Documentation:Creating the Online Learning Environment/Engaging Learners

Engaging Learners

Xin & Feenberg agree that online facilitators are most challenged by their responsibility for developing the social aspects of an engaged and collaborative online learning environment. These authors suggest that online leadership and motivation should be the key goals of instructors/facilitators in this regard. Managing a successful online community requires strong but not overbearing leadership, through complex communicative interactions. And effective leadership by a facilitator or instructor is essential for keeping participants absorbed and keeping “the game” of collaborative discourse going.

What enables online community in education is not so much the bonds of sentiment formed from personal intimacies, but the deeply satisfying pleasure of engrossment in a dialog game. This, in turn, creates the emotional bond of community.

(Xin & Feenberg, 2006, p. 17)

Most usefully, these authors describe the different kinds of moderating practices that effective online facilitators make use of. They describe three categories of moderating functions:

Contextualizing functions (setting the context for the learning community: creating a shared framework of roles and expectations, building ‘course culture’)
Monitoring functions (helping participants know if they are fulfilling expectations)
Meta functions (management of communications, ‘repair’ of challenging situations, summarizing ideas)

Xin & Feenberg offer an explanatory table in which they elaborate on these functions in more depth.

Contextualizing:

Opening discussions. The moderator must provide an opening comment that states the theme of the discussions and establishes a communication model. The moderator may periodically contribute “topic raisers” or “prompts” that open further discussions in the framework of the forum’s general theme.
Setting the norms. The moderator suggests rules of procedure for the discussion. Some norms are modeled by the form and style of the moderators opening comments. Others are explicitly formulated in comments that set the stage for discussion.
Setting the agenda. The moderator manages the forum over time and selects a flow of themes and topics of discussion. The moderator generally shares part or all of the agenda with participants at the outset.
Referring. The conference may be contextualized by referring to materials available on the Internet, for example, by hyperlinking, or offline materials such as books.

Monitoring

Recognition. The moderator refers explicitly to participants comments to assure them that their contribution is valued and welcome, or to correct misapprehensions about the context of the discussion.
Prompting. The moderator addresses requests for comments to individuals or the group. Prompting includes asking questions and may be formalized as assignments or tasks. It may be carried out by private messages or through public requests in the forum.
Assessing. Participants accomplishment may be assessed by tests, review sessions, or other formal procedures.

Management

Meta-commentingMeta-comments include remarks directed at such things as the context, norms or agenda of the forum, or at solving problems such as lack of clarity, irrelevance and information overload. Meta-comments play an important role in maintaining the conditions of successful communication.
Weaving The instructor summarizes the state of the discussion and finds threads of unity in the comments of participants. Weaving recognizes the authors of the comments it weaves together and often implicitly prompts them to continue along lines that advance the conference agenda.
Delegating Certain moderating functions such as weaving can be assigned to individual participants to perform for a shorter or longer period.

The Instructors' Role In Open Learning Contexts

Dave Cormier and George Siemens in their 2010 article for the Educause Review describe the role of the educator in somewhat different terms:

Open learning does not negate the role of the educator. Instead, open learning adjusts the role of the educator with respect to access to new content and engagement tools now under the control of the learner. Educators continue to play an important role in facilitating interaction, sharing information and resources, challenging assertions, and contributing to learners' growth of knowledge. Through The Open Door: Open Courses as Research Learning and Engagement - EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 4 (July/August 2010): 30-39

The table they provide, illustrates the various (and somewhat unique) facets of teaching in an environment that is highly flexible and learner driven.

Educator Role	Activity of Educator	Tactics and Tools
Amplifying	Drawing attention to important ideas/concepts	Twitter, blogs
Curating	Arranging readings and resources to scaffold concepts	Learning design, tutorials, adjustment of weekly activities to reflect course flow
Wayfinding	Assisting learners to rely on social sense-making through networks	Comments on learners' blog posts, help with social network formation, "live slides" method*
Aggregating	Displaying patterns in discussions and content	Google Alerts, RSS reader, visual tools (e.g., Many Eyes)
Filtering	Assisting learners in thinking critically about information/conversations available in networks	RSS reader, discussion of information trust, conceptual errors
Modeling	Displaying successful information and interaction patterns	All use of tools and activities to reflect educators' modeling of appropriate practices
Staying Present	Maintaining continual instructor presence during the course, particularly during natural activity lulls	Daily (or regular newsletter), activity in forums, video posts, podcasts, weekly live sessions in synchronous tools (e.g., Elluminate)