Engaging Students Online

¶ … ability for a teacher to communicate to its students is extremely important in creating a learning environment that fosters a curious attitude and a quest for knowing more. The use of technology has made new tools available, for better or for worse that has attempted to create a classroom that is both engaging and effective. Dixson (2010) expressed her research that suggested that online environments present their own unique challenges and the need for teacher engagement is very important.

The research was premised by suggesting that online courses appear to be here to stay and "the second reason is that one of the primary components of effective online teaching (or any other teaching, for that matter) is student engagement. Therefore, it is imperative that we learn what engages students in order to offer effective online learning environments." The point is well taken as student engagement is the key to unlocking the mysteries behind teacher and student relationships that sometimes work and sometimes does not work.

Methods To measure this idea, the author created a scale to measure online student engagement and then surveyed 186 students from Midwestern college campuses. "Because there was no scale to measure online student engagement, the first stage of the project was to develop a measure of student engagement in online courses.

Two student engagement instruments and one measure of interaction within online courses were consulted: The Classroom Survey of Student Engagement (CLASSE) (Smallwood, 2006), the Student Course Engagement Questionnaire (SCEQ) (Handelsman, Briggs, Sullivan, and Towler, 2005) and the Rubric for Assessing Interactive Qualities in Distance Courses (RAIQDC) (Roblyer and Wiencke, 2004). These tools allowed the researchers more context on which to evaluate their findings. Results Eventually a balance is needed within the classroom that both engages the student and makes the teaching experience valued for the instructor as well.

It is human relations at its finest and the need to have personality and an artful touch can help in fostering strong teacher student relationships. The results of this article suggested that more research is needed to evaluate how these concepts discussed in this paper blend together. This correlation should focus on finding similarities and not so much the differences in opinion. More consensus is needed and less emotional histrionics that is so commonplace in academic circles as displayed by their reactions and deductions from incomplete facts and trends.

Conclusions Teachers in the 21st century must be prepared for practicing their.