“But I hate online course discussions. Why do we have to do this again? Creating Reinvigorating Student to Student and Faculty Member Conversations”

Concurrent Session 1

Session Materials

Brief Abstract

Have you ever had a class that hates contributing to the digital course discussion boards held within varying learning management systems? Have you ever just raked your brain and could not figure out meaningful ways for interactivity? Look no further; this session will provide student engagement within academic courses. 

Presenters

Lead Presenter: Amy Dye-Reeves, Texas Tech University

Amy Dye-Reeves is an Associate Librarian within the Texas Tech University Libraries. She is the liaison to the College of Education and Department of History. She provides information literacy instructional sessions and workshops throughout the year. She loves assisting faculty members with any of their upcoming research projects. She received her Master of Information Science from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Additionally, she has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in History from East Tennessee State University. Before joining TTU, Amy was an Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction at Murray State University. She previously spent 5 years as a certified State of Tennessee Educator with a Pre K to Grade 12 (Library Media Specialist) endorsement. In 2019, she won the Innovators Award from the University of Tennessee School of Information Science. During the spring of 2018, she was selected to participate in a four-month Wikipedia Education Fellowship Program. Research interests include information literacy instruction, learning outcomes assessment, instructional design, and gamification.

Extended Abstract

Have you ever had a class that hates the course discussion boards held within varying learning management systems? Have you ever just raked your brain and could not figure out meaningful ways for interactivity? Look no further; this session will provide ways to foster student interactions (Sorensen & Baylen, 2011). The importance is placed upon understanding social connectedness to avoid isolation amongst all student participants. First, each session participant will be asked to examine their thoughts about collaborative learning environments connected to virtual interpersonal engagement experiences.

 The later conversation will have participants build better interactivity using the Media Synchronicity Theory (Dennis et al., 2008) with group lead sample conversations. The presenter will be using multiple network analyses to strengthen one’s core knowledge of interactive patterns amongst online course discussions. Each group will use two fundamental communication processes: conveyance and convergence, to provide a mutual understanding amongst all parties. The goal is to construct a groupthink conversation to create a concept map to measure behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. For example, each attendee will examine the operation (sharing information), wayfinding (student elaboration process), sense-making (analyzing and evaluating), and innovation (creating and reflecting). Each attendee will come away with strategies and gain technical skills to complete a social sharing function that allows students to implement positive and personalized interaction that builds commendatory for all participants. After the session, each attendee will be given a digital Flipboard link to continue the conversation after the concluded session. 

Level of Participation

The session has participants construct a digital Flipboard to help understand the re-structuring of online discussions and help develop a community of inquiry amongst all participants. Each group will share their digital Flipboard creations in the room to ensure comradery amongst all conference attendees. Additionally, each attendee will be given a  separate digital link to continue sharing and building examples of meaningful message board interactions with each other after the concluded presentation.

Session Goals: 

  • Each participant  will construct and develop the  analytical and interpretive skills necessary for critical and literary engagement
  • Each participant will construct a community of engaged learners through classroom discussions through creating digital Flipboard experiences.
  • Each participant will incorporate the Media Synchronicity Theory to apply within all digital message board experiences.