Catering for ‘very different kids’: distance education teachers’ understandings of and strategies for student engagement

Abstract

Compulsory distance education has always sought to be inclusive, providing educational opportunities for K-12 students unable to attend mainstream, face-to-face schools for medical, geographical, or personal reasons. However, how to effectively engage these diverse learners has remained a perpetual challenge, with a need for further investigation into the nature of student engagement with compulsory school distance contexts and how teachers can best support it. This qualitative study used focus groups (n = 2 groups, n = 16 participants) to examine teacher definitions and student engagement strategies within eKindy-12 distance education in Queensland, Australia. Categorical analysis was conducted using a priori codes for definitions, focusing on four previously established engagement types (i.e. behavioural, emotional, cognitive, and agentic engagement), and in vivo codes for strategies. Teacher definitions focused strongly on behavioural engagement, but most also contained elements of emotional and cognitive engagement; agentic engagement was only occasionally evidenced via practice descriptions. Teachers described engaging students by: building relationships, creating a safe classroom environment through differentiation, using inclusive technological tools to facilitate interaction and monitor progress, making learning fun and relevant, drawing on school-wide pedagogical frameworks and teaching strategies, and encourage self-regulation. Findings suggest distance education teachers face unique challenges around evidencing engagement and supporting student agency.

Higher education strategy in digital transformation

“…One of the other critical changes in independent learning is that how to enable students to decide what online/offline sources to select and use (Harris et al, 2020 ). It was found that independent learning positively impacts the motivation, performance and self-efficacy of students (Boyer et al, 2013 ).…”

Self-regulated learning in online learning environments: strategies for remote learning

“…Asking students to consider how they learn in online spaces SRL requires learners to think about how they learn (Harris et al, 2020). Online teachers have focused on helping students understand what it means to learn online in contrast to learning in a traditional setting (Rice and Carter, 2016).…”

“…This might require assistance in problematizing thinking about ideas such as, "online learning is going to be easier than traditional learning because I can do it at home." Alongside providing information about cognition and learning online, teachers have developed questioning strategies common in traditional literacy instruction where learners generate questions, decide what online sources to use or what search terms would be helpful, do the searching and then report (Harris et al, 2020). The assigned reports do not just include responses, but narrations of how responses were achieved.…”

Seven educational affordances of virtual classrooms

“…Affordances in an educational setting, and especially in the virtual classroom can be understood through the specifics of educational affordances. In a recent study by Harris et al [22] , they provide empirical evidence about how one school's distance education teachers define and support engagement. On a similar note, a study by Ames et al [2] explores teachers’ perspectives regarding their use of technological tools to support their students’ learning via focus groups.…”