Eight Ways To Get Students More Engaged in Online Conferences.

Abstract

Anybody who has ever participated in a Listserv knows that many people on the list are lurkers, people who read the postings but do not contribute postings of their own. Some of us are lurkers on some Listservs while being active participants in others where we believe we have something important to say. And that's fine -- except for students! Students have a job to do; namely, learn. Learning is best accomplished when the learner is actively engaged in the process.[1,2] For online conferencing, this means that we should not allow our students to be lurkers. We should want them to be active participants, providing input that will make everybody learn and think. So, if you are one of those teachers who have been tolerating lurking because you think you are doing students a favor, think again. But powerful psychological and social forces converge to make lurking the natural order of things. The popular conferencing software programs also contribute to the problem. Causes of the Problem Psychological and Social Forces. In a given conference, the students can differ enormously in academic background, skills and life experience. Some students lack the confidence to assert themselves in public. Some do not like to write. Some may not have studied the assignments. Some are afraid they will embarrass themselves with postings that are not clever, erudite or interesting to others. A common denominator for all students is the passive conditioning they have been exposed to by years of television and traditional classroom teaching. Both television and the lecture method of teaching put students in a passive, entertain me mode. There is little directed or systematic effort to elicit critical or creative thinking. Effort is not automatically required with either television or the traditional lecture mode of teaching. Without intellectual effort, whatever learning occurs will occur mostly by osmosis. Many students transfer this passive mode to online learning activities, functioning as lurkers and not realizing how much more they would understand and learn if they contributed input to the group discussions. Contributing input requires the student to comprehend what is being discussed by others, to create ideas in the context of the topic at hand, to organize thinking coherently, and to express that thinking with carefully constructed language (hopefully, clearly and concisely). It is possible that teachers, who have also been exposed to a great deal of television and traditional lecture-mode teaching, may likewise be insensitive to the problem. Indeed, teachers may even contribute to the problem by using an excessive amount of television, videotapes and lecturing in their own classes. Online conferences create opportunities for teachers to remedy old patterns of behavior: both the learning behavior of students and the teaching-style behavior of the teachers. Teachers should try to correct the problems of passivity, not reinforce them by tolerating lurking. Many teachers object to putting pressure on students by making them do uncomfortable things. Converting a lurker into an active online learner is uncomfortable for lurkers. Lurking is a bad learning-style habit. One hallmark of a good education is the ability to mobilize a variety of learning styles and not be crippled by a limited repertoire of learning styles and skills. Change is uncomfortable, but is worth it if it improves learning and the ability to learn. Limitations of Most Conferencing Software. The typical software for online conferencing is either e-mail Listservs or commercial e-mail organizer systems such as Caucus or First Class. Even when the mail is organized by the commercial software, it is organized in a topic/sub-topic outline format that students can navigate by simple mouse clicking without being intellectually driven by context within the mail messages. To read such threaded-topic messages, no real search strategy is required. …