Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course

When teaching pre-loaded and ready-to-use online courses, online instructors can integrate some optional discussion forums to tailor their instructions and to redirect teaching to meet instructional objectives. My teaching experiences, however, have revealed a lack of learner engagement in such...

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Main Author: Tianyi Zhang Ulyshen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Grand Canyon University 2020-06-01
Series:Journal of Scholarly Engagement
Online Access:https://scholarlyengagement.com/2020/06/30/learner-engagement-in-optional-discussion-forums-a-reflection-on-an-online-statistics-course/
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author Tianyi Zhang Ulyshen
author_facet Tianyi Zhang Ulyshen
author_sort Tianyi Zhang Ulyshen
collection DOAJ
description When teaching pre-loaded and ready-to-use online courses, online instructors can integrate some optional discussion forums to tailor their instructions and to redirect teaching to meet instructional objectives. My teaching experiences, however, have revealed a lack of learner engagement in such optional discussion forums. Keeping this problem in mind, I explored possible ways to design and incorporate optional discussion forums in a pre-loaded online statistics course. Learners in this course were non-traditional doctoral learners, and they demonstrated satisfying engagement in these optional discussion forums. Therefore, in this reflection paper, I describe the process to design these optional discussion topics, evaluate learner engagement in optional discussion forums through three dimensions, and share major instructional strategies I used during this course to cultivate student engagement to work on these optional discussion topics.
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spelling doaj-art-14fce3e714814cfc84da75500ff17ae72025-08-20T02:56:39ZengGrand Canyon UniversityJournal of Scholarly Engagement2690-72832690-72912020-06-0131173110.9743/JSE.2020.3.1.3Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics CourseTianyi Zhang Ulyshen When teaching pre-loaded and ready-to-use online courses, online instructors can integrate some optional discussion forums to tailor their instructions and to redirect teaching to meet instructional objectives. My teaching experiences, however, have revealed a lack of learner engagement in such optional discussion forums. Keeping this problem in mind, I explored possible ways to design and incorporate optional discussion forums in a pre-loaded online statistics course. Learners in this course were non-traditional doctoral learners, and they demonstrated satisfying engagement in these optional discussion forums. Therefore, in this reflection paper, I describe the process to design these optional discussion topics, evaluate learner engagement in optional discussion forums through three dimensions, and share major instructional strategies I used during this course to cultivate student engagement to work on these optional discussion topics.https://scholarlyengagement.com/2020/06/30/learner-engagement-in-optional-discussion-forums-a-reflection-on-an-online-statistics-course/
spellingShingle Tianyi Zhang Ulyshen
Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
Journal of Scholarly Engagement
title Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
title_full Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
title_fullStr Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
title_full_unstemmed Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
title_short Learner Engagement in Optional Discussion Forums: A Reflection on An Online Statistics Course
title_sort learner engagement in optional discussion forums a reflection on an online statistics course
url https://scholarlyengagement.com/2020/06/30/learner-engagement-in-optional-discussion-forums-a-reflection-on-an-online-statistics-course/
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