Re-Imagining Engagement for the Online Classroom

In this brief article, we will begin to examine what engagement in an online classroom can look like to instructors who are new to online education, as well as to instructors who have been delivering courses for a longer duration.

Given adult learners’ increasing appetite for short courses that satisfy their need to upskill, reskill and expand their knowledge in domains from finance to real estate to blockchain and artificial intelligence, how can instructors best engage with today’s tech-savvy and demanding learners in the fast-paced, six-to-eight week environment of a course that operates asynchronously?  After all, many of us have taught in-person and have a mental model suggesting that synchronous, in-person learning offers clear advantages for sharing physical space where thinking/pairing/sharing active learning happens best.  Or does that need to be the case?  How can we make engagement a compelling feature in our online and asynchronous world for participants who have elected to take a course and improve their leadership skills?

While we acknowledge the longstanding model of in-person, synchronous learning for engagement, we like to point out that asynchronous online courses provide a level of flexibility for engagement that can be difficult to attain in-person and in real-time – for working professionals and individuals who are in one way or another time-constrained.  Online courses provide for a multitude of engagement mechanisms in class-wide discussion forums, small groups, peer-reviewed activities, written assignments, and via the social connections that course participants make.

So, how do engagement mechanisms in an online course work? The asynchronous nature of much online learning provides adult learners with a time-shifted mode and benefit in this regard:  time for reflection which is a critical factor in adult learning as Chang (2019) describes.  If you haven’t thought about the value of reflection activities before, consider the following.  Benefits of reflection include obtaining new knowledge, propping up learners’ areas of deficiency, contextualizing course material, and establishing an environment where comparative learning can happen at a pace comfortable to the learner.  See Chang's article here.

Whether you are delivering your first course or your 50th, keeping in mind the advantage of our course-delivery model’s engagement activities may help you if you are unsure of what “good” engagement looks like in the classroom.  Good engagement for our course participants can happen through reflection.  There are many ways to engage!  Reflection can be personal, chronological, historical, contemporary or forward-looking. 

In managing your online classrooms, subject-matter and theoretical questions from participants in your courses can usually be answered with direct responses.  As subject matter experts in your respective areas, you are probably able to recite those responses in your sleep.  Asked.  Answered.  Done.

Stirring next-level thinking and enthusiasm among your course participants is where you get the opportunity to really make some magic happen with your students!  Inserting reflective prompts (e.g., “What were your employees’ concerns before your company introduced XYZ technology into the workplace?” – an anticipatory reflection) into dialogues with your course participants, forum posts and responses, and assignment grading can help contextualize course materials through assimilating reflections from different perspectives, peer comparisons, and interactions.  In this way, the blinking cursor of our online classroom gives us the tool we as learning facilitators and instructors can use to structure reflections that drive engagement through social learning!  Embrace it and foster greater engagement through reflection.