Course offers access to a variety of engaging resources to present content, support learning and collaboration, and facilitate regular and substantive interaction with the instructor.

Review These Explanations

Learners’ perceptions of their own learning may not be an accurate measure of how well they’re actually learning. For example, a recent study (Deslauriers, et al, 2019) found that while a lecture delivered by a charismatic personality can result in students reporting that they feel they learned more through a traditional lecture, they actually learned more by taking part in active-learning strategies. Active learning requires effort and can feel frustrating. That experience can be perceived as a negative learning experience and the effort misinterpreted as a sign of poor learning.

Learners benefit more from active learning activities than from the simple passive presentation of content. External readings and activities, assignments, discussions, interactive web sites, online assessments (formative and summative) should all be connected clearly to mastering course concepts, and aligned with module, course, and program objectives. An online course that presents course content in an engaging and appropriate manner, that facilitates interaction, application, and collaboration around course concepts, and that provides authentic online assessments and opportunities for engaging feedback makes the course more engaging, interactive, and effective. Centering pedagogical decisions on the learner provides the learner with options for how they make their thinking and their learning visible in ways appropriate and effective in the online environment, and open to feedback from both the instructors and their peers in the course, which provides opportunities to deepen learning, and for more authentic ways to assess learning/mastery.

Learners engage in online learning activities more readily when relevance to the course content is clear to them. Resources should be contextualized, and opportunities for feedback should be included throughout the course (Chakraborty & Nafukho, 2014).

Learners need to know why they are required to read, review, discuss, or create materials in the course. When they know reasoning behind what they need to complete, they will be more engaged.

References:

Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L.S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., and Kestin, G. (2019) Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116, 39, Pp. 19251–19257.

Chakraborty, M., & Nafukho, F. f. (2014). Strengthening student engagement: what do students want in online courses?. European Journal of Training & Development, 38(9), 782-802.

Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)

How This Standard Supports RSI

Online courses support regular and substantive interaction by offering a variety of types of engagement and interaction with the instructor in ways that are predictable and scheduled. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways.

Substantive interaction is defined as direct interaction between the learner and the instructor to engage learners in course teaching, learning, and assessment activities. This direct instruction from the instructor includes:

• Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework.
• Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course.
• Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course or competency.
• Other instructional activities approved by the institution’s or program’s accrediting agency.

Regular interaction means that the instructor interacts with online learners on a predictable and scheduled basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency.

RSI is consistent with the research and theory explained by the Community of Inquiry Framework (CoI), which comprises Social, Cognitive and Teaching presences. This standard aligns closely with the CoI definition of Teaching Presence, which, as defined, is “the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.” (p.5, Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001).

Teaching Presence comprises 3 overarching categories of indicators: 

• Facilitating Discourse
  • Identifying areas of agreement and disagreement.
  • Seeking to reach consensus and understanding.
  • Setting the climate for learning
  • Drawing in participants, prompting discussion/interaction.
  • Assessing the efficacy of the process.
• Instructional Design and Organization
  • Setting the curriculum.
  • Designing methods.
  • Establishing time parameters.
  • Utilizing the medium effectively.
  • Establishing netiquette.
• Direct Instruction
  • Presenting content and questions.
  • Focusing the discussion.
  • Summarizing the discussion.
  • Confirming understanding.
  • Diagnosing misperceptions.
  • Injecting knowledge from diverse sources.
  • Responding to technical concerns.

Online courses designed to support and facilitate high levels of teaching presence in both learners and instructors that engage learners in a variety of active, interactive, and authentic online learning activities support and facilitate RSI with the instructor. Directing learners to ask questions and interact with the instructor about course activites, such as in an online discussion forum, further supports RSI, and is a good general practice. Scheduling a specific instructor-facilitated discussion on these topics demonstrates compliance with RSI.

Refresh Your Course with These Ideas

General Suggestions

• Support and Promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Access.
• Improve your Online Teaching Presence.
• Explore a variety of types of learning activities.
• Active Learning – What is it? – .pdf
• Online Instructional Activities Index 
• Explore 50 Alternatives to Lecture – pdf
• Asynchronous Resources
• Synchronous Resources
• Supporting Online Learner Success
• When posting learning materials, let learners know why you want them to access these resources, and what they should be looking for.
• Read everything you share with your learners and consider how engaging it is. If something seems lacking, develop a companion guide that will encourage learners to think more critically about that learning asset.
• Provide feedback channels where learners can rate the engagement level of the materials you provide, and how they feel they align with objectives.
• Refresh your resources at least once a semester. Review what materials you are providing to see if they are still relevant.
• Meet with a subject area librarian to explore more engaging resources for your course.
• Explore the MERLOT repository for learning material and interactive lessons to include in your course.
• Explore related Open Educational Resources at OER Commons to include in your course.
• Check with your textbook publisher to see if a course companion site is available.
• Check with other faculty who teach in your discipline to explore online resources that they have found to be successful in engaging online learners.

Examples

• Team ‘teach back’ assignments. Create teams and assign (one team at a time) the task of teaching an important module concept (using a rubric) – in their format of choice. Perhaps this could be done one time per week or one time per module. The course Instructor would offer feedback to ensure information correctness. Teams would review feedback and edit as needed. The course Instructor would then share the final product with the entire class.
• Team resource contributions. Create study teams. Give each team a blog. Team members would evaluate and submit 1-3 internet resources (websites, articles, etc) that add value (as defined in a rubric) to discussion topics and/or module topics. The Course Instructor would then comment/rate team resource contributions.
• Provide opportunities for social annotation or collaborative bookmarking (e.g., use diigo, or Hypothes.is – to enable your learners to annotate, contribute and comment on additional resources), comment areas, and discussion forums (in text or media) associated with resources and other content.
  • Web annotation and social bookmarking example.

Explore More Refreshing Ideas from the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) at the University of Central Florida (UCF)

These Pedagogical Practice from TOPR explore methods and approaches to integrating engaging resources and activities into your online course content to benefit learner success.

Explore Related Resources

Share What You Know

OSCQR has been developed by a community of online practitioners interested in quality course design. There are numerous opportunities for community members to offer suggestions, donate resources, and help with future development.

Discuss this standard in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

Contribute your own ideas or refresh resources by filling out the OSCQR Examples Contribution Form.