CHATS
I have found that the best way to create a presence in a virtual classroom is the Live Chat. In my first online experience I had office hours, however, the interaction was one email at a time. In a recent experience, I had specific times and a room and the results were fantastic. We spoke about assignments, the syllabus, and other issues... weekly. I believed it helped retention and completing timely assignments, so I recommend this practice!
Rosie,
Weekly chat sessions are great! It not only helps the students but gives the instructor another way to evaluate student behavior.
Rosie:
Great strategy to promote retention. I believe the weekly contact and the focused topics resulted in meaningful Chat sessions.
Satrohan
I also believe chats are the way to go to help with retention and creating a presence. I have been a student in both situations and I really enjoyed the chat format and learned better in that type of environment.
Cynthia:
I assume that by retention you mean student retention and not knowledge retention. I fully agree with you that Chats cna be an effective means to continue to maintain your presence in the learning environment, and participation in the learning experience.
Satrohan
Rosie-
Chats are a great way to "meet" your students. I hold seminars where students are given a specific topic that will be discussed. In this environment I prepare lecture material to be discussed.
For chats, I am there to answer questions only. Kathryn
I've found that chats are also a good way to create a bit of an informal environment as well. As an online student in grad school, I had an instructor who would set aside two chats - one for business, the other for just shooting the breeze and getting to know each other. I learned a great deal from both experiences.
Kimberely:
Using Chat sessions as a "socializing" tool brings its benefits.
Satrohan
I have heard other instructors comment that one of the greatest difficulties is getting a strong student presence during chat sessions. Do you have any suggestions to improve the student participation in these?
Hi Kyle
I think there are a few things that you can do to improve student participation in chat sessions. The first thing is to communicate to the students the purpose of the chat sessions--and make sure it is something that motivates them to want to participate. Having a chat session just to have a chat session isn't going to work for an adult student. Another thing that you can do is survey the class to find out what day/time works best for everyone. If no one agrees on just one time and it is a big enough class, you could offer two different times for chat sessions.
I hope those suggestions are helpful. Do you have any other ideas?
Chats are excellent ways to stay in touch with students...archived chats also allow those who can't attend an opportunity to understand materials and more.
A live voice in real-time (synchronous) shows the students your presence as well...
I, too, believe it helps with retention and lowers frustration.
Definitely a good practice!
We record our live chats-- then the students that can't be there can listen to them later! Makes for a great classroom environment!
Hello Kyle:
My suggestion is to make the chats dynamic and demonstrate an application for the kinesthetic learners in your class. For instance, I teach Statistics online, and utilize Excel to demonstrate various techniques in Data Analysis such as regression, graphing, ANOVA, etc. Student response is often quite strong. I have had over 50% attendance for some of my chats as a result...from a class of 32.
Best wishes,
Susan Weiss
