TECHNOLOGY
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didn’t quite work as expected. Educators are used to this. We do try
new things every now and then to help our students and get better
learning outcomes. And sometimes, the outcomes are not quite
what we expect. Other times, they’re beyond what we expect. This is
how innovation and effective practice develop over time.
Context counts
Learning expert offers tips
on maximising the online
learning experience.
Petrea Redmond interviewed
by Wade Zaglas
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a mass migration
to online learning, with some Australian universities more
experienced at it than others.
To find out more about what this move means for universities,
Campus Review spoke to Associate Professor Petrea Redmond,
a USQ online learning expert and member of the Australian
Association of Research in Education.
CR: Why were you interested in researching the quality of teaching
methods used in online learning?
PR: I’ve been teaching with online resources since the late ‘90s and
teaching online since 2000. When I design for teaching online, it’s
very different than when I design for face-to-face classes. You need
to consider how students might engage with the content, each
other and the teaching team, as well as how teachers can be present
online so that students still feel part of a learning community.
You’ve written that transitioning from face-to-face teaching provides
opportunities for innovation as well as challenges. Are you saying
that while innovation might benefit in some ways, other aspects of
schooling or learning may suffer?
All change brings both challenges and opportunities. As educators,
we’ve been moving quickly across a continuum from teaching
face-to-face only in many cases, to teaching fully online. There will
be many success stories, but also many stories of times when it
You say online engagement is a slippery idea, as people don’t always
know what it means. Can you outline what your research has found
regarding different kinds of engagement?
When my colleagues and I sifted through the literature, we
determined that there were five different types of engagement
related to online learning in higher ed. Cognitive engagement is one
that many people are familiar with. It’s looking at critical thinking and
justifying decision-making, activating metacognition, and so on.
The second one was behavioural engagement, which is looking
at academic skills, the agency of the learner, especially online.
Social engagement is looking at building community, belonging,
relationships and establishing trust.
Those three levels are commonly used in the literature. However,
we found a couple of additional types of engagement. Collaborative
engagement, which is about a range of different relationships that
are developed – with peers, but also professional engagement
and networking. Most universities that have a majority of faceto-face
students like their students to connect with institutional
opportunities, so they could be members of clubs or sporting teams.
The last one is emotional engagement. That’s related to their
emotional reaction, particularly to online learning. Are they
enthusiastic, interested in sites, have a sense of anxiety? What
are their values or feelings or attitudes towards the acquisition of
knowledge and learning?
These emotions can be positive or negative, depending on their
experience. Some are finding a commitment to learning a little
more difficult because it’s difficult to concentrate. People have lower
productivity, their motivation is sometimes questioned because
they’re trying to study at home, perhaps with a partner who’s
working at home, and there are several children who might also be
trying to study at home.
Do you think quality education can still take place en masse online?
Universities and schools have been educating en masse for
centuries. At USQ, we have online classes that might range from a
dozen students to thousands. Like in the face-to-face mode, you
have to modify the design and the delivery of teaching, depending
on the size of the group that you interact with.
One of the biggest differences right now is to demonstrate to your
students that you are present or available. In a face-to-face mode,
that’s easy. They can see you and your teaching team in lectures and
tutorials, and you probably have office hours when students can
make appointments.
That’s not the same now. You have to turn up and be responsive
to students’ questions and comments, and that could be in real
time or synchronous mode, or it could be an asynchronous mode
in discussion forums, emails or other methods that students might
be reaching out for you. Some people have continued their office
hours or drop-in sessions either in virtual classrooms or video
conference spaces.
Good teaching and bad teaching happens equally online and in
face-to-face environments. The effective and ineffective practices
are dependent on the context. ■
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