Using e-learning dialogues in higher education

Abstract

Dialogue is arguably one of the most important components of any learning process. However, as student numbers increase and more emphasis is given to electronic delivery of courses, opportunities for effective dialogue may be missed. The technology to support e-learning dialogue is readily available, but design of the dialogue structures and understanding of learners' online communication behaviour requires further research. This paper reports on a study of the use of asynchronous discussion forums to support online dialogue in undergraduate learning and teaching in two groups of students. Initial empirical evidence, obtained from online communication behaviour data and assessment results, is presented to support a positive association between students' participation in e-learning dialogues and learning outcomes. Other factors that could influence effective exploitation of e-learning dialogues such as tutor intervention, students' perceptions, dialogue quality and learning outcomes are discussed, along with implications for the design of such systems.

Peer Teaching in a Flipped Teacher Education Classroom

“…Researchers agree that interaction is essential to students' learning experiences and achievement (Laurillard 2000;Garrison and Anderson 2003). Learners learn more effectively if they are actively involved in the process rather than being passive thinkers (Webb et al 2004). Not only did flipped learning in this study allow students to interact with me, the instructor, before, during, and after class, they were also able to interact with the classroom teacher they observed each week and interact with other students from class.…”

Analysis of Factors Affecting Learner Participation in Asynchronous Online Discussion Forum in Higher Education Institutions

“…Recently much has been written on participation in asynchronous discussion (Gerbic, 2006;Thompson and Savenye, 2007) including the effects of participation levels on learning outcomes, the relationship between participation levels and student satisfaction with the online class and the factors affecting participation levels. Webb et al (2004) established a correlation between participation in asynchronous discussion forums and how well learners perform during assessments in online learning.…”

Learning Analytics for Online Discussions: Embedded and Extracted Approaches

“…Both contributing and attending to discussion messages are important activities in realizing the theoretical potential of online discussions to support knowledge construction (Wise, Speer, Marbouti, & Hsiao, 2013). However a substantial research base shows that in actual asynchronous discussions learners often pay limited attention to others' posts (Hewitt, 2003;Thomas, 2002), resulting in conversation patterns that can be characterized as incoherent rather than dialogic (Herring, 1999;Webb, Jones, Barker, & van Schaik, 2004). Early research into these problems reported disturbingly low overall statistics, suggesting that the problems were global and, to some extent, systemic products of asynchronous discussion environments (Hewitt, 2003;Kear, 2001;Swan, 2003).…”