Sharon Claffey, Professor a the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and Eve Sledjeski, presented at the Lilly Conference Online on “Improving Student Engagement in Asynchronous Online Courses with Required Meetings.” Asynchronous learning interests me since I enjoy teaching this way and want to improve. Claffey taught in the fall of 2020 online and was frustrated that students were not reaching out for help in the asynchronous courses that Claffey was teaching. Claffey did a literature review: citing Glenn 2018, “professors who add human touch to asynchronous classes help to entice student participation,” mentioned Claffey. Further, according to Kuh, “student engagement is student involvement in educationally purposeful activities” (Kuh, 2018) and Glenn noted that instructors can encourage student engagement, according to Claffey. Thus, Claffey concluded that based on the literature, interaction and engagement with the instructor are critical. Claffey then required a video meeting for the spring 2021 semester: a ten-minute meeting that taught them how to use the Bookings scheduling program and Microsoft Teams to participate in video meetings. I thought this was interesting as it focused on technology that we often just “link to” or include slides in the orientation module. Claffey wondered if this meeting helped and was able to obtain IRB approval to analyze archival data from the courses they taught. Enrollment was relatively low for the courses taught by Claffey with between 11 and 25 students. Claffey compared number of non-required video meetings and course grades between fall 2020 and spring 2021 course offerings. The data for the number of meetings was skewed and analyzed by a non-parametric design. There was a greater frequency of two or more meetings with those required to have a video meeting. There was also a marginal difference in course grades between spring and fall. Claffey discussed the results and possible interpretations, including increased familiarity with asynchronous courses in the spring. Claffey mentioned they would continue this practice. I wonder if I can do this with the BIT 410/510 DE course or others that are mostly online?
