Loading...
Facilitation strategies for enhancing the learning and engagement of online students
Muir, Tracey Douglas, Tracy Trimble, Allison
Muir, Tracey
Douglas, Tracy
Trimble, Allison
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
The opening up of online education in the Australian tertiary sector has made higher education accessible for a wide range of students, including those living in rural and regional areas. While student numbers continue to grow as a result of this opportunity, there are increasing concerns regarding low student retention and progression rates for online students in comparison with on-campus students. Reasons for this vary, however, online students report a sense of isolation and disconnection with their studies highlighting the need for educators to utilise effective facilitation to enhance student connections to an online community. In this paper, we investigated facilitation strategies using two case studies. This illustrated how two online instructors used design-based research to evaluate the impact of facilitation strategies on instructor presence, instructor connection, engagement and learning in maths education and human biology subjects. Findings indicate that focusing on social, managerial and technical facilitation strategies resulted in an increased instructor presence and active involvement, which in turn were influential in motivating students to engage with learning online. The findings have implications for higher education providers and instructors who are tasked with engaging online students. This identifies the importance of targeted online facilitation to enhance learner-instructor and learner-content engagement.
Keywords
online teaching, online facilitation strategies, student interactions, student engagement, higher education
Date
2020
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice
Book
Volume
17
Issue
3
Page Range
1-17
Article Number
ACU Department
School of Education
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
DOI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
File Access
Controlled