Engaging students online (3)

The third episode of the “Engaging Students Online” series explores how to activate students through questions.

Introduction

Engaging with students is often a challenge, whether in a face-to-face course or an online setting. In this series, you’ll find small pedagogical strategies to foster student engagement in online teaching, which can also be adapted to face-to-face classes.

Instructional Method

While discussing student engagement with teachers from the Content Strategy program one of them wrote:

What I’ve come to learn over the years is to lead with simple questions that are clearly formulated, and which anyone can answer from their own experience. Once the students are warmed up (and engaged), it’s easier to get them to respond to more thought-provoking questions and for the quieter ones to enter the discussion. (Ben Croker)

Starting with easy questions as a warm-up works well. Ben’s idea of asking questions that students can answer based on their own experience is a great approach, as it ensures every student can at least think of a response. This helps students build self-confidence, which is the number one predictor of academic achievement and success (according to a post by the University of the West of Scotland). One of the crucial needs in the Self-Determination Theory, a psychological framework for understanding human motivation, is the need to feel competent.

Our feeling of competence is derived from a series of successful experiences and the positive emotions we derive from them. (Elizabeth Perry, 2023).

Students discuss questions

From observing student groups (whether online or face-to-face), we know that some students are eager to discuss any question, while others remain silent. People have different competencies and preferences. Therefore, teachers could implement a brief group activity with the “clearly formulated question” (Ben) and add some words about the result they expect from the group work. The result could be a definition, two descriptive sentences, a picture, keywords, …

Sending students to breakout rooms is incredibly easy nowadays, and in face-to-face settings, students could simply move around to form small groups.

In these groups, students nominate a person to briefly present the result.

Rules for us teachers

• Formulate clear and simple questions that are broad enough to allow diverse input but focused enough to guide the discussion.
• Set clear expectations for group work by explaining the result of the group activity and providing an example.
• Support group formation and roles, as presenter or note-taker.
• Ensure each group has the opportunity to present their results briefly.

Framework

• This approach is useful in all online courses with discursive elements
• If you have any questions, ask Jutta Pauschenwein.
• Plattform: MS Teams, ZOOM

Further information

Previous posts in the Engaging Students Online series.

• How to integrate student moderators into the classroom (1st episode)
• How to assign students the task of revisiting content from the previous class. (2nd episode)