Designing for Three Modes Of Interaction

Hybrid Course Design and Deliver > Designing for Three Modes Of Interaction

Student-instructor interaction

Interaction can be one-to-one or one-to-many — private between the instructor and one student or more public with the entire class.

  • Live Chat – offer scheduled synchronous online “office hours” via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
  • Survey – periodically ask for feedback and then act upon it. You could ask how well the online interaction is going …
  • Email – establish consistent response times for answering student emails.
  • Feedback – provide comments on student work as appropriate. If you’re comfortable, try providing audio feedback or use screencasting software.

Student-student interaction

As more students are vaccinated and feel comfortable with face-to-face interaction, many may start to get together in person. However, web conferencing and video chats have become a prominent way for students to meet and work together. They can self-organize group assignment meetings using their access to Zoom, MS Teams, or other tools that they use. As a professor, you can also design the the following kinds of online activities for student to student interaction.

  • Discussion – asynchronous conversation that adds value for students. Remember that requiring trivial work for the sake of interaction may backfire on you.
  • Peer review – have students follow a clear rubric to provide each other with constructive criticism outside of class – and make it count.
  • Collaborative work – simultaneously edit a shared Word document while conversing via Zoom or MS Teams, for example. Explain in advance how this will be assessed.
  • Study groups – suggest that students organize these online ahead of an exam.
  • Polling – you could use a polling tool, such as Mentimeter, to ask students a provocative question as an asynchronous activity. As they respond, the student responses will refresh. During the next in-person class, the results can be shared and discussed.

Student-content interaction

Learning can be active and interactive even when only one human is involved.

  • Content Review and Learning Reinforcement – you can create self-marking interactive activities using H5p in which grades get posted to your course gradebook.
  • High-level thinking – assign a task that requires students to apply concepts or choose among strategies. Rote learning has a role, but deep learning is the goal.
  • Reflection – ask students to reflect on their learning, relate it to previous knowledge, generate questions about it, or predict what will come next.
  • Concept mapping – as a unit begins, have students create a visual that represents how they understand the main concept. Do the same at the end and then to compare the two, or compare with an expert’s map.
  • Electronic portfolio – students can develop an online collection of their work as they progress through the course.

Adapted from article “Student Interaction In Blended Courses” by Chris Clark, University of Notre Dame.