even get on it. My feet only reached the pedals for about half a revolution. Now, riding through the hills of southern Indiana keeps me sane. My goal is to ride 3 to 5 times a week. On a good week, I sometimes get in three rides. The piles of paper in my office keep me chained to the desk.

I concluded the assignment with a caution.

While writing this, I realized that this statement is much more revealing than my normal disclosure to classes at the start of the semester. Typically, I will tell the class about my kids, cycling, and research interests. My introduction is relatively brief because it is necessary to leave time for the class members to introduce themselves.

This illustrates a couple of differences between the virtual classroom and the traditional face-to-face classroom. The virtual classroom permits a higher level of participation by the whole class. In the traditional class, people toward the end usually have to rush through their introduction because the bell is about to ring. Another difference is that classroom participation is not whatever rolls off the tip of your tongue but rather the product of more deliberate reflection.

Unlike the traditional classroom, your words will not evaporate. For instance, if you wanted to refresh your memory on someone in the class you could return to the CoffeeHouse Forum and look at their introduction. The same idea applies to ed. psych. concepts we will discuss. Unlike a traditional class, you may return to text from previous discussions.

A caution: When composing your assignment, reveal only those details about yourself that you feel comfortable sharing. If you have a personal question or evaluative comment, please e-mail me (cummings@indiana.edu).

Most of the students started the exercise by stating that it was quite challenging to come up with eight nouns to describe themselves. Four of the first six who posted mentioned that it was difficult. Typical nouns they used to describe themselves were; student, brother, sister, friend, daughter, son, musician, and Christian. While I did not provide a religious affiliation for myself, the first student who completed the assignment used the term Christian to describe herself. Most of the other students followed suit by identifying their religious affiliation. In using public electronic forums, it was clear that early postings affected the content of authors who posted subsequent messages.

The personal nature and depth of information revealed by the majority of class members was quite extensive. See Table 1 for a sample of the nouns and corresponding paragraphs. The quotes were selected to illustrate how individuals opened up during the first "virtual" class.

I view the eight-noun introduction assignment as important to establishing a climate within the virtual classroom. From reading the postings of students in the class, I became acquainted with them as individuals much more quickly than occurs in the conventional classroom. In conventional classes by mid-semester, I typically know a comparable amount about some of the more vocal students: however, those more reticent tend not to share much information about themselves, or even to talk much in the conventional class. The quiet student cannot hide in an electronic classroom, i.e., being present in class is demonstrated by participating in the discussion.

The eight-noun introductory exercise facilitated the development of an appropriate classroom climate. As an instructor I modeled openness in presenting aspects of myself to the class and encouraging students to be open while simultaneously cautioning them not to disclose too much. Students in the undergraduate class rated the introductory exercise highly. The feedback from the undergraduate students also revealed they found assignments that were recursive superior to those which were discrete and unconnected to subsequent class activities.

A recursive assignments builds upon itself. Students contribute pieces that provide a foundation for further analysis. Three examples will illustrate recursive assignments. The first example, an "effective instruction" assignment, was used to build on students’ personal experiences and facilitate connections of personal knowledge with knowledge from the text. In the second illustration, students found and submitted innovative Web sites that related

Table 1

Selected Quotes Illustrating the Personal Nature of Information Revealed by Students Responding to the Eight Noun Introduction Assignment

Student - This noun comes to mind first because of the context of this assignment as a class assignment. As a student I interact with others in classes in both a learning and a social environment. It can be a challenge to do this since I am so much older than the majority of the students, but I still enjoy it. There are sometimes people that are such fun to talk to and who add so much to my life with their experiences and insights that we no longer think of the age difference.

Chris Farley fan - I have always had a crush on this guy for some reason. I believe that even though he is a huge man, he is extremely graceful and athletic. The way he can do a dead fall on a coffee table takes my breath away.

Ankle twister - Ever since I was a child, I have been falling on concrete, tripping on carpet, falling off my bike, and slipping on the ice. I am a very clumsy person by nature and I've sprained my ankle every year of my life. Attractive?. . . Many see this quality as simply irresistible. . . . . . And I'm the pope's mother.

Quote-collector - I have a friend studying in Germany who sends me two quotes every day. I underline two sentences at a time and write other things on index cards. From Bible verses to cartoon soothsayers’ sayings, I love a good quote. Although, I’m not much on the drippy Hallmark inspirational ones.

People-person - You wouldn’t think that I’m a people person since I’m taking this course on the Web, eh? No, it’s true. Ask Heather or Tim. I really come alive in the middle of a crowd of people, sometimes to the point of obnoxiousness. I have a loud voice and I use it very much. I can usually draw a crowd and repulse them just as fast, at least I think I can.

Athlete - I enjoy sports and the outdoors!!! I love to run and go hiking. Hawaii has some really beautiful trails, so if any of you are interested in knowing them when you plan your next vacation feel free to email me.:) I also enjoy entering races with my family. I have completed several triathlons and did the Honolulu marathon once (and will remain that way). I enjoy playing racquetball, volleyball, basketball...most sports.:)

Wife - This noun is one of my two favorites. I have been very happily married for eight years now to a man who never stops surprising me both in his personality and his abilities. Just when I think I know him, another facet is revealed. The old cynical view of the "spark" being gone after a few years of marriage is baloney -my day still brightens and my heart still sings when he walks into a room. We are very opposite in many ways, and I think that helps us to not take each other for granted.

to the weekly topic, and evaluated others’ submissions. The third example illustrates the use of a virtual debate, where students posted initial position statements, offered rebuttals, and eventually wrote their personal views on an issue.

A Cumulative Assignment That Students Build with Repeated Postings

In a unit designed to introduce undergraduate educational psychology students to concepts associated with effective instruction, the first phase of the assignment required each student to write a description of his or her favorite teacher. Students were to reflect on how their favorite teacher was special and distinct from others. The task was intended to provide a connection between their personal experiences and course content in the textbook. Students posted their favorite teacher assignments in a public forum. This meant they could see each other’s postings. The second phase of the assignment required them to scrutinize closely what others had written. They were asked to discern commonalties across the best teacher descriptions, as well as significant or unique attributes. These characteristics were then to be considered within the context of content in a chapter on effective teaching. The assignment was recursive because students had to read and synthesize the postings of their peers and then make connections to the concepts presented in the text. To avoid sequential effects of a student having the benefit of seeing the posted syntheses of previous students, the syntheses were placed in private forums. These private forums were only visible to the instructor and a single student. The instructor, therefore, saw a forum for each student, whereas a student only saw a single forum corresponding to his or her last name. After the completion of the course, I realized that the assignment could have been more recursive if there had been another phase where the students processed the syntheses of their peers.

Locating and Sharing Innovative Links (URL’s)

A second example of a recursive assignment is the innovative links project from the undergraduate educational psychology course. Since one of the goals of the course was to explore the Web as a medium for teaching and learning, 20% of the course grade was based on the quality of Web sites located by students and their evaluations of Web sites submitted by their peers. By the end of the second week of class, students were expected to search the Web for URL’s of sites which were informative on the topic of exemplary teaching. Credit was given to students for locating sites (URL’s) that allowed the reader to branch to other sources, as well as those sites that covered the topic of the week. Students submitted their links by posting them as a message in a specified thread in the Innovative Links Forum. By including an HTML command with the address of the site they wished to share, they made the link active. This meant that when others read the message, they were able to click on the highlighted text and go automatically to the site. Students were instructed to provide three to four sentences to describe each site. They were required to submit innovative links weekly. Every third week, they were expected to review the links that had been submitted by their peers during the two previous weeks.

For the first link submission, none of the students submitted a link that worked properly. There were minor errors such as omissions or character substitutions. These errors caused the submitted links not to function. Since I had editing privileges on their messages, I opened their messages and in most cases was able to correct the minor errors. In a couple of cases, where students had recorded a link from a search engine, the link had been temporary and no longer worked. I sent the students an e-mail message to clarify the procedure for submitting a working link. The next time they submitted links, three fourths of the class did it successfully. By the fourth submission, 100% submitted links that were immediately operational.

To encourage students to visit the sites their peers had identified, the links assignment for the third week of class was to evaluate the URL’s submitted by their peers. Their assignment was to select two of the best sites submitted by their peers. They entered the "Exemplary Teaching" thread within the Innovative Links Forum and read messages posted by their peers. They were then to reply to the two messages that contained the best links. In their reply, they identified what it was about the Web sites that made them exemplary. For the final evaluation assignment, students were required to write their evaluation summary in hypertext form. Thus, they included active links in their comments about their peers’ exemplary links. For example, a student writing an evaluation incorporated additional active links in the evaluation.

In the course evaluation at the end of the semester, students reported significant changes in their comfort and competence with link submissions. Their self-reported change in competence coincided with my observations of their links. As noted above, at the end of the semester their links were error-free.

Virtual Debate as a Vehicle to Promote Critical Analysis and Personal Reflection

Debate is a time-honored approach for stimulating discussion and critical thinking (Baird, 1928; Pearson, 1909). In structuring the virtual debate in a graduate seminar on cognitive assessment and intervention, I divided the overall topic, "cultural test bias," into subtopics. For this debate, the subtopics were content bias, predictive validity bias, construct validity bias, mean score differences, efficacy of special education for children with mild mental disabilities, and the impact of special education labels. I assigned student pairs to each subtopic. For example, one student was assigned to play the role of critic for the subtopic of predictive validity bias and another played the role of defender for that subtopic.

There were three parts to the Web-based debate assignment; posting an initial position statement, providing a rebuttal, and compiling a personal reflection. Each student was assigned to be either a critic or defender of intelligence testing. Half the students were placed in the role of critic, while the other half defended the use of intelligence testing. In the conventional debate, it was sequenced so that the critic spoke first and the defender addressed the class next. Subsequently, the critic had the opportunity to rebut the comments of the defender. Then the defender attempted to refute the points of the critic.

The electronic forum avoided the problem of who spoke first and who was able to say the last word. In the electronic debate, the critic and defender simultaneously posted initial position statements. Two separate electronic forums were constructed so that defenders for the various subtopics could see the initial position statements posted by fellow defenders, but not until a specified date and time were they able to cross into the critics’ forum. Likewise, during the formative stage of the initial position statements, the critics could not see the work of the defenders but could see the work of the critics. At a specified time the forums were opened so that the students could view the work of their opponents and offer rebuttals. The student who was assigned as a critic on the topic of predictive validity crossed to the defender’s forum and was required to reply to the initial position statement by critiquing and rebutting the defender’s initial position statement on predictive validity bias. The other student in the pair crossed to the critic’s forum and wrote a rebuttal to the original position statement of the critic on the subtopic of predictive validity.

The goal of the rebuttal was to expose inconsistencies, false analogies, irrelevant arguments, errors of logic, and inaccurate causal relationships (Pfau, Thomas, & Ulich, 1987). To the degree possible, the rebuttal was to offer plausible alternative arguments. A common problem with refutation is that most fail to go beyond a restatement of the evidence presented in the initial position. The effective rebuttal was both offensive (destroying others’ arguments) and defensive (buttressing and strengthening one's own arguments).

The third and final part of the assignment was to review the entire set of position statements and rebuttals and to construct a personal reflection on the broad topic of intelligence testing with minority children. Each student posted his or her personal statement in a private forum. In the private forum, only that student and the instructor could read and write messages. Students were unable to view their peers’ private forums.

Conclusions

Lohman (1984) suggests that "the largest constraint on the use of discussion (in the college classroom) is time" (p. 131). Too often, the end of a class period terminates an insightful discussion. The asynchronous nature of the Web-based course avoids this circumstance. This means that a class discussion can go on indefinitely, or as long as two individuals are willing to devote the time to continuing a dialogue. The Web-based discussion differs from the conventional face-to-face discussion in that more time may be spent reflecting on potential responses (Fetterman, 1996). In the face-to-face discussion the response is, by necessity, immediate. The Web-based format leaves a permanent record and may be referred back to at appropriate points in a semester. McInerney (1997) reported that, prior to his Web-based course experience, he was concerned that the discussions would appear slow and stilted. To the contrary, he learned that "when one reads through the class comments, thereby compressing time it took to have them written and posted, one gets the feeling that one is following a typical, but well thought out, class discussion" (McInerney, 1997, p. 4).

Bonoma’s (1989) suggestions for contributing to the flow of discussion in the conventional classroom generalize to the Web-based venue. Bonoma (1989) notes that the instructor may take different roles when attempting to advance the discussion. Summarizing allows students to organize fragments that may be loosely connected in the students’ discourse. Inaccuracies and misinterpretations may be challenged with the goal of pushing students to extend their bases of knowledge. A greater level of intervention is employed when the instructor points to areas of conflict or raises issues that have been omitted. Barnes, Christensen, and Hansen (1994) capture the multiple facets of the discussion leader’s role by characterizing the teacher as a "planner, host, moderator, devil’s advocate, fellow-student, and judge" (p. 23).

The permanence of the class discussion is an asset when evaluating student participation (Gilbert, 1997). McInerney (1997), referring to students, notes, "if you don’t post, you are not there. You can’t sit and look interested, or lean forward in your chair, or smile, or look quizzical"(p. 4).

It would be inappropriate to conclude the paper without mentioning the issue of time. I was warned by those who had previous experience as instructors using the Web. Colleagues told me to be prepared to spend much more time on a Web version of a course. They were right. I naively believed I could design the course to avoid excessive amounts of time required by the instructor. I tried to design assignments to force students to interact with each other without a great deal of intervention on the part of the instructor. The element that I failed to take into account was that of feedback. Whereas one may stand in front of class and provide an overview of how an assignment was graded, one has to write everything for the Web. Since it was written and permanent, higher standards were necessary. Simply stated, it takes more time to write a paragraph, especially a well-written paragraph, than it does to speak a comparable number of words in front of the class. And high writing quality is essential because the instructor’s writing is serving as a model. Despite the cost to the instructor in terms of time, the conferencing assets of the Web as a tool for promoting interaction among students provide a wealth of opportunities. Discussion in the virtual classroom may supplement a conventional face-to-face class or be used as a learning tool in an online course.

References