Online Education

Online Student Retention Strategies: A Baker’s Dozen of Recommendations

Despite the tremendous growth of online education programs, student retention for online courses remains problematic. The attrition rate from online universities is often cited as 20% to 50% (Diaz, 2002). Studies also reveal that attrition from online programs can be as high as 70% to 80% (Dagger, Wade & Conlan, 2004).

With startling percentages of students leaving online educational programs, the question becomes “What should an institution do to encourage, inspire, and retain students in its online educational programs?” The responses will vary; however, there is no denying the importance of the foundation course. The foundation course is a student’s first taste of online learning and therefore must provide students with a positive learning experience. To help ensure a successful first experience, I offer this baker’s dozen of recommendations.

1. Online foundation classrooms need to remain as centers of encouragement where the professor’s enthusiasm is contagious. It is critical that students experience encouragement, support, and affirmation. The foundation course professor needs to extend a deep respect for each learner and hold each learner accountable for respecting his or her peers.

2. Professors need to maintain a learner focus of support as the needs of students in the foundation course will greatly vary. An effective learner focus includes, but is not limited to, constructive recommendations for improvement, meaningful academic challenges, and consistent grading practices.

3. The responsiveness of the professor to his or her students’ needs is critical. Emails, telephone calls, and all other responses to students’ questions, needs and interests should be responded to within 24 hours. All students’ inquiries need to be welcomed and encouraged by a professor’s open door, open mind, and open heart.

4. Empathy needs to be extended to learners at all times. The empathy and understanding that professors extend to their learners needs to be based upon research with regards to topics such as adult learners, brain research, and multiple intelligences. In addition, students in foundation courses need to be provided a meaningful and relevant education based on current knowledge and skills where theory is integrated into practical applications.

5. Oftentimes our online students are not traditional, full time students. They have careers, families, and additional responsibilities that compete for their time. It is during that initial course that students are learning how to balance all of their responsibilities. Support of each student is critical.

6. Foundation course professors need to understand that adult learners have their own unique learning needs, interests, and preferences. The pedagogy for an adult learner is unique and professors in the foundation course need to individualize, differentiate, and personalize their teaching to the needs of their adult learners.7. The foundation course professor needs to be aware of the learning curve that many students are enduring. Some students are learning how to navigate the online classroom for the first time and their experiences are often challenging, frustrating, and, at times, overwhelming. Processes, procedures and personnel to support these students need to be provided by the professor and institution.

8. The instructor’s daily presence and participation in the online classroom is critical to helping students learn, gain confidence, and feel secure in their new and sometimes foreign environment.

9. Faculty need to be mindful to always communicate in a supportive, professional, and set a positive tone. Communication pathways should include email, telephone, teleconferences, webinars, Skype, and audiovisual communications implemented within the online classroom.

10. The foundational course professor needs to demonstrate a positive, proactive, and caring disposition at all times. Humor may be implemented in a supportive manner; however, professors need to ensure that their humor is appropriate and welcomed by students. When in doubt, leave humor out.

11. The development of an online learning community is particularly beneficial to learners in foundational courses. The professor needs to clearly establish the online learning community as a place of respect. The support that students receive from their peers and professor in a learning community often results in empowerment, efficacy, and enthusiasm for learning.

12. The professor, along with each student, needs to honor and celebrate diversity of thought. The foundational course needs to be established as a “safe place” where learners feel confident and comfortable in sharing opposing views and challenging thoughts.

13. The foundational course instructor needs to work closely with advisors in support of his or her students. Confidentiality and privacy need to be maintained and students need to feel assured that their rights are protected.

The foundational course provides opportunity for students to gain confidence and competence in their online learning. It is also where they learn about the expectations and standards not only of this first course, but of their programs as a whole. It is essential that these students feel supported and encouraged.

Working with Online Teaching Assistants

The presence of Teaching Assistants (TAs) in a college course benefits both instructor and students. An assistant’s responsibilities typically include grading, troubleshooting, and fielding student questions, and their role is evolving to meet the needs of the online classroom.

As seen through advertisements for positions such as academic or learning coaches, and student mentors, the list of duties of these online assistants is expanding to involve tracking student progress and providing encouragement toward course completion. The efforts of TAs can extend your reach as the instructor, particularly in large classes with multiple sections, to more efficiently serve the needs of your students.

My recent experience coaching one section of a large online course offered a new perspective on the possibilities and challenges of teaching at a distance, as well as the unique issues that arise when supporting online faculty and students. Effective communication and collaboration are essential. Here are a few recommendations for getting everyone on the same virtual page:

• Consider a contract or memorandum of agreement. This can be informal, but captures in writing the expectations you have of your assistants — the specific tasks they will complete, synchronous or in person requirements —and communicates them before the term begins.
• Coordinate in advance. Share your approach to teaching in general and the course specifically. Walk through the syllabus, class schedule, and assignment instructions, and review learning objectives and grading rubrics. Meetings, in person or virtual, are great, but this kind of coordination can also take place via email to make sure resources are available and questions are answered.
• Be available for questions and clarification. Set aside time during the week to connect with or hold your virtual office hours for your TAs. And respond to email as quickly as possible. TAs are often trying to answer questions students have emailed to them, so shortening this cycle of response is helpful to all involved.
• Provide access to information and resources. Your assistants don’t need to have full editing permissions, but it can be helpful for them to view any information related to student progress, especially if they are responsible for monitoring student activity and intervening when problems occur. TAs also benefit from having copies of textbooks and any other course materials students will be using to complete their assignments.
• Ask for feedback after the course. Through informal conversation or structured survey, solicit your TAs’ ideas for the course and suggestions for instructor-assistant interaction and communication. Their experiences working with your students can inform the revision of materials and use of technology in future academic terms.

Be sure to review your institutions policies for any stipulations related to how you work with TAs and other types of assistants in your courses. Your school, program, or contracted service provider may have guidelines in place that dictate communication avenues, time frames, and access to materials and information.

Help teaching assistants help you, and your students, by providing clear guidance and expectations as early on as possible. Teaching assistants benefit from the experience as well, as they learn more about your academic discipline, working directly with students in a professional capacity, and teaching online courses. As the instructor, you are in a position to model positive communication and collaboration techniques they can take with them when they move on to become instructors themselves.

Six Ways to Get Your Online Students Participating in the Course

Have you ever worried about the level of participation in your online courses? Perhaps you have difficulty encouraging students to interact with one another, or maybe you find student responses to be perfunctory. Surely there must be a way to encourage the kinds of participation that really supports learning.
During a recent online seminar titled Improve Participation to Enhance Learning in Online Courses, Joan Thormann, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Technology in Education at Lesley University and author of The Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Designing and Teaching Online Courses, shared six techniques for encouraging interactions that boost learning in an online class.

1. Optimized use of introductions: Encourage students (and the professor) to share personal information like hobbies, interests, and demographic data. This will build community, raise interest in the students in the class, and make for a friendly online environment. This is an easy first assignment.
2. Use of the instructor as a model: As an instructor, consider giving students feedback about their assignments using a template that details the expectations for the assignment. Model good communications by adding personal comments tailored to the student, thereby giving an example of substantive writing.
3. Use of a clear grading system: Encourage the students to give helpful contributions by grading their discussions every week. Give them guidance on what sort of contributions are expected, such as in-depth analysis rather than simply “I agree.”
4. Use of student moderators: The instructor does not have to be the only one to encourage valuable contributions from students in the course. Use student moderators on a rotating basis to manage discussions. This practice will increase the sense of ownership of the course and help students learn to support each other and deepen their content knowledge.
5. Use of voice conferences: In some cases, a live voice conference can be a valuable addition to the online course. These opportunities let students get to know each other and strengthen their overall communication.
6. Development of supportive forums: Develop some online forums where students can go for support, assistance, and an exchange of information with other students. Don’t respond right away to inquiries; give students time to help one another and build community.

Online courses can have the kind of vibrant interaction you find in the best of courses, both online and traditional. All it takes is the use of some simple tools that encourage students to engage with one another in substantive ways.

Instructor Characteristics That Affect Online Student Success

Which online instructor characteristics help students succeed? It’s a rather basic question that has not been adequately answered. We did a literature search to find if anybody had done any research from the students’ perspective on what constitutes a quality online instructor. There were perhaps 10 articles by professors speculating about what they thought defined quality online instruction, but nobody had asked students.

We decided to pursue this question at our institution, Anne Arundel Community College. We asked students in 27 sections of online psychology courses to answer the following multiple-choice question: How quickly should faculty respond to any student posting (i.e., email, quiz, written assignment, etc.)?

1. 24 hours
2. 48 hours
3. 72 hours
4. One week

We also asked study participants to name three characteristics of an outstanding online teacher and explain why those characteristics are important. We received 624 responses that yielded the following results:

• Communication/availability: 66 percent
• Compassion: 58 percent
• Organization: 58 percent
• Feedback: 45 percent
• Instructor personal information: 18 percent
• Other (e.g., knowledge, technical competence, creativity): <10 percent

From these findings and the comments from participants, we identified communication/availability and feedback as the two primary characteristics that the students found important in their online courses. Students wanted frequent, timely communication and substantive feedback on their assignments. We received comments such as the following:

• “We must hear from the instructor within 24 hours!”
• “I would not think twice about withdrawing if the instructor is not available five days a week.”
• “The worst thing is waiting for a graded paper.”

It’s helpful to learn what students want from their online instructors, but we also wanted to know how these instructor characteristics affect student success, defined as course completion with the grade of an A, B, or C.

To determine the effect that outstanding online instruction can have on student success, we identified five instructors who

• responded at least three times daily to all online course emails,
• graded all papers within 48 hours of submission,
• offered specific feedback on all written work, and
• were compassionate to students’ needs.

We compared success rates in 137 online course sections within psychology, history, and sociology for a total of 2,432 students. Success rates at the college in 2008 were 66 percent for traditional courses and 59 percent for online courses. The success rate of students in online courses with outstanding instructors was 82 percent, 16 percent better than in the traditional lecture classroom and 23 percent better than online students overall.

Although not definitive, this study suggests that meeting online students’ needs significantly impacts student success and that students expect a quick response from instructors.

Despite these findings, some online instructors have rebelled rather vigorously against what we have found. They have contended that providing this level of communication and feedback coddles students, asks too much of them as instructors, and violates academic freedom (“Who are you to tell me how to teach my course?”).

We had a subsidiary study that asked faculty how quickly they thought they should be responding to students. It was kind of scary. They thought that a turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours is adequate. And despite our study that showed how a long response time affects student success, faculty resisted our recommendations. It was really disappointing, quite frankly.

Ideas for further study
These studies had some methodological flaws. Future research needs to look across disciplines, geographic regions, and demographics and should distinguish among the different types of feedback that instructors provide. For example, I know that several of our outstanding instructors simply copy and paste feedback that they anticipate they will likely provide based on their experience teaching the course. However, they also make sure that they offer personal comments about the assignments, so it’s a blend of formatted and personalized feedback.

Donald Orso and Joan Doolittle are psychology professors at Anne Arundel Community College.

Developing Online Learning Communities with Faculty and Students

In a recent faculty-development program focusing on online learning, the number one request from participants was “How do I create a sense of community in my online course?” Online tools and technologies can help us create a sense of community to enhance teaching and learning at our institution. The following are benefits of such an undertaking:

• Keeping our audiences in contact with us, and with each other, will have long-lasting benefits for teaching and learning.
• By using online tools to foster and establish communities among faculty, we can model behaviors in terms of best practices for establishing these communities within a course setting.

In traditional faculty-development events, faculty participate in one-off workshops or a series of workshops and seminars. Online technologies now have the ability to take these “one-off” faculty-development events, and turn them into a continuous, community-building experience that continues to support faculty over a much longer time. Let’s examine two examples that show a great deal of promise toward the development of an online community to support faculty in teaching and learning.

One example is the use of online discussion boards to support Online Learning 4000 (OL 4000), a course designed to assist faculty in developing their own online courses. Faculty used discussion forums for basic introductions but also used them to post things like lesson plans, syllabi, and outlines for feedback from both the facilitators and colleagues. Participants unanimously requested the online course section remain open, so they could not only continue to download resources but also to continue interacting with one another via the forums.

A second example is the incorporation of a course blog in a multi-session, blended or face-to-face Course in College Teaching (CCT). Over eight weeks, faculty participants used a course blog to access online resources, discuss issues that were of interest, continue discussions that began during a regular session, and respond to prompts presented as part of the blended course session plans. Participants found the blog to be a place to share ideas, vent frustrations about teaching and learning, raise questions, and interact with one another. Multiple participants in the blended course requested that the blog remain available so they could revisit it and continue discussions. In the face-to-face section of the course, blog interaction was encouraged but not required. Still, of the 25 active participants, 20 different commenters and authors posted 35 entries and 75 comments to the course blog.

An important aspect of building an online community is that the facilitators need to model the behaviors necessary to establish, and then expand, the community. In both of the examples above, the facilitators spent significant time not only creating blog entries and starting discussions, but also leaving comments and messages on the participants’ contributions. The efforts put forth by the facilitators encouraged participants to contribute not only in the form of responses to facilitator-created questions, but to also post new ideas on their own and interact with one another. By putting forth a dedicated effort early in the course to use the two mediums regularly, interacting with most of the participants online, the facilitators created a foundation for the online community that participants then began to build upon.

Moving forward, we are exploring the idea of workshop or seminar “alumni.” What this means is that after a faculty member or graduate student participates in any event, they have an all-access pass to continue to interact not only with their own cohort, but cohorts that came before them and cohorts that will come after them. With the CCT, the blog can remain intact from semester to semester, and participants continue to have the ability to post and comment in this space even after completing the CCT experience. This can create a larger network of faculty that want to engage in teaching and learning topics, and also expand the online community, with each semester bringing more and more faculty into the mix. OL 4000 was run within our Course Management System, which typically closes down each course section after the completion date. Instead, we are opting to keep this course open, allowing past participants to continue to engage in dialog and stay in contact with one another, as well as interact and share ideas with new members of the course in upcoming offerings.

This method of faculty development can take many isolated instructional events and turn them into long-standing development opportunities to greatly increase engagement around teaching and learning. Creating online communities is difficult, but by modeling behavior early we can provide the foundation for faculty to build upon, creating an environment where they can stay engaged with one another and with us. Finally, we are illustrating some of the behaviors necessary to foster an online community that a model faculty can then take to their courses and re-use to foster and create student-centered communities around course content.

Barton K. Pursel is an undergraduate education and instructional researcher and Crystal Ramsay is an instructional consultant both at The Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at The Pennsylvania State University.