Enhance interaction and engagement in online course at Eastern Nazarene College

Learning objectives

• Students can demonstrate their understanding of, and engagement with subject matter, building on conceptual and theoretical knowledge inside each domain.
• Different specific learning objectives apply to each course and each chapter, broadly allowing students to apply, analyse and evaluate data over the duration of each course.

Learning activities

In weekly sessions, all lectures were given using Interactive Presentation, and in each presentation the slides were interspersed with between 10 to 15 questions. These questions were either multiple choice or open ended and students received a percentage of the grade for attendance, and then a percentage of the grade for answering the question, and were not graded on correctness at first. Upon learning the students were just selecting any answer without reading the extensive text, the faculty member increased learning accountability by granting a percentage of the grade for attendance, percentage of the grade for answering the question, and then finally a percentage of the grade for the correct answer. Slides and questions were structured in a way which built up on Bloom levels: first identifying a principle, then elaborating on a skill, and finally exploring the applications. In this way, the complexity of questions at different points in the presentation and throughout the course reflected a deeper understanding of the learning material. After the presentation was completed, students were able to download the presentation to go over the content.



These learning activities are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy at the following levels:

• ‍Remembering and understanding basic principles in management, leadership, and IT skills‍
• Applying, analysing, and evaluating this knowledge through answering questions in the presentations

• Scores based on participation and (correct) responses to questions in Interactive Presentations comprised 15% of the total grade for each course.

• Results from Interactive Presentation provided an overview of student performance per question: “I get a clearer understanding of what they know before they get to the quiz” This insight highlights which concepts and principles are proving more challenging for students and therefore which topics need revisiting.
• Previously, it was reported that some students attended lectures without trying to engage with the content, but after integrating interactive moments in the presentations, this student “vegetation” was no longer a problem.
• A higher general engagement was reported among students: “they enjoyed classes because of Interactive Presentation: Now, they pay attention”.

"FeedbackFruits helped me see how I could frame and deliver content more clearly." - Dr. Robert Murphy, Assistant Professor, Eastern Nazarene College

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The role of the instructor

• The instructor prepares the Interactive Presentation activity just before the session, choosing which content to focus questions on, as well as allocating points for attendance and answering questions. Depending on the progress throughout the course, these questions can reflect different principles and competencies.
• During class, the instructor prompts students to answer multiple-choice and open questions during the presentation. Open questions form the basis for a class discussion, to ensure that students have thought about the content and to increase the quality of these discussions.
• After the activity the instructor can check students’ participation and performance by looking at the overview of student activity in the Interactive Presentation interface.

Added value of technology

• In online settings without the benefit of physical student-student and teacher-student interactions, stimulating participation can be a challenge as the remoteness of peers and the instructor can decrease motivation and attention. With Interactive Presentation, students are stimulated to pay attention through a more personal and interactive encounter with course material.

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