Types of Interaction

Student↔faculty interaction can include both formal direct instruction and more informal mentoring and support as discussed in the Online Presence module. Regular and substantive student↔faculty interaction is required for courses to be classified as "online courses" and not "correspondence courses" by the US Department of Education Links to an external site. and the Higher Learning Commission Links to an external site..  Courses considered to be correspondence are not eligible for student loans or to count toward full-time student status Links to an external site..

A few examples of student↔faculty interaction include

• providing feedback on assignments, learning journals, or other reflective activities
• participating in discussion forums or chats
• sending frequent announcements to summarize the previous week or describe the next week
• providing online or telephone office hours
• mentoring individual learners
• working with small groups of students assigned to help teach portions of the course (peer teaching)

Student<–>Student Interaction

Interaction between students can include formal course-related collaboration and interaction as well as more informal social interaction, which can increase students' comfort with each other and with the online environment.   Student↔student interaction-based activities include but are not limited to

• group projects
• group case studies
• peer instruction
• role playing
• synchronous or asynchronous discussions or debates
• collaborative brainstorming
• peer review of selected work (For more on using Canvas tools to manage peer review, see the Peer Review section of the Instructor Guide Links to an external site..)

Any of these examples can be used on a large or a small scale ranging from semester-long project groups doing research and presenting results to an optional live meeting where those present discuss a short video case or a discussion forum where they brainstorm alternatives to a textbook problem.

Depending on the size of your class, you can encourage student↔student interaction class-wide or in smaller groups or pairs.  When working with smaller groups, it helps to emphasize individual accountability, positive interdependence, and positive interaction in grading the group's work (Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns, & Beers, 2004). This strategy leads to three grades on a group project emphasizing the three aspects of group work:

1. individual contribution to the group project
2. synthesis of the individual parts into a project that shows collaboration, consensus, and learning
3. working together to encourage and facilitate each other's efforts to complete the project

For more on using Canvas to manage your student groups, please see the Group section of the Canvas Instructor Guide. Links to an external site.

Student<–>Content Interaction

Student↔content interaction includes students' concrete interactions with the course materials and their more abstract interactions with the concepts and ideas they present. It is more than just reading a book or watching a video.  It includes but is not limited to

• tutorials (using text, still images, audio, and/ or video)
• quizzes (if the feedback is useful and usable)
• web quests (Links to an external site)
• reading/video discussion or reflections (Reading a textbook is technically a student↔content activity but explicitly requiring students to reflect on the reading and providing directed prompts for that reflection improves the interaction.)
• simulations (like Froguts Virtual Dissection Software Links to an external site.)

It's helpful to think through the balance of interaction over the entire course.  Particularly, providing activities that offer a range of student-student interaction (from substantial to moderate to light to none) allows students with different preferences for the amount of peer interaction to be comfortable at some points and challenged to expand their comfort zone at others. 

The keys to developing effective online learning activities are to make them: 

• include opportunities for active learning
• allow for different types of interaction
• sequential so each one builds on the preceding one,
• include useful feedback on the activities, and
• include opportunities for students to think and reflect on what they are learning, how they are learning, and the significance of what they are learning.