Abstract:

Engaging students in on-line classes can be a challenging task. This tended to be particularly difficult during the Covid period, when universities all over the world where basically thrown into the sea so to say, having to convert conventional on-site classroom into an on-line class at an extremely short notice. In many cases students as well as teachers were not prepared for these changes, and access to sophisticated on-line teaching equipment were often limited. This happened to be the case for the authors of this paper who were working in the business department of two Icelandic universities.

Based on action research approach, this paper summarizes the experience of the authors developing two easy to apply approaches that turned out to be quite effective in on-line teaching, readiness assurance assignments based on real-life situations and splitting up lectures in extremely small sections and follow-up discussions.

In order to create engagement and increase participation, the authors developed readiness assurance assignments where students needed to find their own example and apply it to theory. The assignments were based on real life situations that can be far more effective than focusing on the theory in isolation. The examples were either from the students own experience or cases covered in the course. In order to induce participation it is particularly important that students are well prepared when classes take place on-line. Otherwise there is a risk of one-way communication and that the teacher may lose the attention of the students, they may even simply shut off the camera, leave the on-line class and not be present for a period of time. Good preparation is even more important when teachers only have access to simple facilities, like Zoom for example. To further induce engagement, students were called upon almost randomly in the on-line classes to elaborate on their assignment. As the participation of students were initially based on their own assignment, they tended to feel more comfortable with their participation than in more conventional approach to teaching. Furthermore, this approach created lively debate and increased engagement among other students. The application of multiple evaluation criteria, including an oral exam, indicated improved learning outcome and feedback indicated more satisfied students than in many on-site classes.

Another approach was to split lectures up in small slots and open discussion based on real-life examples after each section. Although it may seem as a simplistic issue and not new to the world, it turned out that students were very satisfied and reported that they would recommend all classes to be organized in this way. Similar to the readiness assurance assignments, this approach also induced participation and provided grounds for lively discussions.

The results of this research contribute to knowledge on easy to implement ways to enhance learning which increase engagement and induce good preparation by students. This research furthermore opens up the question whether distant learning should become an increasing part of teaching in the future. Although this research is only based on the experience of two professors, it indicates an avenue for further research in the age of very turbulent changes in the teaching environment.

Keywords:

On-line teaching, Covid 19, Readiness assurance, Lectures, Real-life situations, Engagement.