A Case for Student Communication in Online Classes

A Case for Student Communication in Online Classes

Read – only participants: A Case for Student Communication in Online Classes

Kimberly Broussard

EDU – 535 Foundations in Special Education

Professor: Kimber Underdown

Grand Canyon University

May 10, 2017

The title of this article is “read-only participants: a case for student communication in online

classes “by Nagel, Blignaut, and Cronje, from interactive Learning Environments (2009). The article

discussed the positive and negative impacts of online vs. traditional classes, and the different types of

online communication that College and Universities utilize within their online course on higher

education; web- based learning; participation; and virtual community of learners. They use a mixed

methodology approach to investigate online communication and classroom activity amongst student’s

cultural diversity, geographical location and maturity both are the most important primary causal

dynamics. The data that is collected helps the researcher describe the potential consequences of success

and failure rate among online vs. traditional classes. Occurring to some of the data from the research

online enrollment continues to climb, retention and success rates in such course and programs are

frequently reported as typically lower than delivered in a traditional classroom format; those of us in

roles that support online students have a role in reversing that trend. (Schreck, 2006).

The current findings were that online participant and communication is certainly a requirement

for online classes to be successful completion of courses. When professors are involved and encourage

students to participation in discussion questions and post it motivates students to not give up or drop

the course. They could classify students into different categories, and they found these types of

students in the online class. It is a lack of participation among students within online classes; Highly

visible students who posts a lot but without contributing much of value, Invisible students who blame

internet connectivity or high costs, Absent student for various reasons that try to stay on track and Non-

contributing students that do not share with the class during discussion questions.

The authors also found that when the professor motivates students to learn and participate it

helps more students to get involved and complete the course. Students that have more motivation have

a higher successful rate and tend to overcome the different difficulties involved in taking an online

course. Although some students still drop out because of factors such as poor internet connection, slow

dial-up, old computer, or lack of software installed, others still find ways to overcome those barriers and

complete the course (Nagel., 2007).

The biggest challenge for most of the students according to the authors were the combined

experience. They observed that working in groups between students

seemed to be somewhat of a failure, some students complained they had to do all the work, not having

the time to meet with the group and that not where not able to participate. However, they stated that

collaborating with other students is a very beneficial interaction, learning as a group is easier, more

ideas flow and when the group exchange thoughts they can understand the concepts of the lesson

better.

To conclude, Nagel (2007) agreed that interaction with peers plays an important role in the

online learning environment. If students fail to interact and communicate with each other and the

professor it becomes hard to pass the class. Their study showed that even though some students posted

a lot in the forums it did not indicate completion of the course. It is more important to post fewer

meaningful messages, then numerous messages with no real value or that are insignificant to the

discussion. Finally, “the establishment of an online community is widely held as the most important

prerequisite for successful course completion and depends on an interaction between groups and a

facilitator” (Nagel., 2007, p.37).

References

L. Nagel, A.S. Blignaut, & J.C. Cronjé. (2007). Read-Only Participants: A Case for Student

Communication in Online Classes. Interactive Learning Environments. Vol. 17, No. 1, 37-51,

DOI:10.1080/10494820701501028

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