Student to Student Interactions
When planning student-to-student interaction,
- Design activities that are structured and collaborative with clear instructions and expectations.
- Determine whether and how activities will be assessed.
- Ensure that your student to student activities are accessible and inclusive.
Research has demonstrated that student interaction, in online courses, is associated with enhanced critical thinking skills (Guiller, Durndell, & Ross, 2008), increased satisfaction (Jung, Choi, Lim, & Leem, 2002), and higher levels of academic achievement (Swan, 2002).
In an online environment, instructors can foster student-to-student interaction by building opportunities into their course design synchronously and asynchronously. To promote student to student interaction, and to build community, ensure the opportunities for interaction are structured, collaborative, and inclusive.
Creating successful student-to-student activities
Below are some strategies that will help create positive and productive interactions between your student.
- To improve students鈥� critical thinking and communication skills, use in your teaching through Zoom/Google Meet or discussion boards. For example, in Zoom, you can separate students into (4-5 students per group) and ask them to prepare for the debate by collaboratively researching and contributing to a shared google doc (opens in new window) that they can submit at the end. Combine groups of students that are on the same side of the debate and give them time to share ideas and strategies before and beginning your debate.
- To engage students, and increase participation, during synchronous sessions, use a quick, collaborative activity such as by separating students into
- To apply practical skills such as interviewing techniques, use activities by separating students into and asking them to practice different roles (e.g., nurse and patient) and different skills. When students , you can have a few students demonstrate for the class. Asynchronously, you can ask students to create a short video of themselves and upload them to Google Drive to share with the class (opens in new window) .
- To help students collaboratively solve a problem and apply theory to the real world, separate students into ; use theby asking students to contribute to a shared Google doc (opens in new window) or use the Groups tool (opens in new window) in D2L Brightspace to facilitate private group discussions and submission of group assignments.
- To facilitate discussion about difficult readings, use a through discussion boards, the, or on Google Meets.
- After students have completed an assignment (e.g., ), you can promote deeper engagement with the content by asking students to using peerScholar through your D2L Brightspace course shell.
- In a project-based course, and receive feedback that they can incorporate into their final project using .
- To increase critical thinking skills, ask students to provide feedback to their peers by justifying their comments in real-time using in Zoom.
- To minimize biases associated with existing peer relationships, consider asking students to provide anonymous feedback through google forms (opens in new window) .
Teaching a large class?
Take a look at our guide to for some tips.
References
Guiller, J., Durndell, A., & Ross, A. (2008). Peer interaction and critical thinking: Face-to-face or online discussion?. Learning and instruction, 18(2), 187-200.
Jung, I., Choi, S., Lim, C., & Leem, J. (2002). Effects of different types of interaction on learning achievement, satisfaction and participation in web-based instruction. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 39(2), 153-162.
Swan, K. (2002). Building learning communities in online courses: The importance of interaction. Education, Communication & Information, 2(1), 23-49.